Monday, June 16, 2014

And I thought I worked at radio stations with behind-the-scenes drama

From Tom Taylor's column today. This sports talk station in St. Louis takes the cake...

A fistfight at the station, on-air racial comments about a fellow host, an arrest – now a missing GM. Followup on last week’s story about “bad vibes at Grand Slam’s all-sports KFNS (590)” in St. Louis. Fifteen-month GM Dan Marshall has stepped down from that job, after he needed a hospital visit pursuant to that fistfight involving talk host Brian McKenna. The police were called out and McKenna was arrested and spent the night in the hoosegow. Though the Post-Dispatch carefully notes that as of last Thursday, McKenna hadn’t actually been charged. The main thing is the ongoing condition at the station. Ops manager Mike Calvin is temporarily in charge, and he says “I consider it a massive project…We’ve lost a lot of good talent in the last week that needs to be replaced somehow, with zero to little budget.” Among other talent departures is middayer Jay Randolph Jr., who’s moving over to C H Holdings’ talk KTRS (550). The goings-on at KFNS and sister KXFN (1380) are keeping Dan Caesar at the Post-Dispatch very busy. He says “the fight came after [KXFN’s Nick Trupiano] ridiculed McKenna on the air, saying he overstated his recent skin cancer diagnosis.” Trupiano also rapped about another KFNS personality who was mentioned in an earlier Post-Dispatch story – African-American personality Charlie “Tuna” Edwards. Trupiano says “He’s a scumbag and I hope he dies of…sickle cell, cancer, whatever, I don’t care.” Trupiano also called Edwards “that token black guy” and said perhaps the reason the show has sponsors is for “that minority tax writeoff.” (That one’s a mystery.) Sounds like the bad vibes were both on and off the air, and that Mike Calvin has a mountain of work ahead.