Mark Thompson Leaves KFI

So, Mark Thompson is out as Tim Conway Jr.'s news man on KFI.

No, not THAT Mark Thompson, the one of Mark & Brian fame. But speaking of which, how has SAG-AFTRA not stepped in and made one of them use a middle initial? It's confusing as hell. Anyway, it looks like the other MT also vacated his radio gig some time ago, and now it's Andy and Gina hosting mornings on The Sound. So has Other MT finally retired for good, or has he gone to another station?

Anyway, back to KFI. Aron Bender is going back to being the weekday evening news anchor, so who's replacing him as the host of the Morning Wake Up Call and as Handel's news anchor? KFI's website has been updated to say that Jennifer Jones Lee is now the sole host of Wake Up Call, but is this just temporary? And I assume she'll also be anchoring the news for Handel?

SimiRadioListener26 said:

So, Mark Thompson is out as Tim Conway Jr.'s news man on KFI.

No, not THAT Mark Thompson, the one of Mark & Brian fame. But speaking of which, how has SAG-AFTRA not stepped in and made one of them use a middle initial? It's confusing as hell. Anyway, it looks like the other MT also vacated his radio gig some time ago, and now it's Andy and Gina hosting mornings on The Sound. So has Other MT finally retired for good, or has he gone to another station?

A KFI's website has been updated to say that Jennifer Jones Lee is now the sole host of Wake Up Call, but is this just temporary? And I assume she'll also be anchoring the news for Handel?

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Yes - it is confusing. I assume Jennifer Jones Lee is the same person who formerly anchored for KGO radio in San Francisco. She's very good, IMO.

Wayne Resnick will become part of the Handel show within the next week or so.

wadio said:

Wayne Resnick will become part of the Handel show within the next week or so.

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At first I thought you were joking, but no, I see that Wayne posted to Facebook about a month ago (so you can see how much I've been out of the loop) that his Sunday show would be ending and he would be joining Handel's show March 13. Apparently he's retiring from federal law enforcement (!!!) after nearly 30 years so he can be on KFI full time. Wasn't he a full-time host many, many years ago, I wanna say back in the late '80s? There's scant information about him online.

SimiRadioListener26 said:

So, Mark Thompson is out as Tim Conway Jr.'s news man on KFI.

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Always liked Bender with Conway better, but Thompson grew on me and Bender did a great job with Handel. Guess the new old schedule gives Bender more classroom time at Northridge. So, what the hell does Jesse Jackson say about this??

SimiRadioListener26 said:

At first I thought you were joking, but no, I see that Wayne posted to Facebook about a month ago (so you can see how much I've been out of the loop) that his Sunday show would be ending and he would be joining Handel's show March 13. Apparently he's retiring from federal law enforcement (!!!) after nearly 30 years so he can be on KFI full time. Wasn't he a full-time host many, many years ago, I wanna say back in the late '80s? There's scant information about him online.

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I was wondering the same thing. I'm thinking he was on was evenings during the late '90s or early 2000s either before or after John Ziegler.

I'll miss Wayne's Sunday night show. He managed to come up with great non-polital topics that weren't just chit-chat either. A quirky and engaging show. I too was surprised to find out he had a day job in law enforcement.

Sports reports for Handel? Seems like a waste of talent to me but I hope it works out for him.

Resnick loks like TSA guy who works at LAX.

I wish they would bring back Ziegler. I know he ruffled a few feathers but he was a breath of fresh air on rather stale lineup.

Wayne's last show was Sun mar 5.

Always did a good show.

Charl

Never gonna happen

TeaPartyDude said:

I wish they would bring back Ziegler. I know he ruffled a few feathers but he was a breath of fresh air on rather stale lineup.

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After what Ziegler did to John and Ken with the diatribe that he wrote against them, KFI would never take him back.

Funny how I never heard anyone at KFI deny that the things he said were not true. Seems they were more embarrassed that someone aired their dirty laundry.

TeaPartyDude said:

Funny how I never heard anyone at KFI deny that the things he said were not true. Seems they were more embarrassed that someone aired their dirty laundry.

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I thought Ziegler was a great host and really embodied the "more stimulating" moniker of the old KFI (I say "old" because after the Whitney Houston thing, the whole station has been neutered and isn't really much more interesting than KABC). The problem with Ziegler is that he is a little deficient in the "How to Win Friends and Influence People" department, which sooner or later (generally sooner) gets him kicked out of wherever he is at.

At KFI, he made the mistake of directly insulting/confronting another personality on the station. Just happened to be the station's big afternoon drive stars, but it would have been inappropriate even if he did it to a part-time weekender. A better approach would have been to make his positions known in a more subtle, less direct way, never mentioning the other hosts by name. For example, making his accusation by saying "some people would have you believe..." and just letting the listener figure it out. KFI listeners are smart and would have known to what issues and hosts he was referring. At least that would save his job, at best it would spark a bit of an on air feud where the other host(s), in this case J & K, might respond in kind, perhaps generating a drawn out back and forth which would drive controversy and encourage the audience to tune in both shows.

I agree that tact is not one of John Z's strong points, but I think KFI missed a great marketing opportunity when they prematurely canned him. I think the listeners you would have really enjoyed good strong give-and-take slugfest between on air radio hosts. Think of how many new listeners tune in to the station just to find out which host was delivering the most effective blows

TeaPartyDude said:

I agree that tact is not one of John Z's strong points, but I think KFI missed a great marketing opportunity when they prematurely canned him. I think the listeners you would have really enjoyed good strong give-and-take slugfest between on air radio hosts. Think of how many new listeners tune in to the station just to find out which host was delivering the most effective blows

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I don't know if the audio of this is still out there somewhere, but it was on Ziegler's therealkfi.com: Ziegler does a short promo for his show on J&K that includes insulting language about John Kobylt and Kobylt reacts by screaming at him to "get the hell out of my studio". (The promo was something like, "We'll be talking about how someone as intelligent as John Kobylt could have his head up his ass about Iraq.") It seems that Ziegler had really been getting under Kobylt's skin about the latter turning against the Iraq War. Ziegler is, as Kobylt might say, a "Kool-Aid drinking right winger", and it seems he couldn't leave well enough alone with his colleague on this particular issue, he had to keep poking the stick at the caged bear.

I get the sense that Kobylt didn't like Ziegler even before the Iraq controversy, that he wasn't interested in debating the issue any further (Ziegler had written on his site about his off-air attempts to proselytize him about how the war was still a noble cause even if no WMDs were found), and so that insulting promo was the last straw.

Simiradio, it is that type of on air in studio tension that would bring in listeners by the drove. The listeners want to hear hosts debating major issues from different viewpoints. Remember "Point-Counter Point from the old 60 Minutes? I sense the listeners are tiring of boring host drone on in unison about the same old issues. Blah, blah, blah!

I say let's bring John Z back in the slot that is currently wasted on Conway Jr.

TeaPartyDude said:

Simiradio, it is that type of on air in studio tension that would bring in listeners by the drove. The listeners want to hear hosts debating major issues from different viewpoints. Remember "Point-Counter Point from the old 60 Minutes? I sense the listeners are tiring of boring host drone on in unison about the same old issues. Blah, blah, blah!

I say let's bring John Z back in the slot that is currently wasted on Conway Jr.

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I don't remember anyone on 60 Minutes telling the other guy he had his head up his ass. My point is when you insult people like that, on the air no less, they're never going to want to work in the same building with you again.

SimiRadioListener26 said:

I don't remember anyone on 60 Minutes telling the other guy he had his head up his ass. My point is when you insult people like that, on the air no less, they're never going to want to work in the same building with you again.

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James Kilpatrick could be pretty caustic, though I don't think he ever used the "a" word. And the Dan Aykroyd/Jane Curtin parody of Point/Counterpoint on SNL was all insults. I seem to recall "Jane, you ignorant slut..."