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'Shotgun' Tom Kelly moving to 'Ambassador' role at K-EARTH

K.M. Richards said:
As has been noted elsewhere over the years, Shotgun has been commuting for the more than 20 years that he's been at KRTH. He actually lives in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon and has maintained an apartment in Hollywood for use Monday through Thursday nights, returning home after his Friday night shift and driving back up the 5 late Monday mornings. He also has a home studio so unless his presence is physically required for some event, he could produce his "features" there and spend more time with his wife Linda.

And although his new CBS contract has a non-compete clause for the L.A. market, there is probably nothing to prevent a station in San Diego from hiring him. He's well-known there, especially for his time at KCBQ, KGB and B100 ... and let's not forget those 30 years as local host of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. (He's already the voice of the Chargers' jumbotron at Qualcomm Stadium.)
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From the San Diego Union-Tribune, echoing K.M.'s comments from above:
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...tgun-tom-kelly-k-earth-101-radio-chargers-dj/

Last show is Friday 8/28/15. Shotgun will indeed use his home studio to do the KRTH features.

In the comments section of the AllAccess.com article regarding Shotgun's ambassadorship
(link: http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/a...un-tom-kelly-retires-from-afternoons-at-k-ear - scroll down for comments section),
Tom Leykis chimes in and says it's more than a coincidence that Ross Brittain (WOGL Philly), Dr. Don Carpenter (WYCD Detroit)
and Shotgun have all come to the conclusion to "retire" within weeks of each other. Could be plausible...

Another commenter suggests that KRTH's PD may not have been a big fan of Kelly's while the sales and marketing departments were.
Mmm, I don't know about that one...
 
michael hagerty said:
He kept the puker thing up until sometime in '68, when he finally settled down into the conversational approach).
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Which is worse, a puker or a pot whipper?
 
Put Maggie Mckay on in the afternoons, if she is with KRTH still. I think she does weekend overnights on KRTH, unless she left. Not sure what slot she had with Arrow 93 when she was on-air back then but thats who i would recommend.
 
Then put on American top 40 the eighties from 12 midnight to 4 AM sunday mornings and give 1 of the weekenders an extra shift friday night from 12 to 5 AM. Problem solved. Correct me if im wrong but i think Maggie works 2 shifts overnights. I know Skywalker works Saturday nights after 7. So the logic of bringing syndication to 1 overnight weekend that barely has an audience makes sense.
 
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pjc1961 said:
Tom Leykis chimes in and says it's more than a coincidence that Ross Brittain (WOGL Philly), Dr. Don Carpenter (WYCD Detroit)
and Shotgun have all come to the conclusion to "retire" within weeks of each other. Could be plausible...
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By the same token, the same company just re-signed Scott Shannon to an even bigger deal at WCBS. So maybe it's more than that. Lots of posters here have noticed that the music at these stations is changing. A lot of these guys are identified with an earlier era. Shannon stayed relatively current until recently. So if the music is changing, focusing more on 80s/90s, the air talent has to better reflect that era. Seems like that asking a lot for some of these folks.
 
34james said:
Then put on American top 40 the eighties from 12 midnight to 4 AM sunday mornings ...
Problem solved.
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Problem not solved.

AT40 in all its forms is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, which is a division of iHeart Media. Do you think iHeart will want to give one of its shows to a station owned by a competitor, to run in an overnight slot?

The answer is ... no.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Do you think iHeart will want to give one of its shows to a station owned by a competitor, to run in an overnight slot?

The answer is ... no.
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Lots of Premiere shows are carried by competitors of iHeart. Premiere syndicated a daily show called After Midnite that runs...well...so they have a way of dealing with that.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Problem not solved.

AT40 in all its forms is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, which is a division of iHeart Media. Do you think iHeart will want to give one of its shows to a station owned by a competitor, to run in an overnight slot?

The answer is ... no.
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Time for another facepalm

Mix 94.9 FM plays at40's the 80's from 6 to 10 PM Saturday nights and its not iheart radio, i forget who owns mix fm and Unless Kool FM in Phoenix dropped it, the show runs from 6 to 10 Saturday Mornings. Which is CBS Radio :) :)
Dr Akbar and the nurse should be able to correct me if im wrong. Seeing how they are natives to AZ.
 
34james said:
Time for another facepalm

Mix 94.9 FM plays at40's the 80's from 6 to 10 PM Saturday nights and its not iheart radio, i forget who owns mix fm and Unless Kool FM in Phoenix dropped it, the show runs from 6 to 10 Saturday Mornings. Which is CBS Radio :) :)
Dr Akbar and the nurse should be able to correct me if im wrong. Seeing how they are natives to AZ.
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Wow. Two facepalms in two days. The batting average definitely is not going up.
 
TheBigA said:
By the same token, the same company just re-signed Scott Shannon to an even bigger deal at WCBS. So maybe it's more than that. Lots of posters here have noticed that the music at these stations is changing. A lot of these guys are identified with an earlier era. Shannon stayed relatively current until recently. So if the music is changing, focusing more on 80s/90s, the air talent has to better reflect that era. Seems like that asking a lot for some of these folks.
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So, maybe putting in an 80's-music personality in K-Earth's afternoon drive spot is the answer. Let's see...Richard Blade? Who else from the Roq of the 80's might fit in? What about a former 80's KIIS persoanlity? MTV? I have always had a crush on MTV's Martha Quinn, who is on SiriusXM's 80's channel now.
 
AM FM listener said:
So, maybe putting in an 80's-music personality in K-Earth's afternoon drive spot is the answer. Let's see...Richard Blade? Who else from the Roq of the 80's might fit in? What about a former 80's KIIS persoanlity? MTV? I have always had a crush on MTV's Martha Quinn, who is on SiriusXM's 80's channel now.
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Funny - I had a crush on Nina Blackwood. I think it was her voice.
 
SuperRadioFan said:
Excellent observation. Two examples immediately come to my mind.... In NYC Murray The K (Kaufman) and in LA and also NYC, B. Mitchell Reid
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If I remember correctly, BMR talked pretty fast on KFWB, though he may have toned it down toward the end. Even on KMET, he tended to fast-talk a bit, spitting out "K-M-E-T, 94.7 FM Stereo" in a very non-FM DJ kind of way.
 
In Murray's case, he not only reinvented himself, but he left NYC for DC. There he wasn't burdened by that earlier character.
 
AM FM listener said:
So, maybe putting in an 80's-music personality in K-Earth's afternoon drive spot is the answer. Let's see...Richard Blade? Who else from the Roq of the 80's might fit in? What about a former 80's KIIS persoanlity? MTV? I have always had a crush on MTV's Martha Quinn, who is on SiriusXM's 80's channel now.
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Remember Blade was let go from CBS.

Heres a better idea, do it similer to KYXY in San Diego, they have the afternoon ride from 3 to 7 which is a 3 person team,

Why not move Gary Brian and his crew to afternoons and hire ......


Rick Dees, if anyone knows the 80's its Rick. He had the highest ratings in the early 80's, and still has a big following.
 
34james said:
Why not move Gary Brian and his crew to afternoons and hire ......


Rick Dees, if anyone knows the 80's its Rick. He had the highest ratings in the early 80's, and still has a big following.
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I think Gary Bryan and Co. would do just fine in afternoons. His ratings are up and solid and the audience would buy into the idea of him in afternoons, provided they got someone they know, like Dees, in mornings.

The only possible glitch in hiring Dees is that he prefers to spend most of his time at his Kentucky ranch and I'm sure he'd want to originate the morning show from there rather than be out here in L.A. a lot. Given that insisting on doing his daily show remotely (from Palm Springs) is what cost Don Burns his afternoon drive gig on KTWV several years back, I wonder if CBS would accept Rick on that basis.

I do like the idea, though ... because Dees still has name-brand recognition with L.A. listeners in the target demo. The only reason he failed at KMVN was that they were current-based and he was too "out of touch" with that music to relate. And at KHHT, the music was closer to what he knew but not spread across multiple genres ... plus he was voicetracked much of the time (I think it was about 100% near the end of his run there).

But live Dees? And KRTH's current music spectrum? Damned good match there.
 
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