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Imus is retiring.

That's funny. He retired a long time ago. He just allowed his name to be used on the show. Long overdue.

Curtis will probably go back to mornings.
 
Way back in the early 90's, I was the Chief Engineer for Don's very first affiliate, WQYK-AM.
Don called our Board Op on a regular basis just to confirm that his show was actually on the air in Tampa/St. Pete.
At one point, Charles McCord flew into Tampa and reported back that the station sounded just as good as WFAN.
 
TheBigA said:
That's funny. He retired a long time ago. He just allowed his name to be used on the show. Long overdue.

Curtis will probably go back to mornings.
Click to expand...


I agree, anytime you hear about one these old geezers demanding and getting approval to broadcast their show from their home they have gone "ROAD" (Retired On Active Duty). This is long overdue.
 
He's not technically retiring. He's being dismissed because Cumulus can't/won't pay him in bankruptcy.

Hats off to Imus for a tremendous career.
 
Imus was cutting edge for a time, and he no doubt influenced a lot of radio people, morning shows and radio stations. That duly noted, he stayed too long at the fair. Should have checked out ten years ago. He looks haggard and often sounds disjointed. But when somebody is handing you a heavy check every two weeks, it's hard to step away from the game.
 
CBS did a good job with the interview.
I worked for Don's first affiliate ... 1010AM, Tampa. Don called and chatted (on-air) with Mike Serio, our Board Op every day for the first few months of his syndication.
 
Never met Imus, but I still have a story about him...

I was selling for Saga Portland, where he had an affiliate that took him back after the Princeton women's basketball kerfuffle.

Imus was bending over backward for the affiliates, and was doing endorsement-style reads for local companies for free.

So I sent along copy for a client of mine in Portland, a camera store.

Got a call a week later from our PD... "yeah, Imus did your read, but you're gonna wanna listen to it before you send it to the client."

So i listen... going along fine until Imus gets to the line I wrote:

"And the folks who work at Photo Market are not only knowledgeable, they're camera buffs themselves."

Imus read it this way:

"And the folks who work at Photo Market are not only camera buffs themselves, but they've posed nude for others."

You can hear Charles McCord laughing in the background, and Imus almost loses it himself.

So... I take it to the client and play it... nervously.




CLIENT LOVED IT. It ran for 5 years. LOL (of course, he gave his employees a heads up so that they wouldn't be caught off-guard by any 'unusual' questions :) )
 
oldrover said:
Never met Imus, but I still have a story about him...

I was selling for Saga Portland, where he had an affiliate that took him back after the Princeton women's basketball kerfuffle.

Imus was bending over backward for the affiliates, and was doing endorsement-style reads for local companies for free.

So I sent along copy for a client of mine in Portland, a camera store.

Got a call a week later from our PD... "yeah, Imus did your read, but you're gonna wanna listen to it before you send it to the client."

So i listen... going along fine until Imus gets to the line I wrote:

"And the folks who work at Photo Market are not only knowledgeable, they're camera buffs themselves."

Imus read it this way:

"And the folks who work at Photo Market are not only camera buffs themselves, but they've posed nude for others."

You can hear Charles McCord laughing in the background, and Imus almost loses it himself.

So... I take it to the client and play it... nervously.




CLIENT LOVED IT. It ran for 5 years. LOL (of course, he gave his employees a heads up so that they wouldn't be caught off-guard by any 'unusual' questions :) )
Click to expand...

I miss those days. Apparently the I-man bought all of his Ford trucks at Freedom Ford in Fresno.
 
He was crusty and often vulgar, but with his ranch he did a lot of good charity wise. He had a good career and was good for radio.
 
Imus got lucky. Especially in NY. I don't understand why Imus never accused Howard of borrowing from him though. I think the CBS interview dealt with the Rutgers controversy too quickly.
 
My one and only Imus encounter:

It's 1988 and the ABC TV affiliate I was reporting for in Phoenix was showing off its satellite truck by doing the evening newscasts from a different Arizona town each night for the month of July.

We'd been in Prescott, Arizona, a lovely town situated in a pine bowl at 5,000 feet, on July 4th and now, on the 5th, we're at the Grand Canyon, having taken over a suite with a balcony at the El Tovar hotel. I'm in the room, finishing up the editing on a story with my photog, when our weather guy, also a former DJ, walks in and says "Hey, Mike...Don Imus is down at the rim of the canyon." This was a few months before WNBC became WFAN, Imus wasn't widely known outside radio guys, so our weather guy would be one of the few people likely to recognize him.

I go down to the rim, and sure enough, there's Imus, wearing a cowboy hat, standing there with a very expensive camera, tripod, bags of film and filters. I walk up and introduce myself and he asks about all the TV stuff and why we're there. I tell him and then ask why he's there.

"Well, my brother Fred and I come here every summer. Fred's up on the north rim right now with gear like this. Every few minutes between dawn and dusk, we move the cameras and take a shot and we figure eventually, we'll have a picture of the Grand Canyon from every angle in every kind of light."

I agreed that was interesting, but asked why a New York disc jockey cared.

"I live in New York, but Fred and I are from Arizona. We grew up in Prescott and Ash Fork." If I'd known that, I'd forgotten.

I tell Imus that our crew had been in Prescott just the night before and that my wife (first marriage, about six months fresh at that point) had come up to watch the fireworks with us the night before, and that we'd talked about what a lovely place it was and how nice it might be to live there, if one could actually make a living (the population was about 30,000 at the time).

Imus looks at me, totally deadpan, and says, in his trademark drawl:

"Well, isn't there some local sort of local drug problem you could exploit?"

By the way, Don and Fred, nine years later, published a book of their photographs. Both their pictures are included. Don wrote the captions, which are worth the full cover price, though now, you can pick one up for pennies:

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Guys-Four-Corners-Photographs/dp/0679453075
 
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