Change is Good

As we approach the 25th Anniversary of The Ticket and this year's TicketStock, I've been thinking of what I should put in this space to commemorate it.

I couldn't think of anything.

I don't have a lot of interest in Top Ticket Moments for some reason, astounding and entertaining as many of them have been.

I've been listening to The Ticket since 2004, the year I arrived in Dallas -- 15 years.  The singular fact about The Ticket during that period -- and before -- is that it hasn't changed much.  With a few changes, some of which occurred very early on, it's been the same hosts in the same time period for all those years.  Amazing, and certainly a reason for its continued success.

But The Ticket has changed, sometimes in subtle, gradual ways.  I was hoping to come up with three, but I've settled on two:

(1)  The Ascendance of The Musers and Craig "Junior" Miller.   The shows have never been ranked, but in my early years of listening I would have said, if asked, that The Hardline was the quintessential Ticket show and certainly the one most closely identified with the station.

I think that has changed not because The Hardline has declined -- I don't think it has, contrary to the views of some Confessors -- but because The Musers have continued to grow and improve.  "The Musers" is now the most prominent and celebrated show on the station and I would say that even if the ratings didn't bear me out.

And I think the rise of The Musers is because of the rise of Junior Miller, the Fred Astaire of The Ticket.  When I began listening, George Dunham was "The Commander."  You don't hear that much any more.  Instead, Craig Miller is the Judge and Lord High Executioner for station controversies, and the creator of "tiers" to rank the relative prominence of persons appearing on the station.  He is the most prominent host on The Ticket, eclipsing Mike Rhyner and even his podnuh George Dunham.

(George -- love the guy, but there came a period some years back where his interest level clearly waned.  I don't know if it was because he was building a house or building a band, but there were some segments where he simply wasn't ready to broadcast, and you could hear Junior's irritation.  Not really a knock on George -- he's still great -- but not the station leader he once appeared to be.  (And his occasional unpreparedness seems to have abated in recent years.))

(2)  The Growing Prominence and Quality of the Junior Varsity.  I credit Jeff Catlin for hiring and showcasing down-tier talent.  Yes, there have been some flameouts, some misses, some jerks, and some who just flat failed to launch, but by and large the non-daily-host on-air people are very good and getting better and better.  There's not enough room in the broadcast day to give some of them the prominence they deserve.  Too bad you can't sell enough advertising off hours to give some of these guys (and Julie) their own shows other than on weekends.  (Or can you -- while leveraging the broadcast day on the Ticket Top Ten is genius, could you do better with a live Work-in-Progress from 7-10 nightly?) 

I hesitate to name names for fear of leaving out some top-quality folks, but in no particular order, there's Justin Montemayor, Mike Sirois (honorable mention -- Cash), Jake Kemp, Sean Bass, Ty Walker, Julie Dobbs, David Mino.   (I don't count Danny Balis as JV, but he's kind of equivalent to Jake on BaD, so you could list him here too.)  Dave Lane as a cameo JV.    Hey, I'm sure I'm leaving out some real good up-and-comers, so help me out here in the comments.

(3)  The Hardline?  I said I was going to do two, but of course the show with the most wrenching change during my listening history has been The Hardline, with the separation of Greg "The Hammer" Williams a decade or so back.  Of course that's a "change," but here I'm going to offer a view which I know will be at odds with those of some long-time listeners:  I think The Hardline is in some ways a better show now than it was when HeeHoo was on it.

Yes, it is true that Mike's interest has declined and he doesn't pay a whole lot of attention sometimes.

Yes, it is true that Mike allows Corby and Danny to browbeat him when he should be putting them firmly in their respective places.

Yes, it is true that Corby is a mic hog.

Yes, it is true that the lack of show prep can verge on disrespect of the P1.

But for all that, I listen.  And I laugh more at The Hardline than at any of the other shows.  I've said it before:  Corby Davidson is the Howard Cosell of The Ticket -- he'll irritate the living bejeebers out of you, but still you tune in and (usually) don't tune out.  And I and other Confessors have observed how good he can be when he's away from the nurturing biosphere of the who-cares Hardline.

I was tired of Hammer's ignorant redneck act before he got the heave-ho, and his various issues were plainly affecting his broadcasting long before he crashed and burned.   I'll punch out on Corby and Danny from time to time (Mike isn't present or flavorful enough to excite the punch-out finger much anymore, although he's still a mesmerizing broadcaster when he's engaged -- that is, when he's got a subject that really interests him, or with a co-host who engages him), but for me, The Hardline is great entertainment and better than it was 15 years ago.

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I'm not going to make TicketStock this year, so send your photos of TicketChicks and other watchables to:

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

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How has The Ticket changed for you?

Let's All Take a Deep Breath

So, is something afoot involving The Ticket, or isn't there?

Well, nothing happened yesterday, to my knowledge.

I would be tempted to say "sorry, irresponsible blogmeister reliance on anonymous sources here, my bad," and move on.

Except that Richie Whitt also thinks something big involving The Ticket is in the works, something he thinks he can keep the lid on until after the weekend.  Something that will "change the landscape" of DFW radio as we've  known it for "three decades."  Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Richie, but Richie is dialed in.  I don't think he'd stick his neck out unless he had something, or thought he did.

And except that yesterday's Summa Bash was really, really weird.  Odd hostly behaviors, unexplained references, awkward silences, Dan sentimentality, all wrapped around a catastrophic Scott Ferrall monopolization of at least two segments. 

And a peculiar reaction to a Jer drop -- I heard the Musers beating feet away from the drop, but didn't hear the drop.  I gather it was Mike R-flavored.

So we continue to speculate.  To sum up, not in order of likelihood:

(1)  Signal change, or signal swap.

(2)  CBS/Cumulus merger or acquisition.

(3)  Mark Cuban involvement somehow, perhaps a purchase of Cumulus.  (Lack of movement of Cumulus share price yesterday suggests no rumblings in the financial community that would indicate either (2) or (3), so they're kinda off the list.)

(4)  Retirement of Mike Rhyner or Norm Hitzges.

(5)  (4), accompanied by BaD taking over PM drive.  (No PM commuters reported to have jumped off the High 5, so it's kinda off the list.  [Just kidding, BaD.])

(6)  BaD's demise resulting from Bob's going off to do something else or Dan leaving, or something. 

(7)  The return of The Hammer, or reconciliation with Mike.  

(8)  Richie Whitt's affiliation with The Ticket.

(9)  Syndication of some of all of The Ticket.

(10)  The whole damned station is gay.  OK, I made that one up.

(11)  60% of the station is gay.

 

In evaluating these possibilities, I tend to throw out (2) and (3) for the reasons stated, and (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), and (11) as not sufficiently seismic.  Mike's retirement (or departure) would certainly be a landmark of DFW radio, whether or not accompanied by BaD's ascension to drive, as would moving The Ticket to a legacy signal (displacing its no-doubt longtime occupant).  Mikeish news would also tend to explain the cockeyed vibe surrounding Summa Bash.

 



 

But I keep coming back to Gypo Nolan's advice to "face Morton's Fork" and trying to puzzle out what it means.  (Confessors have started to turn on the estimable Gypo for his failure to be more forthcoming and for his obscurantism in this case.   I'm still intrigued, although I'm not sure what is says about me that I'm willing to give a guy named "Gypo" the benefit of the doubt.)   Earlier on, Gypo advised that something was either going to happen yesterday, or not happen at all, which, of course, is tautological -- he can't be wrong.  But maybe what he meant by "facing Morton's Fork" was to hark back to that tautology -- something big was going to happen yesterday, but the fact that it didn't means that it isn't -- at least not in the form or at the time Gypo expected it to. 

 

In which case, we've all had a real good time, and this site has gained some new readers on a pretty flimsy pretext.

 

The least I can do for my readers is to provide an image of
former Ticket Traffic Twist Alexis Smith -- HEY, MAYBE
SHE'S COMING BACK!  Now that would change a
landscape or two around here.

The speculation may continue, and if anything comes my way that I'm able to share, I'll let you know.

 

Y'all do the same.

 

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Email:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

Twitter:  @Plainsman1310



BREAKING: THE END OF RaGE? or THE END OF RaGE!

Confessors, I'm in the middle of my work day and can't write much.  Two comments to prior post have advised that (1) Greggo tweeted that he has been terminated, and (2) Richie/Sybil have been removed from The Fan website.

I have NOT confirmed these items.

Tell us what you know, and your very politely expressed reaction.

A "Where's Greggo 2013" Inventory

We're not hearing much of substance other than from the frantically tweeting Girlfriend, so I'm going to give this one solid posting and if there aren't any developments I'm going to move on, main-topic-wise.  (Comment section always open for RaGE/Greggo/Fan talk.)

What to write about?  How about a listing of all current theories, some of which overlap, and many of which are not mutually exclusive.  (An annoying way of saying "it could be a combination of several of these things.")   And it may be none of these things.  These are not in order of likelihood, just the order they're coming to mind.  Let's get to it.

(1) He is sick, perhaps hospitalized.

(2)  He ran into trouble with Fan management over his absence relating to Chris Kyle's funeral.

(3)  He's angry about The Prank.  (RaGE Prank on Greggo)

(4)  It's a bit to draw attention to the station and RaGE.

(5)  Management is preparing to make some changes at the Fan or RaGE that he's unhappy about and he's pouting.

(6)  The Richie-Sybil relationship and perhaps a growing role for Armen has resulted in a diminished role for Greggo and he's feeling that the same thing is happening to him there as (he believes) happened on The Hardline (not his fault, of course).

(7)  The Richie-Sybil relationship and perhaps a growing role for Armen has resulted in a kind of ganging up on Greggo and as the most experienced radio hand on the show, he resents it.

(8)  The Richie-Sybil relationship has created an intolerable and almost indescribably icky and eeeeeww-inducing sexual tension that has eroded whatever professionalism RaGE was starting to develop.

(9)  He's fallen off the wagon.

(10)  The station is in major upheaval up and down the line and it's just all too much for the Hammer, who's getting out while the getting's good.

(11)  He's been suspended, possibly fired, for misbehavior that hasn't been publicized.

(12)  He's a petulant childish jerk who can't stand even the tiniest slight to his real or imagined importance to RaGE.

(13)  He's a major radio talent who is undeservedly taking abuse from the less-talented Richie and Sybil.

(14)  It's time, buddy; it's time.  Greggo's chief addiction is to self-featuring drama, and he can't go for more than a couple years without writing himself another one, so he's off the reservation for no reason that any of us would find rational.

In happier, but less focused, times.

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Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

Email:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com



May 29, 2012

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7:40 a.m. -- Playing around with something different.  With my time availability dwindling and likely to dwindle further, I'm going to try to get quick hits up from time to time for whatever interest they may have, but mainly to provide a continuing and occasionally refreshed forum for those who care enough to leave a comment.

The usual articles and thought pieces will continue to appear as I'm able to get to them.  I invite anyone with a hankerin' to write a piece to drop me an email, and, of course, I will be pirating emails to generate content for this space either anonymously or credited (with permission only). 

In any given day, there may be added material that will be headed by the time it was posted, thrown up as things occur to me.

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I was out of town over the weekend.  Did The Orphanage comment on last week's technical disasters (I understand they had some technical challenges of their own)?

Did George DeJohn and the TeeBox have a real handoff on Saturday?  (The prior weekend the handoff was torpedoed by the worse TeeBox transmission quality ever, and the week before that, I 1think, was the George D-Craig R tiff.)

Does anyone have any information on Greg Williams's medical condition?

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1:35 p.m. -- We hear from folks who think I'm (and some commenters are) overblowing the whole Ticket technical crisis.  Entirely possible they're right.  The show does manage to go on, mostly.  

But the commenters here and to the site that T4 directs us to (see comments to this post), including a well-known local broadcaster, makes the same point I made a week or so ago -- when things go bad and good people start to leave, everything suffers.  Not just the ability to stick plug A into port A, but morale, initiative, the desire to do well, the desire to come to work every day.  It shows in the product, and, eventually, it will show in the cast of characters who emerge on the air.

A Followup Note to "Weekends are Tough for The Hammer"

I agree with the sense of all commenters   that this is not going to end well for Greg Williams.  (See previous article and comments.)  Whether he's still under the influence or not, and we hope not, he seems unable to compartmentalize his professional life and keep it between himself and his employers.

I don't know much about broadcasting, but I know quite a lot about the way large companies, and especially public companies, are put together.  Bacsik was out almost instantly at The Ticket because of ONE WORD in his Tweet.  The Ticket could live with a Latino boycott, but Cumulus could not take the PR hit.

If He Who Can Only Rarely Be Named can't keep from mortifying his bosses, he's going to go.  Put Greggo and Richie out of your minds for a few minutes, and think about the guys they answer to, and the guys those guys answer to.  Their weekend is worse than Richie's and Greggo's.

"We don't shy away from Twitter controversy," says Richie Whitt.  I didn't hear that statement, but I accept Confessors' reports as accurate.  Think about what that means:   This isn't "controversy" in the sense of "I have a hot sports opinion about whether Dez Bryant is a goldbrick."  It's "controversy" in the sense of "unauthorized disclosure of confidential company information."  Richie saying that they don't shy away from Twitter controversy is equivalent to saying:  "We embrace self-destructive public airing of internal discord." 

Greggo has forced guys like Richie (for whom I continue to have some sympathy) to triage the damage he's done, and Richie's chosen to deal with it by embracing it.  (Query whether ignoring it might be a better strategy.)  But it can't work.   Greg's behavior reflects on the judgment of Fan and CBS managers and executives -- not just among listeners, but in the industry.  They look like fools if they let it continue.  They cannot tolerate this kind of loose-lippedness much longer.

And it's not like Williams has proven himself a ratings star.  The only downside to his release would be that some Fan guys would have to admit that their faith in Greggo's "this time I'll be good" story was misplaced, not to mention a lot of publicity dollars down the drain.  Hey, it looked like a good move at the time, didn't it?  We can all say aww, we knew Greggo was going to do the Greggo again eventually, but to put two well-known media figures against The Hardline -- one of them a former Hard Guy -- was a smart move at the time.   They were in the ratings tank then, and still are -- the hurt from admitting that it didn't work would go away fast.  But professional damage up the chain of command if there's a truly catastrophic meltdown, where all the warning signs were there, will linger with some suits who do not want failures, much less notorious public flameouts, on their resumes.

[Offbeat:  Here's a scenario to consider -- unlikely but anyone in business has seen more exotic theories conjured up by employment lawyers:  Hammer takes the position that this kind of public confession is therapy for his various addictions -- the "reconciliation" scenario that Anonymous posited.  He gets fired for them (presumably for insubordination) and then he claims that he was dealing with a disability known to his employer before he was hired (1) that did not affect his on-air performance, and (2) that were not "accommodated" by his employer.  That's a suin'.]

There's nothing wrong with reaching out to old friends and colleagues.  It's the public digital trail that's the problem while you've got current colleagues -- colleagues who have gone out on a limb for you -- who deserve your full concentration and loyalty.

I don't want Greggo to fail.  I don't even want him off the air.  I'm just saying that he's bumping up against some institutional dynamics that are going to make it very difficult for him to hang around much longer if he keeps doing what he's doing.

As Bob Newhart said on that old Saturday Night Live skit:  "Stop it."

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman 1310

Weekends are Tough for The Hammer

An Anonymous Confessor passes along some Greg Williams tweets and offers a comment with some plausible speculation:

TCUWhiteTrash GREGGO
@tweetgrubes ...I can't believe you won't answer...it's Greggo...
23 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply


TCUWhiteTrash GREGGO
@CMCrume...they may think I'm the enemy..but I'm not...No ill will against any of those guys...I did great work there..and I love those guys


TCUWhiteTrash GREGGO
@Thehermesmeyers I do have a life...but in my recovery...I want to make things right with those guys..we went thru a lot.and had great times

After doing a little Tweeter dumpster diving (there's too much to post up here), it looks like Greggo has been reaching out to every Ticket host. On many occasions. It also looks like he might be having a conversation with Rhyner. If that's so, then, as far as I can tell, Rhyner is tweeting privately to Greggo, while Greggo seems to be tweeting publicly with Rhyner. This does seem to be the case. Unless Greggo is so out of it that he's tweeting as if Rhyner is answering his questions. I find that hard to believe. Don't know what the deal is, but I think somethings afoot, in the workings, or at the very least maybe a reconciliation of sorts is happening.

[Anonymous then clarifies that he believes that the "reconciliation" that is taking place is the "reconciliation" that is called for in the 12-step AA-tyhpe programs -- not a reassembling of The Hardline prior to Greggo's departure, which he acknowledges is almost certainly not going to happen.]

============

I don't know what the evidence is for behind-the-scenes Rhyner communications with Greg.  Whether or not this is true, these Tweets are still fascinating.  They cannot be welcomed by Greggo's Fan colleagues or supervisors.  This cannot be a bit to gin up interest in RaGE.   While it may be a part of Greg's rehab -- and if so, we can only hope it's working -- it looks desperate, it looks like he's unhappy with his current surroundings and wishing that he could turn back the clock.  It's pleading; it's sad.  He might scoff at that, but that is the impression he's giving.  The fact that he's making these communications public, when every Ticket guy's email is on The Ticket's website, suggests that he wants listeners, not just his former colleagues, to know what's going on.  As I suspect he has done in the past, he seems to be hoping that his public will demand some kind of rapprochment with his old Ticket buddies of some kind.

More speculation, of course.  However, I would suggest that these Tweets are even more interesting when one considers:

(1) Mike Bacsik has popped up on The Fan.

(2) Mike's and Corby's contracts are up in February, I'm pretty sure.

(3) Richie Whitt is let go at The Observer for reasons remaining unclear.

(4) Don't laugh -- BaD Radio is humming along sans Bob -- at least, that's my impression -- and it is not beyond imagining that when he returns he might want to make some other changes in his life. 

(5) Cumulus has bought Citadel and has access to much better signals that are currently being seriously underused.

I agree with Anonymous, as he wrote in the comments to the last article, that the chances of a Hardline reunion are extremely remote.  At least on The Ticket. 

But I don't think it's going to far to say that matters are somewhat fluid at The Fan, and we're approaching decision time for a number of individuals at The Ticket as well.

And we'll be mulling these things over in greater detail in future postings.  In the meantime, as Harry Caray used to say, lemme hear ya.

BREAKING NEWS: Is It That (1) Richie Whitt Is Out at the Observer, or (2) the Observer is Getting Out of "Full-Time" Sports Reporting?

Thanks to Confessor Shaggy to alerting this site to Richie Whitt's farewell to The Observer, or its farewell to him.

Richie tees it up as the Village Voice organization "downsizing" by eliminating "full-time" sports.

This site has no idea whether this is the case, or whether, as less charitable minds might wonder, Richie's bosses got a little uneasy with him commenting on an industry segment (DFW sports radio) in which he is prominently employed, and writing about a team (Cowboys) that his station carries and whose game-day shows he hosts. 

Now I'll tell you right now that I don't find that to be a terrible conflict.  To the extent that it is, it is a disclosed conflict and readers and listeners can make up their own minds.

But there's something else:  He's become a little newsier himself than perhaps his editors are entirely comfortable with.  There was the Greggo blowup, and the widespread suspicion that he was anonymously commenting on his own stories hoping it would blow over.  (I know of no confirmation of this.)  That, if confirmed to his supervisors' satisfaction, would be tough to take, and his proximity to Greggo eruptions make him radio news in a way he hasn't been in the past, casting a somewhat fuzzy conflict into much sharper relief.

Well, maybe this will give him more time to keep an eye on Greggo.  Although I doubt that his Observer gig would ever threaten to make him wealthy, if he lost the Fan exposure, he'd vanish entirely.

All further evidence, if any were needed, that partnering with Greg Williams is a high-wire act.

I'm not a RaGE hater and I've defended Richie's Observer work.  I don't listen to RaGE often, I don't find it consistently entertaining, but I've found things to like about it from time to time.  I wish him well.

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Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter:  @Plainsman1310

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SPECIAL TO GYPO NOLAN:  What can you tell us about this?