RIP Neil Rogers

I was a music promotion guy when I first encountered Neil, who was doing middays on WINZ in the early eighties. I’d been turned on to his show by my brother, Steve, who’d lived in Chicago and was a fan of the city’s free-form talker Steve Dahl. He’d send me cassettes of Dahl and his partner Garry Meier. Fun stuff!

When my brother returned to South Florida, he started talking incessantly about Rogers, saying that I really ought to check him out. But I’d heard that the guy had an issues-related show and I had no interest in listening to some radio guy’s interminable pontifications on boring politics and “serious” issues. Besides, I’d rather listen to music. That was my business and my pleasure.

But I finally tuned in just as Neil was making his incredible and unprecedented transition from issues to free-form rants and comedy.

I was hooked.

Here was a very smart, sharp guy who had strong opinions and a powerful personality. But most of all, he was endlessly entertaining and hilarious; cynical and compelling; an older guy from a generation before me; hip but not au courant — in some ways, even old-fashioned. So professional, he could break the rules and make his own. Eat on the air? Sure! Play bits and clips from other shows? Yup. Not take phone calls for weeks on end? Faxes only? He did it.

I followed him from WINZ to Zeta to WIOD to WQAM, listening live when I could or taping the show for later playback. It was as engrossing as (and grosser than) any rococo novella, with melodrama, subtext, plot, characterization and daily themes.

Rogers, who’d started out as a Top-40 jock, was the undisputed King Of Talk Radio in South Florida. Or Queen, if you’d ask him. That he was an out-of-the closet gay man was interesting, perhaps, but just another facet of his on-air persona. His disdain for what he called “mincing queens” might’ve had something to do with his appeal to the mostly young male heterosexual audience that he amazingly carried with him from station to station and day-part to day-part, as they followed him up and down the radio dial — from AM to FM and back — an unprecedented and singular feat in the industry. But mostly, he was a real voice and pulse of South Florida — even when broadcasting from Toronto.

His peak, in my opinion and others, was at WIOD when he was part of a lineup of Mike Renieri, Phil Hendrie, Rick & Suds, Randi Rhodes and others. But radio management, as Neil always said, had to mess with success. It was a short but amazing run.

Over the years, I called him a few times. Okay, A LOT of times, and because I was in the biz, I sent him a bunch of songs: Dennis Leary's "I'm An Asshole," Timbuk3, “Be True To Your Shul” and others. I even collaborated lyrically with his resident geniuses Boca Brian and Guitar Man on a few parodies and bits: “Walk Away Rene,” “Ron and Ron,” “Jeff The Florist” and others.

Naturally, that didn’t stop the “Old Man” (as he was semi-affectionately known) from ripping me on the air after any real or imagined transgressions against him. One had to take it in stride, of course. After all, as Neil constantly said, “It’s only a radio show,” and it was … but so much more.

The Boat That Rocked

This could be good.

Wonder if it features my old pal, Howie Castle.

Clear Channel Review

My weekly Miami Herald business books column gets picked up by newspapers and websites all over the country — and the world. Unfortunately, I don't get a dime for this as it's part of the paper's deal with the syndicate, but I'm happy to inflict my opinion on unsuspecting readers outside of Dade and Broward counties, so no worries.

The recent review of the book about media conglomerate Clear Channel ran all over the place, but I was tickled when an old colleague e-mailed to tell me that he saw it in the Los Angeles Daily News. It wasn't online, so he forwarded a jpeg. I think the review is worth posting here, too.

Author argues Clear Channel destroyed radio.
BY RICHARD PACHTER
published 5/12/08

Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Fall of Commercial Radio. Alec Foege. Faber and Faber. 320 pages.
The name ''Clear Channel'' became shorthand for everything wrong with terrestrial (nonsatellite) radio: Lack of diversity, repetitious music, boring programming, too many commercials, censorship, jingoism, ad nauseam.

In a previous life, I was very familiar with radio, first as a record promotion man and later as a marketing executive at a trade publication for radio managers. Initially, I encountered a variety of stations, mostly independently owned or part of small chains. Few companies held more than a handful of stations, due mainly to the limitations imposed by federal law. But that all changed with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lifted most limits for corporate acquisition of broadcast properties and allowed ownership of multiple stations in a single market. In the industry, the resulting change was called "consolidation.''

Writer Alec Foege's interest in the subject of radio in general and Clear Channel in particular was piqued when he became aware of the uniformity of radio stations' programming during a longish family car trip. He wanted to know why the music was so bland and over-familiar.

He begins with a brief history of Top 40 radio, the company that later became Clear Channel, and its founder, Texan Lowry Mays. He knew nothing about the broadcasting business, according to Foege, but was a shrewd and opportunistic businessman who viewed radio as a unique industry with unparalleled potential for growth.

As the story continues, Mays builds his business and is poised to take advantage of the sweeping pro-business trend toward deregulation. Acquiring numerous stations, he seeks efficiencies by eliminating various redundancies. Among them were physical facilities, so Foege writes about how, in markets where the company owned several stations (as in South Florida), all are based in a single building, sharing a common management team as well as administrative and engineering staff.

But the downside became apparent as the cost cutting continued. Indeed, the company's nickname of ''Cheap Channel'' was earned by their elimination of incumbent talent and the promotion of lower-paid employees. At the same time, through automation and other tools, live local announcers were replaced by pre-recorded programming or ''voice tracking,'' with the on-air content for a multitude of stations originating in a remote studio from a single announcer. The same voice and personality hosts a show in Orlando, for example, yet she's really sitting in a studio in San Antonio or Omaha.

And the local news component of most Clear Channel stations had also been reduced or eliminated, with several striking examples of the absence of reporting during local disasters cited in the book.

Foege also writes about other issues, such as the company's corporate culture, with the controversial practices and behavior of managers, including Randy Michaels, who came into the fold as a result of Clear Channel's purchase of the Jacor chain (owned by Sam Zell, who bought the Tribune Co. last year).

This book covers a lot of ground, including the company's politics, which are more expedient than ideological, according to Foege. But ultimately, media consolidation has been a disappointment, as evidenced by AOL Time Warner and other failed mega-mergers. Clear Channel is already starting to disassemble, though as a result of this exercise, the vitality of radio as a local medium will likely never return. Right of the Dial explains how this precious cultural and economic institution was exploited and destroyed.

Listen...

I went through a period, several years back, when I listened to audiobooks and podcasts (burned onto CDs) on a regular basis. Of course, spending three hours or more in the car every day might've had something to do with that. But it was a good thing, as it turned me on to the late, great Ed McBain (a/k/a Evan Hunter) who read several abridgements of his 87th Precinct novels. After that, I made a point of reading every new McBain book until his death in 2005, and we exchanged a few e-mails, too.

During a trip to London, I grabbed a couple of audio versions of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, and recently acquired a set of unabridged readings by Elliot Gould, who played Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye."

I'd had several of "The Adventures of Philip Marlowe" radio shows on tape. None were written by Chandler, though he allegedly "approved" each script, which probably meant that he endorsed the checks sent to him.

I recently discovered that almost all of the existing Marlowe radio shows are online and can be downloaded free here or streamed here.

The photo above is of Gerald Mohr, who portrayed Marlowe in the CBS radio shows.

Today in The Miami Herald

I reviewed Alec Foege's book on Clear Channel, "Right of The Dial."

It's one of those subjects that I know way too much about, and my own knowledge (and baggage, I'm sure) could have easily subsumed the discussion of the book. I think I managed to avoid that, while introducing as much relevant personal and external material as necessary — but no more than that. A little frustrating though, but discipline ain't necessarily a bad thing, either.