Boy, they machine-gunned practically the whole staff at KGO. Bloodbath. Living in No CA, I primarily listen to KSFO, though I will miss Jon Rothmann ex-KGO 10 pm. The rest of KGO I could care less about, but geeez, that was the biggy station up here and they just fired everybody. Gene Burns, gotta be 20+ years, Rothmann, 15 years, Wattenberg, 30 years. Tillem, probably at least 10 years.
I know that KGO had some expensive hosts, but the bloodbath there surprised me. People in the Bay Area who listen to KGO...libs, mainly, and that is everybody up here...I swear their dials are welded to KGO. Things change very, very slowly in No. CA. (Hippies are still cool up here, that’s how retrograde it is) While I am not an expert or even a strong amateur in radio syndication or programming I believe this will turn out to be a bad move. KGO was probably the biggest station up here and IMO this will scatter their listenership to the four winds. Certainly, competing with KCBS (news, weather, sports, little bit of CBS TV) is a guaranteed loser. Really, I have no conception what KGO is going to do. I think it could take them 3++ years to recover even their recently flagging audience numbers...if they ever do. But as I said, I just listen to the thing, I’m not a radio expert.
Don't forget about Bernie Ward, 7 years at Lompoc.
-PJ