WTAM host Mike Trivisonno dies at age 74

Fox 8 Cleveland ^ | 10/28/2021 | Jen Steer

[mmichaels1970]

CLEVELAND (WJW)– Longtime Cleveland radio host Mike Trivisonno died suddenly on Thursday. He was 74 years old.

WTAM AM 1100 announced his passing during its Thursday afternoon broadcast.

“Very sad to say that Mike Trivisonno passed away today,” said programming director Ray Davis while fighting back tears. He expressed condolences to Trivisonno’s family. “It’s going to be a very difficult show today.” The broadcast was emotional as his colleagues reminisced about his legacy.

“The Mike Trivisonno Show” aired weekdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., where Triv discussed sports, politics and more.

Trivisonno started as a frequent caller to Pete Franklin’s sports talk show. He got his own show in 1987 and took over for Franklin in 1994 before moving to the afternoon slot.

[mmichaels1970]

Drive time will never be the same.

It won’t. I was thinking about it earlier. Once Triv became Uber-popular, he got surrounded by commercials and news. Weather and traffic every 10 minutes. News at top and bottom of every hour. Minutes of commercials stretching out all of those breaks. If you were lucky, you could get 2-3 minutes of Triv uninterrupted before the cycle would repeat. Yet he was STILL great.

At one point I’d try to time leaving work so that the first couple minutes of my drive would fall into that “sweet spot” where you could actually hear him talk. With a 20 minute drive home, if you didn’t hit it at the right time, you wouldn’t hear him at all.

It was kind of annoying while he was alive. Kinda makes me ticked off now that he’s dead.

[bigcat32]

“He struck me kind of as a former democrat who became an outspoken conservative in real time as he documented liberal destruction of our city and country.”

I agree. He came on right after Limbaugh. I always thought that he listened to Rush and Rush had a big impact on him turning to the right.

[EBH]

Definitely! But then I drive a lot for work and listen to WTAM all day. Yesterday I was very annoyed by all the commercials even during the daytime. I can go from one client to the next and hear nothing but commercials. I turned it off.

When it was time to drive home I turned the radio back on because of Triv only to hear them talking about him in the past tense. To say I got slightly emotional would be true.

Triv’s time though often obscured by their news, traffic, weather, commercial breaks...I waited through to listen. Now? I don’t think we’ll have another voice of Cleveland for a while. Seth and crew just don’t have the talent to fill his spot.