John Curley Dead Pool and what's Next For KIRO FM?

 

 

Curley looking east past Bellevue circa 2009

 

We haven't seen anything like it, a former local teevee star still on the payroll after several attempts to make him into a      radio star.

John Curley has been in a staging pattern at KIRO since he left KING 5 Evening Magazine some time ago.  He was tried out in the 7-10 slot last year.  Then this past Oct, he was tried out on mornings, doing      news....

We've followed the on-air career of John Curley, it's clear we don't like him,  bodily function,frat-boy radio doesn't seem to cut it here.  He's also a republican in a Dori way but as one poster commented, people laugh with Dori while others laugh at Curley. His twitter page hasn't been updated since Aug.

 

 

 We tried to make the photo smaller, but John's over-sized, Sammamish ego wouldn't call for it

 

 

 

Curley is an easy, go-to guy to shuffle around, he doesn't need the money, he has his own business on the side doing high-end 501-c3 auctions in which he takes a percentage. (when it doesn't conflict with the raydio, which is why he may have been moved to mornings) The suits in radio don't care about what happens after 6p which is why they probably pulled him after 3 months doing the morning commute.  It is possible the on air presence was a launching pad for a larger venture into politics beyond his gig as a Sammamish City Council member.

We could put the blame on the choice of programmers at KIRO.  Jason Antebi,  (rhymes with Raid on Entebbe) Asst PD at KIRO-KTTH, also Jason Rantz   on the raydio, whom we profiled earlier as a partisan, crybaby college radio shock-jock and contributor to such august publications as Reader's Digest and Human Events.

His college radio show frequently mocked Occidental's administration, student government, as well as a wide-range of political and social causes. His attorney described his show thus:

"Jason Antebi’s show, like many college radio shows, was intentionally obnoxious—that was why it was named Rant and Rave. The targets of Antebi’s on-air mockery included whites, alcoholics, drug users, “straight-edges,” his cohost, his former co-host, Mormons, Christians, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, doctors, lawyers, Democrats, Republicans, feminists, “hippies,” the Christian Right, Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, Al Franken, campus safety officers, women, men, children, space aliens, Star Trek fans, too many more to list here..."

And as we posted previously,

The school fired Antebi from the show, and he recruited Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) who wrote a letter condemning the college and pointed out that his speech was clearly protected under the First Amendment.

The school's attorney responded with a letter that, according to his FIRE lawyer, "flatly distorted and misrepresented facts and implied, without a shred of evidence, that Raid on Antebi had committed a variety of serious offenses including vandalizing cars and making harassing phone calls."

Larry Giffords is the Program Director for the Seattle Bonneville cluster.  We hear he's a nice guy and has his own website telling others what talent is .  But did they both arrive in Seattle with cement feet or is Seattle a difficult market to program?  

 

 

 

Moroni fills in next week on Kiro

 

 Is this part of the larger problem at KIRO and parent company Bonneville in that programming choices are being made with little regard to longevity or the Mormon elders in SLC? 

KIRO used to not-give-a-shit about weekend programming, now it seems it doesn't care about the rest of the week.

 

 

Comments

[Preston]

KIRO probably is pining away for circa 2005 at this point.

[Andrew]

Curley is a good entertainer. None of the criticisms that have been leveled against him as of late are valid. They hate that he has qualities of a succesful talk radio broadcaster: confidence and self-assuredness. If it's a liberal talker whose "smug and condescending", then suddently it's A-OK.

If anything is killing their ratings, it's that they continuously wipe the slate clean over and over again. If you like anything about KIRO, they will take that thing away from you in three months (down from six). Some people will briefly consider trying another station, or another medium all together, because why not? And some fraction of those people will not return each time they shuffle the line up.

[Broken One]

Curley was 10 times the 7-10 radio host Andrew Walsh is. If you're right that he doesn't want that slot because of his side business and council duties then I fear he's done for.

[Don]

Andrew you are funny.

[Sinbad]

John Curley is an incredible talent and this hiccup at KIRO has nothing to do with his abilities.
As I previously mentioned, he could have maintained a more serious note in news reporting and commenting in the morning, but no matter it's KIRO with the problem, not Curley, and they know it. They (like so many other radio stations) are scrambling trying to find a successful fit for their talent. IMO radio stations need to diminish in numbers, they are a tough sell in these high technological times (anything pertaining to radio at the current CES show in Vegas - of course not).
Only the strong will survive and now the deck chairs are being rearranged to see who will survive the Titanicc effect on the radio industry.

[Broken]

I think a great radio host will appeal to all ages, and will generate enough buzz with management that they'll know not to drop him. Walsh will be gone, just watch. He is not funny. He's not even smart. Like another poster said in the last article, he's a whiny punk wanna be hipster. I'll buy a round at my favorite bar the day Kiro dumps him.

[Andrew]

OK, for the sake of fairness, I tuned in for an hour of the Andrew Walsh show tonight. It was so dull that I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention. I heard maybe twelve minutes at best. Ten of those minutes were covering the topic of Parker Bros. allowing people to vote to replace one of the Monopoly game pieces with one of several preselected, modern alternatives. Hard to even read that isn't it? It's almost as interesting as what you had for lunch last year. You will be fascinated to know that Andrew Walsh didn't realize there was a wheelbarrow shaped game piece.

Now let's imagine John Curley had seen fit to cover this tiny blip on the news ticker. You could suppose that he not only knew about the wheelbarrow shaped game piece, but he would proceed to tell you about how when he was a child, one of his siblings, in a fit of frustration after losing his last property, flipped up a monoply gamed board, hitting John in the face and causing that wheelbarrow game piece to go into his eye socket. He might tell us about how the doctors said it was too risky to remove, and that it was best left where it reside. Not only would John Curley know about the wheelbarrow game piece, but I imagine he would inform you that he has one in the center of his head, right now.

[Dave]

At least John Curley knows how to have fun on the radio.

[Thom & Kristen Wahlman]

John Curley did the news just fine, and notice that "straight news" with Linda and Ross still has the element of commentaries added. John was truly worth waking up to. We all need the news, but John really got us up with a sense of humor found in the little things of iife each day. I can't see why we should stick to kiro every morning now, flipping stations will come easily.

[medyum]

The school's attorney responded with a letter that, according to his FIRE lawyer, "flatly distorted and misrepresented facts and implied, without a shred of evidence, that Raid on Antebi had committed a variety of serious offenses including vandalizing cars and making harassing phone calls."

[Broken]

Kiro Radio wants to bake you a chocolate cake. But it can't. It's a radio station. So you'll have to settle with their programming director trying to force feed you bullsh*t that they're "getting a lot of great feedback from our listeners who love our new format."

[Jack]

Still miss Radke-Thomas-Tangney. That was a great team. Curley was disappointing. During the last few months, I actually followed Rake to NPR.

[CP]

I'm with ya Jack, but I don't enjoy Radke as much on KPLU. KPLU is too serious.

I used to love his antics on Kiro, his songs and poems were entertaining. He has a lot to offer, a lot more that he can give KPLU.

[Brenda]

Curley did a great job, and was way more entertaining than Dave Ross. I feel like Im going to fall asleep driving into work listening to him in the mornings. If people really hate John Curley because he is right winged, thats just stupid.

[Jay]

Curley was amazing, entertaining and a great performer. His show and morning excursion with the news were great! If you can't see that, then you're blinded by your own prejudices... or maybe you've just got horrible taste IMO.

[tom]

Really, people actually like Curley? Huh, must be me but I find his smug mix of silliness completely offputting. I just don't like his personality, at all, not even a little. But then, he is on talk radio to begin with ...

[Moe]

If Curley was amazing, he’d still be on TV. But we know how that ended.

[Paul Cooper]

John and Jason are a nice respite from that idiot Don. Whenever I switch stations it is due to Don saying the same old stupid stuff and going off about guns that he clearly knows nothing about. I think Dori,Jhon and Jason are the only ones I would miss if they dumped the whole staff.

[Hal T.. CEO, Idiot Savant/Dream Fifteen Fund]

I tuned into KIROfm this morning to find , to my dismay, that the humiliation of Dave Ross by moronic KIRO Mormon suits is now complete. That callow twerp, Luke Burbank, apparently now has his own show, and Ross has been demoted to the role of a newsreader forced to get out of bed at 3 am each weekday. The 9 to noon listeners will now be mercilessly regaled by Luke "i'm kind of a big deal" Burbank's puerile nonsense, peppered with his trademark "teenspeak" (various "likes" amd "dudes". Sorry, I have to go with Bill O'Reilly when he said that anyone over age 25 who still says "like" or "dude" is an idiot.

[Hal T.]

oh, I see they've left Ross one hour of his old Ross and Burbank, with the other two now taken up slely by the impostor, Burbank. Six months from now i'll tune in again to see Ross as newsreader only and the twerp with all three of Dave's old hours. Why not just fire Dave, KIRO. Kinder, reallyM in the end.

[Observer]

Dave Ross calls his own shots and because he is such a devoted employee is 'consulted' on what might be best for the station. Let no one think he is manipulated at will by station management, as they realize what a golden goose he is. Soon he may decide to retire and when that happens, KIRO-FM might as well consider an alternate choice for return on investment, cause it will be 'game over'.

[Kevin]

John Curely brought nothing new to radio..just the same boring political conservative vitriol we here over and over again. One thing I got from listening to his show..is that John just seems like an angry and bitter person. There was no structure to his show and it was literally him complaining about how butt hurt he was with "liberal" and "leftist" policies. Even when they brought him to the news in the morning he still put his annoying narrow minded world view on the events. Sorry John..maybe you can keep doing the trampoline commercials and hole up in your McMansion watching Fox News until you get your next gig.