Cut that part about "management" out (other than thanking them for putting your name on a major market show) and it's perfect.
You're probably right but I don't think he'd be pouting about the music if it were just a routine layoff.
Shertenlieb Show? Rich Radio? - mornings on ZLX
- Thread starter Rusty13
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They seem to be the only ones that like Emerson. He certainly didn't seem to be a favorite with large segments of whatever audience they had.
I didn't expect him to take the fall, but not surprised he just blamed everyone else. I'm not saying his note wasn't heartfelt or he didn't get a fair shot, but the show was not good. He had the wrong format, the wrong people cohosting and lived and died by it. He died. With the way he seemingly got his way shown out at 98.5 I don't find this surprising at all.
Who did he blame? He said he hated the decision to use music. He was right, that was a dumb thing to do and reeked of overreaction by management. Other than that?…
I thought music made a lot of sense but only if he largely dropped the sports format. Rich always had very strong music opinions and was great on t+r before the sports change. Had hoped he'd do more of a rock show on ZLX
Management. No one was listening to his show because it was bad. Then the parent company saw the ratings drop and saw that 20-30 year old music gets better ratings than Rich's show, so they wanted to put more music in.
The whole thing was a dumb idea and Rich is at least 50% at fault with IHR and WZLX on the other half. Them playing music isn't why this failed. The fact that he said he agreed to play more music, they were openly talking over the music, also apparently playing Fat Bottomed Girl and pushing back on the air.
Rich wanted to to a sports show on a classic rock station and got pissed when they wanted more music that gets better ratings than him talking about Ted Johnson taking a dump, being bad at sports talk and generally unfunny in the comedy segments. Then he openly aired his grievances over the air and it's not his fault. OK.
Rich thought it was Rich & Toucher when he was at 98.5 and instead of doing his own thing, he tried to copy T&R with him being the A chair and bringing in Hurley.
I wish he succeeded.
For anyone who listened to T&R, it was clear Rich wasn't a sports guy. He knew sports but would make a lot of sports mistakes with his lack of deep knowledge. He wasn't a sports guy n the sense he didn't grow up living and breathing sports. Why I thought the path to ZLX would have been a great opportunity for him to delve into pop culture, music and some sports. But to make it a sports centric show right off the bat was a bad sign to begin with.
For anyone who listened to T&R, it was clear Rich wasn't a sports guy. He knew sports but would make a lot of sports mistakes with his lack of deep knowledge. He wasn't a sports guy n the sense he didn't grow up living and breathing sports. Why I thought the path to ZLX would have been a great opportunity for him to delve into pop culture, music and some sports. But to make it a sports centric show right off the bat was a bad sign to begin with.
I probably have listened to more T&R than anyone on this board, which I'm not sure is a good thing, but I enjoyed it. I wasn't against Rich and I'm sure everyone here thinks I hate Rich (which I've said multiple times I don't and gave this show at least a dozen chances).
It's that Rich doesn't know where he fits and what he's good at. Your post is exactly that. Don't just try to do a Sports Show on a Classic Rock station. Take everything good from T&R you can, with Rich was responsible for creating a TON of it. Bring that to the new station, tailor it to that station and it's what rich is awesome at. He knows music in and out. I don't get why he tried to to T&R 2.0 with Toucher in the same region at the same time slot.
Rich badly misread the room.
Knowing that a year ago he was the cornerstone of a massively popular show on a massively popular station and by his own choice walked away has got to feel like a heck of a gut punch today. Not rooting against him, but hard to see how he regains a semblance of that success. For everything he and Fred went through from their beginnings to ending could it really have been that bad that he felt he had to walk away?
Knowing that a year ago he was the cornerstone of a massively popular show on a massively popular station and by his own choice walked away has got to feel like a heck of a gut punch today. Not rooting against him, but hard to see how he regains a semblance of that success. For everything he and Fred went through from their beginnings to ending could it really have been that bad that he felt he had to walk away?
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In fairness, killing the show after 5 months is pretty wild. IMHO, Toucher & Hardy was still *very* much a work in progress after 5 months. I don’t think that show has really hit its stride until the past 6 weeks, when Adam 12 started producing.
I can’t blame Rich for being upset that iHeart didn’t give the show a longer leash. They’re the ones who decided to change ZLX’s morning format. Everyone in the business knows it takes around a year to really get a new show swinging.
We agree that the format was a terrible choice from day one. And Rich didn’t surround himself with nearly enough comic talent. But it’s clear management really never had the stomach to support the show if they cancelled it after 5 months.
A lot of people like Boston media gossip. That's a big reason why his show on WEEI was so successful before Bob Murchison and Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe teamed up to destroy the station. That's why his show did well and why Dale Arnold got crushed in the ratings for doing 4 hours of Bruins 4th line, Red Sox batting order, and 9th man on the Celtics talk.
People said Kirk was making it up about Rich apparently being a douche, but I think it's very telling that quite a few people on 98.5 don't like Rich. Kirk is friends with Zolak, Jim Murray, Fred, and Bertrand, so it's pretty clear that he got a lot of info from them regarding how Rich isn't well-liked.
agreed.
He made his decision to leave on principle, from what little we can piece together over the last few years he was pissed at Beasley as well as Fred, I’m sure it got worse once it became clear Fred was not going anywhere.
Trying to go up against his old show with the same format was the biggest mistake he could’ve made. Whether it was spite or it was his only option - and if he was dead set on staying in Boston it probably was - it was the wrong move.
I wonder whether an afternoon drive time slot doing the kind of show they had during the BCN days would’ve been a better fit for his skills and an alternative to F&M in a non-sports focused format. It couldn’t have done worse than this did.
He's also just a psycho! Like he tried to get his long term partner fired for being out with a throat injury, and during that process put his wife on speakerphone to speak for him to his bosses. That is not normal behavior
He was also an ass to me when I was serving him in the past so I definitely have a major bias lol
He was also an ass to me when I was serving him in the past so I definitely have a major bias lol
Minihane was told that Rich turned down $900K a year to stay with Toucher and Rich. I've had co-workers I've hated before, but not enough to turn down $900K.
Agree with this 100%
You weren’t “against Rich”? You’ve had the knives out in virtually every post you’ve made.
I feel bad for Rich and Hurley. Also a little for Ted, who grew on me. The show wasn’t good, and the insertion of music destroyed any chance at creating any flow for whatever type of discussion they were having. It was enjoyable when they talked music and pop culture. As mentioned ad nauseum Rich needed a true partner/cohost to bring focus and balance to the proceedings.
I hope he and Hurley return to the Boston airwaves somewhere soon, preferably not in a sports talk format.
I only listen to T&H on Monday am for Reiss, and Friday am for Breer.
But, like someone has been saying lately… we’re not going back.
Good point on T&H adding Adam 12th and improving the show 5 months in. The funny thing is the T&H improv discussions from their previous work backgrounds and natural life long love of music and pop culture was way better than what people suggested Rich do with stiffs like Ted and Emerson.As far as management ,this is a nation wide layoff for IHR, low ratings and people with big salaries are a red flag for national. I think Rich is doomed with a lack of self awareness of what his strengths are and what he needs to supplement where he lacks. The fact he was still doing classic 911 bits and bombing with it to the very end was telling.
Not really. I root for Rich but it seems clear that he did not assemble a dream team and hence may not know what one looks like. I don’t think more time would have helped his show gel. I hope he finds his niche. I’ll definitely listen to anything he tries.
Kind of a long story but in short, at a very busy restaurant, he was rude, pulled a little bit of " hey, I'm rich from the radio" don't you know who I am kinda thing, then left me $10 on a $200+ bill
Agreed. PJ, your obsession with Rich is glaring. Beyond just not liking guy on the radio, the personal shots you take at him and his character are just plain odd. Getting a Rupert Pupkin vibe from you.
I think they did it on the day of a wider layoff as cover. I mean, don't they still have to pay Rich for the remainder of his contract? I've always heard references(from radio people) to contracts for established "[Host Name] Show" type hosts being guaranteed. If the show gets cancelled or ends because of station format change, they still get paid. I'm sure that isn't true for Ted Johnson, who was likely getting paid per days appearance, presumably like the other rotating hosts who disappeared. Now, maybe Rich hadn't put out feelers prior to shooting his way out of TSH, and didn't have any stations with strong interest in him, and he had to take a bad contract in the hopes he could build an audience.
This is perfect.
PJ has been a valuable source of T&R info for me for as long as these shows have been on. I've probably read more PJ posts on this topic than anyone here. I know PJ hates Rich but PJ is a good poster and I'll continue to read his posts.
I won't speak for him, but I don't think he hates Rich at all. I think he is (like I am) still upset that a show that has given so much joy to us and was so, so good, is over.
Or I'm projecting.
Or I'm projecting.
the show was doomed to fail from the start. a program director who didn't want do sports. a host who can't really do sports - go back and listen to some of the segments when Rich takes over and leaves Hurley, Giardi and Johnson with nothing to do, even though they are far better equipped to do such a thing. And then adding Emerson was pure stupidity. he out overwhelmed segments on the regular
If that is true, then fuck Rich.
The simplest barometer of one's humanity is how you treat wait staff, retail people, etc.
I was going to just leave this alone since apparently i went too far and took this super personally and am a lunatic (I don’t believe either to be true), but wanted to close this out.
I do not hate Rich, I’ve said this several times in this thread. I think Rich is extremely talented and was a huge part of the success of T&R and enjoyed it more than any other show I’ve ever listened to. I remember crying when Rich would tell some of his stories about Mary when she first got sick. Rich and T&R brought me probably more laughs (with Fred obviously) than anything I’ve listened to in my life.
I do think that Rich‘s ego got in the way towards the end of his run on T&R and blew up that situation and led to what failed him at WZLX. Fred‘s rehab and throat didn’t make it easy for him either and he did carry the show for long periods of time. Fred’s got plenty of blame here too for them splitting up. He must have been absolutely miserable at times to work with and COVID brought out the worst in Fred.
Basically everything about the WZLX show was a bad idea in my opinion. When Rich was running without Fred, T&R wasn’t great and basically all the issues he had then were amplified on his own show. So when Rich basically throws his hands up and says it’s not his fault, I totally expected it.
Fred basically said word for word what I posted yesterday on the air today. This whole thing is basically putting someone who’s really good at their job in the wrong job and watching it blow up. It happens everywhere, it’s not unique to this situation.
With that being said, I’ll be tapping out of this thread as it’s not personal and I didn’t intend to come off that way yesterday. I hope Rich succeeds in another market because he’s likely done here. Sucks for him and his family to probably have to move and find a new job.
The main issue is that you responded to a tweet that mostly exists in your own head. Like, to a really weird degree.
Kirk is friends with Toucher? I seem to recall Toucher calling him "hack garbage". So if they are friends now a lot has changed in 6 years.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAm1GZyvDjU
They have sort of "kissed and made up" since then when they were in the midst of a ratings war.. I believe Fred admitted he had a nice conversation with him at the Super Bowl a few years back.
Not sure I would call them "friends", but Kirk has said he likes Fred but absolutely DESPISES Rich, as evidenced up thread from his pile on yesterday.
They made up a few years ago and are now friends. Kirk alluded to Fred texting him during his podcast yesterday right when the news started leaking about Rich.
I think PJ was inferring the subtext into Rich's tweet that "IHR is why the ratings tanked, not me" (correct me if I'm wrong). It would make sense that Rich might believe that; on Boston subreddit page discussing this, there are a few people that say they liked the show until it added music. That's also what I think Fred was saying annoyed him so much - Rich is saying the ratings are not his fault without just saying "they ruined MY show".
Well...when I listened, I listened to the podcasts. The podcasts didn't have music. The show was bad. I was "team Rich" as much as PJ is "team Fred" and PJ still tolerated this show longer than I did.
If I had to guess, what happened here was that Rich threw a huge fit when they made him add music (which was a a bad idea), and instead of just deciding to roll with it (I'll use this as an opportunity to plug bands I like, or just talk positively about what they make me play...while I look for another job because this is definitely going to kill my show) Rich did that childish thing of misnaming the songs (or whatever I didn't hear because I was listening to the podcasts). At that point the IHR guys were probably like, "I'm done with this guy; I can't work with him. Unload him as soon as possible" and this is as soon as possible.
IHR did it during layoffs as an easy legal defense to hide behind, should Rich try to go that route, or "get cute" or whatever.
That's my conspiracy theory fanfic at any rate. My point is, go easy on PJ. I like him despite his blinding hatred for Rich.
I appreciate it, but I don't need defending here and Myt1's comments don't really bother me. He's one of the most aggressive posters on this forum and goes at people all the time, which I generally enjoy, so all good. I think Myt1 is a great poster on SoSH. Fred's rant posted over in the other forum is essentially what I said yesterday, I'm good.
Maybe somebody has them all, and someday, decades from now, some other radio show will play clips of them, like with the David Lee Roth Show. I never expected Rich to become David Lee Roth...
There's still a few on youtube. It's just not really bad enough to do that with. Something like the Minihane "what do you want to talk about? What do YOU want to talk about?..." that was epic in its badness.
I think a big problem here is the RS name carried high expectations and (probably) an extreme price tag. If they picked some random dudes out of, like, Columbus and they were doing the exact same show we'd probably go easier on it.
In case anyone missed Chad's column: https://www.boston.com/sports/sports/2024/11/09/rich-shertenlieb-show-canceled-wzlx/?p1=hp_secondary
Thanks, that seems a pretty dispassionate take. Bottom line: it just wasn’t working. For the record it’s sad to see Fred piling on this way, a lot of other people lost jobs too asshole, but there you go.
Thanks, hadn't seen that.
I figure Fred is enjoying this because Rich allegedly tried to get him fired, but he didn't have to do it so publicly. It's a shame because their strengths worked well together and made for a good show, but I guess Fred's behavior through his various throat/rehab/divorce issues was enough to break up a tenuous relationship.
I figure Fred is enjoying this because Rich allegedly tried to get him fired, but he didn't have to do it so publicly. It's a shame because their strengths worked well together and made for a good show, but I guess Fred's behavior through his various throat/rehab/divorce issues was enough to break up a tenuous relationship.
Very good piece by Chad. He certainly captured the major issues in a fair way.
In a different era of media Rich would have received another 6 to 18 months to get the show right. But traditional media is an utter disaster at the moment.
Reminds me of David Carradine’s line:
“I'm a murdering bastard. You know that. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard..”
I don't know, the more information I see and hear makes me think the split was just as much Rich's fault as it was Fred's. Everyone at the station appears to have shunned Rich when he left, and no one stands up for him when they take subtle or non subtle shots. Wallach said he (Rich) never reached out to him, same with Nick and Adolfo. Nick has even written here how much better the work environment is now compared to how it was.
I'm sure they both have a ton of blame in the split, but I'm not sure how much I can agree with the whole "Well Fred was so terrible to work with so he must be at fault"
It's hard to imagine Rich as a bad guy or difficult personality, but when everyone shared the sentiment after his exit, there must be something to it.
Fred has never shied away from going after anyone who has threatened his career, and he was open about Rich doing that before leaving. Fred is the host of the #1 morning show so if he wants to dance on Rich's grave, he gets to do so.
Fred has never shied away from going after anyone who has threatened his career, and he was open about Rich doing that before leaving. Fred is the host of the #1 morning show so if he wants to dance on Rich's grave, he gets to do so.
I originally would have agreed with you. His on-air personality seemed to portray a good guy. But, everything after does make it seem like it's not the case.
One thing that has jumped out to me more since the firings, Fred's rant the next day, and Chad's article, is Rich had six months to put something together. His show was the exact same thing I'd come to expect when Fred was out. Standard T&R fare but taking more calls (Rich always took calls when Fred was out). There was nothing that made it unique or different. The only new bit was Can You Handle the Hurley? which isn't a groundbreaking setup.
A lot of people agree that he missed the mark trying to do a sports show when his strength has always been music. If Rich had instead centered it around music, maybe mixed in sports at times, talked about new bands (who wouldn't love to have an informed host talk about newcomers he'd seen?), and developed new comedy bits that played to his show's strengths, that might have been something.
I agree with Fred on the goodbye post. It was anyone but Rich's fault. I didn't want to see him fail but it's hard not to see how doomed his plan was.