Welcome Ronnie Radio!

Brothers and sisters the first church of radio and television is rather quiet this week.
East Tennessee’s very best blog devoted to the history of local radio does have a great story running complete with a picture of the old days at WKGN. Click over and check it and the entire blog out. Also if you have a kid under the age of 19 in your house let them see it and read about this urban myth called radio. They will no doubt be confused to find something still in their car that back then never had an Ipod or MP3 docking station and was used to receive mysterious rock and roll filled signals from spooky local transmitters that teenagers craved to hear while driving their Super Sports and GTOs up to Sharps ridge to make out with someone of the opposite sex!

A new staff member, Ronnie Radio, has penned a fine “What If” column this week. You will have to research old arrest reports in Union County to find out more about this former AM radio near great and the truth is we did and he didn’t have much of a normal life at all. Today he still has most of his mind and many of the T shirts and forty fives he purloined from radio stations he was canned from during his lusterless career. If he passes our 4 day trial period and one out of 10 drug tests he just might make the staff.


WHAT IF, your old granddaddy got hit by a pulp wood truck while driving his Little Rascal with the tall flag on the back on the wrong side of Chapman hwy. Then WHAT IF when they read his will he left you his collection of two hundred T tiny empty maple syrup bottles from Cracker Barrel, a yellowed gift pass to Hazel’s House of Pleasure and the key to a lock box in the bank in downtown Tazewell? Oh and WHAT IF that lock box had stock certificates worth millions and millions and even more millions of dollars? What would you do with the money? Well WHAT IF you were an old burned out DJ and only remembered all the places that FIRED you rather than the few that hired you? If so WHAT IF YOU took all those stocks, cashed them in and bought you a big radio station? Well the first thing you would have to do is staff it with the right people, so after you hire yourself how in the world do you pick them?

HERE IS THE PLAN I Ronnie Radio came up with to staff my..uh your station!


HOW TO PROPERLY PICK AND THEN PLACE NEW RADIO EMPLOYEES


1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.


2. Put your new employees in the room and close the door.


3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours.



Then analyze the situation:



A. If they are counting the bricks put them in the Bookkeeping Department.


b. If they are recounting them, put them in the Promotions Department.


c. If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering.


d. If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in the Events Dept.


e. If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations/Programming.


f. If they are sleeping, put them on the Morning 6 to 10 shift.


G. If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in charge of Engineering.


h. If they are sitting idle, put them on the front desk.


I. If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales.


j. If they have already left for the day, put them in sales manager training.


K. If they are staring out of the window, make them General Sales Manager.


L. If they are talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Top Management.

Next week I will tell you how to keep your job even if the station is no more than a small box with blinking lights in the men’s room next to the condom machine.
Your friend, Ronnie Radio


As was expected you kids outdid yourselves again this week with your posts. A few beg for response so here they are!



Anonymous said...

The fat guy is BELCHER!

Ed…YOU GOT IT…Your prize is being detailed over on
MLK Ave and you can pick it up anytime after 2 tomorrow morning!

Monday, April 21, 2008 2:52:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

It's a shame what is happening in broadcasting these days. Forget quality work and community involvement. Just do enough to get by and hopefully satisfy the FCC. But it is also the face of most businesses anymore. Make more money at ANY cost. I'd never advise anyone to have a career in broadcasting unless they low pay and would like to move 10-15 times during their lifetime. And raise a family in poverty. The stuff going on at 10 is typical of what's happening everywhere. But I gotta agree. The girl that's been doing the sports for 10 is just plain awful. She has that Cheshire cat look, but does a horrible job. It looks like Dan Farkas was really smart. He got out of the business and got a real job that can lead to advancement. Watching the 10 news at 6pm is an adventure lately. There's usually at least one screwup each day--sometimes more.

And I also agree that Walker and CP could do better than what's on the air on morning radio around here, but they're too smart to want to get up at 3:30 am five days a week just to be abused by management. wink wink

BEWARE! THE APOCALYPSE IS NEAR!

Ed. Until we see those horses on fire flying over the top of Jakes building I kinda
think we are ok on the end of time thing. As for the kind words about FARKAS many thanks from his friends and family. Last word was he was still drawing a check from WBIR but what do we know?
As for CP and WALKER anything said positive about those two old radio wrecks is always appreciated. As they often say to one another… “IF we are so good why are we so FIRED?”

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:44:00 PM EST
Blogger T. West said...

Ha!!! Couldn't help but laugh at the "rent not buy" comment. Truer words have never been written. A wise radio station owner once told me this story about on air people when they leave a station:
1st day everyone will be saying, "Where's T, where's T, where's T"!!!
2nd day is "Anyone heard from T?"
3rd day its "T who?"
Ain't it the truth!


Ed 4th day a guy with a twelve gage shows up asking for their forwarding address and
mumbling something about both his daughter AND his wife are pregnant.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 7:37:00 AM EST
Blogger T. West said...

Hey "West Knoxville Republican". Just a little correction here. Gene and Robin are not "together". He's with Lori Tucker at channel 6 and she's teamed at channel 10 with some guy named Becker who I think used to play a sitcom doctor on t.v.(just kidding). Anyway, being just one of three republicans here in northern Campbell Co.(not kidding), I just have to pass this one on to ya' all. Seems us republicans can't do much better than our democrat friends. Someone said to me the other day "out of 167 people that started out wanting to be president. we're stuck with the 3 worst!" Kinda' says it all doesn't it?

Ed Couple of corrections, we think Becker used to play a vet and it was on the Discovery channel or Home Shopping, we can’t remember. You are right about Gene he is Tucker’s “Tonto” on 6 and for some reason has yet to engage his investigative reporting skills concerning the RagsGATE. Hey he could do to the County King what he did to the UT president the giant question is what is holding the man back? Sick um GENE!