Secrets of the City

Steve Marsh visits KDWB’s popular morning personality: Dave Ryan has been hosting KDWB’s morning show for 16 years. Behind Tom Barnard’s juggernaut at KQRS and the morning show at WCCO, Dave’s show is the third-most-listened-to in town. But among females, especially the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, it is the most-listened-to morning show in the Twin Cities. Does Dave rule simply by negation—because his is the only morning show on a station in the female-favored Top 40 format? Or is there something more substantial to his success—a strategy behind the tone and topics he chooses, one that taps into the almost archetypal need women have for a friend who understands them? Because it’s not just teenyboppers who are tuning in—some women have been listening for the entire 16 years he’s been on.

The Dave Ryan Show is asking that people vote for the hottest realtors in the Twin Cities based on the photos on their business cards. (via.)

WCCO legend Steve Cannon has died at age 81. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the local broadcasting great, the Pavek Museum’s Broadcasting Hall of Fame page for Cannon has a good biograpy of him, as well as audio samples of his work. With Cannon’s death, a whole cast of characters he created and gave voice to passes on as well; all will be missed.

MinnPost reports: KTLK-FM host Jason Lewis announced on Wednesday’s show that he’ll be taking his anti-tax crusades and RINO hunts national. To accomodate syndication, “Minnesota’s Mr. Right” will shift his show from 4-7 p.m. to 5-8 p.m. KTLK will add an hour of Sean Hannity from 4-5 p.m.

WCCO reports on the death of a local man who was tased by police early Monday morning; the man had been threatening his girlfriend with a rifle. The man was Quincy Smith, a former KMOJ deejay known as “Q The Blacksmith” on the air. At the start of this year, the Star-Tribune visited the question of taser safety after a Fridley man died after being tasered (the cause of his death, according to the autopsy, was inconclusive). It’s hard to argue that the use of a taser was unjustified in the case of Quincy Smith, but every time somebody dies after getting tasered, it raises questions about just how non-lethal these non-lethal weapons are, and what the appropriate use for them is.

David Brauer reports the shocking news that KSTP-AM has fired popular radio personality Tommy Mischke: I called up Mischke Saturday morning and he was gracious, diplomatic and cautious. “I want to be able to talk about it, but I need a little time before I can,” he said.

MinnPost reports that WCCO radio is asking its highest-priced talent to take a 10 percent pay cut for the good of team. Don Shelby is quoted as saying “”I was given the option that I could take — or refuse to forgo — 10 percent of my salary for a year so the station could minimize the impact on staff and minimize potential layoffs. I agreed to it immediately.” This comes a day after Lambert posted that he had little hope for revolutionary change in future of WCCO radio.

Soes anyone know what happened to the morning crew at WLTE. I turned it on the other day and found that the morning crew had switched and I had liked the other group. I don’t like this new crew.

Minneapolis radio host Chris Baker distorted Obama’s 2001 remarks by claiming that he said “we gotta have economic justice and the Supreme Court ought to weigh in on redistributing wealth.” Baker added: “Yeah, it’s too bad you kind of stuck with the Constitution as it was. It’s a tragedy that redistribution of wealth was not pursued by the Supreme Court. Can you believe that?” In fact, Obama did not say, “It’s a tragedy that redistribution of wealth was not pursued by the Supreme Court,” or indicate, as Baker later claimed, that Obama “wants to use the Supreme Court to reinterpret the Constitution in order to force the redistribution of wealth.”

All sports and media “insiders” expected it but sports talk station KFAN & Clear Channel made it official today as they canned the former late-morning co-host. At the risk of beating a dead horse, has any other Twin Cities media personality been fired for similar actions? Is it unjustified? Who should go on to be Paul Allen’s sidekick?