Also: Telemundo expands local and national news; Funny You Should Ask renewed through 2021; Fox interested in Sinclair stations
You’d think an appearance on a national TV show would be a great thing for your local radio station, right? Well, in this case, it turned out to be a huge nightmare.
Alpha Media’s WRXQ-FM in southwest suburban Coal City fired evening personality ‘Crazy’ Ray Odom just hours before his appearance Tuesday night on CNBC’s The Profit where he said in a promo for the show: “On the radio, this is not me, I’m a sexist, egotistical, racist pig on the radio.”
Not exactly saleable material.
The reason Odom was on The Profit in the first place was because of his struggling outdoor business he co-owns in Morris, located sixty miles from Chicago. Hosted by Marcus Lemonis, the Camping World CEO works with such entities in return for a financial stake. In this case, Lemonis passed, and Odom’s comments may have played a role.
On Wednesday, Alpha Media market manager Brian Foster released a statement regarding the situation: “DJ Ray Odom, known as Crazy Ray on WRXQ, took part in a national television program. We do not condone the views he expressed in the program. The feelings portrayed are that of his own and not of Alpha Media or QRock. After an internal review, we have decided to cut ties.”
In addition, Odom’s business posted their own statement regarding his controversial comments, stating he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence. Odom denied he makes racist or sexist comments on the air or in private, saying he played “a racist persona on the radio”, pointing out the comments were taken out of context. The station fired him anyway, despite Odom not mentioning the radio station he works for on the air by name (still, his listeners would have recognized him and his voice.)
Which begs the question – why did he say this in the first place? Whatever it was, it was a bad idea and it cost him his radio career. Also, if his bosses knew he was playing such a character on the air, why did they let this continue?
WRXQ – known as QRock on 100.7 FM is an active rock station serving the southwest suburbs mainly in Will, Grundy, and Kankakee counties including Joliet, Kankakee, Braidwood, and Crest Hill.
More news is coming: Telemundo’s WSNS announced this week it was launching a new midday newscast at the Spanish-language station. Scheduled for 11 a.m. beginning January 22, the addition is part of an initiative from the NBC-owned broadcaster to increase its news output on its local stations and nationally. This comes as Telemundo is planning to launch a new national newscast (Noticias Telemundo Mediodia) at 12:30 p.m. ET (11:30 a.m. in Chicago) on the same day.
Mediodia would be the only midday national network newscast among Spanish and English broadcasters. CBS, NBC, and ABC do not program midday network newscasts.
The local effort meanwhile, is meant to be a companion to the national newscast. In addition to WSNS, new local midday newscasts are being launched at nine other NBC-owned Telemundo stations including those in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Brownsville-McAllen, Tex.
Viewers can also stream the network newscast on a variety of platforms, including on the web at NoticiasTelemundo.com and through the Noticias Telemundo app in addition to other social media platforms. Telemundo has invested heavily in news programming, hiring personnel and expanding into other dayparts. Recently, WSNS launched a new investigative unit in addition to its existing consumer investigative unit.
For those wondering what Noticias is, it means “news” in Spanish.
With the Justice Department forcing Sinclair to sell off ten stations to acquire Tribune Broadcasting, Fox has emerged as the most likely entity to buy them, according to published reports. Among the rumored sale include Tribune’s KCPQ in Seattle, a station Fox long coveted due to the NFC’s Seahawks in the market (Fox has the rights to almost all NFC games.) Fox owns stations in thirteen NFC markets.
Also likely to be sold is one of three stations in the St. Louis market – Sinclair already owns ABC affiliate KDNL and would be acquiring Tribune’s Fox affiliate KTVI and CW affiliate KPLR. Another market affected would be Salt Lake City, where Sinclair owns CBS affiliate KUTV and independent KJZZ while Tribune owns Fox affiliate KSTU. Oklahoma City is another market where Tribune and Sinclair overlap.
Tribune’s duopoly in Denver (KWGN/KDVR) is also in play for Fox.
Fox used to own KTVI, KDVR, and KSTU, selling those stations and others to Local TV LLC in 2007. Tribune bought Local TV in 2013, which would lead to their undoing (the original Tribune Co. split a year later.)
If Fox buys those stations, they would not be part of the deal that is sending much of 21st Century Fox to The Walt Disney Company.
Now that’s showing faith in a program: Entertainment Studios announced Wednesday it has granted a two-year renewal for freshman game show Funny You Should Ask, hosted by former Chicago anchor Jon Kelley. The new deal takes the show through the 2020-21 television season.
In a recent ratings report, Funny earned a season-high 0.6 household rating, up 20 percent. The program is cleared in more than 90 percent of the country, including WCIU in Chicago, WLNY in New York City and KCAL and KDOC in Los Angeles. Among celebs who’ve appeared on the show include Byron Allen (who owns Entertainment Studios and is the show’s executive producer) Bill Bellamy, Jackee Harry, Howie Mandel, Caroline Rhea, and Tom Arnold, among others.
Funny airs weeknights at 11:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on WCIU and various times during the day on Entertainment Studios’ cable network Comedy.TV
Speaking of celebrities on game shows, Buzzr recently picked up former syndicated first-run game show Celebrity Name Game from Debmar-Mercury for a Friday night time slot. The series was canceled in December 2016 after a three-season run. The diginet also picked up the most recent version of Supermarket Sweep, a game show whose origins were at ABC in 1965 and had revivals on Lifetime in the 1990s and PAX in the 2000s.
