Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Spun out

WISN-AM's Early Spin program is coming to an end tomorrow. Co-Host Dan Deibert is doing one more show on Friday.

You might recall how the show began two years ago when WISN got the idea of having a contest to pick a morning host while they moved Weber & Dolan to compete against Charlie Sykes. "Milwaukee's Next Talk Star" was not one of WISN's better moments. The brief on-air auditions of the contestants were mostly awful. I mean really, really bad. And lest you think I'm criticizing because I think hosting a talk show is easy, I didn't and I don't.
I do believe the winner could be someone completely inadequate for the job.

After all, being a morning talk show host five days/week is hard. You have to come up with topics, more topics than you plan to discuss, every day that are not only timely but likely to generate interest and phone calls. At the same time, there are parameters under which you must operate including good taste, language and general interest to a target audience.
Of course, I showed my usual prognostication skills.
I do not believe a liberal or a leftist can win the contest, so WISN has little to fear from that.
What I didn't count on, and I'm sure WISN didn't plan for, was liberal bloggers engaging in a concerted effort to push through a single candidate, Nicole Devin.

I confess the show just never grew on me. Occasionally I would try to listen when Brian Fraley filled in, but other than that the cast of characters surrounding Deibert drove me to listen to Bob and Brian on 102.9 FM (whatever their call letters and format are this week). Granted I'd have to sit through a zillion commercials just to hear ten minutes of conversation, but at least I felt like I was listening to adults. Deibert did seem to "get" Milwaukee despite not being from the area. Unfortunately the rest of it just seemed so (for lack of a better word) Shorewood.

The good news for the Wigderson household is that we get to listen to Jay Weber and Charlie Sykes on the same day without fighting over the radio dial. The sad news is, I liked the Early Spin blog. I'm just really happy WISN-AM is going to spare us from doing another contest.