(January 8 - 11:34 a.m) Tim Conway, Jr. is the new night-time host at KFI, beginning January 18. He replaces Bryan Suits who returns to Seattle for a soon-to-be disclosed project. Suits will continue at KFI with his weekend show, ‘The Dark Secret Place.’ Conway has been working weekends for the past few months at KFI after losing his longtime evening gig at KLSX when the FM Talk format flipped to AMP RADIO.

Tim moved his family to Oregon earlier this year. He will get an apartment to start his new assignment at KFI and the family will follow later.

In an internal memo to the staff, KFI pd Robin Bertolucci wrote: “Bryan and his wife, Rachel, were blessed with a beautiful baby girl earlier this year [Reagan Ladybug] and they have decided to move back to be with their families. The only thing Bryan loves more than his evening talk show on KFI [and his family] is big open spaces, rain, and lots of room for his dogs to run.

Robin had high praise for Conway: “In a short time Tim has had success on KFI as a favorite fill-in and weekend host. He is extremely well known and beloved in the market and is one of those rare Southern California natives.  Tim will be wildly successful and I am excited to have him involved with KFI in an even bigger way. In addition to nights, Tim will keep the weekend momentum going, retaining his Saturday 4-7pm show.”

Suits (l) was no stranger to Los Angeles radio when he took over the night-time slot at KFI on January 21, 2008 when he replaced John Ziegler. Not only had Bryan been exposed to the radio wars, he was decorated with a Bronze Star and awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received in combat in Iraq and Bosnia.

Bryan credits KROQ’s Bean with opening the door for him at KFI with pd Bertolucci. Bean and Bryan were friends from the time that Bryan was an intern (known as ‘Big Leo’) on the Kevin & Bean Show.

When pd Andy Schuon left KROQ, Bryan embarked on his own radio journey. “Kevin & Bean just weren’t funny and didn’t get it. They didn’t understand how brilliant I was.” The friendship between Bean and Bryan really developed after he left the show. 

Bryan went to Reno, the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, Portland and then in 1998 to Bosnia-Herzegovina for a year. Bryan didn’t do radio in Bosnia but his National Guard unit was called up. He was a field medic in the first Gulf War and a Sergeant and Calvary Scout in Bosnia.

“When I got back I was intending to take a job with Radio Free Europe in Prague and my friend Kennedy had just started a talk radio show on the Buzz (KIRO/fm) in Seattle. I met her when I was at KROQ. She was an intern for Kevin & Bean.

Bryan and Kennedy eventually were paired together for a year during Bryan’s stint.

(January 8, 2010) Every year, LARadio presents this retrospective of the wonderful Los Angeles Radio People who left us in the previous year. The reminder of those who shut the microphone off for the final time is always filled with sadness, awe and wonderment at the diversity of personalities, on- and off-air who helped make LA Radio what it is today.

Gene Parrish,

Gene was a native Californian. He was born in November 1926, and grew up in Glassell Park, Temple City and Monrovia. Gene entered the Navy V-12 program at Occidental College in 1944, transferred to Navy V-6 at UCLA, and then overseas before his discharge in 1946.

The radio bug struck him while studying speech and radio broadcasting under Dr. Charles Frederick Lindsley at Occidental. “On December 31, 1995, I left my day-job at KUSC to pursue a kind of laid back, free-lance career,” he said when interviewed for Los Angeles Radio People.

Gail continued her tribute: “He had a most positive attitude through his difficult illness: In reference to his lousy prognosis, he told me philosophically, ‘I’ve had a good run.’ Gene was a great supporter of jazz musicians worldwide, through his longtime series, Worldwide Jazz. He also produced broadcast concerts from Finland’s Kuhmo Festival, from the Netherlands, and also hosted a nationally heard choral program, The First Art, for many years. Gene was a great broadcaster, and a kind and humble man. He was possibly the most easy-going on-air host I’ve ever encountered.  His longtime friend, Grammy-winning record producer and conductor Peter Rutenberg, said when he learned of Gene’s death, ‘in all the hundreds of programs Gene and I worked on together on The First Art, there was not a moment’s tension. Not a pebble in the stream. Everything just flowed.’”

“Happy Hare” Martin. January 5 (81) was one of San Diego’s most memorable disc jockeys. He was best known for his years as the zany morning-drive dj for KCBQ/AM 1170. He had a larger-than-life presence on the local airwaves. More than 50 years after making his San Diego radio debut, he died of liver cancer.

“Harry was a guy who genuinely cared about people,” said Mike Glickenhaus, a former Clear Channel executive.  Mike who worked with Happy Hare at KPOP/AM 1360, where “Hare” did a morning-drive show from 2002 until 2004. “He had the ability to communicate his enthusiasm and passion for everything he did with everyone around him, and he made everyone feel important. It takes an amazing talent to light up a room or light up a microphone the way he did.”

Born and raised in Galveston, Texas, he developed a folksy tone that made him such a hit with listeners. Some described him as a longtime radio rat. But while he was a hit at stations in Los Angeles, Cleveland and Detroit, he spent the bulk of his career in San Diego, where he was a big voice at one of the biggest stations in town.

He was hired in 1955 to help KCBQ move into the rock’n’roll age, part of a powerhouse lineup that came to include Shadoe Jackson and Jerry Walker. He stayed with KCBQ through 1960, returning to the station in 1969 after stints in Cleveland and Detroit.

“He was probably in the Top 5 radio personalities in San Diego,” said David Leonard, author of Aircheck: The Story of Top 40 Radio in San Diego. “He bucked trends. In the mid-’60s, it was all about playing the most number of songs you could. But he wanted his show to be theater. His timing was impeccable. He had sound effects. It was great stuff.”

Jayne Bonfietti, February 20 (49) had a nationally syndicated daily one-minute radio recipe show called “The Qwik Cook” that was heard on KFI in the late ’90s. She described her show as “brainfood on the half shell, a spicy tidbit to go.”

She grew up in suburban New England with a mom who could turn out dinner for a dozen defensive linemen from her brother’s college football team with an hour’s notice. Her mother is Czech and Russian and her father is Italian and Finnish. Raised Catholic and culinarily confused, Jayne headed West to date, join a sorority, and find her dining destiny. She attended restaurant school and became a restaurateur/caterer. The experience prompted her to organize a support group called Caterers In Recovery.

Jayne lived in San Diego with her husband and four sons, ten chickens, four dogs, and two sheep.

Paul Harvey, February 28 (90) Following the death of George Putnam, Harvey was the oldest working radio personality in America. His daily commentaries on ABC Radio (aired locally at KABC) were heard by an estimated 22,000,000 listeners.

Born Paul Harvey Aurandt, he began his radio career in 1933, working at KVOO in Tulsa while still attending high school. He eventually became a full-time announcer and program director. He later spent three years as manager of KSAL in Salina, Kansas, then did news for KOMA-Oklahoma City and KXOK-St. Louis. After serving four months in the Army Air Force during World War II, Harvey began doing news for WENR, the ABC affiliate in Chicago. In 1951, “Paul Harvey News & Comment” joined the ABC network and was heard each weekday at noon.

Ken Levine believes Paul Harvey was the greatest salesman that ever lived. “I used to listen to him every chance I got, not for the news, not for the profile of the guy who invented leotards, but for the commercials,” wrote Ken at his blogspot. “He was absolutely spellbinding. He made every product sound like something you just had to have. He was so convincing even I went out and bought Bose speakers and arthritis medicine … and I don’t even have arthritis. I did stop short of Amway products though.” (close quotation)

Levine continued: “What was his secret? He truly communicated. He talked right to YOU. In words you could understand. He looked straight into your eyes even on the radio. He spoke with conviction, enthusiasm, and all of his arguments made so much doggone sense. Someday I may get arthritis so I better have this stuff just in case.”

George Weber, March 20 (47) passed through LA Radio in the mid-1990s at 710/KMPC. He went on to WABC-New York and spent over a decade anchoring mostly morning drive news. He was murdered at the hands of a teenager who stabbed Weber 50 times.

Weber’s personal blog provides some insight into George Weber:

As a kid growing up in Philadelphia, I was always fascinated by radio ...so much so I took over the basement of my parent’s home to set up a make-shift radio station. I even did a tv show but, in reality, I just created a set and talked into a tape recorder.

I spent two and a half great years at WAEB in Allentown, PA reporting and anchoring the news and making some great friends in the city where they’re closing all the factories down, as Billy Joel sings to us. Following stops in Buffalo and Denver, I joined KGO in San Francisco, where I split my time between talk and news – and never got to experience a big earthquake. I arrived a year too late for the ’89 quake. What didn’t go over so well here was my weekend talk show, which the general manager thought was a little too racy. I was asked to stay on in the news department, but decided instead to go to KOGO, a newly re-formatted talk station in San Diego.

Less than a year later, management decided it couldn’t afford the cost of running such an expensive format. I was fired, but spent the next six months [thanks to a nice severance deal] sitting on the beach.

Unfortunately, I spent too much time relaxing and not enough time looking for a job, that I actually considered getting a roommate to share my loft in downtown San Diego. As luck would have it, I ended up picking up some cash doing weekends in Los Angeles at KMPC.

And then the biggest radio station in the world called – wondering if I’d like to do news on WABC in New York. I said yes – and a few weeks later – I was living in the West Village and talking on the radio.

(January 7, 2010) Multi-talented Adam Carolla appeared on Good Day LA this morning to promote his podcast and his new pilot with NBC. He talked about the success of the podcast, which he started soon after his morning show at KLSX was dropped when the FM Radio format flipped to AMP RADIO. His podcast has been downloaded over 40 million times. “It was costing me ten grand a month for bandwidth,” said Adam. “Initially it was funny. Everyone I work with has a ton of confidence in me. When I signed up I thought it would cost about $100 for bandwidth. It actually was one of these things where you get punished for your success. You hope people listen, on the other hand it costs a nickel each.”

Steve Edwards reminded him that the broader the bandwidth, the greater the opportunity to attract sponsors.

On the pilot front, Adam said: “I realize that whenever you do a pilot, especially a comedy, they wonder what it is about. No matter what it’s about there’s no guarantee it will be funny,” Adam said philosophically. The best sitcom of all time was a racist who sat in his living room in Queens and made fun of his son-in-law he called Meathead. What would the pitch be for All in the Family? An old guy sits around and never leaves his chair. How would you know that was good or funny? Usually the higher the concept the worst the sitcom. This one will just be funny about a contractor, which is what I was.”

Suzanne Marques, who was sitting in for Jillian Barbiere Reynolds, was a big fan of Mr. Birchum who was a character Adam played on the Kevin & Bean morning show at KROQ. “It won’t be the same salty character. Mr. Birchum was kind of an amalgamation of all the shop teachers I had in junior high. I don’t know why my shop teachers at Walter Reed Junior High loved wood but they hated kids. Mr. Birchum was a combination of all those characters. This will be a little more me and less that.”

(January 7, 2010) Last weekend, the family and friends of Rod (Ralph) Van Hook shared their sentiments at a Celebration of Life ceremony at the Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church. A number of his sports talk colleagues told stories about their relationship with Rod from 710/KMPC to KFWB to KSPN days.

Joe McDonnell recalled the early days at KMPC. “It was like meeting an idol and we became instant friends,” said Joe. For Joe their relationship went far beyond sports. “We would talk politics and music. Sports was like the third or fourth thing.”

One of the themes that wove through all of the speakers was Rod’s love for his two kids, Kelsey and Chance. Joe remembered: “One time the phone rang as Rod prepared to do a sports update at KSPN. He asked us to stretch the segment so he could talk with Kelsey. ‘I want to talk with her,’ he would say.”

Rod worked sports at all-News KFWB for over two decades. “He loved KFWB,” Joe said. “I promised the then-KFWB general manager Roger Nadel that I wouldn’t steal anybody when I went to KSPN except for one person. Rod was the first person I hired. He really didn’t want to leave but I cajoled him with more money to join KSPN. Rod was the best sportscaster this town has ever seen. I miss him a lot.”

Long-time KFWB head of engineering Richard Rudman remembered that Rod joined KFWB about two years after the station moved from the Hollywood Blvd studios to Yucca and Argyle (the old Safeway building). “My office was located about 20 feet from the sports desk and through the glass I had a plain view of Rod. When I heard that Rod had died, my very first crystal clear image was that of Rod presiding over the sports desk at :15 and :45 – a distince image of a clear, concise and authoritative style of his sports reports. His love for sports was communicated clearly in every report I heard. When he left KFWB in 2000, I really missed hearing his voice outside my office. I still miss it today.”

KFWB’s Bill Seward, who also is seen on KNBC/Channel 4, remarked about his love for his alma mater, UCLA. In the program for the services, Bill quoted the line: “Even though he loved the Bruins you would never know it from his reporting.” And then Bill added, “Ah c’mon,” which got a big laugh from the audience.

Even though Seward worked at KNX during part of his career, he paid Rod a high compliment. “He was the guy on the other side that I would listen to because I knew I would get the story from him. Rod had the ability to present scores and stories and make sense of it in :60 or :90. He was always able to make an impression in a short period of time.”

“Rod was, and I’m telling you this from the bottom of my heart,” said Fox Sports’ Dave Stone, “of all the people I ever worked with in radio over 35 years I have admired him and his professionalism as much as anybody I ever worked with. Rod was every bit a pro. He adored his children and he was so proud of them.”

Andy Ludlum, Richard Rudman, John Brooks and Fran Brooks

KFWB’s Ted Sobel opened by saying, “This is happening twenty years before its time. I’ve never known anyone who loved his kids more than Rod did.” Ted and Rod were golf buddies for 25 years. “We had more laughs. And he would talk about Kelsey all the time and I never met you until today. We all have friends for different reasons and Rod and I didn’t have a lot in common in many ways but we both loved golf and we were in the same business. His passions in sports were the Bruins and the Lakers.”

David Vassegh is a sports talk producer. “You liked Rod instantly when you met him,” said David. “That’s the way it felt when I first met him because he was just a genuine person. We got along because we always kept it light, sharing what was going on in our lives. We could laugh for two or three hours. He was one of the best in this business that I ever knew. I will miss him.”

Music played a part in Rod’s Celebration of Life. Early in the ceremony there was a montage of his favorite music, mostly from the 70s, including his favorite singer Warren Zevon. A soloist sang Let It Be and the congregation sang Amazing Grace. The services ended with the playing of Warren Zevon’s Keep Me in Your Heart.

Following the ceremony there was a reception/lunch at the church where other radio colleagues shared stories about Rod. Also attending from the world of LARP: former KFWBer Kelly Whelihan, mother of Chance; former KFWB morning anchor Dan Avey; KFWB/KNX pd Andy Ludlum; CBS’ Steve Futterman; KFWB’s Sue Stiles and Gaylene Lowinger; and KNX’s Fran and John Brooks. (Photo is Dan Avey and Dave Stone. Additional photos in subscription site)

(January 6, 2010) Dave Van Dyke, former gm at “Arrow 93,” is president of Bridge Ratings, an amazing research company. He was putting together his annual report on "The Future of Radio - 2010" and uncovered something that addresses one of the major competitors to terrestrial music radio – Pandora.

The new analysis called "Pandora's Achilles' Heel" is based on a sub-sample of terrestrial radio users who also use Pandora and other streaming products, both terrestrial simulcast streaming and web-only streaming companies.

"One item of interest shows that with consistent use over time, Pandora users experience ‘Pandora fatigue or tedium,’” said Van Dyke. "Pandora's music sequencing is partially to blame for its lower time-spent-listening."

In the last quarter of 2009, Pandora's true on-line usage was available and as of the most current report, over 71 million session starts between 6am and 8pm Monday through Friday. CBS remains at the top position in Active Sessions 6am and Midnight Monday through Sunday. Perhaps the more interesting data point is time-spent-listening. Clear Channel (1.69 hours), CBS Radio (1.40 hours) and Citadel Broadcasting (3.39 hours) all have significant listening levels based on data for Monday through Friday 6am-8pm. Pandora's 1.03 hours is less than the terrestrial simulcast streams as well as Accuradio (2.87 hours) and Bonneville (3.26 hours) for example.

In the Bridge sample, they found 843 persons ages 6-64 who used Pandora for at least one session Monday through Friday 6am-8pm. During focus groups and telephone interviews, it was learned that while Pandora has a large base of users, the longer the consumer used Pandora's custom on-line music service, the more fatigue or tedium set in.

Read more about this eye-opening study of Pandora users by clicking here.