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It Doesn't Look Good for Talk Host Karel
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radiiokrl.com
From the speculation on Bay Area news group ba.broadcast, it looks like San Francisco's most outlandish, most outspoken talk show host is in big trouble.
When he thought his microphone was turned off, Charles "Karel" Bouley let loose with profanities last Saturday, talking about the McCain media shill Joe the Plumber. He's been suspended, and his name has been taken off the KGO website.
The broadcasting group on Google has a lot of radio insiders with interesting speculation here.
Basically, it comes down to the triumverate running KGO. Station manager Mickey Luckoff doesn't understand or like Karel. Assistant program director Trish Robbins likes the gay host very much and thinks he's an important community voice, even though he lives in Long Beach.
Program director Jack Swanson likes whoever brings in the most ratings, and hasn't talked to me about what he's finding in the new electronic listening analysis by Portable People Meters, but Karel claims that he is leading all the other contenders for the 10 p.m. slot vacated by the prosecution of former host Bernie Ward for child pornography.
(Man, the talk show that guy is going to be able to do after five years in the federal pen.)
Station owner Farid Suleman, of Citadel Broadcasting, likes money and prefers not to pay talent (hell, even Swanson's wife Melanie Morgan was let go by the owner.) He also dealt with multimillion dollar Howard Stern fines while working at Infinity.
So, it's a tough call for the only openly gay host at the station.
Others have gotten away with profanity and bad taste and kept their jobs there. In 1994 Ronn Owens let a Burt Reynolds "bull---" slip through the seven-second delay. Ward had to apologize to the Jewish community for saying Orthodox Jews used Nazi-like techniques.
Michael Savage was kept on, even after he said that no minority or women firefighters were killed on 9/11 because they were cowards. Savage also tried to sell his books written under another name on his show, acting as if they were by another person, and got away with that.
But it's not looking good for Karel. The true maverick host has never courted the SF gay community. If he had, they might raise a fracass and get the station's attention, but his appeal is more to straight people. Enough feedback from them--and most importantly, from advertisers-- could save his job.
I lay part of the blame on management, who refuse to pick a host for the 10 p.m. slot, instead making a bunch of them audition for more than a year now. They think the competitive pressure makes each candidate perform better.
But that kind of pressure is demoralizing for people who need to pay their bills and leads to slip-ups like Karel's. He was also working with an unnamed young engineer, who apparently left a microphone on, and has been suspended too.
Before the people running the station judge Karel too harshly, they ought to look to their own management style. Is some of the blame theirs?
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