The above tweet was later deleted by Credico—one wonders what turn the game took.
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
Unless he is including Berthold Reimers and numerous producer/hosts under the riff raff umbrella, this is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope that Randy Credico really has seen the light—bear in mind that he was instrumental in setting up that farce of a *press conference* nobody came to.
Hmmm... I guess he isn't happy with "program manager" Tony Bates? The "RiffRaff" appellation is very vague. Does he mean just Bates, or does he mean more people at the station.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder where he gets the "300 listeners per hour" statistic. I bet Gary Null would disagree, claiming his show has millions of listeners.
No matter what, we know Credico is vying for power at WBAI. You have to wonder if he has been rebuffed, due to ineptitude like the non press conference, or is this some sort of Machiavellian ploy. of course, it could just be bullshit.
SDL
Credico pushed himself in, so we know he wants to stay and will do anything to affect that. It sounds like Bates is targeted, so he is clearly an adversary/competitor; he wasn't on the steps, was he?
DeleteSomebody get the fat lady a chair.
Honestly, I think Credico would be a better PD. I don't recall him doing the hocus pocus stuff, unless I missed something.
DeleteSDL
He has praised highly some of the worst program hosts the station has. If that was but a part of the game he`s playing, you might be right—if he really meant what he said, he should exit with his riff raff.
DeleteCredico is either a phony, a loon or a mix of both. But Bates has had his chance and proven himself the lowest of snake oil salesmen.
DeleteSDL
He`s clearly an opportunist. I don`t think he is funny but he seems to keep up with what's happening in the world—he talks a lot, but I have yet to hear him lie deliberately in the way Bates so routinely does. He is, indeed, the lowest of the low.
DeleteThe more I think of it, the more I become convinced that Bates and Credico are competing for Berthold's favors.
I'm the one who posted the original tweet in the comment (this was the link - https://twitter.com/Credico2016/status/904135300581953536). Credico definitely has issues with Bates, I think - during their last fundraiser, his show "Live on the Fly" wasn't on and he had to do it as a co-hosting gig via KPFA's "Flashpoints" with Dennis Bernstein.
DeleteAnd yeah, he's admitted there's a lot of internal fighting: https://twitter.com/Credico2016/status/893769427472314369
https://imgur.com/a/LvynQ
But the count of three hundred listeners is...insane. Those are pirate radio station numbers.
I agree. WBAI has nowhere near the number of listeners that many pirate radio stations have, nor the facilities.
DeleteSDL
Vying to be the top dog at WBAI is like vying to be the captain of the Lusitania just before the torpedo struck. In this case, the torpedo is the ESRT lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile back at Pacifica, Adriana screams at the top of her lungs while asking if she is muted, Cerene is reviewing her notes to keep track of all the myriad schemes she has going and a mysterious meeting is taking place somewhere in the Bay Area under a big tent.
ReplyDeleteAdriana does not ask if she is muted, she simply claims to be, and, yes, she does so loud enough for all to hear. As for the big tent, circuses have thrived under canvas since the first elephant stood on its hind legs,
ReplyDeleteI was looking at the WBAI schedule and noticed that Reverend Jimmy or Billy or whatever the loser's name was isn't on it. Is he gone?
ReplyDeleteSDL
Yes, he was dumped by Reimers or Bates or Bates/Reimers some time ago. His show never appealed to me, but there is no logic in the WBAI program shuffle. Notice that such useless drivel as The Blacks, Haitian All-starz and Slave Time with Michael C. are as firmly secured as High Praize, Liquid Sound Lounge and Geoff Brady's nonsense.
DeleteI think it is in great part the KA )kiss ass0 approach.
Dump is such a harsh word. Bates moved him without notice to Sunday mornings because he felt Reverend Billy wasn't raising enough money. Billy and his wife couldn't do it because they have a young child so they left. On the way out, Billy made sure to let everyone know what he thought of this move including Bill Crosier when he came to town. He even got the choir to make a video about it.
DeleteInteresting details. Thank you. Was there any inside support for Billy? It seems to me that most insiders are too busy and self-centered to step in when colleagues are wrongfully dismissed or sent to Siberian time slots.
DeleteWho can forget how they treated Sidney Smith? No wrongdoing was proven and even the cops—who should never have been called—saw no evidence verifying the accusation.
There was support for Billy. Some genuinely liked him. He is a unique character. Others just didn't like the way he was treated. The one thing I remember was how adamant they were that he was not fired. They just gave him another time slot and said take it or leave it so he left.
DeleteHe still sucked.
DeleteSDL
Reassignment to an unfavorable or unwanted time slot has been Raimers' way to *dump* programs.
DeleteI find very bothersome this business of measuring a program's worth by the amount of money it brings in. As I have said many times, when I started the so-called marathons, the object was to keep the station on the air, not any specific *show.* We suspended all regular programming, announced the goal, and began pitching. Everybody participated and no carrots were dangled for it was all about keeping WBAI and its quality, intelligent schedule going. When the announced goal was reached in pledges, WBAI thanked its partners (the listener-supporters) and returned to normal broadcasting.
The offered premium was, of course, what people wanted and why they tuned in. Treating the station as a whole rather than a patchwork of *turf* also reflected the original concept of a community station. The jealousy and inside backstabbing did not take place. That started when Steve Post and Larry Josephson took advantage of wishy-washy, druggy management and declared themselves to be *stars.*
I think the amount of money a show makes coupled with its time slot(!) gives a gauge as to the show's popularity. You need some sort of gauge to know that a show has listeners or no listeners. You can't simply leave a worthless show on the air when you could put something more useful on. Oh, wait. We're talking WBAI here.
DeleteSDL
Too bad they can't deport Reimers back to Haiti - they could send him back just in time for the hurricane!!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the FCC has given WBAI permission to move its transmitter to 4 Times Square.
ReplyDeleteThis raises several questions, not the least of which... where did the station get the money to convince the new landlord to grant it a lease, after all the nonsense which has occurred at the ESB?
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101760727&qnum=5160©num=1&exhcnum=1
Adding to the questions, Where did they get the money to:
Delete* Buy a new transmitter (or Final Power Amplifier) to reach the 10kW level stated in the filing?
* Pay Donald Mussell for the engineering fee?
* Remove the exiting transmitter form the ESB (potential PCB issue)
Oh, goody! A rebroadcast of TPCS from July. I'd rather hear a multi-hour rebroadcast of that semi-regular show they do called Dead Air.
ReplyDeleteSDL
But SDL, doesn't every TPCS sound like a rebroadcast? They do to me.
DeleteIndeed. The worst thing is that weekly segment with the bore yapping about his forty year house. What on Earth is that about? it's yet another once good but now burned out show.
DeleteSDL
That forty year house does not ring a bell.
DeleteHAHAHA! Yeah, with all the other shit the guy is installing, watch him forget to add doorbells.
DeleteSDL
I guess you must be listening—I'm not, it's too moldy, from the PC pitter patter to the ridiculous typing audio. And I somehow picture them blanketed up in rockers on the old porch.
DeleteNo, not tonight. When I heard "rebroadcast," I moved on. The show just sucks now.
DeleteSDL
Well, at least Reggie mentioned that it's an old show. As in the case of Kathy, I wonder why Null runs this relic.
DeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteSteve Brown is Randy Credico's campaign manager. Credico does nothing without consulting Steve Brown.
And let us stop with the Cerene nonsense. Steve Brown, through his caucus, ccontrols WBAI. Brown made certain that R Paul Martin was elected Chair of the WBAI Finance Committee- because Martin obstructed financial disclosure.
Martin is a sociopath, who overestimates his intelligence.
Furthermore, it is my opinion that Steve Brown does not author his pronouncements.
Ed Manfredonia
I don't know about Brown playing Bergen to Credico's McCarthy, but R. Paul Martin very clearly overestimates his own importance and that of his horrendously bad, totally insignificant "Back of the Book" show. He claims to have received "over a thousand e-mails" over the past two weeks for that wasted air time, which so far has been an embarrassment for 31 years! Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThose emails RPM claims to have received must have been mainly phising scams if he received that many...
DeleteSDL
I think a huge IF is the operative word here.
DeleteI just remember RPM being a replacement for Ira Levin back in the early 1980s when Levin gave up his show to move to Mexico. I believe the original time slot may have been 5AM. Anyway, I didn't like his show then, and my opinion still hasn't changes.
DeleteSDL