I was shocked to find out that WHAS-AM dismissed 4 employees and longtime talk show host Joe Elliott on Thursday night. For 14 years Elliott has ruled the 9 PM-midnight shift at the station with his moderate brand of talk. The dismissial of Elliott has generated an avalanche of negative calls and comments.Elliot is one of those sweet success stories. He was told on two separate occasions by a college professor and a radio/television personality that he'd never make it in radio. The other interesting thing that many of us discovered only with his termination was that he is blind.
He replaced another Louisville legendary radio personality in Milton Metz, who pioneered the radio call in show format. Elliott started by filling in at the station in 1988, then getting a full time show later. There are times he pissed me off, there are times he pissed the other side off. But that's better than what Clear Channel (who owns the station) is going to replace him with: Michael Savage.
A reasoned, thoughtful moderate is going to be replaced by a gay-hating transphobic bigot. Gee, what an improvement. No wonder your ratings are headed to the toilet. But it's a sad commentary on the state of radio these days. Local shows are falling victim to corporate cost cutting. The sad part about it is that WHAS-AM's 50,000 watt signal covers 40 states and can be heard in much of Canada as well.
According to Doug Profitt's WHAS-TV blog, Elliott’s currently working on a severance package with Clear Channel. He also says that they've offered him part-time work to continue as host of the Sunday morning talk show, which he's still mulling over.
Milton Metz told WHAS-TV late Thursday night he was sad, saying the show he created served a purpose for people who wanted to express their opinions in a neutral field, on the air.
Thank God we have an award winning NPR station here in WFPL-FM and its excellent State of Affairs program. Buying an XM radio just gained a higher priority for me next year as well.
