So there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind now: “Free” radio isn’t even worth its face value. Howard Stern’s move to satellite radio has spelled disaster for his former land-based radio employer, Infinity Broadcasting (and let me just say, it’s a sad situation when getting rid of a pompous old has-been is considered a disaster).
So they decided to replace one has-been with another. David Lee Roth took over Stern’s slot, and Roth quickly learned a very hard lesson: being a blabbering idiot doesn’t go very far when you have four hours of dead air to kill, five days a week. And the show has proven to be yet another total disaster for Infinity… in fact, this clear act of desperation is probably the worst talent and programming mistake they’ve made yet. You know it’s bad when even Roth himself is predicting imminent failure, on his own show:
The once-spandexed lead singer has rarely hit the right notes since his January debut on New York’s WFNY-FM (billed as Free-FM) and six other CBS Radio stations. In a recent broadcast, Roth claimed he was bombarded with four management letters in five days about content and predicted his show could be finished before May.
Is it really possible that someone can suck on the air so badly that all they can talk about on the air is… well, how they suck on the air, so badly?