Name: Bob Goodrich
Age: 76
Occupation: movie theater owner, owner of WPRR - Public Reality Radio
Last Seen: Grand Rapids
Bee-otched For: proving that firing his biggest star was a dick move
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It was a week ago that Darren Gibson, the host of the local talk radio show Southpaws and programming director of non-commercial progressive talker WPRR 1680/95.3 - aka Public Reality Radio - was fired from the station.
He let me know via text message and we talked for several hours. During this time, he felt that nobody liked him and that no other station would dare hire him. When I gave his former boss, WPRR owner Bob Goodrich the BOTD last week, the floodgates opened.
I got a nice email from a former listener who felt that Darren was screwed over and so was Bernie Sanders. He felt that fellow PRR talker Tyrone Bynum was well over his head with his overpromotion of Hillary Clinton. At my church on Sunday, I bumped into another former listener, "Amy from Alabama" who wondered why he was off the air.
Once again, Darren told me that Goodrich fired him because he claimed that his numbers were low, although Darren claimed otherwise. He believes that the real reason for his dismissal had to do with a back door meeting that involved Michigan Democratic Party chair Brandon Dillon, fellow WPRR host Tyrone Bynum and a few others. Gibson became critical of the Democrats after Hillary Clinton weaseled her way to the Democratic nomination thanks to DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her minions.
Of course, this is the same Tyrone Bynum who ran WMFN 640 into the ground 10 years ago. Remember "Smooth Vibes 640"? Of course, Bynum became the black Antichrist of Grand Rapids radio when he inherited Detroit Tigers baseball broadcasts from the station's previous management and refused to air Sunday games. According to Bynum, it was more important to please the Lord over pleasing the then-so-so Tigers. The end result: the station lost a lot of revenue and Tyrone was forced to give up the station to a Spanish broadcaster. Just imagine if Tyrone was actually given the keys to program WPRR.
Darren needs to know that he's missed. What happened to him - just a few weeks before Christmas nonetheless - was a dumb move on Goodrich's part. WPRR needs to be a haven for ALL progressives, not just Democrats. This fucked up mentality is part of the reason why Donald Trump won the presidency in the first place. Now, both Dems and progressives need to stick together to verbally bitchslap Drumpf and his cronies. Instead, Goodrich threw one of his best onto the street like his now-closed theaters in Grand Rapids.
Hopefully, the listeners have spoken and Darren will find another radio job here in GR. The people I've talked to all agree that under Gibson's aegis, WPRR was very professional and fun to listen to. Now, it's a shell of its former self in part due to a failure who has to buy radio and TV time to get his way.
Only in broadcasting where a loser can succeed.
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Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com!
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
Age: 76
Occupation: movie theater owner, owner of WPRR - Public Reality Radio
Last Seen: Grand Rapids
Bee-otched For: proving that firing his biggest star was a dick move
It was a week ago that Darren Gibson, the host of the local talk radio show Southpaws and programming director of non-commercial progressive talker WPRR 1680/95.3 - aka Public Reality Radio - was fired from the station.
He let me know via text message and we talked for several hours. During this time, he felt that nobody liked him and that no other station would dare hire him. When I gave his former boss, WPRR owner Bob Goodrich the BOTD last week, the floodgates opened.
I got a nice email from a former listener who felt that Darren was screwed over and so was Bernie Sanders. He felt that fellow PRR talker Tyrone Bynum was well over his head with his overpromotion of Hillary Clinton. At my church on Sunday, I bumped into another former listener, "Amy from Alabama" who wondered why he was off the air.
Once again, Darren told me that Goodrich fired him because he claimed that his numbers were low, although Darren claimed otherwise. He believes that the real reason for his dismissal had to do with a back door meeting that involved Michigan Democratic Party chair Brandon Dillon, fellow WPRR host Tyrone Bynum and a few others. Gibson became critical of the Democrats after Hillary Clinton weaseled her way to the Democratic nomination thanks to DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her minions.
Of course, this is the same Tyrone Bynum who ran WMFN 640 into the ground 10 years ago. Remember "Smooth Vibes 640"? Of course, Bynum became the black Antichrist of Grand Rapids radio when he inherited Detroit Tigers baseball broadcasts from the station's previous management and refused to air Sunday games. According to Bynum, it was more important to please the Lord over pleasing the then-so-so Tigers. The end result: the station lost a lot of revenue and Tyrone was forced to give up the station to a Spanish broadcaster. Just imagine if Tyrone was actually given the keys to program WPRR.
Darren needs to know that he's missed. What happened to him - just a few weeks before Christmas nonetheless - was a dumb move on Goodrich's part. WPRR needs to be a haven for ALL progressives, not just Democrats. This fucked up mentality is part of the reason why Donald Trump won the presidency in the first place. Now, both Dems and progressives need to stick together to verbally bitchslap Drumpf and his cronies. Instead, Goodrich threw one of his best onto the street like his now-closed theaters in Grand Rapids.
Hopefully, the listeners have spoken and Darren will find another radio job here in GR. The people I've talked to all agree that under Gibson's aegis, WPRR was very professional and fun to listen to. Now, it's a shell of its former self in part due to a failure who has to buy radio and TV time to get his way.
Only in broadcasting where a loser can succeed.
---
Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!
Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com!
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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I'm not quite sure that this is the entire story because it just doesn't make sense. I am aware that there may have been other issues that may have included several FCC violations of prohibited language the leaked out on a couple of occasions when mikes were supposed to have been off during station breaks, and other outbursts that went over the air uncensored.
ReplyDeleteRight or wrong, such things happen in this business, which operates on the adage, "Nobody says it's a fair world." That has been my experience as well.