Name: Bob Goodrich
Ages: 79
Occupation: movie theater owner/owner WPRR
Last Seen: Grand Rapids, MI
Bee-otched For: proving that the wrong leadership is a bad idea
-Ages: 79
Occupation: movie theater owner/owner WPRR
Last Seen: Grand Rapids, MI
Bee-otched For: proving that the wrong leadership is a bad idea
The monthly Grand Rapids radio Nielsens are out, and there weren't many surprises.
B93, WCSG, WOOD-FM/AM, WSNX and WGRD all ruled the top five respectively. Star 105.7 and The River had ho-hum ratings, but expect that to change now that both are playing Christmas music around the clock.
And yes, the losers. Can't forget about 101.3 The Brew, Thunder 107.3, WBBL and good 'ol WPRR, Public Reality Radio 1680 and a bunch of low-powered FM translators.
WPRR only managed to pull a .1 this time around, tied with iheartradio's throwaway talker 1230 WTKG and two flea-power FMs from the Muskegon area.
What's more embarrassing is that WPRR is probably the last left-leaning talk station here in Michigan. Even worse is that in the overnight hours, the station now airs low-quality urban AC music that sounds like it was downloaded from Grokster 15 years ago.
But what do you expect from a radio station programmed by Tyrone Bynum?
Ah, yes, the same guy who ran WMFN 640 further into the ground over a decade ago. True, it had no ratings thanks to former owner John Shepard's dumb decision to flip the station from Sports Talk to Business and then to the only station in America to air both Loveline and Bill Bennett's shitty morning show (and let's not forget that they also aired The Greaseman's botched comeback into radio, too). When Tyrone ran the station, he made the idiotic decision to not air Detroit Tiger games on Sunday so he could air Gospel music and sleazebag preachers.
In the end, Tyrone ended up handing the Tigers over to WBBL and WLAV and the keys to 640 over to a Spanish group. The station's owners, Birach Broadcasting ended up moving 640 to a Chicago suburb.
Now, Bynum is running WPRR and hosting a daily show called The 99%ers. A very hypocritical name if you ask me, since he supposedly lives in a nice house in the ritzy Grand Rapids suburb of Ada. Plus, he's financially well off thanks to his teaching and law careers. Sadly, he got into that position by screwing over somebody far more progressive than him: Darren Gibson.
Gibson was the host of Southpaws, which aired twice weekly. He was also the station's manager. On his show in 2016, he told his audience that he would never support Hillary Clinton, especially after what the Democratic National Committee did to Bernie Sanders by forcing superdelegates to vote for Hillary. Well, Tyrone and certain members of the Kent County Democratic Party worked their power to get Gibson fired and they succeeded. And because of their "vote blue no matter who" attitude, Drumpf is in the White House.
Darren and Tyrone obviously did not get along. According to Darren, Tyrone often screamed at him until he started to cry and would always talk over him. Tyrone always had to have his way. In the end, Darren was fired and Tyrone became the station's manager.
Darren and I have had a few conversations about Tyrone and station owner Bob Goodrich, who also owns the Goodrich Quality Theatre chain. For starters, WPRR is being run like a non-profit with no commercials. Nowhere on the station's website does it mention that WPRR is a 501(c)(3) organization. Several years ago, Goodrich simulcasted the station on a tiny, 500-watt station in Pontiac, IL that he since sold off to a Catholic group. Now, I thought that in order to own a radio station on the non-commercial band (88.1 to 91.9), you had to be a 501(c)(3) group. Obviously, the man who owns one of the biggest cinema chains in America isn't really a charity.
Apparently, Gibson's not the only person that either Goodrich or Bynum fucked over. I've also talked with a woman who used to work at WPRR on a women's talk show and she described Goodrich as "an idiot who thinks he's a genius". Let's see: he fired the man who made WPRR what it was and hires in somebody who has to get his way because of his skin color. Makes perfect sense. Not only that, Tyrone's wife - who sounds like a chipmunk - also has her own show on the weekends. I remembered her when she was on WMFN subbing for Tyrone, and she had a woman from a local bank teaching people on how to start a checking account with them. REALLY?!?! Ya know, the late, great Dave Barber would always put those types of shows on blast by saying, "B-O-R.... I-N-G!"
It's sad that Grand Rapids only has three companies running 95% of all the radio stations in town. Of those three, only Townsquare has a station with African Americans with its full attention, and it's an FM translator of a weak AM station known as Magic 104.9. Yes, iheart's WSNX 104.5 (a station Goodrich once owned) has a slight rhythmic lean, but you gotta hear Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande to get to Lizzo, Post Malone and Lil Nas X. And yes, don't get me started on Cumulus, whose portfolio is a mess.
The point is that west Michigan has a good percentage of African Americans. When corporate radio ignores them, you get good 'ol Tyrone on one of the smaller stations blasting away at Whitey. Yet, he kisses the Clintons' asses because he got to interview Bill many years ago while at WMFN. It's sad when somebody remains true to a political party and not an ideal. Yes, in my mind, anybody with an (R) after their name is an asshole. But, there's a lot of (D)s who are (D)icks and (D)ouchebags in real life. I didn't vote in the 2000 election because I didn't want to support Joe Lieberman as vice president. His M.O. was to get Howard Stern off the air. In the end, we got George W. Bush, who lied to us over 9/11 and led us into several trillion-dollar wars over oil. But since Hillary supported Dubya's wars, it was fodder to get Drumpf elected.
True, I'll give WPRR some credit for airing Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann's radio shows, which are two of the last-surviving leftist programs left on terrestrial radio. Otherwise, it's as useless as tits on a bull. Since Bob Goodrich is near 80 and has no intermediate family, I do wonder if there's a plan to sell the station and his other businesses. I hope Tyrone is not interested.
Maybe, just maybe, this is why Tyrone has two white daughters.
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Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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