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| Larry Elder |
“I was eating dinner last night when Larry called and said he was fired,” George Green, Elder’s agent told laradio.com. “The KABC general manager and program director called a few minutes later to confirm.”
Elder refers to himself as the "Sage from South Central," and describes his political ideology as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Larry graduated from Crenshaw High School. He attended Brown University and earned a B.A. in political science. He continued his education and received a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1977. After graduation, he was recruited by the ninth largest law firm in the country and moved to Cleveland to work as a commercial trial lawyer. Three years later, he left to start his own company, an executive search firm specializing in attorneys.
Elder's departure is his second from KABC. In 1994, Elder relocated from Cleveland to L-A to begin his first stint. From 2002 until 2007 Elder was syndicated nationally via ABC Radio Networks. After Citadel Broadcasting took over most of ABC's radio operations in 2007, syndication of Elder's show was discontinued in favor of Mark Levin, and the show reverted to a local show in August of that year. On December 11, 2008, Elder announced he was leaving his PM Drive show.
Elder then began a daily live podcast as well as a webcast starting in December 2009. In late March or early April 2011 Larry started to charge for his podcast.
He returned to KABC September 27, 2010 in the 9am to 12pm slot before returning to afternoon drive the following year.
Elder vows to continue his show online:
Elderados, not to worry. I'll be doing the show LIVE at the usual time 3p to 6p (pacific). Just go to http://t.co/sfQBggKr2L. Talk later!
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) December 3, 2014
Copied from contact to KABC Operations Manager Drew Hayes:
ReplyDeleteAs a loyal listener since you were a Dodger station and Ken and Bob began each morning for me as a teenager I was shocked and disappointed to find Larry Elder just disappeared from your station.
I found Larry Elder to be a consisted sounding board of reasonableness in a seemingly unreasonable world we are living in today.
Sadly even worse was the flippant, rude, conceited and arrogant, way his temporary replacement Joe Crummy was yesterday by assuming that the listeners disappointment, dissatisfaction and perhaps even irritation was because we did not like his show. It was not about him, had nothing to do with him or his
Show" and for him to swear at listeners and insult listeners seemed to represent the insensitive and uncaring actions Cumulus Radio and your Management have shown more and more since either the purchase of this station or the present management began operations.
This poor decision making explains why your ratings have dropped continuously over the years. Doing my research in 1996 KABC and KFI had similar ratings in the 3+ Arbitron ratings. I show now they have dropped to .7 whereas KFI is holding it's own.
Other than your wise decision to hire Bryan Suits, I have observed you cannibalize your talent year by year by year with no regard to your listeners which translates to no regard to your advertisers.
Advertisers find worth in purchasing power of any station based on quantity and demographics of listeners. I am sure your responsibility is to return a profit to your corporate investors. But your decision to remove popular hosts like Larry Elder seems to be like throwing out the Baby with the Bath Water. You chase away listeners this way can only be followed by the loss of advertisers that pay for all of this.
Similar is your reported decision to cut your contract with ABC News. Once you have gutted the quality of your programming and the ratings have submerged to as low as they can go (yes they can go lower) Cumulus will certainly have no reason to keep this "Pioneer of Talk Radio" as you post on your KABC page to attract advertisers.
The story of the "Goose that Laid the Golden Egg" is an important parable as the Golden eggs will only continue to be laid as long as you care and feeding of that prized unique Goose.
Certainly CUMULUS has many concerns and Los Angeles and the listeners like myself may be of little consequence to you and your Corporate Executives and Directors. But I would expect with the care of the INVESTORS since the Loss of Mr Lewis W. Dickey Sr last year would be important to continue the amazing growth you, your father, family and the others on your Board have endeavored to build over numerous lifetimes.
This time taken to communicate and share this constructive criticism, and vent my most recent disappointment in the KABC CUMULUS Staff will allow me to have the clear conscious in discussing what has been a Los Angeles treasure for decades.
One last thing: Take tender care of the "GOOSE".
A Loyal Listener since I was 16 years old,
Daniel Maisel
Larry Elder was an important voice on the radio. I was a loyal listener during both of his stints on KABC. I will follow him on his podcast.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Gulalo, Los Angeles
Taking Larry Elder off the air is a loss for Los Angeles radio. Larry's views were quite different from the politically correct crowd and he often received nasty, vitriolic comments from black listeners who also called him names. His voice is an important one for all of us to hear. I'll follow Larry on his podcast.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Gulalo, Los Angeles