According to fresnobee.com, the veteran on-air personality won't be in Fresno but will
supply the morning talk from his base in Los Angeles where he works weekends at
KRTH (FM 101.1).
"It's the syndicated show I do that runs five hours.
They will be airing three hours of the show," says Tuna, whose real name
is Art Ferguson. "We put the show together here, but it's customized for
every station with their call letters. The show sounds really local. And
because we deliver the show between 9 and 10 the night before, it's very
topical."
The addition of Tuna to the lineup is another step in KYNO
owner John Ostlund's move to bring back the BOSS radio format that was launched
in Fresno in the early '60s.
Bill Drake, program director at KYNO 50 years ago, and owner
Gene Chenault came up with the idea of taking the 40 hottest songs of the day
and playing them repeatedly with limited commercials. Fresno was the testing
ground for the format, which became so successful it was adopted at radio
stations across the country. Tuna worked at radio stations in Oklahoma City and
Los Angeles that adopted the format.
The 68-year-old on-air personality, who got his start
playing records at middle and high school dances in his hometown of Kearney,
Neb., was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008.
Rick Bentley at fresnobee.com writes how Tuna got his fishy
on-air name when he took the job in Oklahoma City. Tuna was told there had been
some sickness at the station and the news man was forced to fill in on the
weekend. Because he didn't want to ruin his journalistic credibility, he
decided to use the name of the mascot for Starkist Tuna so people wouldn't know
it was him. Tuna was told the show was such a hit that they wanted him to be the
permanent Charlie Tuna.
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