Philly Radio: Buzz Bissinger Gone At WPHT

Talk Radio "Fundamentally Trivial"

Less than six months after launching a new career in talk radio with an afternoon-drive show on WPHT 1210-AM in Philadelphia, outspoken Friday Night Lights author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger has left the building.

“While I enjoyed doing talk radio, I had increasingly come to the conclusion that it is fundamentally trivial,” Bissinger told Victor Fiorillo at phillymag.com.

He explained that he is contractually forbidden from discussing the specifics of his employment with or departure from the station.

But he did say that he resigned in December, a fact confirmed by Andy Bloom, WPHT’s operations manager. “He had great talent and tremendous potential in talk radio,” added Bloom.

Although both sides maintain that the split was amicable, stories of a tumultuous six-month tenure have emerged from WPHT’s Bala Cynwyd headquarters.

Thanks to Bissinger’s frequent invocation of the F-bomb and other FCC-banned utterances, the station had to employ at least one additional “dump button”, the technology used to make sure that said utterances don’t wind up on the radio. “They had to be certain that there were a number of people who could hit the button when necessary,” says one WPHT employee. “He had multiple outbursts.”

There were also problems off-air. According to one well-placed source, Bissinger was involved in two separate F-bomb-filled office confrontations that resulted in him being charged with “creating a hostile work environment."

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