LI Radio: WBZO Fires Live Staffers, Now Automated

Three veteran Long Island radio personalities were dropped by Farmingdale-based Classic Hits WBZO/103.1 MAX FM Thursday, as part of a cost-cutting move to automate the Connoisseur Media station.

Newsday reports those let go included morning host Jim Douglas, 64, who has been a DJ almost continuously for 43 years, with stints at WGLI, WGBB, WKJY ("KJOY"), and on New York's WMXV ("Mix 105") and WWFS ("Fresh 102.7"), where he was the other half of the "Jim and Kim" Berk team, which wrapped a two-decade run in 2014.

PD Tommy Conway

Also let go were longtime traffic reporter Brett Levine and Tommy Conway, MAX-FM's afternoon program director and DJ.

One of Long Island radio's best-known personalities, Levine had been the news director as well as traffic reporter for all five Connoisseur-owned radio stations based at Airport Plaza in Farmingdale — WALK/97.5, WKJY/98.3, MAX-FM, WWSK/94.3 ("The Shark"), and WHLI/1100 AM and its FM simulcast at 104.7.

Levine — who at one point during her 16-year tenure at the station group said she produced more than 460 traffic reports a week, across Long Island and as far away as Hartford and Boston — said in a phone interview Friday, "I really enjoyed the responsibility I was given and it was an honor. I didn't get to personally meet everybody who heard my traffic and news reports but I always felt like I was thinking of them, on their commute, or on their way to pick up their kids, or make it to an appointment. I tried to put that kind of integrity behind every single report I did every single day, and I will miss that connection."

Jim Douglas

Conway announced his firing in a Friday morning email, writing, "it was an 18-year run here on Long Island, including six years of stellar ratings as WALK 97.5 PD and middays. The last two-and-a-half as PD and afternoons on MAX-FM."

In a brief phone interview with Newsday, Douglas said, "I won't bash them [Connoisseur] because this is part of the business. But the thing that got me is that I had just won a New York State Broadcasting award for best morning show in a large market. That was the surprising part."

Douglas said he had been told that "it was a monetary decision — the market conditions are still tough and that 'we had to make tough decisions and that's to let the staff go and to automate MAX.' "

Officials for Westport, Connecticut-based Connoisseur did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment.