Longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek says, "Im Not afraid of dying."
“I’ve lived a good life, a full life, and I’m nearing the end of that life,” he tells Canadian news network CTV. “If [death] happens, why should I be afraid [of] that?”
The 79-year-old, who announced a stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in March, plans to continue hosting the game show while he can, reports The NYPost.
“I will keep doing [the show] as long as my skills do not diminish. And they have started to diminish,” he adds.
The father of two returned to “Jeopardy!” in September after a four-month hiatus during which he underwent chemotherapy. He’s now undergoing another round.
A side effect of the treatment is that he now sometimes slurs his words due to sores in his mouth.
In 2001, on a newscast of the NBC affiliate, Chioji announced she had breast cancer — a moment that reverberates in Orlando TV history and would define her gutsy approach the rest of her life.
Chioji logged 20 years at WESH and left in 2008 to move to Park City, Utah. But she continued to be a TV presence in Orlando through specials and the “Growing Bolder” TV series.
he “Live Fearlessly” blog, Chioji wrote detailed updates on her life and health. In 2013, she revealed that she had thymic carcinoma, a cancer of the thymus gland. A year later, she announced the cancer had returned.
➦In 1906..William N. Robson born in Pittsburgh (Died at age 88 – April 10, 1995). Robson spent most of his career involved with radio. His radio debut came in 1936 as director of Big Town. He succeeded Irving Reis as head of the Columbia Workshop.
William Robson
Perhaps the most notable of Robson's productions was Suspense, followed closely by the similarly formatted Escape. Suspense lasted more than two decades on the air with more than 900 episodes broadcast. Ronald L. Smith wrote about Suspense and Escape in his book, Horror Stars on Radio: The Broadcast Histories of 29 Chilling Hollywood Voices: "Both used the same format: a challenging (if anonymous) host introducing a story of murder or perhaps classic horror. Robson favored adaptations of anything from Poe tales to a good yarn in the latest issue of Esquire magazine."
Robson left CBS in 1939 to become director of an advertising firm's radio department, and after the United States entered World War II he helped to prepare broadcasts for the Office of Emergency Management and the War Production Board. He returned to CBS in May 1942 to help the network prepare programs related to the war.
On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels appeared, focusing on the field of broadcasting. Robson was among 151 entertainment industry professionals (erroneously) named in the context of "Red Fascists and their sympathizers". During the ’50′s he wrote TV dramas, and in 1961 joined The Voice of America, where he was reunited with Edward R. Murrow, and won four Peabody Awards.
➦In 1935...“The O’Neills” first aired. The serial drama also aired on Mutual, CBS and NBC Red and Blue from 1934 to 1943. Created by actress-writer Jane West, the series was sponsored at various times by Gold Dust, Ivory Snow and Standard Brands.
➦In 1937...The radio series Grand Central Station started a long run long run on the major networks from 1937 to 1954. Each program opened with an announcer intoning that Grand Central was "the crossroads of a million private lives, a gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily."
➦In 1944...the first broadcast of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet was heard on the CBS radio network. The show would continue on radio until 1953 and on ABC-TV from 1952 to 1966.
“Hi Mom, Hi Dad, Hi Dave, Hi Ricky.”
When Red Skelton was drafted in March 1944, Ozzie Nelson was prompted to create his own family situation comedy. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet launched October 8, 1944 on CBS, it moved to NBC in October 1948, then made a late-season switch back to CBS in April 1949. The final years of the radio series were on ABC (the former NBC Blue Network) from October 14, 1949 to June 18, 1954.
In total 402 radio episodes were produced. In an arrangement that amplified the growing pains of American broadcasting, as radio "grew up" into television, the Nelsons' deal with ABC gave the network the option to move their program to television. The struggling network needed proven talent that was not about to defect to the more established and wealthier networks like CBS or NBC.
The Nelsons' sons, David and Ricky, did not join the cast until the radio show's fifth year (initially appearing on the February 20, 1949 episode, ages 12 and 8, respectively). The two boys were played by professional actors prior to their joining because both were too young to perform.
➦In 1984...Flashback from Radio&Records
➦In 1984....From R&R's Back Page..
➦In 2001...Syndicated talk host Rush Limbaugh announced the was totally deaf in his left ear and had only partial hearing in his right ear. The condition had happened in a three month period. (subsequently his hearing was restored through a revolutionary implant procedure.)
➦In 2010…News Correspondent Frank Bourgholtzer died at the age of 90. Born in New York City, Bourgholtzer attended Indiana University, where he majored in government and minored in economics and journalism. He graduated with a BA in 1940. Bourgholtzer returned to New York after graduation and wrote comic book scripts until joining the Wall Street Journal as a reporter in 1943. He became a Capitol Hill correspondent for the paper in 1945.
Bourgholtzer and President Truman
The following year, Bourgholtzer joined NBC News as the TV news service's first full-time White House correspondent. From 1947 until 1953, he covered President Truman. During the first live televised tour of the White House, Bourgholtzer convinced the president to play on the piano in the East Room.
From the early 1950s through the 1960s, Bourgholtzer worked overseas for NBC News and served as bureau chief in Paris, Bonn, Vienna, Moscow, and Yemen. In 1969 he joined NBC's Los Angeles bureau, where he stayed until retiring in 1986.
Cumulus Media announces that it has appointed Mike Moore as Program Director of Country radio station WKHX-FM Kicks 101.5 in Atlanta.
Moore heads to Atlanta from Portland, OR, where he was most recently Vice President of Programming for Entercom’s Portland station group and Program Director of “99.5 The Wolf” KWJJ-FM, a position he held for 16 years.
Prior to that, he programmed WWKA-FM in Orlando, FL; WWYZ in Hartford, CT; and WSIX-FM in Nashville, TN. Moore serves on the board of the Country Music Association and was Entercom’s Director of Country Programming for 13 years.
Brian Philips, Executive Vice President, Content and Audience, said: “As we met a strong field of senior candidates for WKHX, Mike Moore pushed his way to the front with thoughtful ideas and hard-driving enthusiasm. His wartime country radio leadership experience will enable him to build the team that changes the Atlanta landscape. Mike will bring on a new era at Kicks 101.5. The station will come alive with his creative flair, credibility and raw desire to win.”
Sean Shannon, Vice President/Market Manager, Cumulus Atlanta, said: “I have known and respected Mike for more than a dozen years. His ties are deep in country music and there can be nobody better to reinvent WKHX than Mike Moore.”
Moore said: "I am thrilled to be joining Brian, Sean Shannon, Dave Milner, Louie Diaz and everyone else at Cumulus Atlanta. I can't wait to start writing the next chapter for WKHX."
In a wide-ranging interview with cleveland.com that covered the twists and turns of his career as well as his thoughts on diversity in the Rock Hall, John Sykes dropped a bit of a bombshell, considering that nominations for the Class of 2020 won’t officially be revealed until later this month. This year, he said, “T. Rex and Depeche Mode were both nominated to get on the ballot, but so was Notorious B.I.G.”
“I grew up where music, television and radio were my reasons for existence,” said Sykes in a call from his offices in New York City, where he is president of iHeart Entertainment Enterprises. “For me, it’s what I always wanted to do.”
Succeeding Juan Wenner in the unpaid role as chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation is just the latest scene in an ongoing dream.
Sykes will become the third chairman of the Foundation, following Wenner and the late Ahmet Ertegun, the two men who created the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the early 1980s.
“The great thing about being around the Hall of Fame is that I’ve been a fan of just about every single artist inducted,” he said. “The idea that I get to be part of the nominating committee for artists I listened to since I was 12 years old in my sister’s bedroom has been part of a dream come true.”
“It’s important to note that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is more than a category; it’s a spirit,” he said. That spirit is why he defines rock by the phrase Hall of Famer Berry Gordy used to describe the music of Motown: “The Sound of Young America.”
Hip-hop is “the music of young America,” but older fans needn’t worry that they — we — will be left out in the cold.
“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame could become irrelevant because rock as we knew it in the ’60s is beginning to age out,” Sykes said. “We have to evolve, and we have to change, because music is changing.
Two former employees of Cumulus Media in Washington, DC have sued the company for age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, claiming that they—as well as two other 40+ year-old staffers—were terminated when WMAL-AM was to be sold in May 2019, while six “substantially younger” employees remained on board when the station subsequently changed formats to ESPN as WSBN-AM.
The plaintiffs, Scott Lebhar and Jeff Shrinsky, are also bringing suit against DC Radio Assets, a wholly owned Cumulus Media subsidiary that managed the station. In court documents obtained by InsideRadio, the suit explains that the two AEs “are over the age of 40 and both were given termination notice at the same time, allegedly the result of downsizing.” Lebhar began in 2016 Shrinsky began in 2015, with “more than 30 years of sports-related advertising sales.”
According to the suit, in February 2019, the company notified Lebhar and Shrinsky and two other Account Executives that WMAL was to be sold in May and that they would be terminated with that sale. “All four of the Account Executives (that) Defendants notified of the upcoming termination, including Lebhar and Shrinsky, were well over the age of 40,” the court papers explain: Lebhar was 60, Shrinsky was 53 and the other AEs were 48 and 62.
While the four were released in May, six other salespeople “retained by Defendants were substantially younger.” In addition, the plaintiffs allege that WMAL told them that if new Account Executive positions became available either before the sale or shortly thereafter, they “would be given priority consideration to be rehired.”
Cumulus never announced a sale of WMAL. But in July, it flipped its AM simulcast of talk WMAL-FM to ESPN Radio and switched the calls to WSBN.
They are each demanding, with a jury trial, economic damages in the amount of $50,000, Compensatory Damages in the Amount of $300,000 and Punitive Damages in the amount of $300,000; as well as fees and costs.
President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani lambasted the media on Sunday for what he says is its failure to investigate allegations of corruption leveled against former Vice President Joe Biden and his family, reports Fox News.
Calling Biden the media’s “honey boy,” a fiery Giuliani accused news outlets of not only failing to investigate the former vice president’s dealings in places like Ukraine, China and Romania, but of purposely ignoring the allegations.
“The Washington press corps has been covering this up for the last three years,” Giuliani told Fox News' Howard Kurtz of "Media Buzz.” “I’m trying to investigate a massive corruption scandal in the Obama administration.”
Giuliani’s appearance on “Media Buzz” comes as President Trump and his allies try to deflect negative coverage surrounding the House’s impeachment inquiry into the president amid concerns that Trump purportedly used military aid as leverage over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to get the foreign leader’s government to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump has denied that there was any “quid pro quo” in his conversation with Zelensky.
Chuck Todd, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," called out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for responding to a question with a "Fox News conspiracy" during a heated interview on Sunday.
"I have no idea why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here. I have no idea. I have no idea why we're going here," Todd said.
He then pushed the senator to "answer the question that I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him."
WATCH: @SenRonJohnson is asked why he winced.@chucktodd: "I have no idea why we're going here. ... Can we please answer the question I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him?" #MTPpic.twitter.com/52ZbGaybhI
"What made you wince? I’m asking a simple question about you clearly were upset that somehow there was an implication that military aid was being frozen because the president wanted an investigation. Why did you wince?" Todd asked.
"Because I didn't want those connected," Johnson responded. "I was supporting the aid."
Johnson said he asked the president about allegations that military aid was being withheld from Ukraine as Trump asked the country's leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading 2020 candidate.
"He completely denied it. He adamantly denied it. He vehemently, angrily denied it. He said, 'I'd never do that,'" Johnson said.
He continued to defend Trump by saying that "the press is horribly biased."
"I understand that the way to avoid answering a question is to attack us in the press," Todd responded.
Longtime 38 Special and founding Lynyrd Skynyrd bassist Larry Junstrom has died at the age of 70. .38 Special confirmed the news on Facebook reports ultimateclassicrock.com.
"The Big Man on the Big Bass has left us," his former bandmates wrote.
Junstrom formed Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1964 alongside his high school classmates Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Bob Burns. He departed the group in 1971, prior to the recording of their debut album, Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd.
Six years later, he joined Van Zant's younger brother Donnie's band, 38 Special. "My first show with 38 Special was the [1977] Super Bowl of Rock," Junstrom told Swampland in 2004. "To this day [it is] one of the biggest shows we have ever done. It was at Soldier Field in Chicago and there were about 100,000 people there. I will never forget it -- the acts on the bill were Journey, Skynyrd, Ted Nugent and several other bands. I was so nervous before that show that I could not sleep for three nights before, but once I hit the stage it was natural and everyone said I did great."
Junstrom appeared on all 12 of 38 Special's studio albums, from their self-titled 1977 debut until 2004's Drivetrain, before a hand injury forced him to retire from the group in 2014.
Ginger Baker, who helped redefine the role of the drums in rock and became a superstar in the process, died on Sunday in a hospital in southeastern England.
Baker drew worldwide attention for his approach to the drums, as sophisticated as it was forceful, when he teamed with the guitarist Eric Clapton and the bassist Jack Bruce in the hugely successful British band Cream in 1966.
Baker’s appearance behind the drum kit — flaming red hair, flailing arms, eyes bulging with enthusiasm or shut tight in concentration — made an indelible impression. So, unfortunately, did his well-publicized drug problems and his volatile personality.
Baker, who by his own count quit heroin 29 times, was candid about his drug and alcohol abuse in his autobiography, “Hellraiser,” published in Britain in 2009.
He recalled driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco while on tour with the band Blind Faith in 1969 and being more amused than surprised when he heard a report on the radio that he had died from a heroin overdose.
He was also, by all accounts, not a very likable man. Journalists who interviewed him tended to find him uncooperative at best, confrontational at worst. The hostility between Baker and Bruce, which sometimes led to onstage altercations, was the stuff of rock legend.
The 2012 documentary “Beware of Mr. Baker” — the title is taken from a sign outside the house in South Africa where he was living at the time — begins with footage of Baker physically attacking the film’s director, Jay Bulger.
“If they’ve got a problem with me, come and see me and punch me on the nose,”Mr. Baker says in that film. “I ain’t going to sue you; I’m going to hit you back.”
Peter Edward Baker — he became known as Ginger during childhood because of his red hair — was born on Aug. 19, 1939, in the Lewisham area of southeast London, to Frederick and Ruby (Bayldon) Baker. His father, a bricklayer, was killed in action during World War II.
Baker and the other members of Cream were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. The band reunited for concerts in London and New York in 2005 and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2006.
➦In 1939…The radio soap drama Kate Hopkins, Angel of Mercy debuted CBS Radio. It remained on-the-air until April 3, 1942. The show's initial premise was that after Kate Hopkins' husband died in a fire, she became a visiting nurse to support herself and her young son in the mythical American town of Forest Falls.
➦In 1940…"Portia Faces Life" debuted on the CBS Radio Network after starting in syndication seven months earlier. The program starred veteran radio actress Lucille Wall, who had been on Your Family and Mine and other radio dramas since the mid-1920s.
Stations airing the series included WNAC in Boston, WLS in Chicago, KRLD in Dallas, KGW in Portland, Oregon and KFI in Los Angeles, according to newspaper advertisements.
Portia Faces Life continued on CBS until April 25, 1941. Three days later, it moved to NBC where it continued until March 31, 1944. It then returned to CBS as a summer series from April 3 to September 29, 1944. Heard on NBC from October 3, 1944 to June 29, 1951, the series continued until 1953, according to scripter Mona Kent who wrote every episode. General Foods remained the sponsor through all 13 years of the radio series
➦In 1966...WOR 98.7 FM New York, which had been airing Top40 music without DJs added personalities to the air. The original WOR-FM disc jockeys were Scott Muni (formerly of WABC and WMCA), Murray “the K” Kaufman (formerly of WINS), Rosko (Bill Mercer) and Johnny Michaels.
Even though the format began on July 30, there were union problems with AFTRA. RKO did not want to pay FM disc jockeys the equivalent pay of their AM counterparts. As a result, the station segued from one record to another.
➦In 1970...Intel introduced the computer memory chip.
➦In 1985...Spokane, WA station heard at 590 AM for decades, KHQ signed off.
The station originated in Seattle on February 8, 1922 as the third commercial station in Seattle. The first station licensed was KFC on December 8, 1921, operated jointly by the Northern Radio and Electric Company and the Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Vincent I. Kraft's KJR received a license March 9, 1922, however Kraft had been broadcasting over an Experimental station since 1920. Louis Wasmer launched a new station in late February 1922, it was described at the time as "the third broadcaster".
Wasmer was a former United Wireless Telegraph Company radiotelegraph operator, who opened the Excelsior Motorcycle and Bicycle Co. in 1911, and also sold radio equipment. Wasmer's first license was issued with the randomly assigned call letters KHQ on February 28, 1922.
In May 1925 it was announced that KHQ was temporarily going off the air in order to give Bush & Lane time to "make extensive alterations in the studio", while making a major upgrade in the facilities. Instead, after broadcasting in Seattle for three years, Wasmer moved the station to Spokane. KHQ was Spokane's fifth radio station, preceded by KFZ, KOE, KFIO (now KSBN) and KFPY (now KXLY), although only KFIO and KFPY were still licensed at the time of KHQ's arrival.
KHQ changed its transmitting frequency a number of times in the mid-twenties, until November 11, 1928, when, under the provisions of a major reallocation resulting from the Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, it was reassigned to 590 kHz which it and its successors have used ever since.
The August 1941 adoption of the Federal Communications Commission's "duopoly" rule restricted licensees from operating more than one radio station in a given market. At this time Louis Wasmer, Inc. owned two Spokane stations: KHQ and KGA. To conform with the FCC order, in 1946 Wasmer sold KHQ to the Cowles Publishing Company, publisher of The Seattle Spokesman-Review newspaper, which used it to launch an FM station (now KISC) and a television station (which still bears the KHQ-TV calls).
Cowles sold off its radio interests in 1984. Because of a FCC rule in place at the time that prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market but with different ownership from sharing the same call letters, AM 590 changed its call to KLSN, with the slogan "Listen 5-90". On December 1, 1986 the station changed its call sign to KAQQ, which was phonetically similar to the original KHQ call letters. On New Year's Day 2002 the call letters became KQNT.
➦In 1988....WNBC 660 AM's final broadcast took place and Sports WFAN moved from 1050 AM to 660 AM.
In November 1987, General Electric, which now owned NBC through its purchase of RCA two years earlier, announced that it would sell off the NBC Radio division. In February of that year GE made a multi-station deal with Emmis Communications and, in New York, the WNBC license for 660 was included in the sale. Emmis announced it would move WFAN to the 660 frequency. At the time, WFAN was located at 1050 AM, and had a somewhat marginal signal in portions of the New York area. As the deal only included the license for WNBC and not the station's intellectual property, GE would proceed to shut down the station for good.
On October 7, 1988 at 5:30 pm, the WFAN call letters, studios, programming and staff moved to WNBC's old frequency at 660 AM, which has a much better signal.
Earlier in the day, the station aired a 90-minute retrospective titled "WNBC-The First 66 Years," hosted by Dale Parsons. The program was written and produced by Parsons and his wife, Ginny, who spent nearly six months researching the station's history.
The last voice heard on WNBC was that of Alan Colmes, who said "I'm Alan Colmes. Thank you, God bless you, and for the last time, this is 66 WNBC New York. Let's do the countdown." and counted down the seconds to WNBC's demise with the legendary NBC chimes (the notes G-E-C) playing in the background.
Earlier in the day, regular music programming ended at 6 am; Jay Sorenson played "Imagine" by John Lennon followed by the NBC chimes and a 5-second pause. Although the FCC regards the 660 frequency as the same license dating back to WEAF, and merely changed its calls from WNBC to WFAN on that day, WFAN does not claim WNBC's history. It did, however, sign up Imus to take Greg Gumbel's place in the morning. Imus would remain on the morning drive-time slot for 19 years, until his firing in 2007 for comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. He moved to WABC near the end of that year.
In the complicated switch that saw WFAN move to the 660 frequency, the 1050 frequency that was formerly the home of WFAN became that of Spanish-language WUKQ, owned by Spanish Broadcasting System. However, SBS already owned an AM station in the market, Newark-based WSKQ at 620 kHz, and at the time, FCC rules stipulated that companies could own only one AM station per market. As a result, SBS received a temporary waiver to run 1050 while exploring the sale of either AM frequency. SBS chose to keep 620 (it is now WSNR), and 1050 was traded to Forward Communications, which owned WEVD, then at 97.9 FM. After that deal was approved, WEVD's call letters and programming moved to 1050 AM, and SBS took over 97.9 as WSKQ-FM. The October NBC-Emmis switch also saw Emmis's WQHT (then at 103.5 MHz) move to 97.1 MHz, which had been the home of NBC's WYNY. Emmis sold the 103.5 frequency to Westwood One, who also acquired the WYNY call letters and its country music format.
In all this, WFAN retired two of the oldest radio call letters from the dawn of commercial radio: WHN and WNBC.
➦In 1996…The Fox News Channel launched on cable system in the U-S.
➦In 2005...Los Angeles radio personality Tracey Miller died from brain cancer (Born - July 21, 1954). Miller worked for much of her radio career on stations in the Los Angeles area. From 1990 to 1993 Miller and Terri-Rae Elmer co-hosted KFI's TNT in the Morning, the first morning-drive show in a major market to feature two women in the lead roles.
A four-time winner of the Los Angeles Press Club Golden Mike Award, she became founding editor of the La Crescenta Valley Sun in April, 2002, and wrote a weekly column for the Glendale News-Press in 2005. In July 2005, the American Women in Radio and Television established a merit award in her honor, to recognize chapter members who have shown commitments to the organization and chapter, and made positive contributions to the broadcasting profession.
➦In 2008... Music, podcast, and video streaming service Spotify is launched by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon
