The Shari Elliker Show, airing weekdays from 9 a.m.-noon on WBAL-AM (1090), has been named the region's Oustanding Talk Show by the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association.

"Whenever people recognize you, it makes it look like you are doing it right," said Elliker, who started her weekday show on WBAL last September, following the departure of Chip Franklin. "Any award is validation, and any award is wonderful."

Judges praised the show for "providing context on timely issues. ... she is at her best when she challenges her callers."

Elliker has spent more than 20 years working on radio and television in the Baltimore area, including a stint as co-host of mid-80s cable show out of Annapolis. She also has done stage and TV work, including appearances on Homicide: Life On the Street, America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries. She came to WBAL seven years ago, after a stint as co-host of XM Satellite Radio's Broadminded

The Chesapeaka Associated Press Broadcasters Association includes radio and television stations in Maryland, Delaware and Washington. The award was presented Saturday at the association's annual convention.

Photo courtesy WBAL 

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Deborah Winston Callard, director of Baltimore's Parks and People Foundation and a board member of The Open Society Institute-Baltimore, has been elected chair of the WYPR board of directors, succeeding the embattled Barbara Bozzuto.

Callard has served on the board of the public radio station for three years, the past two as vice chair.

Bozzuto, one of several WYPR managers to endure the wrath of Marc Steiner fans since the popular talk-show host was fired in February, had served four years as board chair, the maximum allowed. She will remain on the board.

Station General Manager Anthony Brandon, who has likewise been vilified by Steiner supporters in recent months, praised Bozzuto's service. "Barbara has brought tremendous professionalism and passion to both our board and to the WYPR community during her tenure," he said in a statement released by the station. "We are all pleased that she will continue to serve with us."

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

WYPR's next Board of Directors meeting, set for 3 p.m. May 21 at The Family Tree, 2108 N. Charles St., will be open to the public, as much as the small meeting room will allow.

The room, where WYPR's board has been meeting for some five years, holds about 30 people, says station President and General Manager Anthony Brandon. If all 22 board members show up, that would leave room for about eight more people, who will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Those unable to sit inside the room will be able to watch via an Internet stream. The web address for that stream will be posted on the WYPR web page, wypr.org.

"All this is being done with the consent and approval of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," Brandon said. Any disruption to the meeting -- such as the heckling that was heard during last month's board meeting at the Church of the Redeemer, where supporters of fired talk-show host Marc Steiner continued their campaign to bring him back and replace the station management -- will not be tolerated, he added.

The CPB, Brandon said, has "told us that anyone who makes a disturbance [may] be asked to leave."

CPB regulations require that radio stations receiving CPB money hold open board meetings, and that "reasonable accomodations" for the public be provided.

CPB spokesman Eben Peck wrote in an email that the corporation "does not offer legal advice to the public on station compliance with the Public Broadcasting Act requirements," and "does not police them for violations of the statute." Rather, he said, "we respond to complaints and/or audits and investigations (including those of our Inspector General)."

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Radio ratings for the first three months of 2008 suggest that the changes at WYPR-FM (88.1) have not led to the drastic ratings decline some fans of ousted talk-show host Marc Steiner predicted. But they also suggest the station has alienated some key listeners.

In the noon-2 p.m. time slot, where Sun columnist Dan Rodricks took over for Steiner beginning Feb. 25, WYPR took a considerable hit among listeners ages 25-54. The share (that is, the percentage of listeners tuned to a specific station in an average quarter-hour) declined 55 percent from a year ago (2.0 to .9). The total number of those listeners in a given week fell from 25,300 to 14,100.

Among overall listeners 12 and older, however, the change of share was only slight, from 2.2 in Winter 2007 to 2.0 in winter 2008; in fact, it grew from the last quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008 (1.4 to 2.0). Among listeners 55 and older, the listenership grew considerably, from a 3.3 share in winter 2007 to 3.9 in winter 2008 (the increase was even more marked from the last quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, 1.9 to 3.9). The weekly average of those listeners increased from 16,100 to 26,900, almost making up for the loss in the 25-54 age group.

It's too early, based on the ratings, to make any grand assessment of how listenership has been affected by the Steiner furor. Typically, any abrupt change in programming results in a drop in listenership; whether the numbers pick up again will be measured in future ratings books. It's also possible that all the tumult over Steiner's firing attracted some curious listeners to the station, which could lead to a short-term spike in the ratings (judging by WYPR's numbers, the over-55 crowd must have been especially curious). Again, the question is, are those numbers temporary, or will they translate into loyal listeners?

The ratings were released last week by Columbia-based Arbitron.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Urban Contemporary station WERQ-FM (92.3) remained firmly atop Baltimore's radio ratings for the first three months of 2008, with an average of 379,500 listeners who tuned in for at least five minutes a week, according to Arbitron ratings released today. Country music station WPOC-FM (93.1) ranked second, with an average of 364,100 listeners, followed by WWMX-FM (106.5) with 283,000; WLIF-FM (101.9) with 279,700; WWIN-FM (95.9) with 267,000; and WBAL-AM (1090) with 230,800.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Brian Wood, let go from his anchor position at WMAR, Channel 2, last month, has signed on with Portland, Ore.'s KATU, Channel 2.

Beginning April 21, Wood will anchor the station's 4 p.m. newscast. He will also work in the field as a reporter.

Moving to Portland and the Pacific Northwest will serve as a homecoming of sorts for Wood, who spent 19 years as a reporter and anchor in his native Seattle before joining WMAR in January 2002.

"We're excited about moving back home," Wood said, adding that he's lucky to be joining "an expanding news organization, which is a rarity in TV news right now."

KATU News Director Don Pratt said Wood should have no trouble re-acclimating himself to his old stomping grounds. "He is an outstanding journalist," Pratt said, "who brings decades of experience in the Northwest, so he knows the local issues."

Wood said his family is also glad to be returning to their native Northwest, especially his 92-year-old mother, Peggy. Wood and his wife, Vicky, who also is a Seattle native, have two sons, James, 14 , and Justin, 13.

"Being in Baltimore has been a wonderful experience," Wood added. "I'm really going to miss the people and the place."

Wood left WMAR March 6, after station management decided not to renew his contract.

Like WMAR, KATU is an ABC affiliate. The station is owned by Seattle-based Fisher Broadcasting.

(Photo courtesy of Brian Wood)

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Board of Directors of Baltimore's public radio station, WYPR-FM (88.1), will hold an open meeting tomorrow, April 15, but is pledging not to discuss the controversial firing of longtime talk-show host and station standard-bearer Marc Steiner.

The meeting is set for 3 p.m. at the Church of the Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles St. Although a contingent of Steiner's supporters is expected to attend, board Chairwoman Barbara Bozzuto said his firing will not be discussed at the meeting.

"We're not going to take up that subject," she said. Anyone who wishes to discuss Steiners firing, she said, "will be asked to put their questions in writing, and we will get back to them."

The board is expected to hear from WYPRs Community Advisory Board, which voted at its Feb. 20 meeting to recommend that Steiner be re-hired to resume his duties as host of a public affairs program.  The board is also scheduled to elect new officers.

Since Feb. 25, Steiner's old noon-2 p.m. time slot on WYPR has been home to Midday, with Sun columnist Dan Rodricks. 
 

(Supporters of Marc Steiner picket outside the WYPR studios Feb. 4. Amy Davis / Sun photographer)

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

It wasn't exactly as if he'd never been away, but longtime fans heard pretty much the same old Brian Wilson when he made his return to Baltimore's airwaves earlier this afternoon on WHFS-FM (105.7).

The inaugural show, beginning at noon, started off with a few stumbles -- some missed cues, a restart on the opening theme music (The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again"), and a reference to the governor of Maryland as Mike O'Malley. But Wilson, who's been doing this for nearly four decades, took the gaffes in stride, made fun of himself (let's admit right now that this opening show will be bad, he advised his listeners), and wasted little time in invoking his usual litany of libertarian causes: too many taxes, too much government regulation, too many impingements on individual freedom, etc.

His first caller, Ron from Severna Park (an old friend, Wilson said), welcomed him back. His second, Brian from Baltimore, boasted of his "My kid got your honor student pregnant" bumper sticker, told a tasteless joke (even though Wilson urged him not to), and asked if he was the Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys (he's not).

A later caller suggested a tagline for the show: The Hour of Power. The caller, apparently, didn't come up with the name by himself, as a friend had to cue him. But the guy on the phone sure sounded proud.

Wilson ended his first three-hour broadcast bantering with Ed Norris, whose own show now airs on WHFS 3 p.m.-6 p.m. The two talked about the evils of gun control, worried about whether they'd be sharing the same pool of callers, and made like newfound best buds.

"I gotta go, make way for the Commish," Wilson said as the show concluded, "the King, the E-Man." Norris laughed. 

Wilson, whose Charm City career has included stints as one-half of the popular Brian and O'Brien morning show on B-104 from 1984 to 1988, as well as fill-in work on WBAL-AM and brief dalliances with WQSR-FM and WOCT-FM, is back in Charm City for the first time since 2004. Although living in Toledo, where he holds down the afternoon drive-time slot on WSPD, he'll be broadcasting out of Baltimore through the end of this week. Then it's back to Toldeo, where he'll send his voice back to B'More through the wonders of ISDN transmissions.

(Photo coutesy of Brian Wilson) 

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Brian Wilson (pictured at left), a longtime fixture on Baltimore radio, is coming back to Charm City's airwaves. Beginning Wednesday, April 9, Wilson will take over the noon-3 p.m. slot on WHFS-FM (105.7). Ed Norris, who is rapidly becoming the main man on the city's afternoon radio dials, will move to the 3 p.m.-6 p.m. time slot.

From 1984 to 1988, Wilson was one half of the popular Brian and O'Brien Show on what was the WBSB-FM, better known as B-104. With co-host Don O'Brien, Wilson headed one of Baltimore's most popular radio programs. Later, he briefly had a show on WBSB's successor, WOCT-FM.

For much of the past two decades, Wilson has been better known for his Libertarian political views than his deejay work. He had been a frequent fill-in on WBAL-AM (1090). He is the author of two books, A Media Guide for Market-Liberal Organizations and The Little Black Book on Whitewater.

Bringing Wilson back to Baltimore radio allows Norris, whose show earned top ratings in its time slot last year, to slide into the more popular afternoon drive-time slot.

(Brian Wilson (left) with longtime partner Don O'Brien, during a brief stint on WQSR-FM. 2004 photo by Amy Davis / Sun photographer)

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Steve Rouse, formerly of WLIF-FM, says he could get used to working part-time.

Let go from his morning drive-time show on WLIF in December, Rouse has since been filling-in on WBAL-AM (for Dave Durian for a week) and 98 Rock (riffing on the local sports scene). He's also moved his TV show on WMAR, Channel 2, from Saturday nights to Sunday mornings. Since March 9, Maryland Living has been airing from 9-9:30 a.m.

"It's a show about cultures, communities, people, food, destinations," says Rouse. "It's very comfortable in that time slot. It's a very positive show, nothing negative."

Rouse has also been doing some voiceover work, for Orange County Choppers, the motorcycle company featured on TLC's American Chopper series. And he's made some commercials for the Maryland Lottery, including one on which he dances. ("it's more of a nightmare, ghoulish kind of spot," he jokes.)

As far as getting back on the radio full time, Rouse doesn't sound like he's in any hurry. "I don't know how interested I am, to be honest with you," he says. "I kind of like sleeping-in in the morning."

Above Sun File Photo of Steve Rouse

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Donna Bertling, a 31-year veteran at WJZ, Channel 13, will retire as the station's creative services director at the end this month.

A Baltimore native and graduate of Loyola College, Bertling, 58, says she is retiring to spend more time with her family. She lives in Towson with her husband, Norbert Bertling, a freelance videographer and still photographer.

Bertling's position at WJZ will be taken over by her current assistant, K.C. Robertson.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

WPOC-FM mainstay Laurie DeYoung, whose ratings are consistently at or near the top of Baltimore's morning drive-time shows, has signed a five-year contract extension with the station.

DeYoung was voted the Country Music Association's Large Market Personality of the Year in 1994; she has been with WPOC since 1985. The contract, the terms of which were not disclosed, will keep her at 93.1 at least until 2013.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Last weekend's 19th annual MIX 106.5 radiothon raised $1.14 million for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center -- the seventh year in a row money raised by the station topped the $1 million mark.

The marathon, which ran from Thursday through Sunday, featured WWMX morning personalities JoJo Girard, Reagan Warfield and Sarah Jacobs. It included interviews with current and former patients, their families and caregivers.

To date, the marathons have raised more $11.6 million for the center.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In a form letter sent out to some WYPR listeners, station board chair Barbara Bozzuto hinted that Marc Steiner's firing was more than simply a reaction to decreased ratings for his weekday afternoon show. Admitting that emphasizing the show's ratings was a mistake, she suggests Steiner was no longer a team player.

In the letter, Bozzuto writes, "The fact is that the day-to-day interactions and decisions that need to be made to keep an operation like WYPR moving forward require cooperation, teamwork, and a shared purpose. While still respecting private personnel records, I just want to say that it became obvious that attempts to resolve disagreements on a variety of matters had failed. "

Later on in the letter, reacting to claims that WYPR management had lost sight of the station's commitment to public service, she writes, "I pledge to you that WYPR will continue to embrace enthusiastic dialogue and open discussion of issues that concern you. Public access to the airways will continue to be the mainstays of our programming."

Read portions of the letter, Steiner dismissed Bozzuto's suggestion of "personnel" issues station management can not discuss in public.

"I have said personally to them, on my blog, and to everyone who has asked me, if they had reasons as to why this happened that they can't say because of complicated personnel issues...I have said over and over again, 'Put them on the table.' What are they? They have never told me, they have never told my listeners. I give you permission to tell the world, whatever they are."

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
                    

From Sun reporter Jill Rosen ...

WYPR officials issued a memo this morning postponing the station's coming board meeting for a month.

Listeners and members upset with the recent firing of longtime talk show host Marc Steiner were expected to protest the meeting, hoping the board would rehire Steiner or take some other action regarding the firing at the March 12 meeting - which is now scheduled for April 15.

Station officials gave no reason for the postponement. The Sun emailed WYPR President Anthony A. Brandon  to ask about the change but has not yet heard back.

WYPR, 88.1 FM, abruptly canceled The Marc Steiner Show on  Feb. 1, noting declining ratings and the focus of Steiner, who hosted the program for 15 years, on Baltimore despite the station's reach to all corners of Maryland.

Last week more than 300 people packed the Baltimore Museum of Art auditorium to tell the station's community advisory board how upset the were over the firing. The advisory board told the crowd it would pass those comments and concerns on to the board of directors in March.

Posted by Tim Swift at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
                    

From Sun reporter Jill Rosen ... 

Sun columnist Dan Rodricks debuted this afternoon on WYPR in the recently-vacated Marc Steiner slot to just a smattering of abuse from his predecessor’s fans.

About two weeks ago officials at the stations, 88.1-FM on your dial, announced Rodricks would replace Steiner, the longtime public affairs talk show host they fired on Feb. 1. Though irate Steiner fans have picketed the station, threatened to withhold donations, the voices of just two made it on-air during Rodricks’ two-hour show, called Mid-day.

He spent the first half of the program talking about religion and politics with Jim Wallis, the author The Great Awakening, Reviving Faith in Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.

During the sedate chat with Wallis, the first caller, a "Craig in Baltimore," told Rodricks that as "one of the better-known members of local media," he "should have respected Marc Steiner."

Though Rodricks did not respond, his next caller jumped in to say, "That last comment was very, very inappropriate."

Worse, a few callers later, an "Arlene from Reisterstown," after beginning what seemed to be a comment about religion, abruptly blurted, "Dan, you’re a scab, this is the Marc Steiner show. "

She either hung up before her words were altogether out or the show’s producers pulled the plug on her.

"Eh, good," Rodricks said.

That was the end of any hostilities and the show concluded peacefully, with Rodricks discussing last night’s Oscars with Sun movie critic Michael Sragow and the City Paper’s Violet Glaze.

Posted by Tim Swift at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                    

Were Marc Steiner's ratings really so bad that they justified his being fired from WYPR-FM? Was his really the only show on the station to suffer a ratings decline, as station management has said?

Radio ratings are a labyrinthine beast, and the numbers can be twisted and interpreted in any number of ways. But a quick look at ratings over the past year suggests that things aren't as bleak, or as cut-and-dried, as WYPR management has suggested.

From October-December 2006 to October-December 2007, for instance, Steiner's ratings did slip, from a .4 to a .3, translating to roughly 2,000 fewer listeners in an average 15-minute period. But from October-December 2006 to January-March 2007, for instance, his ratings actually climbed, from .4 to .5. And over that entire 15-month period, the rating never slipped below .3 or above .5, suggesting Steiner's audience was pretty stable.

Over the same period, the mid-afternoon (2 p.m.-4 p.m.) numbers for WYPR were almost identical to those for the Steiner show, also ranging from a .3 to a .5. So were the numbers reflecting audience share, that is, the percentage of radios in use that were tuned to WYPR. Steiner's share ranged from 1.4 to 2.3 over the period, while the mid-afternoon share ranged from 1.4 to 2.2.

There are a lot more numbers to crunch, but it's hard to see any dramatic change in the Steiner show's ratings over the past 15 months, or any indication they're dramatically out-of-line with overall ratings at WYPR.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
                    

AS WYPR enters into day 3 of life without Marc Steiner, the man who gave the station its name, a few developments.

1) Steiner is set to be on today's Ed Norris Show, beginning at 11 a.m. on WHFS-FM.

2) Yesterday, there was a link to Steiner's blog page on WYPR's homepage; Maryland Morning host Sheilah Kast even mentioned it after interviewing Steiner on-air yesterday morning. Well, that link is gone now -- making what seemed like a classy gesture at the time seem petty and hollow. For those looking, Steiner's blog is available at marcsteinerblog.wordpress.com.

3) On the blog, in a posting from yesterday, Steiner takes heated issue with WYPR President and GM Anthony Brandon, who told Kast on-air yesterday that Steiner only raised some $250,000 to help with the station's purchase from the Johns Hopkins University in 2002. An angry Steiner insists he raised the $750,000 previously reported and that he has the paperwork to prove it.

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

WYPR President and General Manager Anthony Brandon (right) defended his firing of veteran broadcaster and talk-show host Marc Steiner this morning. He insisted that a decline in the station’s ratings during the Monday-Thursday noon-2 p.m. broadcast of the Steiner show, and the host’s refusal to consider changes to the show, left him with no choice.

"When you look at the ratings from 11 to 12 o’clock, they’re significant. And at 12 o’clock, they drop off precipitously," Brandon said during an interview with Maryland Morning host Sheilah Kast, broadcast on WYPR between 9 and 9:30 a.m. today. "And they stay down until 2:05, when Talk of the Nation comes back on."

"We have to look at what our audience is telling us," Brandon added. "We have to listen, and look at the fact that audience was dropping off in that time period. We need to look at new ways to address these issues.

Brandon did not provide any ratings numbers, and Kast, who admitted the segment’s outset that she was "not completely comfortable" interviewing her boss on-air, did not press for specifics.

Brandon, who has been unavailable for comment since Steiner was fired Thursday afternoon, was interviewed for about 10 minutes. His segment was preceded by a 10-minute interview with Steiner, which Kast said had been taped about an hour earlier. The two men did not appear on-air together.

For his part, Steiner continued to argue that his firing had nothing to do with ratings, but was instead the result of a difference in philosophy over public radio’s role in the community — a difference that has been a bone of contention between him and management ever since the station was purchased from Johns Hopkins University in 2002. "It’s a mindset," Steiner said. "And the mindset is that we, guarantors of the station, are holding this in trust for the public. Not, ‘We own it.’ Not, ‘It’s ours.’ It’s not theirs, it’s ours — ours being the listeners and the public radio community."
 

File Photo: Amy Davis, Sun Staff

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)
                    

Will WYPR's firing of Marc Steiner affect your loyalty to the station? Among the stated reasons for firing Steiner was the idea that his show, which aired noon-2 p.m., focused too narrowly (or too frequently) on Baltimore. Do you agree? Should the show have dealt less with Baltimore and more with issues of significance throughout the state?

It's obvious Steiner has a lot of fans; as I write this, a group of them is protesting Steiner's dismissal  outside the station's offices, at 2216 N. Charles St.

When longtime morning DJ Steve Rouse left WLIF, saying he would not accept the pay cut he was offered, nearly 100 of you wrote in to express your displeasure. Does Steiner's dismissal rank with Rouse's departure as a disaapointment for Baltimore radio listeners?

(Photo by Steve Ruark / Special to The Sun)

Posted by Chris Kaltenbach at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comm