BobLassiterAirchecks.com

Don Richards was WPLP-AM news and program director from 1984 to 1988, when he was one of the seven employees fired by new owners Susquehanna Broadcasting. He joined the newsroom at WFLA not long afterwards, and a few years later became the station’s news director, a position he retains today. Don shared with us his thoughts and memories of working with Bob Lassiter at WPLP and WFLA.

In 1985, Bob was doing weekends on WINZ—I guess he had worked at a couple of smaller stations in Miami—and Dave Hosley was the operations manager down there. I was talking to him on the phone and he said, “I had to fire a talk-show host this week,” and I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, listen to this.” And it was a tape, and the line from the host was “Sir, this may cost me my job but you’re full of (expletive).” And it did cost him his job. And Bob came up to us, and we offered him a job, and eventually he took it.

He was engaging, though my recollection was that he probably wasn’t as controversial in the very beginning as he was later on in his stay with us. Bob was wonderfully receptive; he could pick up an idea and run with it. When he was doing afternoons, he’d walk around going, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, how am I gonna get calls, blah blah blah.” And one day I said, “Look, you’re facing Paul Gonzalez” – Paul’s one of those mellow talk-show hosts, “Some people think abortion is murder, others say it’s a woman’s right, what do you think?” That type, who never took a stand—“he’s so bland you could automate the show.” And we both looked at each other and “Aha!” And the Dalbach 2400 Automated Talk Show Host was born. We had a prod guy do bad production: “Today’s topic is—ABORTION.” Just blurting it in. “Some people say—ABORTION—is good, some people say—ABORTION—is bad. What do you think?” And Bob said, “Management’s making me try out this thing.” And some people bought it.

Another day, “I don’t know how I’m gonna get calls,” and I said, “Well, you can always threaten to drown kittens.” I was sort of joking, and Bob got the production guy to go “Mrrowwww” on tape. And he said, “Unless I get calls, Fluffy—Mrrowwww—meets Mr. Bucket”—his wastebasket. And he was off and running. And some woman even called and said, “I can tell by the sound of that cat that it hasn’t been fed and it’s being mistreated, I’m going to call the ASPCA on you, blah blah blah.” But it was fun and you know, as he got a little more into the audience and what it couldn’t stand, he became a lot more controversial.

Bob was sort of the antithesis of the market: he was a Reagan-hater, he had a book of all the contradictions in the Bible; he’d say that people who went off to fight in wars were stupid. And, of course, the brain-damaged snowbirds. So he quickly made a name for himself in the market. But he was a complex man. He could be very funny, he could be extremely serious when he talked about himself, and his Christmas shows….very serious types of programs. But there were times—once when he was at FLA, and I was there, he was talking about, “Should I buy the Cadillac or the Lincoln Town Car,” or whatever. I really didn’t understand how that could relate to anybody—people like to know that talk-show hosts and people they admire are successful. He was probably just rubbing his success in the audience’s face just to provoke them. Bob certainly could provoke.

Bob was complex. For example, we did some research and found out that people wanted more weather. Why, I don’t know; unless there’s a hurricane coming, or it’s exceedingly cold, down here the weather just doesn’t change that much. But they wanted more weather, and you generally try to give your audience what they want. “Hey, Bob, can you read the weather on the :40 break?” “No.” Pause. “No, can’t do it.” And off he went. Well, as time went on we discovered that Bob was in character and felt that coming out of character to do the weather would destroy the flow of his program so we left it alone.

(Bob did not use that same argument on paid endorsements.…)

He would sometimes would be very blunt and abrupt and he would sometimes open his heart to you. Bob could be very inventive and very creative, and often was. There’s the famous New Year’s Day night show that he did–$10,000 just for listening, $50,000 for calling, and “Hey, you’ve won a trip to Paris!” And the board-op, poor Mike Serio, is every now and then on a recording that says, “He’s lying, don’t believe a word of it.” I thought the disclaimer could have been a little stronger, so I spent most of that evening trying to get in touch with Bob. Somewhere I have that night’s discrepancy sheet from the Board-Op saying, “Tried unsuccessfully to get host to talk to PD.”

The impact of what he did came in—well, example 1, Bob was deadly afraid of personal appearances, at least when he was with us. I mean he did not like them at all. And we did one down at WestShore Mall, you know, at which he was very well received and all, but he insisted on cops being there, and I talked to him before they went on—they just did a host roundtable—and he was sweating bullets. He was really afraid. I mean this was not too long after the murder of Allan Berg, a talk-show host in Denver, and this may have weighed heavily on him because he was controversial and he didn’t stand for what the audience did.

For example 2, Bob did endorsements for a medium-sized restaurant called the Longshoreman, and the restaurant was populated by the VFW and After-Church type crowd, and all of a sudden, Boom! They found their clientele dropping instead of going the other way. He was endorsing it and people were telling the restaurant “Hey, go along with that and forget about me coming back!” He paid a little price for his being outrageous.

Bob did have good ratings, but our sales staff at the time had a very hard time selling him. There’s a line, which did not apply to Bob, but you can be the most popular talk-show host in the unemployment line. FLA had more success in that particular regard.

He was a complex man; I know some things he did for people that other people don’t know about, that were really quite generous on his part. And then there was a time that Sue Treccase, who’s the assistant ops manager at FLA—I guess he wanted some time off for Christmas, and the answer was no. And he came on the air and said, “Management couldn’t tell me ‘no’ to my face; they sent a little girl with a crooked leg to tell me.” Sue had told him, and Sue had multiple sclerosis. He did that on the air, and we met at the coffee pot later, and I said, “Bob, be very glad you don’t work for me anymore. Because if you did, you wouldn’t.” I don’t know if he ever apologized, but I’m told he later regretted that remark. And that was the two sides of Bob Lassiter.

Bob went off, of course, to ‘LS, and then he went to ‘SUN and came to us, but by that time he was a different Bob Lassiter. I’ve heard some stories about his days in Chicago and his professional relationships, and how they weren’t too pleasant. He came back and perhaps he expected things to be the same, but he wasn’t the same and things weren’t the same. I had no part in the decision this time, of course - I was just the morning news anchor - but they decided not to renew his contract. I sort of remember him grumbling over the coffee machine, “They haven’t been talking to me,” but that’s about as in-depth as it got.

I don’t think you can fairly talk about Bob, though, unless you talk about his love for Mary. Mary Toensfeld came to us out of Iowa - I guess Guy Gannett owned some stations there - and she left there and came to us and Bob was there. And it was sort of Bob being a nervous-type suitor, I think, which I don’t think “suitor” was really a Lassiter role, but they hit it off. Mary could run a broadcast company with half her brain tied behind her back, to coin a phrase. She’s an incredibly sharp woman. And she was our bookkeeper, and they hit it off; I was at their wedding. They really had intense love for each other. But she stuck with him through thick, and I guess, toward the end, the thin. But she was just an incredible woman, and in my humble opinion the best thing that ever happened to Bob Lassiter.

Stacy Taylor was one of Bob’s fellow talk-show hosts at WLS-AM in Chicago, from 1989 to 1991. He’s now in San Diego, the morning host at KLSD-AM, and has appeared on Air America Radio. Not long ago, I had the opportunity to ask him about his tenure at WLS and working with Bob. He decided to answer in one blanket statement, which gave us a lot of insight about what was happening at WLS and how both Stacy and Bob got caught up in it.

I was approached by WLS by an intermediary as I was trying to negotiate a new contract with KSDO in San Diego, where I’d just completed an extremely successful 3 years. What I thought was a bargaining chip with WLS to use here in San Diego, turned out to be a total hardball situation where CapCities threatened ultimately to sue me if I did not comply to a “memoradum of understanding” which I percieved as as merely an offer from WLS. Under threat of injunction, and an overt theat from Norm Schrutt, East Coast radio division head of CapCities/ABC, I finally joined WLS in Oct. of ‘89.

 Lassiter was already there. It was clear that neither one of us gave a shit, one way or the other, since the money was good and apparently both of us were in Chicago not completely according to our respective wills, but because of personal naivete and possibly dupicitousness from the stations we were currently working for (WFLA for Bob, KSDO for me [both Jacor stations]).

I didn’t get to know Bob very well in the begining as he and I were dealing solitarly with our specific situations. He was an odd guy. I immediately got along well with Tom [Tradup] and Drew [Hayes], largely because I’m a reasonably amicable guy who didn’t really give a rat’s ass whether anyone approved of me or not because I’d already established that I was in Chicago not out of personal desire, but through legal coercion.

Bob clearly was dealing with seperate issues. Lacking in the basic personal and professional skills that I’d adapted, but sharing in the the same “what-the-fuck-have-I-gotten-myself-into” attitude that we had in common, he was unable to breach the regular-guy day-to-day comfort level that came more naturally to me.

Bob did like the Big City/Big Bucks aspect of the job and often bragged on the air about “making more money than tv anchormen”, etc. He and Drew Hayes were completely opposite personalities. Bob intense. Drew funny, hip. Traddup was a funny guy too. they were fun guys to be around. Don Wade, incidently, is a funny guy to be around too. Bob didn’t care about that, because those guys all thought he was a wierdo so it didn’t ease the tension, like it did for me.

Eventually Bob and I grew closer in our mutual antipathy toward the control that was exerted toward us from management. His sore point was Catholicism; mine was Israel; and our morning host, Don Wade’s, was homosexuality. We all were instructed to not respectively discuss these topics. Drew was recieving a ton of pressure from organized groups: the A.D.L. in my case, G.L.A.A.D in the case of Wade, and various Catholic pressure groups concerning Bob. Hayes just felt that life was too short to mess with them so he told us all to lay off to make the professional dick-heads go away.

Drew and Tom and I got along well, again because I didn’t give a shit, but Bob clearly was chafing under the strain of management’s disallusionment with his persona and general odd-ball personality. He was a bit of a wierd fucker. I was all SoCal laid-back and he was all thick-glasses East Coast insecure.

For me, I had nothing to prove. I once said on the phone to Norm Schrutt of CapCities/ABC that the idea of working for him in Chicago made me vomit, so when I finally was legally coerced to go there, and they were still willing to pay me a quarter million a year, it’s not exactly like I was feeling the pressure. What were they going to do, fire me? 

For Bob, of course, there was something to prove and I’m sure he did feel the pressure. Plus he thought there was only one way to do radio, his way, i.e., irritating people. I relied more, like Don, on humor and satire.

I remember having drinks with Bob on St. Pat’s Day 1991 and it was like nobody in Chicago had ever really just been just a guy with him before. He unburdened himself of his frustration about the control he felt was stifling his performance and we became closer after that. Eventually I was able to negotiate myself out of my 5-year deal with ‘LS and Bob did as well, either before or after my settlement, I forget. We stayed in touch throughout the years prior to his career collapse and ultimate death.

In honesty, I think Bob’s personality was not adaptable to the type of big-city, big-stakes pressure that was put on all of us in the post-top-40 days of ‘LS. For him, it was a personal and professional pinnacle and I believe he felt that he had disappointed those who had “chosen” him to be part of the turnaround. I desparately wanted to be back in California so the strain on me was slacker.

Bob was indeed an honest guy, an insecure guy, and a performer whose life was played out on-air to a degree that was beyond what most of us were willing or capable of giving, largely because, for at least for me, emotional and egotistical needs were best fulfilled in a personal, marital, family, but not specifically profesional dynamic. Bob played out his life on the air, perhaps at the expense of his personal life, and therefore allowed himself to be victimized by his career, and the percieved disallusionments of those who had hired him.

Bottom line is Bob was a bit of an odd duck who exacerbated his problems by refusing to be a “regular guy” around Tradup and Hayes.

I work for Gabe Hobbs now so I can only imagine the shit he had to put up with in the end. Poor guy.

Tom Tradup was President and General Manager of WLS-AM in Chicago from 1989 to 1996. He hired Bob Lassiter for the station’s transition from Top 40 to News Talk. Here are his thoughts on those days and on Lassiter:

Q: When WLS changed over to talk, what was your understanding of what you were trying to do? I.e., was there a specific strategy in mind?
A: When I was hired as President/General Manager of WLS-AM in 1989, Tom Murphy (then CEO of CapCities/ABC) and Dan Burke (Chief Operating Officer) charged me with returning WLS to its historic greatness in the market. The radio station—with a killer 50,000-watt signal that hits 38 states and two provinces of China—was 23rd in the market in Arbitron and hemorrhaging red ink. I was given a “blank palette” and told I could stay ‘music’, switch to talk, keep/fire any/all of the current WLS personalities, hire all new ones from out of town…just about ANYTHING that I felt it would take to compete in the tough, highly-competetive Chicago radio market.  As I searched for options and looked at who was “punching through” on the radio…one of many folks I considered was Bob Lassiter.

Q: Did you know Lassiter’s name/work before he came to Chicago?
A: Not really. Bob was then employed at WFLA in Tampa.  ABC’s radio division head Jim Arcara lived in Longboat Key, Florida and had heard Lassiter many times so he secured some tapes that we listened to.  Bob was represented by Chicago talent agent Saul Foos, who also pushed hard for Bob to be given a shot on the new WLS Talkradio 890. (The earlier reference to Jim Arcara caused no small amount of static in our building…since Lassiter contended—falsely—that (his words) “I was hired by Jimmy Arcara, not by Tom Tradup or Drew Hayes” and this misconception caused him to think he was ‘bulletproof’ in terms of direction. Obviously Bob discovered otherwise, but it was fun while it lasted.

Q: WLS was a legendary and beloved music station, and Chicagoans are famously loyal to their local institutions. Did that mean you were battling uphill from the start?
A: WLS in 1989 was a great, heritage radio station whose best days were assumed to be in the past. When we set out to change that by flipping the station to NewsTalk, although ‘LS was only commanding a 1.3 share of the 12+ audience in the Chicago market…I heard from EVERY SINGLE PERSON who ever “used to listen” in the past. I was, among the printable things, “Benedict Arnold” and “an out of town s.o.b.” who was wrecking the station folks formerly listened to. (Emphasis on formerly.)  Today, I’ll wager most of those complaining are regular WLS listeners….just goes with the territory when any “legendary” station changes formats.

Q: Lassiter said that his difficulties at WLS started from Day One. What happened?
A: I’m not certain what Bob meant by that. Obviously, I thought there was a creative spark and an energy to Lassiter that would contrast nicely with the successful yet deadly boring “personalities” on WGN, our primary competitor, or the other news and talk stations up and down the dial.  We targeted WLS’ new format to counter WGN at the older end of the demos (friendly neighbors talking over the bacvkyard fence, the lost pet patrol, helping Mabel find her visiting relatives a motel that would accept pets, etc.) and WLUP at the younger end (goofy, David Letterman knockoffs like Steve Dahl or Jonathan Brandmeier who were phoning in their performances.) Obviously the plan worked…although the first year or so was like the movie “Flatliners” in terms of ratings. So Bob may have felt pressure on himself because nobody in any daypart—including the then-unknown Rush Limbaugh—was moving the needle in our initial months on the air.

Q: Was it just Bob, or was it the whole on-air staff that clashed with management? What was the atmosphere at the station between the talent and the front office?
A: Honestly, I believe we rounded up one of the most talented groups of men and women—both on the air and behind the scenes—in the history of American talk radio. My past experience at KCMO/Kansas City, WASH-FM/Washington, WMCA/New York and KRLD/Dallas among others gave me a pretty good barometer of how to get the best out of everyone…and I don’t think there was an inordinate amount of “clashing” with management. Certainly not that ended up in my office. Again, Lassiter was a unique talent who put a lot of pressure on himself. I had him visit me in my 45th floor Chicago highrise and…over a beer on the balcony…Bob just stared off into space and said, “What am I doing here? This market is too big for me.” He also went through producers like Kleenex, so I suppose that added to the suggestion there was “conflict” or a “clash” now and then. But other than a few feuds on the air with our morning team Don Wade & Roma it was just another day in Talk Radio at WLS while Bob Lassiter was in the building.

Q: Was the conflict with WLS in particular, or Cap Cities overall?
A: CapCities/ABC—specifically Murphy + Burke—showed more patience (and actual understanding of how a talk station develops slowly) than most corporate leaders. Many other companies, faced with the slow growth of WLS Talkradio 890 in 1989 and 1990, would have pulled the plug and turned the station into a reggae format. But CapCities/ABC was a very positive place to work and I have nothing but good to say about my 6 ½ years with them.

Q: What was your own relationship with Lassiter? How did that affect your perception of things?
A: Well, I just like talent. Period. And Bob was a talented guy. Complicated…aggravating…infuriating…but unquestionably talented. He and I had a couple of lunches and one dinner (Mary cooked us dinner in their apartment) but beyond that I wasn’t very close to Bob and that was the way he wanted it. I have always stayed in touch with Don & Roma, Stacey Taylor, Roe Conn, Drew Hayes, Jay Marvin and the other WLS folks and I visit the station frequently when I’m in Chicago. Their current PD Kipper McGee is a good friend. But Bob always took the contrarian, ‘let’s not get too close’ approach to management and, sadly, I wasn’t aware he had passed away until you contacted me for this interview. It doesn’t change how spellbinding he was ON the air but he wasn’t a guy I hung out with OFF the air.

Q: At one point, Lassiter was forbidden from saying that he had ever lived or worked anywhere except Chicago. Why?
A: When WLS was billing itself as “Chicago’s Talk Station” and embracing everything about Chicago—politicians, food, the great museums and nightlife, etc.—it was counterproductive to have anyone referring to how great Florida was, or what success he had in Florida, or how all the supermarkets in Chicago paled in comparison to Publix in Florida, etc. Again, that was part of Bob’s chemistry: attack nice little old ladies who violated his “don’t ask how I’m doing today” rule, if we’re pro-Chicago be anti-Chicago, etc. It was that whole annoying Neal Rodgers, attack-the-snowbirds-and-Social-Security-recipients  Florida talk host act that does make the phones ring but, long term, doesn’t play in a place like Chicago which—in spite of all the steel and concrete—isn’t NYC or LA. Chicago is a friendly, Midwest town that just grew really, really big and Bob opted not to take that into account which was his ultimate undoing with us. But he went out the way he came in: his own man.

Q: What were his numbers like? Lassiter was pulling 8s and 9s Tampa. How did the Arbitrons in Chicago compare?
A: Bob Lassiter was a great talent to whom Arbitron diary holders did not appear to gravitate.

Q: Bob was fired after his show on September 20, 1991. What was it that made it happen at that particular time?
A: You will think I’m lying, but I honestly do not recall why we terminated Bob’s employment…or if we even DID.  I’m not certain if it was a personnel issue or if we just couldn’t renegotiate a new Agreement on mutually agreeable terms. If your 1991 date is correct, it would be a little more than two years into a three year deal, which I seem to recall we had with Bob. Possibly we decided not to pick up the option for a third year?

Q: When/why did you ultimately leave WLS, and what happened next for you?
A: I spent 6 ½ great years in Chicago and with ABC. When Disney purchased CapCities/ABC in 1996 I cashed out my “shadow stock” and returned to Programming…first at the USA Radio Network (where Iaunched the national morning show Daybreak USA in 1996 which is still heard in about 200 markets) and then in 2000, with my brilliant, visionary friend Walter Sabo, we created and launched a radio service for PARADE Magazine.  In 2003, I joined Salem Communications where I am VP/News + Talk Programming for the Salem Radio Network…overseeing all of our national talk hosts including Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager and others plus our Salem News Network which serves over 1200 stations nationwide.

Q: Is there anything I’ve not asked that you think it’s important for me to know?
A: I believe Bob Lassiter had many friends (and imitators) in this business. I’ve been in Talk Radio since the late 1970’s and few hosts, guests, or producers have stood out as Bob Lassiter did. He was incredibly talented, and does not to be enlarged in death beyond what he was in life: a sizzling presence who was a true “original” and who helped me and my team drag WLS from “also ran” in Chicago back into the bigs…winning the Marconi for News/Talk/Sports Station of the Year in 1995 from the National Association of Broadcasters. Bob was gone at that point, but not forgotten.

Jim Johnson needs no introduction to anyone who’s spent time in the Chicagoland area or listened to WLS-AM. Johnson is a longtime reporter for WLS news and was Lassiter’s newsman during his two-year tenure at the station. He talked to us this week about memories of Bob and the early days of talk at WLS.

Q: You were around before WLS went talk…what kind of an impact did the change have, in and out of the building?
A: It was a huge change..and it actually was good for my career..News Talk became the main product instead of music.

Q: Were you aware of Lassiter before he came to Chicago?
A: I had never heard of him.

Q: You and he sounded like you had a lot of fun in your banter on the air; did you have a relationship with him off-mic?
A: We had a lot of fun on the air..and liked each other.  Bob and his wife came to my house for dinner with me and my wife..And we went to their house.

Q: What was working with him like? Was it a different experience than you’d had in radio before?
A: Bob was pretty much the same off the air as he was on the air..Although we socialized together..he was somewhat difficult to get to know..kind of aloof..I’m no psychologist..but I thought he might have been depressed much of the time.  But Mary his wife would know more about that than I would.

Q: Were you privy to the clashes between Bob and the front office? Did you have a stake in it, or an opinion?
A: I know they clashed. Bob seemed to hate any boss who tried to tell him how to do his show.  I knew pretty early on he was going to have a hard time. Everyone on the air (me included) are critiqued now and then, but he couldn’t stand it (I think he pretty much considered them idiots). It went downhill pretty much from the beginning. If a suggestion came from a boss Bob did not seem to like it..no matter what it was.

Q: Lassiter made the claim that he was eventually forbidden to mention that he’d worked anywhere outside of Chicago. Do you know anything about that (i.e., why)?
A: I never heard that.

Q: As someone with as much experience as you in Chicago radio: why do you think Bob didn’t make it in town?
A: I could be wrong..but I think he might have lasted if he had learned to “roll with the punches.”  My memory is that just before he was fired his ratings were starting to go up a little, but by then Bob had pretty much burned his bridges.

Q: Were you there the night he got fired? What exactly happened?
A: I was on the air with him..he was called into the front office after the show..I waited for him at the elevator and he said “Johnson my journalist..I’ve been fired.” I wished him well. That was the last time we talked until I called him a couple years later when I was in Florida visiting my mother.  We had a brief chat on the phone.

Q: Any particular memories of Bob you’d like to share?
A: I thought Bob was one of the best storytellers I had ever met.  But the bosses didn’t think his stories were what they wanted on the air.