At the end of each NFL season as the carousel of hirings and firings goes into full swing one of the big stories becomes which new assistant coaches will get the nod to become a head coach. Certain existing head coaches seem to have a greater knack for getting their assistant coaches into those jobs than others such as Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid. Seven of the current 30 head coaches (not including vacancies in Arizona and Tennessee that does not have a rumored candidate awaiting the completion of their current team’s season) come from branches off of Reid’s tree just as Reid was an assistant of Mike Holmgren who was a branch of Bill Walsh.
With a smaller bench for talent to start on weekends and move up through the dayparts until making their way to mornings, talent that gets their start behind the scenes on an existing show and then move on to their own shows has become more prevalent.
As we mentioned yesterday when Elvis Duran was announced as entering the NAB’s Broadcasting Hall of Fame, his show has become a pipeline in recent years for new morning talent. His former morning partner Elliot Segal has had nearly as much success as Duran at “DC 101” WWDC Washington and regional syndication while their original co-host Christine Nagy is down the hall from Duran co-anchoring mornings at “106.7 Lite-FM” WLTW New York. TJ Taormina and Loren Raye came out of the Duran show in 2013 to take mornings at Entercom’s “103.3 Amp Radio” WODS Boston. Carla Marie and Anthony, who moved up following their exit followed suit in 2016 to join iHeart’s “Power 93.3” KPWK Seattle.
Other shows have been constant pipelines for grooming new morning show talents.
Rich Shertenlieb (half of “98.5 The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM Boston’s Toucher & Rich), Rich Berra (half of the syndicated John Jay & Rich) and The Bert Show’s Bert Weiss came out of The Kidd Kraddick Morning Show along with all of the staffers that have kept that show going since Kraddick’s passing.
Bert Weiss is quickly growing his own branches of his own. Jeff Dauler & Jenn Hobby now compete against Weiss directly in Atlanta on Entercom Hot AC “Star 94.1” WSTR as did Melissa Carter at Cox AC “B98.5” WSB-FM. Brian Moote just departed The Bert Show to co-anchor a new morning show at Entercom’s “97.1 Amp Radio” KAMP Los Angeles.
The Brother Wease Show has been a staple in Rochester NY for over three decades. Now based at iHeartMedia’s “Radio 95.1” WAIO, many staffers have moved on to success of their own including Gregg ‘Opie’ Hughes of Opie & Anthony fame, 99.9 KISW Seattle morning host BJ Shea, syndicated liberal talkers Stephanie Miller, and “97 Rock” WGR-FM Buffalo morning host Rich ‘The Bull’ Gaenzler.
And then there’s the show which seemed to groom national television talent more than radio hosts. Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Chris Hardwick, and Ralph Garman all came through 106.7 KROQ Los Angeles’ Kevin & Bean Show and ended up on television and in the case of three of them becoming leading podcasters, while Kimmel had to settle for being probably the most famous person to have user account to my old Radio-Info discussion boards while already hosting a network late night television show.
This is nowhere near a complete list which is where you come in. Who are we missing that you would nominate for having the most successful morning show tree? We’ll dig deeper onto this next week.
