Smoke and mirrors…. Dispatches from sources in the still smoking ruins:
The entire DC team …ARNN and A. Tantaros Show staff and talent never got paid. America’s Morning News with John McCaslin never got paid. There is a lawsuit in the works.
The Team in Oregon got paid. “However…Mark didn’t bother doing the firing.” Our source said “We got nothing from him or any of the higher ups. They brought our checks & notices to B*** *******, and made him hand them out right after giving him his…And you guessed it, our notices blamed Dial Global for the shutdown.”
An Idaho Radio Station that has Doyle, America in the Morning, and other TRN products said had they not read posts on Facebook from fired producers they would not have known that they had no programs come Monday morning. Another source in Oregon said “As far as I know, no one in DC is showing up tomorrow, so that’s pretty much gone. I think Andrea Tantaros is doing a show tomorrow, some tech guy got called back for that, but with no support staff, tomorrow might be it for her. And I really don’t know about Jerry and Rusty….” A DC source said. “I’m hearing some of the big names are going on the air without pay and will try to get new syndicators. Payroll office is closed in Oregon.”
Where is Mark Masters? One fired Oregonian said “I can’t tell you the last time I saw him. He may be holed up on his ranch, but he may be in an immigration line in some other country as we speak.”
Meanwhile TRN host Rusty Humphries posted the following on his Facebook page: “I was pulled off the air mid sentence TRYING to explain and defend the position of my syndicator. There was no bad intent nor would i have said anything negative on the air, that’s not who I am but I believe an explanation is necessary. Unfortunately there are people who have never been on the air who have zero business nor common sense who are running the technical controls. I apologize to my affiliate stations and listeners… I was there, prepared to do a good show. I was planning on giving you an explanation of a very difficult time in Talk Radio and then move on to the show. That seems to have not been an option even though I was not told ANYTHING!”
Sept. 10, 2013–Some rather unique “News” programming happened this morning. While most “News” programs are live…Mark Master’s America’s Morning News re-aired old news this morning. The same hour…6 times.
John McCaslin reportedly showed up for “a bit” of his shift. But who can blame the guy if you have no producers, no board op, or anyone to pull news sound….And that tiny issue of you’re not getting paid.
Basically there are 2 guys in Oregon keeping the shell in business: M******* and D*** the Engineer. One source on the inside says they can’t make it longer than a week.
Is it possible that Mark is now recruiting family members to work for free for him? D**** R****, Mark’s brother, now claims to be an “Associate Producer” for the completely defunct America’s Radio News Network. If he can do better than repeating the same hour of old news 6 times then he’s golden. Keeping those stations is going to be tricky though.
No Jerry Doyle last night. Instead…listeners were treated to Mark’s Father, Roy Masters who had what one facebooker wrote “Audio gold! It was brilliant. If you like hearing a man melt down over the course of a 3 hour radio show.”
No word on what Rusty Humphries will do…or if he will be allowed to talk about talk radio on his talk show without having the mic cut off.
One former employee of Marks did manage to get through to Masters himself. They asked the all important question of when they would get paid. Mark replied that he was worried if he could pay his own bills.
Sept. 13, 2013-Local AM Radio Station, KFLS, in Klamath Falls says the instability is creating a major programming issue. “We’ve had issues with the hosts that are supposed to be on the air being replaced by other best of shows or substitute hosts that are sitting in for them,” said Randy Adams with KFLS programing. Adams says out of the 24 hours in the day TRN usually fills 20 of them for the talk radio station.
KFLS says the worst part is no one is talking to them about what’s going on, “they have really made no effort to keep their affiliates informed as to what’s going on,” Adams said.
Stay tuned!
