News

2007 Turkeys of the Year

Continued from page 3

"Bunch of fucking idiots is what it is," says one Texas rap promoter of the Jones-SwishaHouse dispute. "Plus, who the fuck can listen to an entire Mike Jones record without throwing up? He's the most one-dimensional waste-of-time rapper I ever heard. And that includes Vanilla Ice. At least Vanilla Ice can dance."

Tommy Tutone, you may have some company soon in the category of One-Hit Telephone Song Wonders. The new guy will be driving up in a Bentley...if he's saved while he had the chance. So, probably, forget about the Bentley part.

Media Turkey of the Year: Michael Berry

Let's say you're a giant media conglomerate that operates radio stations all over the nation. AM radio is in turmoil these days, so who do you hire to run your AM operations in the country's fourth-largest city?

Someone who has absolutely no experience running a radio station, much less three of them.

City Councilman Michael Berry, who is soon to be term-limited out of office, is now a radio mogul. Since April he's been Clear Channel's AM guy in Houston, a job for which he extensively trained by hosting a talk show.

Berry is no longer giving out interviews about his radio gig to the media, but we talked to him about sports-talk radio for a cover story a while back. Let's just say he's absolutely confident that he's up to the job.

And let's just say your assessment may ­differ.

Berry oversees KTRH, KPRC and KBME. The latter is sports 24/7, and struggling in the ratings.

The other two are the most famous AM stations in town, pioneers in different ways in Houston radio.

They're still pioneering. In sucking.

KPRC has become "Radio Mojo," and it is exactly as bad as the name sounds. The station, which led the way in radio talk for years, now broadcasts eight freaking hours of Walton & Johnson.

If you don't know Walton & Johnson...well, first thank whatever God you pray to. Then realize that airing eight hours a day of their tired shtick is like XM deciding to put on a 24-hour channel of Gallagher stand-up.

It's not just that their allegedly wacky group of character voices includes a redneck and a lisping gay guy, it's that — if listening to the show is any indication — they apparently haven't had an original thought in years. Last month — in 2007, mind you — they spent a whole segment discussing, and taking as gospel, that idiotic list of people whom the Clintons supposedly have had killed.

KPRC follows this abomination with Howard Stern wanna-be Mancow. We just hope they don't get the bends from diving so ferociously for the lowest common denominator.

And then there's KTRH, long known as the city's leading news station. Back in the day (say, the early '90s) it had up to three dozen people staffing regular beats (City Hall, the courts) and breaking investigative news.

Now there's maybe half that number of people, and they ain't breakin' much. Unless you count rip-and-reading that morning's Chronicle.

"A viable news operation has been slowly frittered away," one KTRH alum says.

Berry has shown a keen eye for spotting potential ethical problems — and then acting like they don't exist. He is, after all, the boss of KTRH, which occasionally covers City Council. Including City Council member Michael Berry. Doesn't bother him.

Not to mention that he now has the station's two legendary anchors, JP Pritchard and Lana Hughes, doing advertisements for clients. Because you want a name you can trust, whether it's telling you about the latest Metro scandal or the wonderful Lasik work you can get from Dr. Jeff Whitsitt.

But maybe Berry's not to blame.

"I do know other people that interviewed for that position, and one of them said when he started to lay out his vision for reviving KTRH, it became clear that Clear Channel headquarters just wanted a yes man who would do their bidding," the KTRH alum says.

"Maybe Michael Berry isn't the [media] turkey of the year," he said. "Maybe Clear Channel is, and Berry's just the wattle hanging from its neck, going in whatever direction they want."

Bitter? Maybe. But seeing some great radio stations die can do that to a person.

(To revisit our honorees for the past four years, click here.)

rich.connelly@houstonpress.com

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4