LIFE AFTER CITY COUNCIL FOR TALKER MICHAEL BERRY!
The Insite made a stop behind the scenes of KTRH radio and the Michael Berry Show Friday evening. Berry, a former Houston city councilman, is now one of Clear Channel's main local talkers since arriving at the station a couple of years ago. But that's not all, Berry is also the AM Operations manager at the company. He says he loves the ride he's on with his broadcasting career. The attorney by trade spends 3 hours a day on the air with an eclectic mix of topics. But Berry doesn't put his show on alone. There are several behind the scene folk who are becoming just as recognizable as Berry on AM radio. His two technical guys get lots of exposure as Berry frequently refers to them by name on the air. They are Producer Chad Nakanishi and Board Controller James Simpson. Also Scott Braddock has become a familiar voice on KTRH. He serves as afternoon news anchor during the talk show. From Berry's enthusiasm on the air with his newly chosen career, I think we may be hearing him on AM radio for quite some time!
From Berry's enthusiasm on the air with his newly chosen career, I think we may be hearing him on AM radio for quite some time!
ReplyDeleteDid he show you the ratings books for his show?
I think your readers would love to see his 25-54 numbers. Get him to share!
man what a sad state am radio in Houston is in.
ReplyDeleteI was told thats CEO Mark Mays of Clear Channel was not please with Mikie running the show. I am an account exc and it's hard to sale ads if you dont have the rateings and if most local business owners dont like Mikie Barry. We are loseing money here and lots of it. Reminds me of the BUSH ADMINSTRATION.A complete FAILURE!
ReplyDeleteI miss Chris Baker
ReplyDeleteI read on another blog that Chris was doing a morning talk show from 7-11 am in Minneapolis.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ktlkfm.com/pages/schedule.html
Michael Barry is a good guy and all, but I have to say that the Show for some reason is not as good as the Chris Baker show was.
ReplyDeleteNot everybody has that talent to do talk radio and Im curious to see what the ratings are. One way I measure it is whether or not you can actually get an open phone line when you call in.
And 99% of the time I call, you can get a phone line so I guess you can assume many listeners are tuning him out. With Chris Baker Show, I didn't agree with him often but the show had that extra something that got people keeping the lines busy each and everyday.
KTRH has really gone to the Dogs, expecially with shows like Mancow, and I like walton and johnson but after listening to it for 2 hours your basically ready to turn the station.
Im just wondering how much longer wll their format for KTRH last. Its really really bad now/
Berry's main talent is that he's glib ... he can filibuster on a subject for quite a while (as long as you're not too strict about him having to actually make sense or have any valid points). And that's pretty much it. He has all the intellectual depth of a damp sponge, he's a huge hypocrite, and -- most damning -- he's a liar.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with an ounce of honesty who listens to him regularly knows about his shallow, hypocritical aspects. Here's the liar part: remember last November when the mentally ill man in Connecticut held Clinton campaign staffers "hostage" with road flares strapped to his body like dynamite? Well that evening, Berry was holding forth on the subject with his usual superficial blather, when he called the campaign staffers who had been held by the man "Monica Lewinsky types".
A woman called up to take issue with his negative characterization of these people, and Berry, blowhard that he is, launched into an comically fictional defense of himself by saying that the campaign staffers couldn't tell the difference between a real bomb and a fake bomb when they were "tested" on this skill by the responding police after the incident was over.
Now intelligent people will be saying to themselves "What possible freaking reason could the cops have had for such a pointless exercise as testing whether rank civilians knew the difference between a real bomb and a fake?" And that, my friends, is exactly the point. There is absolutely no sane reason such a thing would have ever occurred ... because such a thing never actually did occur. Berry invented it to make his "Lewinsky types" comment seem more vaguely defensible by portraying the Clinton office staffers as braindead bimbos.
I spent two weeks in intensive research, sending inquiries to news organizations, blogs, etc. both nationally and in the area trying to find out if such an inconceivably stupid event ever took place. Or failing that, if there was some mistaken report of some such happening (or something that could be misconstrued as such).
Results? Absolutely nothing.
Berry made it up on the spot to keep from looking so bad when the woman called out his jackassery.
I sent a lengthy email about the incident to Berry and several levels of his corporate masters but, of course, never received a single reply.
Michael Berry is a talent-free hack and a waste of the airwaves who has made KTRH into a distant fifth on my radio. I profoundly disagreed with Chris Baker very often. but I still listened to at least some of his show every day on my hour-long homeward commute.
Berry? He's lucky if he gets two minutes on my radio in a month.