Who will the next fool be? –Infinity Broadcasting

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 27th, 2005

Infinity CEO Joel Hollander on replacing Howard Stern:

“As far as I know, no one in the industry has ever replaced 27 morning shows at once,” Hollander said in hinting why final decisions on long-term plans might take some time even once the replacements hit the airwaves.

Suggesting that the successors for Stern soon will be unveiled, he said the search was more difficult than some, including industry veterans, had thought. “We went from Jon Stewart to Whoopi Goldberg and Geraldo Rivera — a lot of people thought it would be easy.”

Huh? Does this mean they approached those three? We’re not sure. It’s unclear.

Whoopi on radio? Disastrous. Stewart splitting his time between TV and radio? Don’t make us laugh.

We’re of the opinion that trying to replace Stern with one huge star– or five or six huge stars– at once is a formula for radio disaster. The big difference between Stern and all the people they are rumored to seek to shoehorn into Stern’s spot(s) is that Stern, before he was King of All Media, knew radio inside and out. These others don’t. Trying to make them radio personalities is fraught with difficulties. Some may display a natural affinity for the medium. Trying to groom them all at once will be a miserable failure. Why don’t they let 27 local personalities or teams give it a shot in their home markets and see if anyone emerges? (Let’s face it, Howard Stern wouldn’t be given a chance to replace Howard Stern using the current Infinity logic.)

The only non-radio types with a chance of survival will be standup comics. (We don’t count Stewart or Goldberg, see above.) It oughta be interesting.