Radio-Dispatched

Nationally syndicated sports talk show host Jim Rome rolled the dice earlier this year, walking away from Jim Rome is Burning on ESPN for a deal with CBS Sports/Showtime.

Six weeks after the premiere of Rome on the CBS Sports Network, the “King of Smack” told media reporter Ed Sherman that he has no regrets about his decision to leave:

Do people still say to you, ‘You’re crazy, why did you leave ESPN?

Yeah, little bit. Once in a while. It’s not just the one show. It’s the whole platform. It’s been great. They were very good to me at ESPN. I had a great run there. CBS has been awesome. It’s a great company to work for. They give me a lot of support. I’ve never once looked back.

It’s a big picture thing. I’m not so locked in that it’s just the TV show. I’m reaching so many different places across the platforms. Once I made the decision, once I’m in, I’m all in. It might sound trite, but I’m trying to do the best TV show I can do every single day. That’s what I’m focused on. It’s going to take some time. As long as I can do a TV show I’m proud of, that’s the only thing that matters.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

USC Annenberg and The California Report are set to launch the debut of their radio program 20something, which promises to “explores the intimate spaces of young people’s lives.” The series makes its debuts today at 4:30 on KQED.

20something was reported by the eight graduate students in USC Annenberg Professor Sandy Tolan’s advanced radio documentary class and was  edited by California Report senior producer Victoria Mauleón. Additional web content for the series will run on Neon Tommy.

The radio show will air weekly and will have a guaranteed run of at least seven weeks. Very cool that students are able to do this kind of locally high-profile work.

[Here's a link to this afternoon's first episode]

Today, KPFA-FM 94.1 Berkeley launched its new 7 a.m.-8 a.m. offering, Up Front!

Joining KPFA alum Brian Edwards-Tiekert as co-host is Sonali Kolhatkar, who can also be heard from 8 a.m to 9 a.m. weekdays on Pacifica sister station KPFK-FM 90.7 in Los Angeles as the anchor of Uprising.

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The Los Angeles Clippers, fresh off a thrilling Game 7 road victory over the Memphis Grizzlies Sunday, have signed a new multi-year broadcast rights agreement with KFWB News Talk 980. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Clippers made the move from KSPN-AM (710) to KFWB  in 2009.

“We are so happy to forge forward with our relationship with the Clippers who have captured the hearts of Southern Californians and fans across the country,” said KFWB general manager Valerie K. Blackburn. “The Los Angeles Clippers have emerged as a fan favorite in this town and are an extremely important part of our ongoing commitment to provide quality programming to our listeners.”

Starting on Monday, Billy Bush’s nationally syndicated radio show can be heard on the Los Angeles radio airwaves.

The Billy Bush Show will air weekdays on Playlist 92.7 FM from 4-8 pm. The Westwood One radio program features exclusive celebrity interviews and the latest news from Hollywood.

“It’s always been my goal for this show to be on the air in the entertainment capital of the world… L.A. and OC .. this is Hollywood,” Bush said in a statement. “Thanks to programmers like Rick Shaw and management like Matthew Rodriguez and Pat Duffy, we get to have fun on the air and bring access to the biggest celebrities in the biz to the airwaves of Playlist 92.7.  Great music, great content… that’s Playlist 92.7 and we’re excited to get crackin’!!”

A few day into the ’92 riots, KCRW and Warren Olney hosted a town forum on the issue. That single show grew into the award-winning public affairs program Which Way L.A.?

Twenty years after that first broadcast, former general manager Ruth Seymour, WWLA‘s founding producer Sarah Spitz, and host Olney sat down with Steve Chiotakis to commemorate the show’s beginnings.

Recalls Seymour, “What Warren didn’t know at the time was that he was actually auditioning. He had no idea about this because we had not made any announcement. We came to the conclusion that we had to respond [to the riots.] We were going to do a one hour show for one month only through June. And we had absolutely not a penny to do this program on. I scraped up enough money to pay a host, but I didn’t have any more than that.”

“Did I get paid?” teased Olney.

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Perez Hilton just landed himself another syndicated radio show. The gossip blogger has a new gig with Cumulus Media Networks to host “Perez Nights Live,” with co-host Adam Bomb. The show will, of course, have a celebrity focus and will air weeknights from 7-11pm ET in 50 markets–including Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Detroit.

Looks like LA didn’t make the cut. Noooooooo!

[Photo: Helga Esteb/Shutterstock.com]

When DJ Laz bailed as the longtime morning drive radio host on Miami’s Power 96 at the beginning of April after 22 years, he suggested it was time for a change. Today, it was announced that the popular South Florida personality will be relocating to the west coast to continue entertaining morning commuters.

Starting May 14, DJ Laz – real name Lazaro Mendez - will re-up on KXOL 96.3 FM (a.k.a. Latino 96.3) for The DJ Laz Morning Show. The program will air weekdays from six to 10 a.m, bumping the current time slot tandem of Raquel Cordova and Nachin. The show will also be available over the Internet at Lamusica.com. Here’s more info about LA’s newest radio personality via Orlando Sentinel columnist Ben Crandall:

Laz has also been a force in the South Florida hip-hop scene as a performer and producer, working with such as stars Lil Jon, Flo-Rida, T-Pain and his nephew, Pitbull. “Signing DJ Laz is very much in line with our strategy of delivering the biggest stars and the best content possible,” said Jesus Salas, executive vice president of programming for [KXOL parent] Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. (SBS).

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A year after working for the American Public Media Marketplace franchise as a contract researcher and digital associate producer, Adam Popescu returns the favor this week in the form of a fun LA Weekly item.

His focus is the overnight routine in downtown LA of the half-dozen or so staffers who put together the hourly Marketplace Morning Report. Popescu leads with a contributor wrinkle that, somehow, seems like it could only happen in public radio:

At 3:30 a.m., [show producer] Ethan Lindsey is on the phone with reporter Stephen Beard, who lives and reports from an off-grid farm outside of London. Beard, who cuts his own firewood, had suffered wood-chip splinters to the eye that forced him to the emergency room and out of the morning rotation.

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KCRW is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its signature local news show Which Way, LA? with Warren Olney next week. WWLA was born in the immediate wake of the LA riots, as way to publicly explore the complex social dynamics of the civil unrest. The show was Olney’s first at KCRW, and he’s stayed at the station ever since.

“It was a safe and even comforting place to turn to as people searched for ways to go forward,” says former KCRW general manager Ruth Seymour of the show’s origins. “[T]he program remains a trusted source for discussion and debate about the problems and concerns of Southern Californians. The program has now served a generation of KCRW listeners. That surely is more than a success; it’s a triumph.”

KCRW has been commemorating the anniversaries of WWLA and the riots by airing several hour-long specials on that chaotic time in 1992, and exploring whether or not a similar uprising could happen in Los Angeles today.