As talk radio transitioned, KMOX also aged. Sure, it brought in new, young talent like Joe Buck, Ackerman and others to adapt, but by 2002 the two men whose names were synonymous with the station, Hyland and Jack Buck, had passed away. Hyland went first, in 1992, and after his death nothing was ever quite the same.

WILKERSON: Camelot ended then. The great ride was over. I wish I had treasured that time more than I did, because everything I really loved about it was gone.

ABSHER: CBS desperately wanted to gain control of KMOX, and there were people at the network who were vying to come in here when Hyland was gone. They couldn't force him to do anything; he was making so much money for the network. He did what he wanted, and that was why we loved working there. He protected us from all of the junk and all of the garbage.

[Hyland] had done things for KMOX that an outsider would look at and say, "What on earth?" He put these billboards all over town that just said, kmox. No dial position, no nothing. He knew it was an institution, that it was of the community. It was just a reminder. The first thing [new general manager] Rod Zimmerman did when he came in was cancel all those contracts, the choicest billboards in town.

JACOBER: About two or three weeks after [Zimmerman arrived], he wanted to have a meeting of the sports staff. I made the mistake of inviting everybody, even the people we had part-time. [Zimmerman] walked into the conference room, and his eyes were as big as saucers. He couldn't believe we were paying that many people. About a week later he called me into his office, which was Hyland's office, and he slid a piece of paper to me. There were [eight] names on there. He told me to get rid of them. I had to call [Post-Dispatch columnist and part-time KMOX staffer] Bob Burnes and [former Post-Dispatch editor Bob] Broeg and all of those guys, and Bob Costas, Dan Dierdorf. Those guys were on that list. The next day, it was the story on the front page of the sports [section] of the Post-Dispatch.

Everybody hates the bean counters until it's time to make money.

You have to give a fuck about content or the whole thing comes crashing down. Look at Cumulus and WLS. They're full of syndicated shows and infomercials and it keeps the books balanced for now, but eventually this got unsustainable and they had to sign the withered husk of Steve Dahl to give them something that might be meaningful programming.

Everybody hates the bean counters until it's time to make money.

Everybody hates the bean counters until it's time to make money.

In fairness to Mitch, he does give us way more local programming than he has any right to, given his boss.