Being on overnight in a major market and being heard in 37 or so other states is pretty relevant.

Plus, his connection to the Score helped him to earn other income outside of the Chicago market as well.

Les enjoyed what he did for a living.

_________________

I thought I heard Mitch Rosen say when Les came back to the score the morning show's ratings improved.

Dan McNeil hasn't said a word really besides a tweet about insurance on twitter. Which he has a good point, but not the time or place. Just another case for Medicare for all. Noone should have to struggle or worry about medical costs at any age let alone that age.

Not really

Damn Straight!!

That’s partially true. We know Larry, Speigel and Mully have low thresholds but Bernstein and Parkins dont seem to mind getting grief.

_________________
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

What are you talking about? Les was on Medicare. Apparently he chose not to go to the doctor.

Good stuff Sini.
Sorry you lost your friend.

_________________
if ya ain't cheatin ya ain't tryin

How do you feel about War and Peace?

_________________
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

Parkins isn't lying, he's just an idiot if he said that.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/people/c ... story.html

Radio has endured tough years, accelerated by the pandemic. In Chicago, year-over-year radio revenue fell 24% to $325 million in 2020, according to according to media research firm BIA Advisory Services. The Score, which ranked fifth in revenue among Chicago stations, struggled with a dearth of live sports programming and fell 26% to $15 million in 2020, according to BIA.


They billed $15M before paying rights fees to the Cubs. And before paying the rest of their expenses.

_________________

I knew Les didn't make a lot of money. Still, he worked for 50 years doing this media. You would think he'd have some money in the bank that his family could use for the funeral. It surprised me his family is doing a gofundme to raise money for this.

Funeral Parlors will give you a payment plan. When my mom died, my Dad got to pay it off over a year with no interest. I'm sure most funeral homes do the same, if not all of them. Because there has to be countless cases where people just can't cut a check for 10k right away. And you have to have the funeral in 3 days or so.

None of us know what he dealt with leading up to this from a medical bill standpoint. Further, he likely never was the beneficiary of the high salary period in radio and was also married multiple times, so even at his peak earnings he was at a disadvantage.

_________________
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

Yeah. I guess you're right. The 4 divorces certainly hurt him financially. But I thought this illness came on suddenly and quick. Like this all happened in 10 days or so the way Grote described it. I was thinking it was Covid. I wouldn't think the medical would be that much. But maybe I'm wrong.

If the SCORE didn't give Les benefits, he could have gotten Obama Care.

It's sad.

One more thing, I heard that producers get benefits at the SCORE. How the hell do they get it and not Les? That makes no fucking sense.

audacy reports (4q'21) next month...they had over $260 million in liquidity entering 4q'21. the variant will stall revenue progress, but revenues were coming back to pre-covid levels. i would think they could make a kind gesture that won't see them in bk court. private help. if they publicly help les' family, every employee will expect the same; from funds for wisdom teeth extraction to paying for a pet dog's heart surgery - the board wouldn't like that.

it's amazing, bernstein was talking about how les got dirt-cheap airfares from united and offman said les would sleep in his car before paying a motel. sounds like les needed a financial advisor. likely, would have been too proud to admit that.

The funeral parlors have a good business. Everyone's dying to get in.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Parkins has really done a terrific job of remembering and paying tribute to Les.

He's got Garry Meier on now after having Brandmeier as a guest yesterday.

As a self-described "radio dork", it's clear that Parkins identified with Les on some level and appreciated his work as well as his place in Chicago radio history. I've found Parkins much more earnest and thoughtful in his commentary on Les than Bernstein was.

_________________

I don't understand. Les is out covering sports on his own dime?

Yeah Nardi. Seems much of his career he was either a per dime worker or freelancer. Or when he was an employee they cut his travel budget to bare bones.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

He's got July at +1400. Not high enough

That's her weight not her odds.

_________________

So other than July what people were on the list?

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Mark Grote (+275): The heir apparent to the Grobber. Grote hosted the first overnight show after Grobstein’s passing after doing a scheduled fill-in shift on the midday show. Could Grote do the entire show in Les’ voice? Probably. He is currently the Bears sideline reporter, though doing late nights might be less painful than covering that team every day.

David Schuster (+400): One of Grobstein’s oldest professional friends, Schuster was often the Waldorf to Grobstein’s Statler. I don’t think Schuster, who was laid off by The Score in 2020, would really want this job. But he could do it. Schuster is every bit the Chicago sports encyclopedia his friend was. If Les was there, so was Schuster.

Chris Rongey (+550): What about Rongey? He doesn’t have a full-time job right now, aside from filling in on The Score, and he has the most experience with insane Score callers from his days on the White Sox pre- and postgame show. But in his interview with Grote on Tuesday morning, Rongey sounded like the last person who would want this role. But while he wouldn’t want to admit it, he was born to yell at crazy people late at night on the radio.

Mark Carman (+650): Carman has hosted and produced at WGN (among other places) and now he does videos for FanSided and a Chicago podcast. Carman, an ex-Chicago vendor, is funny, opinionated and probably weird enough to do the job.

Kevin Dziepak (+650): Panayotovich’s dark-horse favorite for the job. The former Score producer/host moved to Houston to work for SportsMap Radio, the national syndicated radio network formerly known as — clears throat — Yahoo! Sports Radio, SB Nation Radio, Sporting News Radio, One on One Sports and Sports Entertainment Network. Could Rosen lure him home with a full-time job that includes the overnight show?

Young Producers (+750): Rosen could just fill the role with a rotating cast of producers who are eager to get on-air reps. If it becomes a Grobber-by-committee job, you can expect producers will shuffle in. Sean Anderson, Sean Sears, just a bunch of dudes named Sean could do the job.

Herb Lawrence (+800): Lawrence is the producer of Laurence Holmes’ afternoon show. Would he give that up to be the next Grobber? Probably not. But he’s opinionated, feisty and smart, a perfect late-night host. Plus, he has experience producing Rongey’s old show.

Nick Shepkowski (+800): Nicky the Kid once beat the Grobber in an on-air sports trivia quiz and it wasn’t close. Grobber is known for his “Rain Man” recall, but really his knowledge was limited to the old days and was often focused on minutiae. Shepkowski, who got laid off by The Score in 2020, is a true sports trivia savant and could carry the show.

Kenneth Davis and Demonze Spruiel (+850): This duo has filled in for the Grobber before. I could definitely see them in the mix for the job.

George Ofman (+1000): Ofman, a sports-radio lifer and Friend of Grobber, wouldn’t need to take any callers. That man can spin a yarn.

Harry Teinowitz (+1175): Teinowitz has been looking for another gig in sports media for a while now. He’s had some recent success as a playwright, co-writing a play about his sobriety with his old partner Spike Manton. Would Teinowitz return to the airwaves to do an overnight show? He used to be able to stay up all night, but that wasn’t in a professional manner. He’s certainly quirky enough to pull it off. I can picture Harry talking about jersey numbers at 4 a.m.

Ben Finfer (+1200): Finfer would probably break the Grobber’s no-politics rule in the first segment. From heaven, Les would be yelling, “Dump him! Dump him!”

Julie DiCaro (+1400): Her Score tenure ended with the 2020 layoffs. She’s also got a job editing at Deadspin and a career as an author. DiCaro has a great radio voice and I always enjoyed going on her evening show which led up to Grobber back in the day. She could pull it off, for sure.

George Castle (+1800): Castle is an unfamiliar name unless you used to read the Times of Northwest Indiana or his many, many Cubs books. He’s more than pedantic enough for the job, but the listeners might mutiny when it’s Bears season and he’s still talking about the 1969 Cubs.

The Field (+2000): A slew of local sports personalities could fit in here. My favorite suggestion is letting Chuck Swirsky go right from Bulls games to the overnight show, with a Mr. Pibb recharge in between.

Jordan Bernfield (+2200): Bernfield worked at The Score and WGN radio before leaving that part of the industry to focus on his budding play-by-play career. Bernfield is part of the post-Grobstein generation of Chicago sportscasters who went to Syracuse instead of Sports Phone University.

Tom Shaer (+3000): The first voice you heard on The Score on Jan. 2, 1992, Shaer is an industry lifer on and off the air. This would be a hat tip to the station’s history.

Ben Rosen (+4400): Mitch Rosen’s son? Hey, nepotism is a Chicago media tradition. Young Rosen is a sports-radio nut, just like his dad.

Rick Telander (+5000): Telander, who writes once or twice a week for the Sun-Times these days, doesn’t need to do an overnight show — and he already had an unpopular turn at The Score — but he was a regular Grobber listener and caller, a true appreciator of the show. Rick’s a night owl and could just tell stories from his house in Highwood and maybe play a little guitar. I envision a regular bit where he prank calls Rick Morrissey at 3 a.m.

Jay Mariotti (+7500): Now that would be appointment listening.

Dan McNeil (off the board): Late Night with Danny Mac? A fourth go-round is probably not happening.

Matt Nagy (off the board): We know the guy can ramble, so he could fill the time slot. Maybe we could get Mark Potash as a co-host to ask a dozen questions to fill the five hours.

_________________

Unless it's a kid that is willing to work for nothing, nobody with a name will take it. Les had a grown son, no wife, just a girlfriend and all he cared about in life was sports. He's one of a kind in that regard. Nobody is like that.

It will have to be a 22 year old just looking to use it to advance. C'mon, Dan McNeil isn't taking that shift. Are you nuts? Grote and Rongey won't take it cuz they're in their in their 40s, single and are still trying to bang bitches. That would wreck that lifestyle. Julie? No. Mitch realized she's toxic the day after he hired her.

Once again, it will have to be a kid fresh out of college.

I love the opening to this profile of Les--written in 1997--by the legendary journalist Ben Joravsky. In typical Reader fashion, the article is quite long but really captures Les in all his complicated, obsessed and defiant glory.

_________________

I haven’t listened to the Score more than 5 times since I relocated, but is Audacy still affiliated with CBS Radio? If so, I would think they are cheap enough to just use the overnight national feed for Les’ spot.

_________________
Not a mult.

Dan McNeil
@DannyMac2021
This week reminds us of radio management at its worst. The day before the late
@DickersonESPN
passed last month, his mom thanked me for picking up his COBRA payments for 6 months in '01. I took him to produce MJH. Hired for peanuts to work full time, he wasn't offered benefits.
3:06 PM · Jan 19, 2022·Twitter Web App


Dan McNeil
@DannyMac2021
·
16h
Replying to
@DannyMac2021
And BTW I'm not bitter over being fired by
@670TheScore
9/21. Bitter much earlier, when the big boss (not a radio person nor a Chicagoan) told me ratings don't matter. Bitter over underpaid producers/young hosts who outperform higher paid competition. They wronged Les Grobstein.
Dan McNeil
@DannyMac2021
·
16h
In the '90s, guys at
@670TheScore
wouldn't have let a GoFundMe page to bury a revered teammate get on the air. We would have passed the hat, not inform the world he wasn't buttoned down administratively. Hosts/producers/sales would have rallied for a beloved, departed teammate.

_________________
"I give you my word as a Biden"

There were a lot of these that were funny or made sense, but journalists gonna journalist, "we should consider her because she's my friend."

_________________

Yes, Parkins truly appreciated and respected Les, whereas Bernstein and his superiority complex only enjoyed Les from the viewpoint of him being some carnival side show. And then, in transition, he was assessing his career (in the way only Bernstein can) and I was so pleased that Haugh cut him off from calling him "weird" and said it was disrespectful, and that to say he was anything other than authentic was incorrect. What I do know, is that when it's Bernstein's gone, there won't be a legion of people from multiple generations going out of their way to say how much of a positive impact he had on their life, the way Les did.