Tim Conway, Jr. doing KFI-AM 640 guest fill-in gig at 7 p.m. this week.

Tim Conway, Jr. is on the air this week at KFI AM 640 in the 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. spot for "Kennedy and Suits" while Brian Suits is off and Kennedy is on maternity leave with a newborn. Tim and former KLSX-FM TALK radio partner, Brian Whitman, were together again for a short time on the daily podcasts until Tim decided to drop the regular appearances and spend more time with his pre-school age daughter. Whitman is carrying on with Gina Grad and Randy Wang, both with the team since the KLSX-FM show.

Tim is able to bring some humor along to the talk radio spots and is easy to listen to. Tim's recent radio broadcast appearances are available on podcasts that are on his website, http://timconwayjr.com/newsite/ . Brian Whitman is still on the podcasts, re-named, "The Brian Whitman Podcast Shows" at http://conwayandwhitman.com/newsite/ You can download shows on mp3 or get a free podcast subscription on iTunes. That podcast show is funny and the topics and language are for mature audiences although some of the humor might not seem so. Brian's got the voice and style impressions talent and he does the best "Tom Leykis" impersonations around, good enough to fool listeners and get Leykis to complain to management back at KLSX to get Brian to stop. You can still hear that voice now and then on the podcasts.

Radio's fill-in hosts' challenge begins on KFI and KABC tonight; Radio present and past

There's going to be a few temporary changes that begin tonight as radio stations KABC 790 AM and KFI 640 AM will shift evening assignments for a few days. That move should benefit the listener by bringing back a couple more of the choices that have been missing from terrestrial radio- for over a year in one case and for about a month in another.

The changes will happen at SAME TIME: 7 PM, on the two competing stations- is this a conspiracy of sorts or just some good counter programming moves? No matter, it's the results for the listener that count.

Tim Conway, Jr., is one of my favorite radio guys to listen to. He will be on KFI 640 AM beginning tonight for a few more nights to fill-in for the "Kennedy and Suits Show"- Kennedy is out on maternity leave now with her newborn, and Brian Suits is covering another time slot. Tim Conway, Jr., if you have heard him in the past is a very funny guy. He was on the FM side at KLSX-FM TALK until they completely changed the format to music, AMP-FM, and cut everyone loose. 7pm to 10 pm time slot.

Tim Conway and his former radio partner, Brian Whitman, now have a podcast show that's free and is a lot more loose- a warning if you happen to have hypersensitve ears- over on "The Conway and Whitman Bodcast Show" (and the "Bodcast" is not a typo). http://conwayandwhitman.com/newsite/ You can get it by mp3 downloads or just subscribe on iTunes for free. They also have Randy Wang and Gina Grad with them which makes this podcast setup very complete. Don Barrett of http://www.laradio.com/ was their guest a couple of weeks ago-March 18, show #18- and offered some insightful comments that were entertaining, too. The past shows are all available as podcasts on their website, mp3 and iTunes.

----------------------

Marc Germain, formerly "Mr. KABC" and "Mr. KFI," will be over on KABC radio. He's been on in the past at KFI, KABC, and KTLK, with his assortment of features on the shows. You can hear Marc filling in FROM 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. for John Phillips, the "fill-in" host for The Al Rantel Show" while Al recovers from surgery.

Aside from this spot, he's got really good podcast at http://www.talkradio.one/, done live by podcast at 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. most nights; but this gig at KABC-790 AM is from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. so that will alter things for a bit.

Marc is very knowledgeable on lots of things and has a history of hosting a show with "no screener, no contrived topics, and no guests" but he always managed to have a lot of different people showing up. He is a lot more tolerant and I think fair when it comes to handling callers when you compare how a lot of AM Talk Radio goes, but he still will move things along at a good pace. Always a lot of things going on with his shows.

--------------------------------------------------

AND RADIO IS MORE A CORPORATE ANIMAL NOW, REFLECTION OF MOST OF WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON IN THE BUSINESS CLIMATE.
The radio horizon is less bleak for a few nights and the corporate owners continue their personnel bloodletting as a cost-cutting measure. The days of old in what I remember of high school era radio was a lot better. But that's what a lot of us say as we get older. There's a lot good now, but newer is not always better. The material that you find on radio is a lot less diverse and the multiple station ownership by the Clear Channel giant and Citadel have eliminated a lot of mom and pop operations.

-------------------------------------------------------

As an asisde on the CORPORATE INFLUENCE- and even Public Radio has that going on.
There was a KPCC 89.3FM show bacl when Pasadena City College ran the station, called, The Sancho Show, that I miss. It was on for about 14 years on Saturday evenings, until the station operations were sold to Minnesota Public Radio and all the music was eliminated immediately on closing the deal. I will try to get to more about that story in the future, since it was one of the more "culturally relevant" adventures into radio broadcasting, a positive and entertaining influence for young people while it lasted, and it lasted a long time.

KABC Radio cuts Tim Conway, Jr. after 3 days- Conway & Whitman reunite and continue on podcasts

Longtime L.A. radio personality Tim Conway, Jr. and his former radio partner, Brian Whitman, were reunited last week after Tim was cut loose after working only 3 days with KABC 790 AM. They are now heard 2 hours each day by way of podcasts. Whitman was going it as a solo performer with a subscription service podcast for an hour daily, but that's all changed. It's a free podcast now. I-Tunes makes it easy to sign up for the "Conway and Whitman Show" from the I-Tunes Store very simply.

Tim Conway, Jr. was with KLSX FM-Talk Radio 97.1 for around 13 years until the format changed to all music, "The Amp," on February 20, 2009. This ended the long-standing run as the only FM talk station in Los Angeles. It also brought to an end many other unique shows including The Tom Leykis Show, The Frosty Heidi and Frank Show, The Adam Carolla Show, and The Sunday Edition live show hosted by Nelson Salsa and Socorro Serrano, one of my favorite shows, aside from their 5am to 7am time slot on Sunday mornings.

"The Conway and Whitman Show" is one of the funniest around and is usually much different from the regular kind of talk radio that you hear on the AM band. Conway likes to point out that he's probably the only guy fired from two major radio stations within two weeks. As with all podcasts and internet shows, you don't have the tight restrictions on language and topics so it's a little diferent which is good.