Benny in the Ravine

as I shadow box myself, flying solo yet again. I don't need no sticking sidekick. No no, no, no, no anyway coming up on this edition of The Fifth Hour, a spinoff of the Ben Maller radio show, only available in the podcast format and broadcasting from a secret location, a special podcast studio deep in the north Woods. As we get you started on a Saturday, we have the Green Team, The Green Team living like Brittney Spears and showcase what is that all about? You'll find out that

and a whole lot more. Hold your applause, no need to clap, but we'll get the party started right now. And we promised the Green Team, so I came close to having to turn to fist the cuffs at Chavez Ravina. Now, if you've been listening to the radio show all week, you know that I was very fortunate enough. I got to spend some quality time at one of my five favorite places to hang out, a Major League baseball stadium, in particular, Dodger Stadium, where I've spent much of my

life watching athletic competition. Now the Dodgers in the Atlanta Braves meeting in the National League Championship Series, and what a madhouse that me tell you, this was a madhouse this week. And I'll take you back to Game three of the analycs one of the highlights for the Dayers and I I had snack bar drama. I had snack bar drama. So I mentioned this on the radio show. But the great thing about the podcast is we have plenty of time to dive deep into a story and

there is a lot to tell. This might seem like a simple story guy online at a snack bar to get some delicious treats, but it's much more than that. So I will give you the non condensed version of what happened. And if you're bored by stories like this, then just fast forward, no harm, no foul. But I'm might need my own business now. I'm waiting online, and there were a bunch of people that were consuming massive amounts of alcohol Bruskies, and that's what you do at

a in the event, but not me. I'm working, right, I'm working, Benny, and I got my little press pass on, so I'm you know, I'll let you know a little inside radio. We're friends. Why not. If you're listening to this podcast, you are a higher level in the Mallem militias. So if you are in the media and you cover one of these playoff games, what Major League Baseball does

is they give you a food voucher. In this case, and I don't know how it is in every city, but in Los Angeles they give you a fifteen dollar food voucher. So Major League Baseball in the old days, they used to supply a full boxed meal. But that costs too much money. And the people in charge, the billionaires, the aristocrats at Major League Baseball, We're like, oh, what are we doing here? Why are we spending all this money on apples and turkey sandwiches and bags of chips.

That's a waste of money. So why don't we just hand these these people fifteen dollars and it's like a food stamps ticket. Okay, so fifteen dollars, now that sounds like a decent amount of money. At least when I was a kid, fifteen bucks was pretty good. As you know, if you attend sporting events in any city, it doesn't matter whether you're in Los Angeles or not. That doesn't get very far. It does not get very far. And

no discount. By the way, everything's marked up. It's not like they have a special rate, like an insider rate. And the one thing that professional sports has mastered more than anything else price gouging personified. Right, it is insane.

You can take a drink which is some syrup and some water, maybe a little ice, which is just frozen water and some sugar and whatnot, and that costs the people that make the drink, you know, maybe ten cents, twenty cents, thirty cents, whatever it is, fifty cents you want to go high, and we'll charge four bucks for that bottle of water, right, bottle of water. You can get a whole case of water at Costco for a very reasonable amount, but at a ballpark, five bucks ten bucks.

You want to a little souvenir batting helmet filled with garlic fries, that'll set you back like fifteen sixteen bucks something like that. So, um, the way this works the food stamp let you again behind the curtain, how we make the hotdogs. So you are giving a food voucher, you have to spend it or lose it. No cash back. So if your order comes to eight dollars, you don't get the rest of that, and you can't reuse that

somewhere else. It's one shot, shoot your shot, and that's it. Now, what I have done over the years that I have mastered, I look at the menu. I've mastered how to get the most I can possibly get without going over. And I have scouted the different snack bars at Dodger Stadium, and it changes every year because of the cost of all this another, prices have gone up over the years, and the Dodgers seemingly in the playoffs every year. So I've had to deal with this for for a long time.

So what I have settled on my order is not one, but two soft pretzels and a plastic cup, small plastic cup of nacho cheese, not your cheese. Is my cheese. So that sets me back a grand total of thirteen dollars and nineties six cents. I believe with tax is how much that costs. So that's as close as I have been able to get to the full fifteen dollar amount without getting over. One time they charged me for two cheese cups and that put me over at sixteen

dollars and said, I said, I only want one. Take back your little cheese cup. I don't want that. But I do love soft pretzels. It's one of my guilty pleasures, a well made soft pretzel. And I will tell you they do not have great soft pretzels at Dodgers Stadium. They don't. I've had much better pretzels at in in Boston, in New York, Philadelphia, which is the mecca, as our guy Fats in Philly tells us, the birthplace of the pretzel, the soft pretzel, and we also had the late Philly

Rob who was a pretzel benefactor as well. But that's that's the gold standard. I love those big pretzels, and they've gotta be soft. You know the problem I've had, it's hit and miss. At Dodger Stadium, the pretzels sometimes they leave them in those little rotating things and they are like rocks, and that sucks and you can't return it, right, you know, there's no returns, so you're it's it's whatever. It's Russian Roulette with the pretzels. But I do the

other presils now, regardless of I get to the point. Please. So I'm online. I'm minding my peas and cues. BOYD, did I get sidetracked? So I'm minding my pas and cues and people are ordering alcohol whatever. They're ordering hot dogs, you know it, garlic fries, and some drunk dude and his buddy start and going on, you know, going off on me. They start harassing me. They're all over me for not wearing the proper wardrobe that I did not have the Dodger gear. And I am surrounded in a

sea of people in Dodger blue. And there were a few Atlanta Brave fans, but not many, not many. And I have a feeling there were some Braves fans that didn't wear their colors because they heard the reputation of the parking lots at Dodger stating. So I had a green shirt on, I had my newsboy hat, which is what I usually wear when I go out to cover my receding hairline. So and then and then I, you know, it's doing my thing, waiting online to get my soft

pretzels and my cup of cheese. And this one dude was enraged and became engaged with me. Again, I'm just right there, and this guy is getting on. He's like, well, you know, Dodger fan, were your colors? Man? Why didn't you wear your colors right? And I'm like, well, I'm just, you know, waiting for my food. I tried. I tried to not respond, but the guy that got right in my face, and I'm like, all right, you know, I just I just want to get and and I didn't say, hey,

I'm in the media. I'm better than you. But I had a media pass and it said media on it. So the fact that I didn't really respond to the guy and just kind of blew them off that upset him more. So. Now this is an escalation situation. So now the guy's like, wait a minute, you're wearing green. Are you a Celtic fan? He asked me if I'm

a Celtic fan. And at this point I'm like, well, should I tell him that I've done radio in Boston for you know, over the years, off and on, and I actually own a Celtics hat, and as a Laker hater, I have great pride of the Celtics because the Celtics have caused a lot of agony to my friends who are Laker fans, not really recently, but over the years historically. And so I was like, probably not best for me to bring that up, So I shouldn't say that rare

and appropriate you bring that up at Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately, about the time that this is starting, the skyrocket and tensions are being ratcheted up. I was able to squeeze to the front of the line and these bozos skidaddled. They got a guy on their way and it was their lucky day. By the way, let me tell you. You might think I'm just a fat, middle aged overnight talk your host, but I would have introduced them to my little friends. I have an alter ego. I don't

talk about it very much. Do not endorse violence, but when needed, you can call me Benny Bloody Knuckles. Benny Bloody Knuckles, you can call me that. It's true. Listen, I'm a pretty mellow guy. I like to goof around, have a good time. But I build up like a volcano and hot molten lava goes flying when I become enraged. That's how That's how I wrote. There's some people that are mad all the time and just blow offs team I don't. I don't do that regularly. I just every

once in a while. That's just how how it goes. You know what I'm saying there. But as far as the Dodger Games, it was great to see my old friends, as I always say, And Roberto is there who I don't see all the time. I'm in the home studio a lot lead a Lap the producer of the morning show. He was on hand. I know a lot of the older crowd that used to when I was in the back in the day. They be the ushers at Dodgers Dad and a few of those people left lifers at

Dodger Stadium. So I was able to come across some of those people and it was a good time, a good time and just being at the ballpark and the Oregon and that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that I ran into Tom Looney. Tom Looney, he's the news guy now my old partner Louis, we've had Looney on the podcast, and the Looney who gave me the single worst piece of financial advice that I have ever gotten in my life came from Tom Loony. I don't need

to go into the story right now. I had saved up my money for a long time. I'll give you the condensed version. I'd saved up my money for a long time. And I was debating. There was a place a condo I was looking at in in downtown l A. And I was like, I don't know if this is the right spot. It's in the crappy neighborhoods in Lincoln Heights. And Looney's like, well, they're gonna fix it up, and and I told him, I said, well, I keep reading in the business papers that the housing market is going

to go down. And Looney gave me this big pep talk and he's like, no, no, no, no, no no, now, so don't worry about that. You know, they're always gonna say this kind of thing. If you find a place you like, just get it, you know. He was trying to tell me it was a way to go. And so I purchased a house and a couple of months after I purchased the house. Yeah, Call Boom goes to the housing market, and it was nice to see Loony. That is the first time I have seen Tom Looney

in person. And we used to work together every weekend for years. For seven years, I think we did that show on the weekends. I can't believe it lasted that long. If you ever heard, if you ever heard the show, then you would know that show was not long for the world. But eventually that yeah, that did happen at the end, Eventually that that took place. Anyway, I caught up with Loony, hadn't seen him since the COVID thing started.

He's the same old Looney. Spends way too much time in the gym, way too much time in the gym, but Tan gets a lot of sun and he's doing news radio. If you want to hear I'm Looney on the weekends. He is a news guy at k A b C. At one point, k ABC, which is a news talk station, was the top money making station in Los Angeles when I first got into radio. It was

after k ABC. It had their glory days and k f I is the big am talk station and it's been that way for years, but k ABC back in the day was where everyone went and that was the talk station in Los Angeles. Not quite anymore. But Looney is doing a doing a good job and it's good to catch up. He does a podcast with JT the Brick as well, So we were telling some stories there about the old days. And every time I see Looney at a baseball game, at some point in the conversation

it has happened. One of the time, the four run home run will come up. So this goes back to when we were doing The Blitz, and The Blitz was a football show, but it was pretty popular and we had a following for a Sunday afternoon show, and so management at the time was very supportive of the show.

They eventually grew to hated. Uh well, management changed. The new management hated it, but the original management loved it, and so we did the show for a while on during football and they're like, well, the show is good, why didn't do baseball? So like, all right, we'll do baseball. But baseball is a lot different than football. There's football is pretty easy right Sunday, there's ebbs and flows kind of updated football game. Baseball is a little harder because

their games are longer and there's more moving parts. And so anyway, the Red Sox, I still remember it was a game at Finway, Red Sox or Plan whoever, doesn't matter. But the Red Sox had a big offensive day and they had a guy named Jared salt Lemachia, who I believe still has the record for the longest surname in Big League history, at least he did at the time.

He did at the time. So anyway, you know, whatever, So random Sunday in the summertime, and we're updating the scores, and the Red Sox had a big day, going offensively, and Jared Saltamakia hits a Grand Slam. Get out the rye bread and the mustard, Grandma, it's Grand Salami time. So we got all excited. We got all these monitors, the games are on it. Anytime something happens, we're like,

we Grand Slam. Except Tom Looney the first person in the history of radio saying the following words, Jared salta Lomakia just hit a four run home run, which wall technically true, Well technically true, is not the proper etiquette, all right, It's yeah, that was wrong, I mean and Uh, yeah, you gotta be better than that, right. I know your name is Looney, and when you're loony, can you have a little more freedom there? But that was not proper.

So anytime after that someone would hit a grand slam, which is the professional term that is used. But anytime someone would do that after either on the air or off the air, there's a four run home run right there? Four run home run up? All right, all right, okay, calm down, I'll move on. So living like Brittany Spears, what is this all about? Life of Mallard Tales of Woe, Episode four. Oops, I did it again. I've noticed, and several of you have pointed out via email that many

of my stories revolve around Costco. And if Costco we're to go out of business, or if I were to stop going to Costco, I wouldn't have any stories. So this story revolves around a couple of things. Now, I had to get gas. I religiously go to Costco. I tried to get there early in the morning the gas because I don't have to wait online. I don't like waiting online for gas. There's always a long line at Costco. So if you go in the morning or when it closes,

there's no line, So I got my gas. I actually happened to go in the evening time, so I did wait online a little bit, and then I had to stop by the main store, the big box store, and you had to get water some snacks. I parked the car. Okay, just bear with me on this. So I parked the car and I walk into the front of the store as you would normally do right this normal night, by myself. My wife was at home. She's still unpacking. We're gonna

be unpacking things still the way things are going. So my wife's doing her thing, and I was She's like, hey, can you run some errands? So I'm like, all right, I'll run some errands. Why not make myself useful. So I got the gas. I had to buy some stuff at Costmas. She text me shopping list. I think that's pretty normal in a marriage relationship. Somebody sends you a

shopping list. So I'm strolling in and I grab my Costco credit card and I hold it up to the young lady at the front there, and as you know, it's my ticket to enter, It's my golden ticket. So I'm checking off things on my list right I'm checking off, and my shopping cart is almost all full of what I needed. And as I am walking by the meat section, I still remember where I was. I was looking for thin cut ribbi because thin cut ribby is the steak that is used in Philly cheesesteak, and you can buy

it at Costco. It's not cheap. The Costco near where I live in the north Woods. You can buy this and it makes amazing Philly cheesesteak. Uh. And it's just wonderful and everything so thin cut and just melts in your mouth. It's great. I highly recommended. So then I had this ah ha moment and it wasn't about the ribbi sneake, and I'm I'm like, something's not right here, and I'm like, well, what the hell is going on? Like what what is it? And so I I'm holding

my phone, so obviously is my phone missing? Uh, you know, there's no problem with my phone. So I'm like, okay, okay, what else is going on here? So then I reached for the keys. I do an inventory here and I see the keys are there, so there's nothing going on with the keys, so everything's good. And then I reached down from my wallet and red light starts, flashing red light starts. So I had checked on the phone, I

had check on the keys. No wallet, So I put my hand in my pocket, and for some reason, I had my Costco credit card that I had used to get in the store. So now I'm trying to retrace my steps. I'm thinking, well, I must have dropped my wallet somewhere in the store. Originally my original thought was, I you know what might have happened is when I got gas, I just left the wallet on the passenger seat in the mallarmobile, and then I just grabbed the

credit card and walked in. For some reason, I thought I had left it in the front seat of the car. So what I did was I left a cart full of food and different things off to the side of Costco and I go warp speed. I went warp speed. I ski dattled to the car. I retraced my steps. I have visions of someone breaking into the car seeing my my wallet. I have a Castanza wallet, seeing my wallet there and saying to ching to change change. So

I'm doing the hustle. I'm doing the hustle. I get out of the store, I go through the parking lot, I get to my car, and then there's the moment of truth and I slowly walk up to the car and I look at the passenger seat through the window. It's a nighttime situation so that it can't see everything, and I peek around the side there and I see right there nothing. I see absolutely nothing, and I'm like, wait a minute, what the heck am I That had to and it had to it had to be there,

but no, it wasn't. It wasn't there. So I'm like, okay, Well, then I opened the door. I thought, well, maybe it fell out in the area when I got out of the car and I looked down and I see nothing again. So now i'mnna starting I start feeling around here. I started feeling around and trying to figure out what's going on, and okay, maybe time to the seat. Nothing. So now at this point I have to do the walk of shame back to Costco. Maybe I dropped it in the

store somewhere. So again I'm retracing my steps and I'm looking around. My head is down. I'm depressed. I go through the parking lot, I get to the door. I walked through the door and I'm looking around and I'm like, where is it? Where is my wallet? Where is the Castanza wallet? I need the wallet? Where is the wallet? So I'm looking around, looking around, and this the lady at the door there and the nice woman. She sees me in a panic, and she says, hey, did you

lose something? And at that point I said, oops, I did it again, just like my hero Brittney spears, just like, that's right. And sure enough, my wallet had fallen out of my pocket at the entrance of Costco. In the transition when I put the credit card back in my pocket and it was not in the wallet. The wallet fell out, the credit card stage in the pocket, and the lady there, very nice woman, she kept the wallet in in the little booth thing that she had at

the front of Costco. So this is now the second time, if you're keeping score at home, that I've told a similar story. The second time in the last calendar year that this has happened. Now both times I had a guardian angel. Last time was at a different grocery store, this time at Costco, and my wallet got back to me, and yet again I tried to offer a reward for

finding my wallet. This was very important to me. Right when you want to pay in the acid is lose your wallet and when you find your wallet, it's a big deal. And yet again the woman said, thank you very much, I can't accept your money. Costco will not allow me to accept your money. And I said, well, now, just you know no one's paying attention, they won't know about I won't tell anybody. And she says, no, I can't do that. We're not allowed company policy. So I

tell my wife the story. My wife then says that I should now offer more money. She thinks that's my move. Now I'm gonna offer more money because I know I've now had this happen twice where I've lost my wallet, so she knows I'll lose it again. And she said, next time this happens, you're gonna offer more money because you know they can't accept the money. I said, no, I'm not gonna do that, and I'll tell you what I told her. I said, I'm not doing that because,

knowing my luck, it's going to turn. I can't continue to have this kind of good fortune. At some point, the guardian angel is gonna take a nap, and so I said no, because Murphy's Law says that the person I offer a thousand dollars to Will say, you know what, all right, I'll take the money and can you send me some duffel bags of cash? Can you do that? And so so you know, I'm not increasing the dollar amount. That is not going to happen. Not going to happen,

all right, Moving on now to the Showcase Showdown. If you listen to these podcasts during the weekend, boy, do we think that's number one? Tele a friend, tell a friend you know. On Friday, we typically have someone on the podcast who we like. We had a close friend in the radio business on Friday this Friday, I hope

you heard that. And today on Saturday is typically tales from my life, like losing my wallet at Costco, having a guy trying to get into a fight with me because I wasn't wearing a Dodger jersey at a game and you're not allowed to do that. I didn't want to go through all that, you know in the media, as I said, you you gotta dress the part. No cheering in the press box, blah blah blah blah. So I had a green shirt on. Guy got upset thought I was a Celtic fan, which the Clippers on my team,

but the Celtics. As I said, the Laker rivalry over the years and being a Laker hater, I I do have a a bit of I don't want to say green envy, but there's some some joy in there. But the Sunday Podcast, which is appropbably enough, on Sunday, we typically just do mail. We answer your questions, and that will be no different. We'll have the mail bag with your questions tomorrow. But I wanted to highlight one email in particular because I want to give it more time

than we have on the mail bag. The mailbags typically rat a tat tat we go through the mail we don't have a lot of time. So in this debut, the maiden voyage of the showcase portion of the Saturday Podcast, we'll see if we do this more often, if we get really good email that really you know, you know, I see really a lot but needs to stand out, then we'll keep it. And if the reaction to this is just terrible, and if that's going on, I hear that noise and I'll be like, all right, there's a

sign I better stop doing this. But this email this week comes from Hajji. He says that is his Silent Militia name, Hajji writes, and he says, I love the Ben Maller Show and I have listened to it as a podcast every day since I discovered it three years ago. How great is that? And he says, here's the part that should make me part of the Silent Mallard Militia. Now, Haji says, when I am not listening to your most recent show, I go back to listen to old episodes

that I haven't heard before. He says, I'm currently listening and working my way through seventeen. I can't believe k D's leaving the Warriors. Wow, let me stop right there. He hit the pause button. So Hagi, first of all, thank you. I appreciate you listening to the show more than you know. And you are the first listener I can remember. And maybe it's happened in the past and I don't remember it. I've blocked it out, but you are the first person I can recall going back and

listening to dated material. In sports radio, what we do is time sensitive. There is an expiration date on it. It does not last. It's not evergreen. If it was evergreen, music is evergreen. You make a song in your garage when you're eighteen years old. They're seventeen years old. You're still playing that song when you're fifty or sixty or seventy or eighty. Like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the ones that made it, you're still making it.

Sports radio disposable form of entertainment. Whatever the story of the day is. We talk about and then we move on and for you to go back and listen. And I'm surprised those are still aailable, those old podcasts are still available. I wonder how far back the library of audio content is. Because I've been at this company. You could go back and hear early shows that I did from the early two thousands. I'm pretty confident those do not exist anymore. Those have been erased from the history books.

But seventeen that's that's a while ago. Now, all right, that's a while ago. All right. Anyway, says my fifth hour question. This is from listener Hadji in the showcase, the email showcase portion of the Saturday podcasts. So he says, I was wondering if you could talk about the behind the scenes business of sports talk radio on one of

your podcasts. Well, congratulations, Hodging. This is the podcast. He says, for example, who decides whether a radio show has a single host or multiple host such as your show versus Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. Do the bosses pair the host up or do the host apply together to do a show? Let me hit the pause button again. So the way this works, we all have bosses. I'm no different. There's a lot of red tape at big radio stations where are syndicated networks, so there's a lot of management.

There are two main bosses that I deal with, but there's layers below that that I don't have to deal with. So the way we do business not to let all the secrets out, but it's pretty standard. I've worked at different radio stations, is pretty much the same. The program director is the one that decides which shows are on the radio and whether or not that show is a one man show or two man show, And it really is preference. Some program directors like the two man show,

some like the one man show. It just depends on it. And I will tell you that the business is pretty much shifted to two people at a time. I am one of the few guys that just as a solo act. There's a few, but you know, you look at our our station, our network, Fox, Colin Cowards a one man act, but he's got you know, he's got a lot of help on that. Dan Patrick technically a one man show, but the dan Ets so not a one man show. Morning show. Our morning show has a lot of a

lot of people, right. Jonas has got a couple of guys with him that former NFL players and in LaVar Arrington and Quinn. So they do that and then you go through the rest of the day and you've got Rob Parker, know what, Gottlie does a solo show, but he has a lot of people around him, uh that help out. And so so it's it's each time slot is its own entity. And there are radio shows that work together and change stations together. It is much more difficult to do that. It's much more difficult. I gave

I was not I did give the US. I was given some great advice from Rick D's. You might not know who Ricky's is. He was a big fin deal in the radio business. When I got started. Ricky's had the number one morning show at Kiss FM one or two point seven Kiss FM, The D's sleeves in the morning. Rick dominated morning drive radio and made a fortune. He had a syndicated television show. He did the weekly Top forty Countdown. He was a big deal in the radio business.

And Rick was the one of the nicest people I've ever met. And I was a young guy, had worked in San Diego. I got transferred to the l A station. They were just starting Kiss Am, which became Extra Sports eleven fifty which is now the Patriot, and the sports station moved over to a M five seventy in the l A market. Anyway, I was doing the midday show. Believe it or not, I was Midday Mallard. The Ben and Dave show was on midday's and so anyway DS

would come in. He was recording his Top forty show or other content for the morning show, and he would come in and just drop by and smile and say hello and ask how we were doing. And occasionally he would drop some wisdom. And there was one point we were not sure whether our show would make it or not, and I asked Rick these some career advice. And Rick knew that it was a two man operation, and he said, he said, listen, I'm sure you like working with with Dave.

Who you're with this is a guy named Dave Smith. And I'm sure Dave you like working with Ben. But my experience, and this is a guy at the very top at the time in the radio business, was that if you're looking for a job, he said, it's better flying solo, because it's hard enough to get one job in radio, but to get a program director to hire two people, good luck, good luck on that. Uh And and how back to the email, he says, how do they decide the time slot for a show? Well, again,

there's a pecking order. It's the program director along with a group of people called consultants, and they all get together and I don't know what they do, but they throw darts and they figure out who goes where. It's a big puzzle board. It's putting jigsaw puzzle pieces onto a puzzle and putting them all together and making it work. And he also says, does the time slot come first and then they pick a show or do they pick

the show first and then decide the time slot. Yeah, So the way this works is it's the show that fits the time slot. It's not the other way around. They don't just hire talk shows and then say they go in the time slot. It's what show is appropriate for the time slot, and it's tilted. For example, the way the radio business works, you matter if you're on six am to six pm. That's when most people listen to the radio, six am to six pm. That includes

morning drive, midday, afternoon drive. Any time after that, you are marginalized. You're not that important to people in radio. You're just not. And I love my job, and I have a lot of great things about the job. I don't have too much traffic. Of course, now I'm doing the show from home, so I have no traffic most of the time unless the rare and appropriate time that I come in to the studio, so I've got the

radio show from home. I don't deal with the bosses very much because when they're at work, I'm sleeping, so I don't have to deal with that. But financially, they don't pay the overnight guy as much as the daytime people. And so there is a give and take with anything in life, within any of your life. Also, Haji says, how do they decide to replace the show when the host leaves like Clay Travis without kick and two pros and a cup of Joe. So again, it's it is

a collaborative effort. It is decided by the programming people at our company. At Fox Sports Radio, Don Martin and Scott Shapiro are the top two guys, and then they have people around them. They have bosses themselves they have to deal with They have a bunch of red tape with consultants and everyone's chiming in. They have to worry about what show can they sell, what will make the most money for the company. I mean, how much money

is the show going to cost. There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of spinning plates with that, as you might imagine, any job has these type of things. He also says, are there auditions behind the scene. Yes, absolutely, there are people that, do you know, send in tapes

not tapes anymore, it's digital stuff. And there are also some dry runs where they'll put so and so in a studio with somebody else who they think will sound good, and they will throw them together and see if the show clicks, see if there's some kind of audio match, and decide at that point, and it is the boss's decision there. He says, is there a pecking order set ahead of time? Next host up? Not always? Not always. I was the bride's maid. For many years, I did

weekend overnights. I was next in line for a day part and it did not happen for nine years. Over nine years, I did weekend overnights before I finally got the weekday show. And then I got whacked from that job after a year and then brought back six months in twenty six days later. And Hog also says, but you're going in depth here on this email. He says, how do radio contracts work, Well, it really depends on the host, It depends on the station, the format. So

there's a lot of variables with the radio contract. Typically they are anywhere from one to three year contracts. There's usually a lot of offset language in the contracts. I can't give that information out because I'd be violating my contract. But with any contract, there's a lot of fine print at the bottom that typically protects the employee er and not the employee as much. That's just how most businesses work,

and so that's that's not a surprise. He also says, how long are they as I said, one to three years? And how do they handle time off? Do you get paid time off? He says, wow, look at this, do they have buyouts in other ways to end them early. And again it depends on the contract. I do get paid time off. I do not take most of my time off. I don't do that. And the reason I don't do that two reasons. I'm a workaholic. That's one reason.

The second reason. The key to to audience retention in radio is being there and my experience from being in the business. And I tell people who ask me this young broadcasters who are the next generation, I can't believe I'm saying that, but I tell people who are interested in the business, I say, the key to this is being like a sofa. You have to be the sofa. Now what do I mean by that? Let me explain. So the sofa is there when you need it. It's

also there when you don't need it. But if you go into a room and you want to sit on the sofa and there's no sofa there, and maybe there's a shitty chair, you're not gonna like that. And that's the way radio is. Radio and the person If you like a show, and and that's a big thing that gets somebody to like you, you know how hard that is. You have so many freaking options to listen to and to listen to my fat ass. And so the way I look at this, you gotta be there. You gotta

be the sofa. You might not listen to me. Maybe you only work a couple of days a week, and I'm there every night. I got the weekend podcast. But I gotta be there when you need me. That's the way I look at that. And maybe I'm wrong and I'm dumb and all that. My wife tells me I should take take a hell of a lot more time off, and I do have some family events that I will be taking some time off for, but I try to make it rare and appropriate. Again, one of a praise

the phrases I use a lot. But it's very important to be there. And that's how you keep an audience, and that's how you keep people engaged and you keep people interested. And if you're not there, there's there's a line Jim Rome had and Jim's a legend in the business. And I'm not mocking Jim, but Jim is legendary for taking a lot of vacation time as well. And he used to say, well, I take a lot of vacation because I get a lot of vacation and that's true.

I get a lot of vacation to considering the backbreaking work of having to talk for a living, but it feels more are important to be there. I don't even like taking time off over the holidays. I typically save. I have to take a certain number of days every year, so I typically save that till the week between Christmas and New Year's and that's that's standard when I take

my time up. Anyway, we've gone very very long here, very long, bad job by me, So I will now, all right, I calm down, I will do that right now, and I hope you've enjoyed this. And uh wow, nice, I understand. And nobody called up. Not a single person called up and said that, so we didn't have to deal with that at all. Have a wonderful rest of your Saturday. If you're interested in cameo, I am on cameo dot com. Did another cameo this week. Had a

great time with that. And if you'd like to have a personalized message for you, a Mallard monologue dedicated to you, then please contact me on cameo. It's not free, but it's not that much. There's people charging a lot more than me. Most people are charging more than me, but check it out and we'd love to do it for you. And don't forget the mail bag on Sundays Sunday Sunday and we'll catch you next time. Aloha,