Kansas City honored the memory of broadcasting legend Walt Bodine today.
Hundreds gather at Plaza to remember life of Walt Bodine
Walt Bodine Eulogized As "The Voice Of Everyman - Young And Old, Black And White, Rich and Poor."
And upon the passing of the Kansas City media legend, one simple thought keeps coming to mind:
Kansas City will never see another EPIC broadcaster like Walt Bodine again.
Beyond Mr. Bodine's unique style, charisma, indomitable spirit and so many other sentimental pleasantries expressed today . . . It's simply a matter of demographics.
Even Kansas City's smallish and minor league media market has segmented to the point where a single voice no longer dominates. Instead, it's the crowd and social media that made everyone believe their every sentiment or half-thought is on par with the masterfully crafted witticisms that Walt Bodine so often imparted to this town. In short, now EVERYONE is a pundit with a mistaken claim on the moral high ground. From stupid Internets comments to bitchy food reviews; EVERYBODY is Walt Bodine in Kansas City nowadays.
Luckily, this saturation of Kansas City opinions only makes real insight seem all the more rare and that's part of the reason that makes Walt Bodine passing into local history such a special occasion and worthy of memorializing.
Dunno Tony, your pal Glazer could probably make a strong case for Johhny Dare. Maybe you should give him that as a writing assignment, so he can assign one of his staff to write it for him.
ReplyDeleteJohnny Dare is the closet thing to it but even his hard rock audience can be described as a niche market.
ReplyDeletePolish as many apples as you want, Tony. You're never going to have a chance at Central Standard. Not even as a guest host, let alone a regular gig. Repeat -- never. We'd rather broadcast 60 minutes of static.
ReplyDeleteBury this guy, already! Sick of hearing about him.
ReplyDeleteIn his time Walt was a household name. His time was 1960's to 1980's. Mike Murphy was a stronger voice in his time and now without question Johnny Dare is bigger than both of them were. Johnny however is more of an entertainer than the voice of whats right or wrong. Though Dare has that to a certain extent, he chooses to interview musical stars, actors, comics and wild women, so its on a different playing field. The guy has a huge audience, biggest ever maybe. So yes Johnny Dare is the voice of this past 15 years at that level.
ReplyDeleteMike Murphy OWNED Kansas City radio in his day, way beyond any comparison to "Johny Dare" (or whatever his name is..). In fact, Murphy, rest his soul, is still THE radio star of Kansas City...
ReplyDeleteSorry to inform folks whose sense of history is sorely lacking, but Johnny Dolan and Phil Jay were both monsters on a monster radio station in ways that both Mike Murphy and Johnny Dare will never approach.
ReplyDeleteAnd no station has ever again dominated a market the way WHB dominated KC.