[IRCA] Willis and other Dallasites will understand this

[kevin redding <big_h00pla@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dallas gardening guru Neil Sperry to lose longtime KRLD radio show after 30 years

12:00 AM CST on Friday, February 5, 2010


By JOE SIMNACHER / The Dallas Morning News 
jsimnacher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx / The Dallas Morning News 
Aida Ahmed contributed to this report.

Radio host Neil Sperry has announced that KRLD-AM (1080) will pull the plug on his weekend gardening program after his July Fourth show.

Sperry, whose name became synonymous with North Texas gardening during his 30-year relationship with the Dallas station, said CBS executives in New York made the decision.

"There is pressure from the accountants," he said Thursday, "and I understand that and I respect that."

Allison Mandara, a CBS Radio spokeswoman in New York, said the company does not comment on programming issues. She said such decisions are made at the station level.

Brian Purdy, senior vice president and market manager for CBS Radio Dallas-Fort Worth, said, "I can't go into the details of a very difficult business decision."

But he added: "Neil has been a fixture at KRLD and in the Dallas-Fort Worth community for 30 years and has done a terrific job. It's a difficult parting, and we wish him the very best."

Sperry, 65, said that a KRLD official notified him during a three-minute phone call last month that his contract would end in 180 days.

He remains amicable about the decision but said he's confident he will be working for another station the weekend after his KRLD departure.

"I flat out intend to be on the air that Saturday," he said.

Sperry is the second KRLD veteran to be pushed off the station in recent months.

Last August, weatherman Brad Barton, who worked 31 years at the station, was fired. He said he was dismissed as part of cost-cutting at CBS Radio.

In October, Barton was back on the air as meteorologist for WBAP-AM (820).

For the past eight years, Sperry has purchased his Saturday and Sunday time slots for the program. He then gets advertisers to sponsor the program.

"That's pretty much the only way you can be on the air on the weekend, on radio anyway," Sperry said.

In the January call, a station manager said KRLD was exercising its out clause to sell the time at a higher rate, Sperry said.

He said the station did not allow him to negotiate a new deal.

"We asked if we had any negotiation room and were told, 'no,' " Sperry said.

Sperry does not know the fate of his daily and weekend segments that are carried by about 50 other stations by the Texas State Network, another CBS property.

"I've got the greatest job in the world," he said. "I get to talk about my hobby for a living.

"It's as good as it gets."

Sperry is a native Texan who grew up in College Station, where his parents were faculty members at Texas A&M University. He attended A&M but received his bachelor's and master's degrees in horticulture from Ohio State University.

In 1970, he returned to Texas to be a county extension service horticulturist.

In Dallas, he heard a KRLD program, Speak to the Experts, which he thought was "a crazy way to make a living."

Sperry joined WFAA-AM (570) in 1978 and moved to KRLD in May 1980.

He was switched to his current contract arrangement eight years ago.


Staff writer Aida Ahmed contributed to this report.
_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx