Last week’s dismissal of longtime conservative talk-show host Kirby Wilbur by KVI has caused ripples throughout the right-wing blogosphere over the past week, with bloggers and KVI listeners threatening to boycott the station and bombarding Wilbur’s Facebook page with supportive messages.
Wilbur and KVI management, unsurprisingly, give wildly differing accounts of why KVI didn’t renew Wilbur’s contract.
We tried to get to the bottom of it by talking to the clashing parties, Wilbur and Fisher Communications head Jim Clayton.
First, Wilbur’s side. Contacted by phone yesterday, he told PubliCola that he wasn’t fired because of ratings or money, two of the most common reasons radio and TV shows get the boot. “I was told we were the highest-rated show on the station … on November 6, less than a week before he was fired, Wilbur says. As for money, he says that although he made substantially more than any other host at the station (in 2006, he asked for, and got, a 50 percent raise), Wilbur says he told station management that “I would work for substantially less, knowing the financial condition of the company.
“There’s a recession,” Wilbur says. “Radio is my love, and KVI was my love, but they never once approached me and said, ‘How much less? Can we talk about it?’”
So why does Wilbur think he was sacked? He chalks the move up to conflict with Jim Clayton, head of Fisher Communications, which owns KVI as well as KOMO-TV and two other local radio stations.
“I don’t think Jim understands conservative talk radio. He’s not a political conservative,” Wilbur says, recalling arguments with Clayton over gun control. “He banned gun advertising on Fisher.” However, KVI specializes in conservative programming, running national shows by the likes of Sean Hannity, John Gibson, and Laura Ingraham, whose “Laura Ingraham Show” will temporarily replace Wilbur’s.
Wilbur also says Clayton and KVI program director David Kelly had problems with his on-air performance, saying that he mumbled and “garbled my words,” which Wilbur acknowledges he did. He says management refused to pay for an in-town voice coach, setting him up instead with a coach in Washington, D.C., who coached him over the telephone. “I told them repeatedly that if they could come up with a local voice coach, I would pay for it out of my own pocket,” he says.
Clayton wouldn’t speak directly to any of Wilbur’s allegations, but did tell PubliCola that Wilbur’s ratings were lower than they should have been. “If he had had good ratings, he would have stayed. I don’t care what the ratings are [within the station], I care about how they compare to the competitors in town. When somebody’s ratings are 22nd out of 28th, that’s not good.” Clayton would not confirm Wilbur’s exact ratings, but said that figure was in the ballpark.”
Clayton says he’s “working on” replacing Wilbur, preferably with someone local. “I think it’s important to have a local presence, and I’m certainly working on that,” Clayton says.
As for Wilbur, he says he’s enjoying “the first time in 15 years that I don’t have to get up at 2:30 am” and talking to several stations in the area about going back on the radio. “Radio is the passion of my life, and I want to keep doing it if I can,” he says.