Friday marked the end of an era in Washington DC radio. For the first time since the 1980's, there will be no Don or Mike on the radio, as WJFK-FM flipped to sports talk from their "guy talk" concentration. That left Mike O'Meara, who has lead his own radio show since Don Geronimo "retired" in 2008, on the sidelines without a timeslot to run his show. Lifelong Washingtonians may remember this duo as some of the best radio has had to offer. Even some transplants might know them, as the Don and Mike Show and subsequently, Mike's own show, were playing in other parts of America.
There has been the constant reports of demise of radio since the mid 90's. First it was the "Pay to Play" era coming to the forefront, where every radio station was "Top 40" and consisted of the same 50 songs being played over and over again. Then it was the iPod. Surely now that anyone with a CD collection could program their own "station" and drop the radio. Next, it was satellite radio and more importantly, the decision by Stern to leave terrestrial radio and head to Sirius.
I have not been a regular radio listener since the late 80's. I couldn't stand the vanilla music, instead relying on my trusty walkman and eventually my car tape deck to play my own music. Admittedly, it was kind of vanilla with Guns & Roses, Metallica, with bursts of other pop/rock from my "mix tapes". Remember those? But only two constants from radio remained. WTOP News and the Don & Mike show.
Sure there have been spurts where this show wasn't on. They quit their WAVA-FM morning show and sat out their contract until WJFK signed them for the afternoon drive. The occassional suspension from their "shock-jock" days also had them sitting out in favor of best of tapes. But it seemed like the show would be on forever.
Now, no more. On Friday, a 20 minute taped segment from Mike O'Meara and crew detailed that they plan on trying to revive the show on another station. It is the first time this show has been derailed for good by the station it was running on. Good luck to the crew. I'll probably listen to 106.7 The Fan to see what the fuss was about, but DC radio has changed for good and it just won't be the same.
It's probably kind of sad, but the only "radio personality" I was ever familiar with was Casey Kasem. I much preferred my mix tapes as well. :-)
It's sad. I heard that Kasem just finally retired from radio. Although I think he is 70 something.