Cincinnati Radio Drive-Time Mainstay Eddie Fingers Axed At WLW: Talker Silenced In Clear Channel Contract Flap

 

WLW-AM, 700  Cuts Off Its Fingers

 

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- An old friend from the neighborhood said Eddie arrived in the world as Doug Johnson.  He came up with something snappier for his on-air persona.  Eddie Fingers has been around for decades, first as a morning deejay on WEBN-FM's dawn patrol, the last two years as an afternoon talker on WLW-AM.  Now it looks like his bosses at Clear Channel have pulled the plug on his microphone.  Fingers has a Facebook page where this message has shown up:  "guys.....i never post, but it's true....i'm out at wlw....couldnt agree on contract...biz is a bitch......new sh0w to come....they're scared.....you'll be the first to know....you guys rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He may be a casualty of shrinking budgets caused by ipods, sat radio, and Internet listening.  The structural changes slamming commercial radio are enormous.  What was can be no more.  Still, Fingers is such a fixture in SW Ohio's radio firmament that a long discussion thread about his fate broke out yesterday on MiamiHawk Talk. Some on board the discussion line were speculating that Fingers' really wasn't sacked -- it was a hoax to jack up WLW's ratings. That theory isn't entirely baseless. Conservative talk show host Bill Cunningham has been "fired" several times. It always turned out that Cunningham was on vacation or taking time off from his show. Here's more about Fingers' from AllAccess.com, which covers the music biz. It is taking the report as genuine.

The Daily Bellwether has found a 2001 profile of Fingers from CityBeat's best of Cincinnati edition. It noted he's been fired before. He was canned by WSAI-AM in his first job out of college.  Griff at the Cincinnati blog, says it would be "pathetic" if WLW is pulling a publicity stunt.  He adds:  "WLW is not above being pathetic."  And Griff doesn't have much use for the AM talk station:

"I listen to either NPR or my ipod in the car both on the way to work and on the way home. The only value WLW holds is a breaking news outlet. If there is a tornado coming or snow storm, WLW does great work. It does pretty good work on 'news' but it devotes so little time to it, it is lost in the shuffle."