Getting fired from any job is unpleasant. However, if you get canned from Walmart, 100,000 people aren’t going to hear about it that morning. But, when you’re shown the door in the radio business, you can bet word will get around—fast.
Veteran talker Ryan Wrecker said that growing up in Detroit, he recalls one of his favorite programs, The Drew and Mike Show, learning of their imminent departure amid an air shift.
“I’ll never forget hearing that show,” Wrecker said, who happened to be monitoring the station at the time. “All the local TV stations were reporting that the station hired a new morning show while the show was on the air. Drew told his audience ‘The show is not a charity. If they don’t want me around, then they don’t have to be forced to pay me.”
Wrecker was a loyal listener of the show and said he recorded a lot of them. “The Drew and Mike Show was legendary in Detroit. I guess they were a Zoo format, but a little different.”
Drew Lane still does a podcast today, and his numbers are fantastic.
“Drew is one of the greatest personalities I’ve ever listened to,” Wrecker said. “Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, but I was learning so much from him.” His co-host Mike passed away a few years ago. They had immense ratings success, Detroit’s most listened to program.
Wrecker said he was one of those kids who had the Fisher-Price cassette recorder and listened to WRIF in Detroit when he was ten. Detroit is his home. He attended Central Michigan, which Wrecker calls one of the best radio programs in the state.
“It was one of those curricula that let you in when you were a freshman,” Wrecker said. “Michigan State also had a good program, but you really couldn’t get deep into practice and production until your junior year. I knew as a freshman specifically what I wanted to do, and that was broadcasting.”
There are many benefits to going into the program immediately as a freshman.
“You get your hands-on experience, going into everything raw. You can make your mistakes early on, and nobody notices. The best part is you don’t get punished for your mistakes.”
“I was able to get my reps in; at the same time, I could learn in a more natural way. Not so much coaching but trial and error. You’re doing what you’ve heard, mimicking people you fell in love with on the air. I don’t think listeners really get how much work goes into the job. You might not sound like the person you were emulating, but there’s always more work to do.”
After college, Wrecker joined a classic rock station in Lima, Ohio. WUZZ.
He started with an afternoon shift, then moved to mid-day and eventually mornings. Like most things in radio, a lot of his career began with a seismic shift in the landscape.
“We had a syndicated show out of Grand Rapids, and the decision was made to go local,” Wrecker explained. “They had me program the station and move to mornings. It was a four-hour solo show. I’d do three talk segments in an hour and play lots of music. It became quite a ratings success.”
Tiny Lima, Ohio, has experienced more than its share of notoriety.
The television show GLEE was fictionally based in Lima. The town kept sending the production team props from Lima to be used in the show.
“If a radio station sent them a sticker, it would end up on the bumper of a car in the show,” Wrecker said. “The town had a local contestant on So, You Think You Can Dance. I guess it’s a pretty popular small town. We did a charity bike run with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister in 2010 for the March of Dimes Bikers for Babies Ride. We actually changed the named Cridersville to Snidersville for a day. It was awesome. Dee came in for a few days, he actually co-hosted the morning show with me, and we played heavy metal and hair all morning.”
I started out this piece referring to how people can get fired from doing something they love, and after a while, that can be rather devastating. In May, Wrecker was released from KMOX in St. Louis. When I asked him if he held any animosity toward the station that fired him, I was surprised when he said he didn’t.
“I didn’t take it personally when I got fired from KMOX,” Wrecker said. “I had a feeling things were not going right. The station was moving in a different direction and is in a transformation. Knowing this, I tried to move to a better fitting job in the cluster, which ultimately didn’t happen.”
I know it’s smart not to bite the hand that either feed or fed you, as you don’t want to look like ‘that guy.’ However, if you bad-mouth a station, there’s a 100 percent chance every other station will hear about it.
“KMOX has such a great history,” Wrecker continued. “They have always had a vision as to where the station was going.”
For now, Wrecker is filling in for station hosts where he can, a hired gun, so to speak, at least on the firing range he loves. Until the new job offer, it’s one day at a time.
“I’d love to be a permanent host, for sure,” Wrecker said. “I’m still trying to figure out what that gig looks like. The way the talk landscape is today, I may be waiting a long time. I’m at the mercy of someone leaving a job, maybe starting that big talk gig in the sky.”
I focused on Wrecker’s recent fill-in gig in Milwaukee only because that was his most recent job. I asked Wrecker how he keeps word out there that he’s available.
“I got in touch with Ryan Maguire, the director of content at WTMJ in Milwaukee,” Wrecker said. This was earlier in the year after KMOX.
“He said they didn’t have anything but to send my tape. I sent him a couple of talk segments I’d done.”
Maguire liked the tapes enough to move the discussion ‘upstairs’ to Steve Wexler, WTMJ’s vice president, and market manager. They agreed to bring Wrecker in for some fill-in work in early August.
Maguire told Wrecker to ‘be himself.’ He knew what Wrecker sounded like, and knew he’d be a good fit for Milwaukee, as long as he did that.
“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t fill in for someone I really wasn’t a good fit with. Either way, I’m not going to change too much about the show.”
As the stations will do, WTMJ paid for everything during Wrecker’s fill-in period. They put him up at the boutique hotel. He was issued an Uber account to get back and forth from the hotel to the studios.
“I got meal gift cards from Mo’s Steakhouse,” he said. “You tend to eat well every night, but you’ve got to be careful you don’t eat too much and pay for it on the air the next morning.”
In Milwaukee in August, it is almost a requirement to hit the Wisconsin State Fair. Wrecker did. “You’ve got to have self-control when you go there. It’s a whole different type of food. Much of it is fried and on a stick.”
I wondered how a fill-in host prepares for a show in a town they’re not overly familiar with. Or at least a place you haven’t visited in a while.
“You’ve got to realize you’re not an expert on the city you’re going to,” Wrecker explained. “You do have to conduct some research. Perhaps get a better idea of how to pronounce nearby city names. Bone up on news that has affected that area. With Milwaukee, I was able to talk about the freshly announced Republican National Convention coming to the city in 2024.”
Being more selective with your topics is part of Wrecker’s thinking. He said the RNC story was more universal, but you must keep your eye on the local news.
“I don’t want to go into a city and try to sound like I know everything. The audience can tell if you know what you’re talking about. If you don’t feel comfortable with handling a story, omit it. The audience may question why you’re not talking about certain things. I think that’s better than spouting off about something I don’t really know.”
Wrecker said listeners would be forgiving if you make a mistake, but they can correct you if they feel they should.
“But they don’t hate you for the mistake,” Wrecker said. “I’ll try some calls if the lines are open. In my experience, that hasn’t been a problem. When you fully know a topic, it’s okay to open the phones. Even in Milwaukee, I knew I could talk about the FBI going into Mar-a-Lago. Of course, people were talking about it non–stop. Then there are topics where I can see both sides. I like to get calls that offer different viewpoints. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But if you’re onto something, you’ve got to prime the pump like crazy.”
Wrecker has learned part of his success has included making himself somewhat of a target on the air.
“I can maneuver a topic, make myself the good guy or bad guy on a subject. An audience will have a certain feeling about you and your stance. They’ll try to find a way to feel something about you. I may come in and tell the audience what a cheapskate I am, just to get the juices flowing. It might be funny, it might be tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a connection with them in some way.”
He said he’s always authentic, but Wrecker will certainly try to exaggerate things to make it funnier.
“I think to myself what can I do to make a situation more entertaining? For example, I might tell a story where it’s not technically the exact way it happened, but I don’t let the audience know. I think they can tell when I’m making something up or doing a bit. They understand I’m trying to open things up.”
Constant moving in the business clearly strains emotions and family life.
“When you have a family and kids, making more money is always appealing, Wrecker said. “It’d be nice not to have to worry about money. I feel bad for my wife and the prospect of moving again. I have two kids, and I don’t like to think of them having to make new friends. It’s not appealing. You start to think there must be a more stable way to handle those things.”
I asked Wrecker if there was a possibility to go into management and give up the microphone.
“It’s not far-fetched to see me going that route. When I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I had a GM that wasn’t that good,” Wrecker said. “In a way, that spoiled me for future GMs. The hard part about programming is you become so obsessed with the station and the product. It becomes an around-the-clock job. Sometimes it’s not sustainable.”
If he was programming his station, Wrecker said a PD must have intuition, a barometer of what works, and perhaps a small crystal ball.
“You can’t manufacture a successful team,” Wrecker said. “All you can do is bring people to the same table and hope for the best. You can’t force it. If it doesn’t happen organically, it probably isn’t going to happen.”
But how can you know? If only there were a clever way to determine if a team could work well together.
“I think they should hold auditions the way they handle speed-dating,” Wrecker said. “Let them meet and talk for 10 minutes at a pop, then move to the next table. See if they have any chemistry.”
I would be surprised if Fox weren’t working on that show at this moment.
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
