Tom Bauerle spent more than four decades building a career at 930 WBEN in Buffalo, but the way it ended left him stunned. The longtime news/talk host’s contract expired in August, and instead of a renewal or an extension, he got a termination he didn’t see coming. Bauerle recently opened up about the exit, the phone call that ended his run, and what comes next.
“The way in which Audacy terminated my employment was nasty,” Bauerle said. “It was cruel. And it was very unprofessional.”
He explained that for over a year he pushed for a new deal, only to earn silence from a company he says corporate restructuring had consumed too fully to respond.
“I was assured in writing by management that I was wanted at the radio station,” Bauerle said. “In fact, I was assured in writing on July 30th that they wanted me.”
That assurance came while Bauerle was preparing to lead a listener trip to Italy. He says everything seemed fine right up until he returned — and then, seemingly overnight, the tone shifted completely.
“I received no negotiations whatsoever,” Bauerle said. “There were three very short discussions, but no negotiations.”
He says he tried for over a year to get a new contract or even an extension, without success.
“They were just too busy with corporate restructuring even to write down a sentence and send it to me,” said Bauerle. “The termination, however — they had that severance package right down the wire in ten minutes.”
A Video Call and a Difficult Conversation
Bauerle didn’t get a face-to-face meeting to close out 42 years at WGR and 930 WBEN. Instead, the news came over video, with his attorney daughter sitting in as a witness.
“What does it say about my headspace and the way I felt I was being dealt with, that I felt it necessary to have my officer-of-the-court daughter be a physical witness to the video phone call which fired me? I did not want to be told that my demeanor was somehow off. I just needed to protect myself,” said Bauerle.
According to Bauerle, the conversation floored his daughter.
“What my daughter said after the call was, ‘Wow, that was brutal,'” Bauerle said. “And she said, ‘Dad, I can’t believe this. They never even said thank you for all those years, you did all the work.'”
His wife had a similarly blunt reaction to the months leading up to the firing.
“My wife said, ‘They’ve treated him like (expletive) for months,'” said Bauerle. “I can’t disagree with that.”
He also questioned the official reasoning behind the termination, pointing to a bit he’d done for years without issue.
“They mentioned a program that I had done on July 27th as an example of my insubordination,” the former 930 WBEN host shared. “For example, I played the song ‘Take This Job and Shove It,’ complete with the appropriate comments about my job and work in general. I have done that at least twice a year for the past 30, 40 years. It was never an issue, not even during contract time.” Bauerle says the same bit had been part of his act since the station hired him in 1991.
“I think it’s safe to say that the reasons for insubordination that were particularized to me were so laughable, it tells me they did not even do a real investigation,” Bauerle said. “They just thought I was going to take their $100,000 and dance merrily away and shut up. Well, I’m not that kind of guy.”
No Farewell, No Regrets
Despite the abrupt ending, Bauerle says he’s at peace with not receiving a traditional sign-off. He views lengthy farewell broadcasts as more indulgent than meaningful for listeners.
“I have mixed emotions about farewell shows,” Bauerle said. Stating that he believes hosts spending three or four hours talking about themselves isn’t compelling radio.
“I probably would have done one hour of farewell, and I would have done that for the listeners,” said Bauerle. “But I wouldn’t have done three hours as a farewell show, because again, my number one job was to entertain listeners with the very best I could bring every single day. And I don’t think three hours talking about me is good radio.”
Looking back, Bauerle points to breaking-news coverage as the accomplishment he’s proudest of, and he credits his news background for preparing him for it.
“I started as a news guy before I went into obnoxious talk radio,” Bauerle said. “So the breaking news stuff was huge.” He singled out the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket as some of the most difficult work of his career.
“We had a horrible situation in Buffalo — the Tops massacre, a racist shooting of people by a white racist scumbag,” said Bauerle. “Tim Wenger and I covered that. And we did, frankly, an amazing job. However, that story was so devastating to my energy that I could only do two hours.”
He says the emotional weight of that coverage stayed with him long after the broadcast ended.
“My very first show I ever did was September 5th, 1983,” Bauerle said. “It was a show on the Soviet shootdown of KAL 007. That was the very first show I did, just to put things in perspective.”
What’s Next for Bauerle
Bauerle doesn’t expect to return to a radio booth anytime soon, and he’s skeptical the format has much room left to run.
“I will never ever work for anyone again in my life,” Bauerle said. “Look, I got paid, and frankly, I got paid very well. 75% of my career, I made very good money.”
He says loyalty to the company ultimately didn’t matter when the restructuring came.
He believes news/talk radio is fading as its core audience ages out and younger listeners fail to replace them.
“News/talk radio, terrestrially, is dying,” said Bauerle. “It’s not going to be a major player as a format within about five years. It is going to die, because the demographic is dying out and it’s not being replaced. It’s that simple.”
He pointed to the death of Rush Limbaugh as a turning point for the format.
“Rush Limbaugh saved AM radio way back when, because it was supposed to be dead,” Bauerle said. “Rush brought it back — he revivified the talk radio format and AM radio in general. With Rush having died, I don’t think we’re getting the sampling from younger demographics that we were in news talk radio.”
Bauerle — who is now located in Delray Beach, Florida — has no plans to chase another on-air job, in Florida or anywhere else.
“Where am I going to work — in Florida?” Bauerle said. “Am I going to go to WIOD? I don’t think so.”
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