Radio in the glare.

Marconi radio can thank satellite radio for dragging the medium to the leading edge of the entertainment biz news stage. Given the media appetite for media dirt, up-front is the place to be. (Remember when Entertainment Tonight was a curious new phenomenon? A whole half hour of showbiz news a day)

And now, because San Francisco all-sports double-AM KNBR has fired three radio guys for (a) ridiculing the Giants' Caribbean players, and (b) ridiculing Giants manager Felipe Alou (Dominican) the next morning after he protested the remarks in an appearance on ESPN, radio is now sports-dirt copy as well.

Susquehanna, one of the good old pre-deregulation licensees (I don't like to call them "owners")--from the days when people got into the radio business because they liked radio, as opposed to making stock plays--fired not only the loose-lipped talker, but also the producer of the morning show who put on the offending Alou attack, and the program director, too. PDs don't usually get axed for loose-cannon employees. Way to go, Susquehanna!

It's the Radio Badboy Syndrome again. But, the fact that three radio guys got the ejection-seat ride for doing what they must have understood as company push-the-Outrageous-envelope policy suggests that this owner may be reconsidering the industry trash-talk-pottymouth standard. Well, I can hope.

Macho-radio machers believe that you gotta out-Stern, out-Hannity, out-Rush, out-Savage, out-Mancow, out-Karmazin everybody to get attention, ratings and billing. When that's all radio does--besides music management-by-research-voodoo--it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Long ago, radio station management gave up on real creativity and true Talent (as opposed to just "talent"--the generic word for those who appear on the air). True Talent doesn't do ethnic slurs.

Am I right to suggest a nascent trend? Or is this firing, as another KNBR talker suggested in the San Jose Mercury News, all about keeping an on-the-block station's price up?