Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

If you listened to WZEW’s morning show Oct. 2, you heard Sean Sullivan broadcast from that spot on the dial for the last time.

But after a six-month hiatus to honor a non-compete clause in his contract, Sullivan will re-emerge at WAVH, the local station now know as “The Pirate.” Sullivan’s stepfather Donald Bigler of Bigler Broadcasting Co. has made a $3.6-million bid for the station. The Federal Communications Commission must approve the sale, which should come to pass in the next few months.

Sullivan confirmed to Lagniappe that he will have a role at WAVH, although he could not specify what it will be at this time.

Bigler purchased the station from Barry Wood, an attorney from the Washington, DC area who has owned the station for 15 years. Wood also once owned WZEW, but ended up selling both stations after running them while under bankruptcy protection.

Sullivan, the ZEW’s longtime morning man, resigned following his Oct. 2 broadcast, ending a 10-year relationship with Mobile’s independent, eclectic music station. Sullivan, who also writes a regular column for this publication, stressed his departure is amicable and was in no way related to the recent addition of morning co-host Trey Matthews.

“The time has come for me to do something new,” Sullivan said. “I’m taking a few months off to recharge and get ready for the next thing. I want to wish Trey all the best. Trey and I are friends.”

Sullivan landed at 92-WZEW shortly after his graduation from the University of Alabama and had worked at the station 10 years in July. He started as an overnight host, but was moved to mornings after “Mike and Mike in the Mornings” left the local airwaves. He moved to afternoons for several years and implemented the popular “3:30 Theme Park” feature, which remains part of the station’s repertoire to this day. About six years ago, Sullivan moved to mornings, and Matthews joined him on the air in August as Sullivan’s first co-host.

Sullivan has routinely won Nappie Awards and Mobile Bay Monthly’s annual Best of the Bay Awards for best local radio host.

“Foremost, I appreciate the 92-ZEW audience the most. I wouldn’t be where I am without them and this great station,” Sullivan said. He also praised the management of WZEW and sister station WNSP where he has also done on-air and production work.

WZEW’s Tim Camp said the station wishes Sullivan well.

“Sean’s been with the ZEW for a long time, and I’m sure the listeners will miss him,” Camp said.

Camp said Sullivan’s business opportunity would be a positive for he and his family and that WZEW management is understanding of his desire to leave.

The ZEW and The Pirate’s formats are similar enough that the stations are generally fighting for the same listeners.

Austin files suit

Glen Austin wants more than anything to make WKRG eat its words. That’s why the former reporter has filed a lawsuit against the CBS affiliate related to the way he was fired in January.

Austin was fired Jan. 25 after 12 years at WKRG for allegedly plagiarizing a story from the Pensacola News-Journal that appeared on the station’s Web site. Austin’s side of the story is that he had just copied and pasted a news article from the Web into an e-mail and sent it to colleagues as an informational item, and the station’s Web master mistakenly put his byline on the story and posted it.

The result is that Austin was fired and the station repeatedly broadcasted a story about his firing and alleged plagiarism. Now Austin wants them to take it back.

“I didn’t commit plagiarism, and I was slandered in the process,” he said. “This false plagiarism tag on me has ruined my career. I can’t get a job on TV anywhere, and I’ve tried dozens of places. All this over something I did not do.”

Austin, who has landed a position as the public information officer for the Escambia County Florida Sheriff’s Office, says WKRG news director Dan Cates was out to “ruin” him, and the posting of the news item was his opening to do so. Austin says the Web master quit the station a week after his firing, saying he no longer wanted to work for a company that would do something like that to someone.

“He didn’t want to work for anyone who would operate in that manner,” Austin said.

While Austin’s suit doesn’t set a specific dollar figure he is seeking, he says his main goal is to force the station to retract what was said about him in January.

“My name and credibility are mud. My primary focus is to get back my credibility,” Austin said. “We’re demanding right now for them to broadcast a retraction. If I win this, I want them to go on the air and retract it, to post it on their Web site and to talk to the newspapers about it.”

Austin says the experience has been harrowing both professionally and personally.

“It’s taken a toll on my family, my wife, my friends. It’s taken a toll on everything. When you think you’ve worked at something for 27 years, then this news director (Cates) comes up with a plan to wreck my career, for whatever reason, it’s dumbfounding.”

Austin says depositions are still being taken and no court dates have been set.

When asked about Austin’s suit, WKRG General Manager Joe Golenowski said, “No comment.”

Current, we hardly knew ye

Roughly seven short months after being offered with great fanfare as lower Alabama’s connection to “all things local,” the Press-Register’s stale attempt at an alternative newspaper is as dead as Julius Caesar.

Current, one of the PR’s three “niche” publications put out in February of this year published for the last time Oct. 4, ending on its BayFest issue.

Current was touted by the P-R as an effort to offer a product that would appeal to younger readers, and one that would focus on the local arts and entertainment scene. It never seemed to get much traction with readers or advertisers, though, and the editorial content quickly headed into the realm of canned copy about entertainers outside the Mobile area.

Current also stumbled catastrophically along the way by publishing articles and photos some deemed far too racy for our humble ‘burg, and certainly too racy for P-R Publisher Howard Bronson who was said to have made an entire issue be reprinted because of some saucy photos and language. After that particular issue, the Press-Register removed all mention of its affiliation with Current from the paper’s masthead.

Current never struck much of a chord with advertisers either, seldom gathering more than 10 or 15 ads in an issue, as far as I could tell when I bothered to pick one up. Current advertisers we spoke with said they were generally given prices far below the printed rates and usually upgraded to larger ads if they didn’t change the copy. Try getting that deal in the daily.

While the P-R’s other niche offerings, ‘Zalea and Bay Family, appear to be healthier in the revenue department, it’s probably impossible to tell if they’re offering the same kind of reduced rates. Still, insiders say ‘Zalea and Bay Family will continue to publish.

Current’s spectacularly quick failure follows the trend of most “fauxternatives” tried by dailies in other markets. In most places where the dailies have tried to compete with independent newspapers by offering their own alternatives, the new offerings have died dwindling deaths and eventually been pulled, although most have lasted longer than Current.

Personally, I always believed Current was doomed for the dustbin, but I was surprised at how fast it happened. To our advertisers who resisted Current’s constant efforts to undercut our prices, your loyalty is duly noted and appreciated.

On another note, if anyone wants a great deal on lots and lots of empty black newspaper boxes, you might want to call Howard Bronson.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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