Tony Bruno walks away from Bruno and Innes show
Tony Bruno is this week’s Ryne Sandberg.
Just as the former Phillies manager cited personal disappointment as his reason for leaving the dugout, Bruno, in resigning the toprated afternoon program he’s co-hosted with Josh Innes on WIP (94.1), says long-form talk radio, of the kind done on WIP, is, after 45 years at the mike, no longer to his liking.
Like Sandberg, Bruno left WIP as a gentleman. He cast no pejorative aspersions on Innes and said kind and grateful things about station Operation Manager Andy Bloom and the 94.1 management.
As with Sandberg, Bruno’s departure will be interpreted in various ways by various people. Talk that he and Innes could not get along will continue to proliferate. Whether it has credence or not is moot. Bruno, in a statement about why he left, published on his website, states clearly his dissatisfaction is not with Innes, WIP or anyone involved with his former program. He said he has soured on current radio. He added that he climbed, in 45 years, to the top rung of the sports radio ladder and he is unhappy with the manufactured controversy, especially when it comes to in-station or competitive rivalries, and how it precludes having a civilized, or even justifiably heated, discussion about sports matters at hand.
Bruno, 63, said he accepts Twitter, Facebook and other social media at part of being accessible to people in 2015. He added he is appalled by the people who have initiated false accounts to speak in his name and that he will legally pursue offenders who did the most damage.
In general, Bruno said the time has come when he is more content to issue podcasts and communicate on a smaller platform and without all of the intensity and drama inherent in doing a five-hour talk, fiveday-a-week talk program.
As a listener, I could hear Bruno’s discontent. Taking him at face value about the reason he left WIP and the six days he took to mull over his decision, Bruno was often a fish out of water on his own program. WIP may have called its 1-5 p.m. offering “The Innes and Bruno Show,” but the program was always dominated by Innes.
I remember one instance in which Bruno was doing the show with Jody McDonald in Innes’ absence, and when one of the producers mentioned he was used to doing things a certain way because “you know who is so particular,” Bruno roared out his patented laugh and agreed. As did McDonald.
On a recent show, Innes began making fun of Kacie McDonnell, a former Fox-29 morning traffic reporter, for moving to Kansas City to become engaged to Kansas City Chiefs backup quarterback Aaron Murray, and then leaving Murray, but keeping the ring, and starting a new relationship with Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer.
Bruno mentioned from the chute that he was a personal friend of McDonnell, had spoken to her recently, and was uncomfortable with the way Innes was lampooning her as a fortune hunter who went from one athlete to another because Hosmer had a better career and higher salary than Murray.
Innes thrives on being irreverent. He doesn’t have to mean anything he says. He is an entertainer, and a quick ad-libber who can handle any situation.
In the McDonnell segments, Innes went for the jugular. Bruno, while going along and making some general comments, demurred from besmirching his friend. As in his resignation from WIP, he was a gentleman.
Successful though it has been for several months in the ratings, the “Innes and Bruno Show” was never smooth. The hosts’ styles clashed markedly, and Bruno always seemed to be playing second fiddle to Innes’ lead.
Nothing about the “Innes and Bruno Show” ever focused on Bruno. He could not do the kind of program he familiarized by his previous stint at WIP, his tenure at the rival WPEN (97.5), or in his syndicated career. At best, you would get a shadow of Bruno that came through the clearest when he responded to an Innes quip — and Innes is funny — with that deep, rumbling laugh.
Bruno said current radio is the main factor in his decision. He is more suited to a straight-forward radio talk program, with some room for other topics and personality, than to the free-wheeling concoction Innes, in his particularity, assembles.
Innes is a rebel and an entertainer with a purpose. He is brilliant at what he does and can be rapid-fire in coming up with a comic bit and in handling response to it while proving time and again how well he knows and can converse about sports. Innes will converse if given the chance. The entertainment appreciated by the sought-after demo of males ages 18-54 comes ahead of sports on occasion.
Innes has changed the sound of talk sports. You can hear it and you sense over and over again he is not suited to be a partner for a more traditional broadcaster such as Bruno, McDonald, or Howard Eskin. Paired with various people, Innes fails to create chemistry with any of them. He is his own entity. Eskin can hold his own, but McDonald, one of the best talkers going, fades and disappears in Innes’ company. Innes’ most congenial partner has been Marc Farzetta, but Farzetta doesn’t strike me as having have the quickness or sensibility to be Bruno’s heir.
That’s Bloom’s problem in a nutshell. Does he find someone in-house who can relate well with Innes, not as a person but as a mikemate? Or does he recruit a partner in the vague hope such a creature exists?
A No. 1 position, hardearned against Mike Missanelli at 97.5, is Innes’ to defend. Bloom would be wise to keep Innes in the 1-5 p.m. time slot. Innes should probably f ly solo surrounded by a support team, from sports or not, like Angelo Cataldi has in the morning.
Yes, I complain at how much time Innes takes to carp at Missanelli, and at Missanelli’s counterattacks, but that’s now part of the radio business, a part Bruno implies he didn’t like that much, but which he participated in with relish.
Of people at WIP, Joe Giglio has been doing a good job. McDonald has already shown he gets swallowed by Innes and, like Bruno, can’t establish his rhythm in a way that makes their pairing a twosome. Jon Johnson has shown talent. He may be the best to test for compatibility with Innes.
The main point is, listeners are coming to hear Innes. It never was Bruno, and as a contributor to the afternoon show, he won’t be that missed.