Good Morning, Toucher and Rich

The morning radio landscape in Boston has been pretty barren since Charles Laquidera headed for Hawaii in 1996 and Howard Stern decided you should have to pay to listen to him in 2006. I've been making a commuting drive to one job or another for about two and a half years, and every morning my radio has been like an Old Country Buffet for my ears -- plenty to choose from, mediocre quality, and usually causing diarrhea.

I did enjoy the Swayse Show on WFNX while it was on -- decent music, news and interviews with local and national personalities. This was all good until The Swayse Show was replaced with the Sandbox in 2007 -- an un-entertaining mess hosted by three pop-culture expert wannabes who think interviewing the editor of Blender magazine is good radio and pass off the corporate synergy of interviewing Boston Phoenix writers as something objective.

My dial would often turn to Opie and Anthony on WBCN, who had a somewhat entertaining show, despite its New York slant and the on-air talent's ridiculous use of the word "bleech", like Mad Magazine was all the rage.

This past Tuesday, WBCN pulled the plug on the O&A Virus and installed afternoon guys Toucher and Rich in their place -- what a difference a plug pulling makes. I've written in this space before that the T&R show is some of the best radio around and so far the switch to 6am has not diluted their quality. Rather than listen to Opie and Anthony interview Jim Leyritz for the 5th time, I now get to listen to fat intern Adolfo try to have a conversation with a homeless man nicknamed Chili Guy.

The T&R show has also fired several shots at WAAF's Hill-Man Morning show, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out (my money is on T&R).
Anyway, good luck, Toucher and Rich, with your new time slot -- you actually don't need it in this market.