Rodney Ho does some interesting analysis of possible opportunities for Toucher. He also interviews Toucher's agent Norm Schrutt. From Rodney's blog, Radio Talk:
So where is he going to land? Boston has been bandied about. A rock station WBOS-FM/92.9 doesn’t appear to have a morning show but looks more music intensive than what Fred & Co. want. 96.9 FM talk runs Imus in the mornings. 101.7 FNX looks like it’s more Toucher’s speed than BOS but has something called the Swasey Show. Hard rock station WBCN 104, owned by CBS, is running the stumbling David Lee Roth morning show. That’s a possibility. WAAF 107.3, another hard rock station, has the Hill Man morning show.
Crash and Fred’s agent Norm Schrutt says he’s still shopping the show around, not necessarily with Infinity or Free Fm, but it could be on a rock station which will allow Fred & Co. to talk a lot and limit songs to about four an hour. He said he knew the program director at the Free FM in Phoenix and the guy helped him out to give Crash, Rich and Fred a chance to create an audition tape. Because of a non-compete clause in Fred’s contract, which technically runs through October, there’s virtually no way Fred will stay in Atlanta.
“We have a financial package on the table,” Schrutt said. “We’ve had one offer but it’s just with Toucher. Toucher wants to work with Rich and Crash and we will continue to go in that way with those three pieces.” He said he’s taking interested calls from different radio stations.
“We sit in a much better position because we have a contract for an extended period of time,” Schrutt told me, referencing Fred. (Rich and Crash, though, are not getting paid so there will be some pressures for Fred to sign a deal soon.
Schrutt said he’s impressed that Susquehanna, which is about to hand over the reins of 99X to Atlanta’s Cumulus, is allowing Fred to have an actual goodbye on the air. Most on-air talent getting booted are not given that opportunity. “They are being nicer than I have ever been,” Schrutt said, of the Dickeys, who manage Cumulus. Schrutt used to run radio stations, including Kicks and Eagle.
