KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

by SpinMD on May 13, 2006 7:37 PM PDT Comment 14 comments

I will miss him. He not only lent a very human voice to the Bay Area sports scene but also was a tremendous resource for audio recordings documenting his (and our) travels around the local sports landscape for the past couple of decades.

I can't count the number of dumb personnel decisions KNBR has made over the past 10 years. Between Giants games, I'll be changing the station. Here's a column about the firing.

This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.

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Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

What a drag. This was discussed in a pretty much unrelated thread a few days ago. Look at the end of the comments here:

http://www.mccoveychronicles.com/story/2006/5/5/104215/2432

What a drag. Would somebody in congress please introduce some legislation to regulate the media again? And the communications companies while they're at it? Please? All of these effing mergers are just killing me. Pretty soon every media outlet is going to be owned by one of two guys who have offices next door to each other on the 87th floor of some glass and steel building in midtown Manhattan. They're going to play Monopoly at lunch everyday to see who owns what when. With every roll of the dice, another Bruce Magowan will lose his job and another ballpark will change its name.

Listen to the broadcast on KSFO.

by Shane on May 13, 2006 8:46 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

OK, I found about this on Monday night while driving home from the game. I think John Screader was filling in for Damon and mentioned that they would miss Bruce. I thought he died or something. I couldn't imagine the station canning him, so I immediately called up to ask. Sure enough - fired. The call screening pretty much explained that there were a lot of people at the station that were upset about this.

Fastforward to today. I hopped in my car after that great comeback and flipped on the radio. Usually Bruce would carry the postgame programming until ESPN was piped in, but today Tim Liotta was broadcasting. T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E! The guy was horrible at managing the calls, awkwardly talking over people and sometimes not even responding to what the caller said. He had very little to say that was remotely interesting and continually repeated the same things over and over. It was bad, bad, bad. If Bruce was dismissed for this, give me a break. I'm sure they will soon replace it all with some loud mouth or go straight to ESPN. Either way it's a downgrade.

Good luck to Bruce.

Too bad for us.

-- Born Yesterday

by thatdog on May 13, 2006 10:45 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

My guess is that the new ownership wanted to cut costs. Liotta is also the stations creative director and has on air experience, so they probably figured they didn't need to be paying a guy like Magowan who didn't seem to have a normal time slot or assignment. He was sort of the Fassero of the team; old-timer who'd fill in here or there, but no real value long-term. It was reported that he was the only on-air talent to not be working under a contract, so he was the logical choice.

Finley's numbers through 5/11: .325/.408/.542 That's right; a .408 OBP!!!

by Goofus on May 14, 2006 8:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

What was the rationale behind the firing? I can't seem to find anything at all on KNBR's site, so I'll just assume management had a constitutional dislike for all things jazz.

Alas, he shall be missed by the listening public (or at least by me).

by Steve on May 14, 2006 3:42 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

You're not missing nothin'

Bruce was crappy. For years and years he was happy and crappy. Had no business in sports reporting. Maybe he'll get a job in county government.

Good riddance.

by Moggeee on May 14, 2006 4:27 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, you're right

Let's replace him with some national guy who doesn't understand (or care about) the Bay Area sports scene. Having guys on that are there for the paycheck is MUCH better than some poor schmo who was passionate about sports without screaming about it. Bring on the screamers!

by SpinMD on May 14, 2006 3:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

Strictly cost-cutting. New ownership run by bean counters. KNBR is all about OVERLY LOUD HYPERBOLE. Macgowan was old school. Knowledgeable, actually listened to caller's inquiries and actually acknowledged that there is a MLB team in the Ebay and was a good story teller. KNBR is a fuckin kiddie station for the clearasil crowd who pump up their ratings and therefore their advertising rates.

Fucking twits like Ralph-Mouth drive me to kick the dashboard with his condescending chalkboard voice mannerisms and lame attempts at pseudo linguistics interspersed with "crap" "pissed" "hell". His on-air ramblings are boring, self-referenced, patronizing, condescending, vacuous, vapid, crude, rude and vulgar.

There is something nauesating about a jello-body 50-something snickering specious lines with sexual overtones about 20 something women on a continual basis. Fuckface, act your age! Fucking twit-ass gets his ass kicked by jocks all through high-school, decides to sniff their jocks to gain acceptance, and he still can't get laid. What the fuck is this asshole doing in prime drive time? If he actually knew something besides adopting kids out of a petri dish, or skating on a couple of dui's, he might be interesting to listen to. Really a despicable, totally obnoxious, pretentious motherfucking son of a self-centered bitch snake.

His rants are almost as full of shit as mine.

he blames tomko and i blame magowan; lets call the whole thing off.

by E Ticket on May 14, 2006 11:52 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

Hold it...E, did you say Ralph was "rude and vulgar"?? Sheesh. He must be pretty bad.

Waiting for Travis, Nate, Marcus, and Nick P.

by Lyle on May 14, 2006 3:52 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

read the last line of my post :-D

besides, my command of the english language (if not capitalization) is good enough to convey the exact same post without resorting to the crudity and vulgarities as king no-neck. but that's besides the point; you don't find making sexual innuendo's at somebody young enough to be their daughter like he does as low-life trailer trash?

when one is on the taxpayer-granted airwaves, i would expect a little more maturity from a middle-aged guy, like a bruce macgowan, for instance. my vulgarity is for amusement purposes only--on a blog geared for adults, i assure you.

--his is because he has a complete inability to express himself without an affectated and over-laborious effort towards pandering kiddie-talk. he comes across like a castrated beavis and butthead "heheh, i just said hell..heh heh..way cool" he's as lame as howard stern without the titillation.

get it?

ps. i apologize for my snippishness. 2 out of 3 to the motherfucking dodgers and particularly today's abortion is a little much to take on such a wonderful day like this. :-)

he blames tomko and i blame magowan; lets call the whole thing off.

by E Ticket on May 14, 2006 6:13 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

ralph sat a few rows in front of me last year on my birthday when i scored awesome club-level seats. all i remember is he stood up a lot when nobody else was, intensely staring through a pair of binocs (he was 7 rows behind the home dugout, yet still busted the binoculars out), and that his kid or grandkid was with him and on the kid's jersey was one of those early-2000s names like braden or cayden or jaden, something like that.

by tk on May 14, 2006 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ralph's Spawn

I got it from E --

Kid's name is Little Nickie.

by Moggeee on May 14, 2006 10:19 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good Guy who Finsished Last

Are we even spelling Brucie's name right? Magowan? MacGowan?

Here's a better question. Who cares?

The most important trait a Sports Radio voice can have is an ability to criticize the home team, to see their weakenesses clearly. Magowan could never do this. His takes on the Giants were pablum, his questions during interviews, softballs.

I didn't cheer when he left; I didn't cry. And all those long years when I heard him, especially subbing in the late night slot, it was sleepytime sooner rather than later.

Anybody transfixed by Magowan's interviews (bland) or opinions (none) would also be greatly interested in buying timeshares in submerged neighorhoods of New Orleans.

by Moggeee on May 14, 2006 10:33 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

I was at my son's college graduation in SoCal and missed this until just now.

This is sad. I loved his interviews and deep knowledge of sport. He was good balance to a lot of the crap that's on KNBR.

What a shame.

Just one time before I die

by Katman on May 15, 2006 12:47 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: KNBR Fires Bruce Magowan

I was not happy nor sad at the dismissal of Bruce, I found him to be boring and when listening to him I couldn't get the vision of Goofy out of my head.

Actually I find Liotta a refreshing change from the bland Magowan.

As for Ralph, my wife is convinced he's gay, I just believe he's a frustrated fat sexist little putz who can't maintain a relationship with the opposite sex. Which shows with the comments he makes about women and quickly follows up with a denial of being sexist.

The sophomoric Razor and Mr. T, rampant with giggles and cynicism is not worth listening to.

by ESAEBE on Jun 26, 2006 8:31 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs