What’s The Over/Under On Klein?
• [UPDATE: Monday, Day 3, and Klein is still M.I.A….] — This morning, as dawn breaks over America’s Finest City™, the good citizens of San Diego wait… radios tuned to Entercom’s KEGY (97.3 The Machine)… thumbs patiently poised over their Twitter accounts, waiting to find out if the already controversial Kevin Klein will actually debut today. His scheduled premiere date of Thursday, March 29 came and went, and so did Friday, March 30. The Machine has thus far been running “Klein-less.” Will that change today? So far no one at Entercom is talking.
By now you know that Klein, formerly of KITS (Live 105)/San Francisco, was scheduled to make his San Diego debut last Thursday on the brand new radio flagship of the San Diego Padres; however, a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to Klein’s date with morning radio immortality — his now-infamous promotional tweet for his new show, featuring a photo of San Diego’s Coronado Bridge and the text “JUMP* … *to a new morning show.”
Klein’s “zany” tweet coincided with a front-page story in the San Diego Union-Tribune naming the Coronado Bridge as the second-deadliest bridge in the U.S. for suicides. The negative response on Twitter was swift, and the Padres Executive ChairmanRon Fowler told the San DiegoUnion-Tribunethe team would reevaluate its radio relationship by the end of this week, once the Padres’ opening home stand against the Rockies is complete.
A day after Klein’s ill-advised post, he did issue an apology, as did Entercom and the Padres. However, Klein sounded far from contrite last Wednesday morning when he tweeted, “To all of the other radio shows who are spending this morning talking about us, you’re welcome. And thank you in advance for being so boring and unoriginal, that your audience will soon be all ours.”
Naturally, that tweet drew a slew of smart-ass replies, including this gem from @Stevebaeza8, who retorted, “Don’t you have to actually be on the air to steal anyone’s audience? #JustSaying.”
