Rich Buhler

Warren talked about sitting in Buhler’s afternoon drive chair. “Rich is my buddy and his body is under massive assault. Last Tuesday he had an awful night with a lot of abdominal pain. He got into the hospital on Wednesday. Thursday they did a preliminary biopsy on the mass. On Friday they did a second biopsy and we saw the MRI pictures very clearly.”

Warren said that Rich’s prognosis is scary. Between Rich and his wife they have ten kids. Warren encouraged his friends and fans to pray for him.

There are three ways you can send your get well wishes to Rich. You can email him at: Talk@CrawfordBroadcasting.com. His family will get the message to Rich immediately. You can also call a toll-free number and record a message for Rich and the family: 888.740.2692. The third way is on Facebook. The family is updating Rich’s condition whenever something new happens. Go to KBRT740.com and click through to Facebook page and you’ll find all the signposts to read the updates.

(August 2, 2010) Stella Prado has spent a lifetime at KOST, well at least her professional life. She has survived all the politics that go with starting as an intern on the highly successful ‘Lovesongs” evening show with Karen Sharp to finally getting a paycheck as producer on the Mark & Kim morning show to now being program director and guiding the enormously successful AC station as it’s become one of the top stations in the market.

We’ve seen her beautiful picture over the years as she was voted by her peer group as one of the Best Off-Air LARP in the yearly polling.

But behind the scenes, the Brazilian-born program director experienced one personal crisis after another beginning in January 2009 when Stella was feeling a pain on her side. “I thought it was a hernia,” recalled Stella. “I had a hernia when I was 13 years old and the pain resembled the pain I experienced as a teen.”

Work was jam-packed for Stella. The work world has changed so dramatically that one is forced to multi-task and take on multiple projects. This coupled with the pressure of delivering ratings month in and month out in the PPM world causes a lot of stress. Eventually the pain for Stella was too much and she saw a doctor.

After blood tests, the doctor didn’t see anything wrong. Stella demanded an ultra-sound test, which showed a large ovarian cyst. She was advised to have surgery right away. “This was my first mistake because I didn’t have a doctor because I was in a transition in my life and was referred to a new doctor in the Inland Empire because that’s where my dad lives and he could help during my recuperation period. I met with the doctor the next day and he recommended surgery right away. That’s how serious it was because the cyst was so large.”

The surgery was “gnarly,” as Stella described it but everything went fine. The cyst was removed and after a two week recuperation period, she was back to work. But during the recuperation period she spent time on Facebook and reconnected with a best friend classmate, Brian, from Don Lugo High School in Chino. “I never thought of him romantically,” confessed Stella.

After high school they both went their separate ways. They saw each other at the 10-year Don Lugo reunion but both were on different paths then and just said hello. Since then Stella had divorced and Brian was divorced with two daughters, working for a software company in Dallas.

Stella and Brian began a long-distance dating relationship in April 2009. Things were looking up, but 1,200 miles is a tough way to grow a relationship, but it was very comfortable and they would see each other once a month.

“On August 20 I’m sitting in my office at KOST and all of a sudden I feel this stabbing pain in my back and I couldn’t breathe. My assistant, Monica Medina, rushed me to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank. I called my dad and Brian, who was in Dallas, mountain bike riding. They admitted me right away and thought I was experiencing kidney stones. They hook me up to an IV and the pain is getting worse, my blood pressure was going down and everything was dropping fast. They were rushing me into one test after another and determined that my kidney had failed.”

They finally concluded that the doctor who removed Stella’s ovarian cyst had accidentally nicked her ureter, the all-important tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder. Poisons are rushing through her body.

Friends and family are in the hospital and Stella is in and out of consciousness because of extreme pain. “A few hours later Brian walks in. He had taken the first flight out of Dallas figuring that it must have been very serious. In the room I was in - the curtain was pulled so we couldn't see people in the hall. All I remember very clearly is seeing the bottom of a curtain and a piece of luggage and his tennis shoes. He pulled back the curtain and said, ‘Babe, I'm here.’ At that moment I knew I was going to marry this guy.”

Stella was in the hospital this time for four days. While she was getting tested and sleeping, Stella’s father and Brian got to know each other. “My mom knew Brian very well from high school but my dad was always at work during school hours. It was an awesome moment to have them spend time together and develop a friendship.” (Stella’s mom was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. In 2006 she was cancer-free, which was such an emotional year for the family. In 2007, she passed away from a heart attack.)

The first thing the emergency doctors at St. Joseph’s did when they realized what the problem was with Stella, they put a stent in the ureter. She was monitored for four days to determine how her body was going to respond to the stent. “My body reacted awesomely. A few hours later my kidney was back and the pain was gone. They said the body can’t stay with the stent very long but let’s monitor it day by day.”

From the stent incident in August until October, Stella was back to work full steam. She was traveling to Dallas to nurture the relationship with Brian. They went to Hawaii during this period and got engaged on October 4. “On October 22, I went to the doctor because my body was swollen and I was in a lot of pain. They did tests and determined there was a ton of scar tissue and my appendix was about to burst. Let’s get you into surgery tomorrow. These are the St. Joseph’s doctors and I felt like it was really a good team of doctors. The surgery took four hours. I had so much scar tissue wrapped around organs they called in an oncologist because they thought it was cancerous. The scar tissue looked horrible. Turns out I was cancer free, thank God, and everything was fine. They removed my appendix and I felt so much better after that.”

It would be nice to report that Stella and Brian got married and lived happily ever after but there was another setback.  The story continues tomorrow in the Subscriber section at LARadio.com:  http://laradio.com/register.htm

(August 1, 2010) Elliott Klein, consulting engineer for Liberman and Magic Broadcasting (KDAY), died this morning, at the age of 61.

Elliott’s journey started in New York City. He was born in Manhattan. His father retired at a very early age and the family moved to Phoenix in 1955, which Elliott considers his real home. “The Phoenix market grew at about the same rate as my career grew,” said Elliott when he was interviewed for the monumental task of syncrocasting two Class A stations, KDAY.

He was talent first and was on the air for a number of years and jocked his way through college (graduated in 1971). He also doubled as the chief engineer for KRIZ back in the days when there was a classic Top 40 battle between KRIZ and KRUX.

In 1988, Buck Owens hired Elliott to build KNIX-Phoenix into the preeminent radio facility in the country.

(Best of LARadio from 2000) Kathleen Sullivan came to the national scene with a flash during the 1984 Olympics coverage on ABC/TV. She created many firsts, including being one of the original anchors at Ted Turner’s CNN. In 1999 she joined Dan Avey as a co-anchor at KFWB.  On one April 2000 day, she finished her morning drive anchor shift, put down her headphones and walked out of the building without saying a word to anyone and nobody ever heard from her again. For those who were readers of LARadio.com at the time may remember we started a countdown clock on the number of days she was missing. George Fair made a milk carton with Kathleen's on the side. One insider at the time said Kathleen was spotted in San Francisco and told friends that she was on "sick leave." Another observer speculated that the "union strife" between AFTRA and KFWB was causing stress for Kathleen. Her contract with the station was up that summer of 2000 and some speculated that she may never return to her morning duties. Dave Cooke, pd at KFWB who worked with Kathleen at KABC and was responsible for bringing her to the all-News station, was been particularly mum on the subject. The "no comment" from management would lead one to believe that the legal eagles were involved.

One observer believed that the "Kathleen Sullivan Watch" at the top of LARadio was "hurtful" to Kathleen. At the time I wrote: "The 'Watch' and milk carton are presented in the spirit of fun. Doesn't anyone have a sense of humor anymore? She's a public figure who apparently has an issue with management - or maybe she doesn't - who knows? The silence is deafening.'

After about 130 days, the countdown clock was taken down. There were rumors that Kathleen was spotted in the Palm Springs area living with her mom and playing a lot of golf. Eva Kilgore recently came across her postings at the HuffingtonPost.com. From Kathleen’s bio site: She is currently working to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness. She sits on the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration) Advisory Council, to which she was appointed by the White House in January 2003.

(July 30, 2010) Stations throw around ‘Live and Local’ with such loose abandonment, it sometimes is difficult to differentiate between the stations that claim the moniker and those that actually are live and local. Whenever the subject comes up, readers come out of the woodwork proclaiming that all they want is live and local but history tells us that if the content is correct, LARadio listeners will embrace Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

In afternoon drive, the epitome of ‘live and local’ is the John & Ken show. John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou have embraced the zeitgeist of Southern California better than anyone else. In recent weeks, topics have collided, creating a tsunami of subjects from the governor’s race, Arizona’s immigration laws to a furor over salaries in the tiny town of Bell, a city of around 27,000. Who said you couldn’t make a city’s follies of interest to not only the entire Southland but nationally as well. The image of someone at a Bell demonstration with a KFI flag appeared on NBC’s Today Show.

They take politics 101 and execute it with precision. Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. And then tell ‘em what you told ‘em. They stirred things up at the Bell rally. They get embedded with the story to such a degree that sometimes you can’t tell where the original story starts and ends and John & Ken’s involvement takes over.

“The anti-John & Ken guy had his sign torn in several places,” recalled John as they reviewed the remote broadcast from the day before. “One Bell resident stood up and started screaming that it was free speech and to leave him alone with his sign,” said Ken. “They were on the same side against Bell.”

Ken admitted it was one of the wildest days they’ve ever had when taking the show on the road. ”There was so much commotion and such a different John & Ken audience, only about 10% white.”

The aggressive news reporters at KFI not only provide reports for scheduled newscasts, but they become an integral part of the talk shows.

KFI newsman Steve Gregory (R) is interviewing a protester in LA yesterday. Ten people chained themselves together, formed a circle and laid down in the middle of an intersection along LA's Miracle Mile (Wilshire Blvd and Highland Ave). They had to be cut apart by the LAPD.....they were then arrested. The group of about 200 were protesting Arizona's new Immigration Law.

Gregory spent much time with John & Ken yesterday afternoon with first-hand reports from the scene.

With gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the guys are very upset. “Meg Whitman double talks in two languages. She talks out of the left side of her mouth in English. The right side of her mouth is in Spanish,” said John.

These are supposed to be the dog days of summer, but not at KFI. John & Ken are on fire. They are appointment listening, certainly for the ride home, but also at home.