Kevin Richards out at IHeartless

[NeumannU87]

IHeart implemented another of its infamous "Reductions In Force" across its entire enterprise and gave longtime traffic reporter Kevin Richards his walking papers. What a crying shame. One of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, crazy good at what he does, and very dedicated. Don't know who will be replacing him. Someone from channel 8 probly.

[48125er]

He had an impeccable talent, Forget channel 8, they’ll get some bobble head or AI voice from New York who will call 28th st “M-11” or East beltline E Beltline, etc.

[Barry Sanders]

Brian Thomas also out. He was Production Director for GR/Muskegon.

Local air staff will likely be a thing of the past within 5 years. Everything is being centralized, voicetracked, etc. Even sales is heading that direction.

Why anyone would choose to work there is a mystery. Low pay (with no or VERY minimal raises) high expectations…and a great likelihood you’ll be fired next week. (oh, and no 401k match). Shit show.

[Graham Wellington]

He had an impeccable talent, Forget channel 8, they’ll get some bobble head or AI voice from New York who will call 28th st “M-11” or East beltline E Beltline, etc.

I prefer to take the I-296 to Route 37 when traveling through Grand Rapids.

[CJ]

Kevin Richards was giving traffic updates on WCSG this morning. Glad to see he is still there.

[craigrussell100]

Im pretty sure Mr. Richards offers his service separate from I Hearts Traffic. We used to use him at TSQ back in the day.

[Trophyhead]

Kevin had studio space on the 9th floor of 77 Monroe Center for years and went back home at some point in the last few. He told me via social media last night his relationship with WCSG reaches back to '92! George H.W. was President then!

[TC Talks]

I recall him doing updates from WGVU on 1991.

[bosco]

Saw Kevin at lunch today's with quite a few others. He has been doing traffic for 41 years, starting at WCUZ. Stellar talent. And he held off a full assault from metro traffic. Where are they? And his descriptive terms: "Ditch Party", etc. He helped thousands of people, and more importantly, he had the respect of the dispatchers and folks on the street. Truly one of the good guys.

[statmanmi]

Kevin had studio space on the 9th floor of 77 Monroe Center for years and went back home at some point in the last few. He told me via social media last night his relationship with WCSG reaches back to '92! George H.W. was President then!

This is at least the 3rd time that Kevin has been ousted or left from doing the WOOD radio traffic reports, per my recollection.

This article from 2002 recounts his early years starting Skyview Traffic, including noting departing WOOD radio in 1992: https://www.crainsgrandrapids.com/uncat ... -richards/ . That fits with my remembering a time in the 90s that WOOD had airborne traffic coverage (via plane, not helicopter), instead of Kevin.

He was back doing WOOD radio traffic in the early 2000s, but then iHeart/Clear Channel had their start-up of Total Traffic Network for RDS-TMC data to GPS devices. Robb Westaby was then the on-air talent...likely doing most all needed for that launch. (Sidebar: Anyone else remember being geeked out when realizing a TomTom GPS could get this information with no monthly cost? Back in the days before easily available cellular data into smartphone GPS apps.)

Then in late 2007, Robb was let go and Kevin & team were back supplying the traffic spots. Hard to believe that changeover was more than 15 years ago!

Regarding Skyview serving many customers, beyond WCSG FM, I remember some stretch of time when Kevin was voicing traffic on WOOD TV8 during both morning and evening newscasts. Which is rather ironic now, as it seems it's the WZZM TV13 traffic personality Dave Kaechele that is voicing the morning spots most days on WOOD Radio, as of last week I believe.

Cheers! ~~ Statmanmi

[Feature/writer]

......also heard Dave Kaechele doing traffic on Cumulus WJRW-AM, (1340) so I assume he's available to the other Cumulus stations?

[Trophyhead]

Stosh,

I am pretty sure that Capt. Charlie Tuchon, a retired Grand Rapids Police administrator had the early 90s traffic, working the scanners from a studio during Gary Allen's morning show with various partners, Jay and Ray among them. If there was afternoon traffic during Phil Tower's show, I am unaware of how it was staffed. W-Lite was making a point of their aerial traffic coverage, a guy who went from Big Rapids to Grand Rapids to Fort Wayne had his GR stop as part of 95.7's team.

[Trophyhead]

(PS--or Pre-S)Thanks to the venerable completion of my thoughts on WOOD Traffic, 30+ years back, ye who I could name but shan't. Tigchon, not to be confused with Feudin' Neal Schon is recognized, it's a flip of a coin as to whether it stays available for reference.

In those days, Gary still spun a few tunes an hour!

[originalzzmfmjock]

Captain Charlie Tigchon, a retired Grand Rapids Police Department Captain did traffic from the dispatch office of the GRPD for WOOD radio for several years. Charlie did the morning shift I believe and GRPD 9-1-1 operator Bill Gravlin did the afternoon traffic reports also directly from the GRPD dispatch office. This was in the mid to late 80's into the early 90's.

[Transmitter]

James Gemmell and Greg Borgman did airborne traffic for Metro Networks the mid/late 1990's. James did WOOD's airborne in morning and afternoons in the "Sky Spy" and Greg did WCUZ's out of the same plane flown out of Riverview Airport. Skip Essick recruited Metro to Grand Rapids in the mid 1990's and they operated out of McKay Tower. They had about 30 client stations for traffic and then added news. James was also doing news on WOOD at the time. At one point Dave Kaechele was one of the studio traffic guys. Metro started up news around 1998 kind of the same client format, but fewer stations. Susan Evangelista went by "Lane Closure" and did TV traffic for TV 13 from the Metro offices for a while. Metro died in GR around 2005. Airborne traffic started dying around that time with all of the financial and employees cutbacks already going full force.