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Local radio is back in South Florida with Sofloradio.com. Led by Jorge Rodriguez, it is the creation of a group of “recessionist” entrepreneurs who watched themselves get squeezed out of their talk radio jobs by corporate media’s decision to save money, by broadcasting the same “national” radio shows in all markets, and in the process they tried to and almost killed grassroots, local talk radio in South Florida.

The communications conglomerates which control all of the major audio and video media providers have taken this more national approach to radio programming because of the enormous cost savings of having to pay one voice compared to paying local talent big bucks in hundreds of markets. The largest holdout for local talent is sports talk, which is relatively safe, especially in markets with one or more local major sports franchises.

Enter Sofloradio.com. Using the low cost bandwidth of the internet, Rodriguez and his group of local radio professionals have banded together to create a true grassroots, authentic radio media outlet to provide a voice for Joe Working Guy. It could be Jane Working Gal, or even Chuck Creative Guy, it doesn’t matter, Sofloradio.com by nature just somehow identifies with the world’s “Doers.”

Liberal Issues Examiner, William Skordelis, grassroots columnist and “radio interview virgin”, (giving or taking – an interview), braved the unknown and dove headfirst into the studio of a couple of Sofloradio.com founders, the on-air duo of the Jorge Rodriguez Show, Jorge Rodriguez and Boca Brian. Or is it on-line duo? The fact is sofloradio.com is so close to traditional radio, you forget your listening to a computer.

To read the rest of the story from William Skordelis on Examiner.com click here.

When we heard of the apparent over-sight in former talk-show host Neil Roger’s contract with 560 WQAM which allowed management to fire his longtime producer and side-kick Jorge Rodriguez, we should have known that even “Neil God” was vulnerable (“You are correct Sir!”). Well it happened, and Friday marked the end of an era in South Florida radio when Neil Rogers aired his last show after accepting WQAM’s offer to buy out the remaining time on his contract.

Despite Neil’s vow to work to the very end of his newly signed 5-year contract out of sheer spite to piss-off WQAM’s General Manager, Joe Bell, and anti-fart-sound-activist, Beasley Broadcast Group attorney Joyce Fitch (which rhymes with….well you know) apparently the Beasley’s (to coin a phrase from one of Neil’s favorite movies – in the voice of Marlon Brando as Godfather Vito Corleone) "made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

But what’s good for Neil is bad for South Florida, because we’ve lost a legend of the airwaves. The famously inconsolable Neil was often mixed with waves of static because of a weak signal, which maybe in some ways just made us listen closer. Obviously the Beasley’s know very little about the radio business even though they are up to their necks in it. How do you pay a man what has been reported on his previous contract to have been making $1.5 million per year and then transmit his show with a signal so weak, broadcasts from Cuba would often bleed over Neil’s famous tirades about the grim reality of life on this earth from A to Z?

Really though, Neil Rogers is just another Beasley Broadcast casualty as they commit radio Hari Kari and one by one fire all their big name talent. If I were “Mad Dog” Jim Mandich, who handles the 4 to 7 p.m. slot, or the “Big Dog” Joe Rose, who handles the morning drive slot, I’d be brushing up my resume and preparing for the axe to fall any day now. In all fairness though, both of them do have a couple things going for them that neither Jorge nor Neil had. They both have nicknames with “Dog” in them, and they’re both former Miami Dolphin football players. After all WQAM is the station “where football always matters.”

But it seems that being a jock or “sport-hole” isn’t enough to keep your job on WQAM. Sports gurus and gambling mavens, Ed Kaplan, and “The Hammer” Hank Goldberg couldn’t escape Joe Bell’s imitation of Jason, (the mad-slasher from Friday the 13th) and all they talked about was sports and sports betting. I guess it helps to work really cheap, though it’s been reported that Ed Kaplan offered to do the job for no pay from the Beasley’s if he could just keep his endorsements and commercial fees.

Maybe the key secret to keeping your job at WQAM is the cliché, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” In other words, “I’m yer frayend!” All of the big-name WQAM casualties at one time or another bitched or moaned about management, the studios, or “Jolly Joe Bell.” But none did it more often and more harshly than “Uncle” Neil. In one way, it’s amazing that he lasted as long as he did.

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