Rick Emerson

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Rick Emerson
Birth name Richard Karl Emerson[1]
Born March 7, 1973 (1973-03-07) (age 36)
Kennewick, Washington
Show The Rick Emerson Show
Outlook Portland
Station(s) Rock 101: KUFO
Portland's CW (Outlook Portland)
Time slot Weekdays 5:00am - 9:00am PST
Sundays 6:00am-6:30am (Outlook Portland)
Style Talk
Country United States
Website RickEmerson.com

Rick Emerson is a radio personality most known for The Rick Emerson Show, which has been broadcast locally in Portland, Oregon off and on since 1997 on various radio stations, and was nationally syndicated for a period from 1998-2001[2] by NBG Radio Network[3].

Emerson was also program director for AM 970, and is currently transitioning out of that position to spend more time working on the new KUFO morning show, which began a new run on KUFO FM 101.1 on March 12, 2009.

He also is the television host of Outlook Portland which airs at 6:30 am Sundays on Portland's CW.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Rick Emerson was born March 7, 1973 in Kennewick, Washington.

At age 14 he began volunteering at a local radio station. After graduating fourth-to-last in his high school class, he moved to Spokane, Washington, where he eventually landed his first talk show, broadcasting from a bomb shelter in the basement of the station's building. During this time he managed to earn a small, but loyal following. For many years listeners knew him as Rick Taylor, a last name that he picked out of a phone-book at the beginning of his career. During this time, Emerson was arrested after being pulled over for a broken tail-light due to a bench warrant issued after he forgot to pay the last $10 on a traffic ticket. [4]

He was promoted to a position broadcasting during the afternoon drive in Salt Lake City where he co-hosted a show with Clyde Lewis. He became Program Director of KCNR in Salt Lake and helped create one of the most popular radio stations in Utah. A change in the station's format in 1997 left Emerson without a microphone.

[edit] The Rick Emerson Show

Emerson then moved to California where he worked as a convenience store clerk. KOTK 1080AM Portland Program Director, Bruce Agler, offered Emerson a job in Portland, Oregon in November 1997[5]. He stayed in that job for only a few months before Emerson was offered national syndication. Emerson hosted his nationally syndicated show,[6] for three years until he was again fired. Emerson was rehired by KOTK in the summer of 2001, and was soon paired with Tim Riley, a veteran broadcaster who brought a unique style of news coverage to his show. Mixed with a series of producers, finally working with Sarah X Dylan in December 2002. Rick often considers the day that Sarah joined the show to be the turning point that allowed for the show's success.

Emerson's program and cast has been subject to the fluctuations of the Portland radio market. There have been at least two significant periods where Emerson was off the air. First was the "unpleasantness" that occurred between Emerson's syndicated show and his transition back to Hot Talk 1080, KOTK. A second gap occurred after the show was pulled off the air by Entercom, which spawned the "coffee cup crusade"[7]. The show's listeners, incensed that the show had been taken off the air, deluged the Portland headquarters of the broadcasting corporation with coffee cups to show their support for Emerson.[8]

CBS Radio, reacting in part to the strength of support for Emerson throughout the metro area, decided to give Emerson an opportunity to re-tool Johnson 970, an all-comedy radio station. Broadcasting from "the plushly appointed but not overly ostentatious studios high atop the bottom of the KOIN tower", Emerson was back on the air with producer Sarah X. Dylan and Tim Riley. Within months, the station was retooled as "AM 970, Solid State Radio" and took on a line-up of syndicated broadcasts from around the country, including Tom Leykis and Phil Hendrie, both of whose programs had been previously paired with Emerson on other stations. Rick's fans are loyal, as evidenced by a May 2008 listener party, where friends of his show and listeners held a roast in his honor.[9]. Under Rick's leadership, KCMD-AM became a talk powerhouse, and changed its name to "The Talker" in mid-2008. After a seven year run with the program, Mr. Riley was laid-off from the program after December 8, 2008 as CBS Portland went through a series of staff reductions. In order to continue to feature news on the show, Emerson invited many other laid-off Portland media personalities to fill-in for Tim. On March 9, 2009 Rick announced that the show would be moving from KCMD's midday slot to sister station KUFO-FM's morning slot beginning on March 12. It was simultaneously announced that Tim Riley would be returning to the show under his former capacity. As part of the move, Emerson would no longer be Program Director of KCMD, that job would instead go to KUFO Program Director Chris Patyk. The new show on KUFO has received low marks from Emerson's long time fans. Some even going so far as to not even bother listening any more. The consenus is that what once was a unique, funny show is now a formulaic and boring "Morning Zoo." A website had even been formed to attempt to reform the show, it an incarnation similar to the AM970 version. This site has had some moderate success, as musical breaks have become shorter, the content of the show, more substantial, and news, more prevalent.

[edit] Television

Emerson is the host of a Portland local programming for Portland's CW entitled Outlook Portland, which airs Sundays at 6:30-7:00 am.

[edit] Filmography

  • Remote Control (2004)
  • Bigger Than Jesus: The Diary of a Rock & Roll Fan (2005)
  • Rock Roundtable (2005)

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Minutes from "The Rick Emerson Show" 2/29/08". http://community.livejournal.com/rickemerson/122179.html#cutid1. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. 
  2. ^ "=Twisting the Dial -- 2001". http://www.pdxradio.com/twist2001.htm. Retrieved on 2008-07-12. 
  3. ^ "NBG Radio Network Hires Michael James.". http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54952636.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-12. 
  4. ^ "Rick Emerson Show Podcast 1/12/2009 Hour 1". http://community.livejournal.com/rickemerson. Retrieved on 2009-01-15. 
  5. ^ "Twisting the Dial -- 1998". http://www.pdxradio.com/twist98.htm. Retrieved on 2008-07-17. 
  6. ^ "A Familiar Rick is Back on the Air". http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SR&p_theme=sr&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAF4972C9EEB4ED&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. 
  7. ^ "Geeks tune in to their time". http://www.portlandtribune.com/features/story.php?story_id=120699297745367100. Retrieved on 2008-06-26. 
  8. ^ "Static follows Entercom’s move". http://www.portlandtribune.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=29741. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. 
  9. ^ "Rick Emerson "Weenie" Roast: It Was Kind of Like Oz (HBO's Prison show, not the Land of Munchkins)". http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=11930. Retrieved on 2008-06-16. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Emerson"
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