"THIS WON'T BE THE FIRST TIME THAT [KDKA] HAS USED DECEASED ON-AIR TALENT TO BOOST ITS SAGGING RATINGS: BILL BURNS DID THE NOON NEWS FOR THREE YEARS AFTER HE DIED."PITTSBURGH - KDKA thinks it has found the solution to its sagging morning show ratings in, of all the unlikely places, Hollywood's fabled Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Rege Cordic, legendary Pittsburgh broadcaster who ruled Steel City morning radio from 1954 to 1965 with an 85 share at his peak, has been dead since 1999. But that didn't stop stop KDKA's general manager Michael Young from bringing him back.
"It was time," Young said. "There's a whole generation of listeners who've never heard Rege's classic fake advertisements for Olde Frothingslosh, 'the pale stale ale with the foam on the bottom.' Granted, it's not especially funny anymore, if it ever was, but I'm counting on Rege to come up with something innovative. He's a proven winner."
Young contacted Cordic's widow and, in his words, "basically wrote her a blank check." Mrs. Cordic exclaimed: "Let the disinterment begin!"
And KDKA isn't stopping there. It's pulling out all the stops to regain its morning drive-time supremacy. Cordic's corpse will be teamed with another popular former morning host, John Cigna.
Cigna issued a written statement: "Oh, I want to tell you, working with Rege is like, I mean, that's, wow! Hmm! I mean, that's really . . . I want to tell you . . . ."
Young says that teaming Cordic with Cigna "will be a match made in zanyville heaven." Late newscaster Ed Schaughency "likely" will be disinterred to do the news, Young said.
A KDKA executive revealed that this won't be the first time KDKA has trotted out deceased on-air talent to boost the station's moribund ratings. "Bill Burns was dead three years and still hosting the noon news," the executive explained. "Near the end, it was a real trick keeping the body intact, but the producer pulled it off."
Addendum: Mr. Young's office called with a correction to this story. He would like his title to read as follows: Senior vice president and general manager of KDKA Newsradio.
