What's with 1027 da bomb?

[adrian]

Someone said that they just fired literally everyone (but I know that Paul Ogata moved to the mainland ). They said that da bomb was going to a new route or something?

Can someone enlighten me?

[Paul Ogata]

Re: What's with 1027 da bomb?

Here is your "P! True Pauliewood Story".

At the end of October, I gave my notice that I would be leaving the station at the end of the year. Who gives two month notice? I half-expected to be fired, since that's how it usually works in radio. But I decided it was time to pursue stand-up comedy full-time. The plan was to finish the year, do a One-Night Farewell Tour show at Pipeline in December, and leave town in January.

In early December, out of pure coincidence, Kid Leo (who besides being my morning show partner was also the station's PD, or Program Director) received a call from a station in Philadelphia asking him to be the PD there. Consider this: Honolulu is the 64th largest "market" or radio city in America. Philadelphia is number 6. Wow! So he asked Sam the Man and me if we wanted to come along for the ride and do mornings in Philadelphia. Immediately I said yes, since all of us started Da Bomb together 5+ years ago and this was a great opportunity to take our radio game to the next level.

But Leo gave the owners of Da Bomb time to match his incredible offer from Philly. They took a looong time to finally say they couldn't. And during that time, I did some serious soul-searching about what is important to me at this point in my life, about the reasons I had for walking away from radio in the first place.

I hope each and every one of you has a passion in your life, something that you must do, something that brings you joy and pride and satisfies your soul when you do it. For me, that is stand-up comedy. For Leo it is radio. He's incredibly good at it and has his finger on the pulse of what's hot. I know he'll be successful in Philly, and then who knows... Los Angeles, New York City? But radio, as good as it has been to me and as much as I have enjoyed doing it, was not in my heart. So when it finally came time in late December to say yea or nay, I chose comedy. Hard decision, hand-wringing, temple-punching, sitting-in-the-corner-rocking-back-and-forth type of thing.

In the meantime, Big Koa (102.7's night jock) received an offer from another station and he took it. Which is understandable, considering Da Bomb was now without a PD, a morning show and an afternoon show. I've seen Koa get really good really fast at radio, and to whoever hired him... Koa has big-market flow so reward him well or risk seeing him leave, too!

So to answer your question: No, nobody was fired but quite a number of people did leave to pursue other opportunities. I still have a lot of friends there at Da Bomb, talented folks like Kool E and K-Dogg and everyone else, and if they can find a guy with even half of Leo's programming mojo, they'll be just fine.

So check the guys out live online while they do their thing in Philadelphia. You won't hear Leo, as he will have PD duties to concentrate on. (No doubt in his huge corner office with the big-screen TV secretly playing Cowboys and Yankees games.) But you'll be able to hear Sam The Man and Hawaiian Ryan doing mornings (midnights in Hawaii) at:
Wired 96.5

One last thing: Last Friday, Leo and I had the chance to do something that doesn't happen very often in radio, and that is to do a "final show." Most of the time in radio, people get fired or they give their two-week notice and get fired that same day. But allowing us to have that one last chance to thank our faithful listeners and say goodbye to them and give them a chance to say goodbye to us was a nice move on Visionary's part. You always see TV newscasters have a final show, but never on radio. Well, except Blazy, and you know how that turned out. Maybe that's why.

Geez, what a long-winded response.

[Lei K]

Re: What's with 1027 da bomb?

Well Paul I am happy you are pursuing comedy full time and have to say the husband and I quote one of your comedy routines constantly. We have had the VHS of Hawaii's Comedy Stars for ages now, my family had sent it to me some years ago. We still laugh at your jokes like it's the first time we heard them and like we don't quote them to eachother once a week anyway.

I hope to see one of your shows in Southern California one day. I'm sure it will keep me and my husband amused and full of quotes for another 7 or so years!

[adrian]

Re: What's with 1027 da bomb?

to say goodbye to us was a nice move on Visionary's part

Wait, I thought da bomb was owned by another company?
(it was owned by new wave, but now its owned by visionary?)

And was it a coincidence that everyone left at the same time? Do you know what will happen to da bomb?

[mel]

Re: What's with 1027 da bomb?

Wait, I thought da bomb was owned by another company?
(it was owned by new wave, but now its owned by visionary?)

In a complicated series of transactions involving New Wave, Salem and Visionary, DaBomb 102.7 FM ended up in Visionary's corner in mid to late 2004. At the time I think New Wave owned 4 stations, 2 of which went to Salem (KHUI and KPOI FM) and 2 to Visionary (DaBomb and KQMQ). Salem wanted to turn KPOI to talk which they did, as 97.5 FM became KHNR FM. Visionary got the rights to the KPOI call letters and quickly changed their 105.9 FM "Big Kahuna" to KPOI from its former call letters of KAHA.