Mancow, Lawyer Call Out KMBZ 980 AM Host Darla Jaye
No more Mr. Nicey Nice…
Kansas City radio export Erich Mancow Muller has taken off the gloves and retained an attorney to get KMBZ 980 AM evening host Darla Jaye’s full and undivided attention.
“I want her to admit that she was lying about Jerry Agar,” Mancow says. “Agar came to me and was really, really hateful to me in the hall and I said, ‘What’s your problem?’ And he said, ‘Well, you took my job.’ I didn’t take his job, they got rid of him because he wasn’t any good. He was a bore and he wasn’t getting through to Chicago.”
Mancow replaced Agar – who left KMBZ’s afternoon drive slot here a couple years back for WLS in Chicago – last October.
Here’s how the Jaye bird fits in to this soap opera…
When I reported the Cow’s ascension on WLS, Chicago last fall Jaye hammered me with the following email:
“How about the truth?!” she demanded. “Hey H., if you had done some actual research or investigating…it would have been easy to find out the TRUTH. Mancow didn’t TOPPLE Jerry Agar. He is BUYING that time slot! Jerry earned the spot on WLS, and Mancow PURCHASED it! Why don’t you write about that, Hearne?”
Got a little busy then, what with getting laid off by the Star and all, and didn’t get around to pinning Mancow down until I broke the story – Jaye’s allegation and his response – last month.
“That’s just not true,” Mancow said then. “if I was paying for it, I would tell you. (WLS) offered me money and we signed a multi-year deal.”
While Agar’s ratings were decent, good even, “I’ve had a name in Chicago since 1994 and I just had my highest ratings ever,” Mancow continued. “They pay me, I don’t pay people to do my show – it’s a joke – it’s ludicrous. It’s a lie, and by the way I confronted (Jerry) in the hall and he said he never said that. He still does fill-in work for WLS. Since I took over for Jerry Agar the ratings are up 135 percent.”
That was then, the latest…
“I’ve hired a lawyer to notify KMBZ that Darla Jaye has slimed me,” Mancow says. “I also find it interesting that Agar is working a weekend shift (at WGN Chicago) if he’s so great.”
Indeed Agar is slotted in on WGN Saturdays between Mr. Fix It and somebody called The News Guy and on Sunday afternoons.
Back to Mancow’s lawyer…
‘I’ve been retained by Mr. Muller and he’s instructed me to pursue the matter because her statements regarding him paying for the radio (time slot) were false,” says Chicago attorney Michael Young. “What we’re hoping for is to open a dialogue and for her to retract the statement and apologize for it.”
To that end, Young says he has written a letter to KMBZ parent company Entercom in Pennsylvania and is copying Jaye and her employer here.
As for the behind the scenes on that hallway brush with Agar at WLS that Mancow alleges, “He was puffing up his chest like a tough guy,” Mancow says. “But I could have knocked him out – I could have dispensed with him in short order.”
Agar could not be reached and Darla Jaye did not respond to an email request for comment.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I’m sure one day the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan will thank us for bringing them the freedom and liberty to be able to retain lawyers when they get “slimed”. Seems to me they’ve got a better system in place now. Somebody “slimes” you you just blow up their house or car or bust a few .223 rounds in their kneecap, ass or head. Guess now that Mancow has steady income he can piss away a few grand on a barrister to fire off a letter. Funny that ex-cop / wife killer Drew Peterson chose to call in to Mancow’s show from jail and jokingly suggest a “Conjugal visit with Drew” contest. Guess birds of a feather do flock together. Seems Mancow learned quite a bit from his mentor, Randy Miller.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Legal representation is the ULTIMATE status symbol isn’t it? Wonder if Mancow’s lawyer is a DUI and speeding ticket guy or a partner at Winston & Strawn?
May 29th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I love media people.
when other media says things that are untrue, they demand retractions and hire lawyers.
when those of us who are in the public eye have things said about us that are untrue, media screams freedom of the press.
what a bunch of pussies.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
My guess is that Mancow approached WLS with a proposal to do the show and sweetened the deal with a few advertisers in his pocket that would take their ad business to the radio station. WLS pays Mancow for his show and the station does business with the “new” advertisers. Did he “buy” the slot on WLS? In a sense…especially if the new companies had not planned to advertise at WLS previously….yes.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:54 am
“So many guesses, so few facts”
Your new blog slogan?
June 1st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Darla is such a hack. I almost spit water out of my nose when I read her email to Hearne… “Hey H., if you had done some actual research or investigating… it would have been easy to find out the TRUTH” — this from a woman who is ready to slime anyone she disagrees with at the drop of a hat and who couldn’t navigate LexisNexis if her life depended on it.
Truth and facts: Two things Darla Jaye never allows to get in the way of an ignorant rant.
Although I gotta admit, when I find myself in the car during her show and absolutely nothing else is on, she can be entertaining… in a she-is-Rush-and-Hannity’s-retarded-baby sort of way.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Darla wouldn’t know the truth if you put it in a jug and waterboarded her with it. And try challenging her. If you call with an opposing opinion, she won’t put you on the air. If you email her she doesn’t respond.
I am no fan of Mancow, but I applaud him for this.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I was a regular listener of WLS until recently. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Jerry Agar’s WLS show, it was world’s better than Mancow’s show. Mancow comes across as someone with a severe case of ADD. He is way too hyper, jumps to conclusions without much merits and talks over his guests.
Agar has been doing weekend shifts on WGN, as well as doing fill-in work for their previously vacant 9 a.m. to noon M-F show for the last three weeks… while continuing his weekend shows.
Compared to many of the other news/talk hosts in Chicago, Jerry Agar would be near the top of my list as being among the best. Aside from the Mancow thing, he seemed to be well liked by co-workers, as well.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
the news junkie not news guy
wgnradio.com
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Also, Mancow doesn’t solo host his show on WLS. He co-hosts it with Pat Cassidy who for years co-hosted a number #2/#1 rated morning drive show so….Mancow needs to stop inflating his ego.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Does cowpies lawyer work for ACORN?
September 13th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Darla Jaye is just a plain, bad host. I’ve never heard such a whining shrew on air in my life. And she doesn’t foster real discussion or is engaging in any way like Mike Shanin is. Shanin will DISCUSS an issue. OF course, one look at Darla Jaye, and you KNOW why she’s in radio, and not TV. The difference between Shanin and Jaye are that Shanin is interested in a spirited, topical dicussion and exploration of the issues, while Jaye is simply interested in being RIGHT. I called her on her criticizm of Katie Horner and her weather coverage one day. She said in her show blog that day that she understood if programming was interrupted if a tornado was moving through a populated area, but she didn’t know WHY they were interrupting programming for tornado warnings in Pettis county. This bitch is in broadcasting, and she isn’t aware that a TV station’s broadcast radius is 75 miles? And POPULATED AREA? I’m assuming she either thinks Kansas City TV stations have areas of wilderness within their vieweing areas, or us farmers out here in rural areas that depend on TV from an ANTENNA to get our weather warnings don’t matter. I suppose our life and property don’t mean as much to her. It’s surprising she’d feel that way, since we grow the food she shovels into her gullet every day, resulting in her size 20 ASS.