After doing some fill-in work at her old station, WKLH-FM (96.5), veteran Milwaukee radio voice Patti Genko says she's ending her radio career to focus on her media business.
Genko sent me an e-mail announcing her decision, and she wrote that in addition to freelance voice-over work for radio and TV, PR consulting and producing on-hold messages for companies, "I am open to any and all new thoughts and ideas."
She had spent last week filling in for Marilynn Mee on WKLH, noting, "It was interesting that I ended where I began. It was my first time back in the midday chair since 2005."
Genko had been the local voice on WKLH's former sister station, WJZX-FM (106.9) until the station dropped its smooth jazz format in exchange for a classic country playlist under the nickname "Big Buck Country." She had also been "voice-tracking" or recording her deejay bits for a night show on WKLH.
After the smooth jazz format was dropped, Tom Joerres, general manager of Milwaukee's five Saga radio stations, told no jobs, on- or off-air would be lost in the change.
Genko offers this about her long-time employer, "I am appreciative of the opportunities that Milwaukee Radio
Group/Saga has given me and have fond memories and close
relationships that I hope will continue."
She also expressed her thanks to listeners, and said they can find her on Facebook and Twitter, where she offered an appropriately tweetish version of her announcement: "On to new adventures!"
On TV: Appleton's own Greta Van Susteren has signed a new contract with Fox News Channel.
- Meanwhile, Greta's getting something other than a rerun up against her on MSNBC. Lawrence O'Donnell, who has been filling in on MSNBC's prime-time shows for a while, will be getting his own 9 p.m. weeknight show. No word yet on when it will debut.
- Discovery Channel has picked CBS late-nighter Craig Ferguson to host the 23rd installment of Shark Week starting Aug. 1.
- Yeah, this is gossipy. But it's interesting. Laurie David, the former wife of Larry "Curb Your Enthusiasm David, tells the Huffington Post that reports she had an affair with Al Gore is "a total fabrication."
I just can't quit her: After all the hoopla surrounding Betty White's "Saturday Night Live" appearance, I was convinced that I'd overdosed on the 88-year-old TV legend.
But then she popped up on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" this week and stole my heart:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |
| Betty White | ||
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Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
