What they don't tell you about getting fired from radio

"For me, the action is the juice."

Hi.

My name is Brent and I am a fired radio host.

There’s no formal support group like Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon for people that get the “we wish them well” email in media, but maybe there should be.

Getting fired in the radio business is a weird badge of honor. Everyone who works in or has worked in radio has stories about getting fired.

There’s something really fucked up about that.

Why do we keep coming back for more if the business is so volatile?

I’ll tell you why.

It’s “The Juice,” man.

But we’ll come back to that.

The first time I got fired from radio was in November of 2006. I was a drive-time radio host on Sportsradio 620 WHEN and postgame host for Syracuse University sports on Newsradio 570 WSYR.

My wife and I had just moved into our first house and our daughter was just over a month old.

I was living the dream.

Then I walked into the radio station that Mid-November day and was told I was being laid off.

Clear Channel (now known as iHeartMedia) was making national cuts. That was the only explanation I was given.

In a hastily arranged exit meeting, the GM of the station, Joel Delmonico, told a story of how he got the pen I was signing my severance papers with in Italy.

I shit you not.

I never forgot that and never will, but to say it’s surprising wouldn’t be accurate.

The second time I got fired from radio was on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

Galaxy Media CEO Ed Levine called me while I made Lasagna for Sunday dinner and said my services were no longer needed at ESPN Radio Syracuse.

(So let’s review. The first time I was fired from radio I signed my severance with the GM’s pen acquired in Italy. The second time was over the phone. Firing people is awkward, but for fuck’s sake you radio managers need to work on your bedside manner.)

Anyway, you may have read about it.

My firing made national news due to a cocktail of A) the nature of Levine’s comments to syracuse.com describing my firing and B) the timing of former Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim stepping down from his post and the belief my coverage of this event, and what preceded it, was “too dark.”

Part of the reason I’m writing this is sort of a companion piece with my appearance this week on the WJPZ at 50 Podcast .

Jon “Jag” Gay and I first recorded the pod on February 14. Then I got fired in March, so we circled back to do WJPZ at 50 with Brent Axe (Taylor’s Version).

I had plenty of opportunities to talk about my firing in March. I got over 30 interview requests to do so, including from the Washington Freaking Post, which still blows me away.

It wasn’t time to talk then. The wound was raw.

But I need to get some things off my chest now before I can turn the page.

Why?

Because here’s something that I didn’t expect to happen the second time I got fired and need to share if anyone else finds themselves in this position and doesn’t know what to do.

The physical toll.

The Juice

Doing a live, two-hour radio show five days a week is wild.

You turn on a microphone and are tasked with entertaining an audience you can’t see and aren’t exactly sure the size of.

I took a lot of pride in doing my radio show, “On the Block,” with energy.

My friend Adam Schein, an excellent radio host on Sirius XM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, calls it the “POKE” scale.

Passion. Opinion. Knowledge. Entertainment.

Doing a live radio show brings on a feeling that I can’t describe.

I call it “The Juice.”

I couldn’t tell you if it’s dopamine, adrenaline, a combination of the two or what the fuck it was, but what I can tell you is I was hooked on it.

Let’s be clear here: I am in no way comparing myself to an addict dealing with serious substance abuse issues (I’ve had addicts in the family and am all-too-familiar with the struggle) but hear me out for a second.

Imagine having to go cold turkey after eight years of a scheduled “Juice” fix, every weekday at the same time.

4:00 p.m. comes. We’re “ON. THE. AIRRRRRR! “ and we’re flying, baby.

The Juuuuuuuuice

The wave of support I got from family, friends, colleagues and so many others (thanks for that, you guys) in the days after I got fired kept “The Juice” flowing for about a week.

Eventually my phone stopped buzzing and life moved on.

When the dust settled, I had no outlet to get “The Juice.”

There are certainly aspects of being a columnist and writer at Syracuse.com that can bring on a rush of “The Juice,” but not on the regulated schedule a radio show brings.

It didn’t take long for a lack of “The Juice” to affect me physically.

I was literally the Dave Chapelle skit.

My body would send signals in the early afternoon looking for “The Juice.”

I craved it. I needed it. I couldn’t come close to matching it.

I was in full-blown withdrawal.

I consistently became moody and anxious, dreading the arrival of 4:00 p.m.

I feared depression was settling in, but resisted talking about it to anyone, even my wife.

I wanted to maintain a strong front and “onward” mentality.

I’d see people out in public and could tell they’d want to bring up the firing, but some would awkwardly dance around it.

By the end of the conversation, I was cheering them up most of the time and putting on the happy face.

That was bravado at its worst and a mistake.

I felt like a fraud.

I wasn’t OK. I was hurting and had this weird thing going on with me physically and I should have admitted as much.

Not to random people in the produce aisle at Wegmans, mind you, but to those who mattered to me.

The Disease

That leans into the mental adjustment I had to make post-firing as well.

Through the years, people would often ask me how I prepared for my radio show.

The answer is you’re always preparing.

I call it “The Disease.”

You have to be sharp and knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, which requires a ton of reading and the FOMO you aren’t completely up on a sports world that moves so damn fast.

When you watch sports at night, you’re inevitably asking yourself how you’ll talk about the games the next day. Simply enjoying sports, the escape for most people, became a chore. You get lost in the process.

No matter what, there was an audience waiting for you to entertain them the next day.

Think of that that scene in “Goodfellas” when Henry Hill explains what happens once Paulie owns you.

“Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me.” Oh, you got struck by lightning? Fuck you, pay me.”

“Oh, it’s a slow day in sports? Fuck you, entertain me.”

I heard an interview with Bob Costas once where he was asked about sports-talk radio. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that you “just can’t be that passionate about something, three hours a day, five days a week.”

Jesus, was he right about that.

You guys, there’s some days I just don’t have that strong a take on something.

The audience isn’t that harsh. But that’s how I saw it.

I couldn’t let them down.

That constant preparation put my mind in a certain place and it wasn’t a healthy one.

It was like juggling knives. When 6:00 p.m. came, I was just checking my hands to see if I got cut that day.

Does that mean in a weird way Ed did me a favor by firing me?

No.

I did enjoy doing that show.

But perspective is a humbling thing.

The Next Step

There is good news in all this.

I started working out more consistently and often do it in that 4-6 p.m. window. I think “The Juice” I give my body now in that timeframe is healthier.

Having my afternoons back allowed me to pick up my daughter from school nearly everyday.

The first time I got fired, I got to take care of her as a baby. An amazing time I wouldn’t give back for anything (even a Buffalo Bills Super Bowl title).

Getting so much time together again after the second firing, now that she’s 16 (!), is precious.

The constantly shifting landscape in media these days has re-enforced something I teach students in my class at Syracuse University but maybe wasn’t putting into practice enough.

Versatility.

I’ve spent the past few months teaching this old dog a few new tricks, so stay tuned for that.

I was in radio for 28 years, starting as a 16-year-old intern with Z89 (then 89.1 “The Pulse”).

If I never crack a microphone again, that’s a hell of a fucking run.

Will I ever do a radio show again?

You can never say never, but at this point I doubt it.

That said, radio will always flow in my veins.

I love the format. I love the people I met along the way and the bond we share.

I appreciate radio’s place in society and the public service it still provides.

I loved meeting listeners and hearing their stories and opinions everyday.

But I think I squeezed enough of “The Juice” from radio.

Thanks for coming to today’s meeting of fired radio hosts, eh, not so anonymous.

Anyone else like to share?

For the first time, I’m really listening.