A Break From Figure Skating - What Happened to Tim Liotta?
I'm temporarily breaking my "all figure skating all the time coverage" (although I'll note that I...uh...deplore NBC's piecemeal coverage of the Olympic figure skating competition) because I want to find out why I'm getting a bunch of Tim Liotta hits on my blog.
I mentioned Tim Liotta in passing on December 30, 2004 when I quoted from an sfgate.com article:
Morning simulcast: KNBR (680 AM) has announced it will simulcast its morning show on sister station KTCT (1050 AM) beginning Jan. 3. The afternoon drive-time show with Ralph Barbieri and Tolbert also has a dual airing.
You can read two things into the morning-show move: 1) It's a vote of confidence for Tim Liotta and former Chronicle sportswriter Brian Murphy, who took over the morning-show duties last month. 2) It's a vote of no confidence for the Van Earl Wright-hosted Fox Sports Radio syndicated morning show, which has run on KTCT.
In October, Wright replaced Tony Bruno on the Fox program. If Bruno still had his job with Fox, it's pretty safe to assume the KNBR morning show wouldn't go the simulcast route.
So why is everyone suddenly interested in Tim Liotta now? I found some clues. First, here's an excerpt from a February 17th article in the San Francisco Examiner:
Back from the Fog
Sports Rap
By Tim Liotta
Published: Friday, February 17, 2006 11:16 PM PST
Quietly, on the backstretch at Golden Gate Fields, another campaign has begun for America’s most popular horse. Lost in the Fog has been back in traiing for owner Harry Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist for almost six weeks now. They’re taking things slowly, to say the least....
I'm going to skip the rest of the article, since I know less about horse racing than other subjects which I know nothing about (EPL football, figure skating). Here's how the article ended:
Tim Liotta co-hosts the 5:30-9:30 a.m. “Morning Show” on KNBR (680 AM).
Remember the "vote of confidence" in 2004? Well, if you go to the KNBR website today (February 21) you can read about the morning show team of Murph & Mac, a/k/a Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey. This leads me to conclude one of three things:
- Tim Liotta has changed his name to Paul McCaffrey.
- Tim Liotta quit.
- Tim Liotta was fired.
Radio-info.com, which is usually good about such things, currently has no postings about Tim Liotta on its sports board.
If anyone knows what happened, please post it in the comments.
[UPDATE 11:15 PM]
Radio-info.com did have the information, but not in the sports board. Here are some excerpts from the KNBR posts:
Subject: KNBR Morning Show
Posted by: BossRadioDJ
Posted on: 02/21/06 05:22 PM
I haven't been paying good attention lately ... how long has Paulie Mack been Brian Murphy's sidekick on the KNBR Morning Show?
The KNBR website has erased all references to the hosts on the morning show, and Murphy mentioned this morning that Tim Liotta is still with KNBR as its "Creative Director."
Comments
Have you considered the possibility that Ray Liotta may have a confused cyber stalker?
P.S. I still feel really old.
Don't feel so bad. My husband graduated from college in 1977!
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/13996302.htm.
Appears to be a sudden switch in response to poor ratings. Weird how they do that . . . kinda like the Soviet Union erasing someone's existence.