Live 105's Woody rags on rivals at Alice

Back in the good old days of Bay Area radio, before big corporations gobbled up all the competing stations and watered them down for fear of FCC fines, there used to be great rivalries and nasty tricks.

There was the time KYLD's Mancow Muller rented a cherry picker and had his stunt guy boosted up outside the windows of KMEL's studio and had him yell challenges at the DJs through a bullhorn while they were doing a show. Of course, that was all in the days before Clear Channel owned both stations.

Now there's a nasty battle brewing between two morning crews — but this time they work in the same building and are both owned by CBS.

It reached a boiling point over the past few weeks when Alice 97.3 fired morning deejay No Name, half of its Sarah and No Name morning team. Woody, morning man for LIVE 105, sent his stunt guy, known as Menace, to apply for the job. Another day, Woody simulcasted Sarah's show over LIVE 105, taking shots at his rival, peanut-gallery style. "Blah, blah, blah, blah ... you suck," Woody heckled an unwitting Sarah.

Woody, who has been killing Sarah and No Name in the ratings, has been relentless over the past few weeks slamming his competitors, who are located upstairs in the same building off Broadway. He has broadcast Sarah's salary (he claims it's $1.2 million) and wasn't shy in discussing the fact that Sarah's old partner Vinnie was coming back, which was supposed to be secret.

In a phone interview from St. Louis, where he was planning his September nuptials, Woody said he got reamed out by boss Greg Nemitz' office for talking about the salary. "I don't say I need to make that, but I hate when they fight me over another $25,000," he said with the kind of public honesty that is rare in corporate radio.

Woody, who is joined on his show by fellow Midwesterners Ravey and Tony and San Francisco producer Greg Gory, blasted Alice for bringing back Vinnie Hasson, Sarah Clark's original partner, who helped the show garner great ratings in his five years there. Hasson has been gone for six years, after suffering major problems with alcohol.

"People want to do the same old shit," said Woody, whose show has been a surprising local success. "Why can't you do something different? Why go back to something you already had?"

Clark and crew, whose show is targeted to women in their 20s and 30s, have stayed quiet, saying only that the LIVE 105 folks are "mean."

That may or may not change with Vinnie's return. The 39-year-old morning guy says he hasn't heard about the battle and hasn't listened to either show while he was working in Eugene, Oregon. But he was never one to build a wall between his brain and his mouth, and he brought some spacy surfer guy humor to the show.

Both teams know nothing boosts ratings like a battle royale (just look at world wrestling and neocon radio).

Woody isn't threatened. His show is ranked fourth for listeners aged 18-34, behind Spanish station KSOL and hip-hoppers KYLD and KMEL. Alice is 12th and the Bone's (107.7 FM) Lamont and Tonelli are 14th.

"I don't care if Vinnie comes back and people check them out," he says. "They'll be back to us in a day."