Right around the time Glenn Beck began talking on his new station Monday morning, Betsy and Dan Neumann of Cohoes began their protest.
The Neumanns carried a wide, homemade sign that read “It’s Baloney Without Roney” and were among about 30 people protesting Roney’s ouster from WGY (810-AM) last week.
“We’re here to thank Al for the many years of support and all the great stuff he did for this area,” said Betsy Neumann, 25. “We think it’s kind of a cheap shot by WGY to bring in a syndicated person when we need local people to talk about local issues.”
Roney was WGY’s morning host for nearly four years and had been employed at the station since 2001. When syndicated talker Glenn Beck became available in February — after WROW cleaned houses of all its syndicated talk shows — WGY began making plans to bring Beck to local airwaves. They decided to air Beck’s New York City-based show live, from 9 a.m. until noon, and that left Roney expendable.
The friends of Al stood on the public sidewalks in front of WGY’s headquarters off Troy-Schenectady Road (Route 7) in Latham. Drivers occasionally honked horns to salute their efforts.
Click HERE to see Roney’s support staff.
Dan Neumann, a truck driver who said he listened to Roney’s former morning show, said he wanted to hear about local issues. “There’s nowhere else for us to go to tune in to really find out what’s going on and then talk about it,” Neumann said. “Our last spigot of information got shut off. We miss him already.”
Audrey Pietrucha, 50, of Bennington, Vt., carried a sign that read “Bring Back — Al Roney — Local Talk.”
“He was a local voice who looked at local issues,” Pietrucha said. “We’re going to lose that and that’s a great loss.”
Perceived loss of WGY local talk hosts was a central complaint. With Roney gone, WGY has only Don Weeks and weekender Joe Gallagher to talk about local happenings and issues.
Some carried signs that read “WG Why?” “Beck is a Phony — Bring Back Al Roney” and “Bring Al Back.” Some said they know about other local-based talk show hosts, but have trouble picking them up. “Vandenburgh, I can’t hear him at my house,” said Jackie Stellone, 67, of Melrose, in the Rensselaer County town of Schaghticoke, of WGDJ’s morning talk show host Paul Vandenburgh. “He doesn’t have a strong enough signal. And if you’re on the road, you don’t get him long out of town.”
Rebecca Block, 40, of Altamont, said the show of support couldn’t hurt Roney’s current situation. “If WGY doesn’t take him back, maybe somebody else will pick him up,” she said.
Chuck Custer, director of news and programming at WGY, said the protesters were well behaved. He spoke to them about the station’s decision to replace Roney with Beck.
“We had a very long conversation and a good one,” Custer said. “They’re not happy with the decision, but they understand what we’re thinking. I think they deserved the respect of at least getting an answer firsthand.”
Roney said he was both humbled and amazed by the public support. He said he has e-mailed and telephoned listeners in the past; he appreciates the strong connections apparently made with people who stood up for him on a cold winter morning.
“That’s one thing that is really making this a lot easier to get through,” Roney said late Monday afternoon.
“Who gets that?” he said of the rally. “People will go home and tell their wives, tell their kids and then get into line at the unemployment office.
“It’s kind of humbling to see that anybody would really take time out from their days to go out and do that.”
