Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Harrisburg Radio: Bruce Bond EXITS WTPA Over Trump

 Bruce Bond has quit his position at WTPA 92.1 FM in Harrisurg-York-Lancaster, PA.

Bruce Bond
"I certainly didn't want to leave," Bond said. "Being in that studio, it was perfect. And I'm very sad that that couldn't continue."

The reason for Bond's departure, he said, was that he was unwilling to comply with a directive from the WTPA general manager to curtail political discussion, specifically regarding President Trump.

According to pennlive.com, the outspoken radio personality shared a photo on Facebook of a letter asking him to not criticize the president. In the post, Bond said that "there is this really ugly political environment in this country with the current President" and that he would be unable to continue in the job if he were unable to "continue being honest to my fans & listeners."

"I'll make this clear and concise: Bruce resigned, we have accepted his resignation, and we wish him well," said Tim Michaels, general manager of WTPA. "That's basically my comment on Bruce."


Bond is no stranger to controversy. He was hired at WTPA almost exactly three years ago, following a career filled with both acclaim and condemnation. He returned to the area in 2013, following a two-year prison sentence for fraud.

The recent letter was not the first time Bond had come into conflict with management about his opinions on Trump - Bond said he had been warned about it as recently as two months ago. Bond's response then, as now, was defiance.

"I don't go in there every week with my top agenda being to talk about politics," Bond said. "I like to do fun talk radio. And I understand I don't own the airwaves that I'm on. I understand they want to be neutral. But I can't be walking on eggshells when and if the subject of Trump comes up. I'm certainly not going to be positive."

From 1983 through 2001, he was a radio host for then-Top40 WNNK 104.1 fM. “This was certainly the highlight of my career. I was the host of the Bruce Bond Late Afternoon Show and to this day, listeners are yearning for the show to return. We were a radio soap opera that became part of listeners lives. Unfortunately, management did not understand our show and ended our important radio show,” according to Bond.

In 2002, Bruce Bond was fired from the station and the show was canceled. Wink 104's official explanation was that the show, which typically featured subject matter geared towards a mature audience, was not compatible with their new "family friendly" programming.

2 comments:

  1. We had a newsman lose his pm drive job because he couldn't bring himself to say Fox News is next..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too bad your newsman and Mr. Bond prefer to act like petulant children instead of grown ups.

      Delete