By Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com, filed originally on December 7, 2014
Amid the brouhaha Friday with the firing of Larry Wachs at Rock 100.5, another long-time morning personality was let go that day as well: Perry Laurentino from the morning show the Rude Awakening at sports talk station 93.7FM and 680/The Fan.
His departure leaves a potential opening for Nick Cellini, who was cut last year from 790/The Zone after the Steve Gleason debacle in 2013, and has been subbing in at the Fan. (There's a Facebook page supporting Cellini to get a a radio job back.)
Cellini is joining the Rude Awakening Tuesday through Friday of this week.
If the Fan hires Cellini full time, the station will have effectively poached the entire former morning show at 790/The Zone, which included Steak Shapiro (now part of the Front Row from 9 to noon) and Chris Dimino (now part of the morning show.)
"HomeTeam" Brandon Leak will join the morning team, which is led by Christopher Rude. Leak will be producing the show and providing updates. He replaces Josh Vexler, who was dumped as well.
Leak has been the ultimate utility guy for the Fan and a popular one at that. A Morehouse College grad, he joined 790/The Zone in 2000, but jumped over to the Fan in 2008 after the Zone let him go.
Laurentino was on the Rude Awakening with Rude for about a decade. Dimino, part of the Mayhem crew cut ignominiously by the Zone last year, joined the show earlier this year. Unfortunately, an inside source told me, Dimino didn't mesh particularly well with Laurentino and given that Dimino was deemed the more valuable resource, Laurentino was cut.
UPDATE: 6 a.m. Monday: The show opened with a promo referencing Leak but Rude chose not to even reference Perry's departure... at all. I'm not sure if that was a choice of the show itself or the bosses. I always find it strange to ignore reality, especially someone who was an integral part of a show for a decade.
The Rude Awakening's ratings tend to lag behind those of the Front Row, Buck & Kincade and the highest rated sports talk show in town, Chuck & Chernoff. I cannot release ratings information about the Fan, which does not subscribe to Nielsen Audio, but the station did have its best ratings ever among 25-54 year olds last month.
An insider said it was unfortunate to lose the opinionated Perry because he "always watched every important game and read every important writer, was always prepared."
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
David Dickey, who runs the Fan, didn't discuss why he dropped Laurentino but praised Leak in a text today as a "hard-working guy who has contributed to the Fan in so many ways. Our gang loves him and so do all of the area sports franchises, schools and advertisers."
Laurentino, another insider said, didn't work much with clients or go to games. And he wasn't big on social media either.
His Twitter page has a modest 1,776 followers as of today. (He joined relatively late in 2012 and has posted 344 tweets.) Leak, in comparison, has 3,853 followers.
According to his Fan bio:
Perry attended the University of San Francisco, later transferring to the University of Southern California.
He's a third generation restaurateur. In New York, his family owned upscale establishments in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. Locally, he was the proprietor of Grazio, an Italian Trattoria in Alpharetta. He left the family business to pursue his true passion: sports.
The bio noted that he is a resident of suburban Atlanta and the four loves of his life are his wife Julie, his two sons, Brooks & Trent and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
About the Author
