Career
Owens began his career in broadcasting in 1968 after graduating from Temple University. He hosted radio programs in Atlanta, Miami, Cleveland, and Philadelphia before moving to KGO Radio of San Francisco in 1975. In 2004, the Disney/ABC-owned station signed Owens to an eight-year guaranteed contract to continue hosting The Ronn Owens Program. The Ronn Owens Program has over 500,000 regular listeners.
Owens was off the KGO airwaves during an 88-day contract dispute that ended in February 1995. Reportedly, the dispute involved a difference of opinion over whether to allow national syndication of Owens's show.
Between 1997 and 1998, Owens's show was simulcast in Los Angeles on KABC, also owned by Disney. Owens took the time slot held by Michael Jackson, whose ratings were declining. Despite signing a five-year contract to do the simulcast, after one year Owens himself vacated the time slot at KABC because his show had failed to generate adequate ratings in Los Angeles. Owens reportedly blamed both Jackson and KABC—Jackson for "taking shots" at Owens "on the air and off the air" and KABC for failing to promote Owens's show. Disney reportedly bought out the remainder of Owens's simulcast contract.
Ronn Owens left his broadcast two hours early on Monday, September 17, 2007, after spending his first hour sounding very lethargic. He returned to the air on September 24, 2007, explaining that he had been diagnosed with transient global amnesia (TGA), which is a type of amnesia involving the sudden, temporary disturbance in an otherwise healthy person's memory.
On December 2, 2011, KGO fired all of its on-air show hosts except for Owens. He remains in the 9-Noon slot, with the other hours being all-news or Bloomberg Radio. Owens has a personal services contract with the station which does not allow for early termination. Owens was paid over a million dollars a year, the highest paid broadcaster in Northern California. Due to the expiration of the contract, and incompatibility with the all news format, Owens will reportedly retire by the end of 2012.
Read more about this topic: Ronn Owens
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