Rod Fritz on WBZ firing: ‘I walked in ... and kapow!’
Veteran Boston newsman Rod Fritz said he was blindsided when execs cut him loose from WBZ News Radio last week, the latest high-profile departure from the legendary station since iHeartMedia took the reins in November.
“This was not my decision, obviously,” Fritz told me yesterday. “This was their decision. They just said that they were not going to renew my contract and here are your exit papers. I was kind of blindsided, without a doubt. I expected everything to move along nicely. I had no inclination otherwise.”
Fritz, a news anchor and reporter for WBZ-AM (1030) for over a decade, said he met with Dylan Sprague, vice president of programming for iHeartMedia in Boston, and Jon MacLean, WBZ radio’s assistant news director, Thursday afternoon.
“I walked in,” Fritz said, “and kapow!”
Sprague told Fritz they were “going in a different direction” and weren’t going to renew his contract before handing him his exit papers, Fritz told me. MacLean, Fritz said, didn’t say anything.
Fritz, a shop steward for the station’s union, had hoped to stay at WBZ radio for a couple more years. His sudden ouster hit the newsroom hard.
“It’s taken me a few days to digest the reality that Rod Fritz no longer works at WBZ,” longtime WBZ radio reporter Carl Stevens wrote in a lengthy tribute on Facebook. “You always knew when Rod had arrived. He brought an immediate energy to the newsroom, the deep noise of unique joy ... Rod Fritz was, and is, a good man.”
Last November, iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel, picked up WBZ when radio giants Entercom and CBS Radio merged.
The station’s longtime news director, Peter Casey, left that same month. Mary Blake, an anchor and reporter, was let go over a month ago. Chris Citorik, executive producer of “NightSide with Dan Rea,” recently left on his own for a job at WBUR. Parttime employees have had their hours slashed and the station has cut some features, including Dee Lee’s financial segment.
Sprague said he couldn’t comment on specifics of Fritz’s and Blake’s departures, citing privacy reasons. “WBZ is an incredible brand with a long and successful history and we are big believers in the News format,” Sprague wrote in an email. “We did recently hire four new employees, a new midday anchor and still have one open position that’s posted.”
Last month, iHeartMedia filed for bankruptcy and this summer the company plans to move WBZ’s radio operations out of Boston to its Medford digs.
All this has fueled low morale in the newsroom.
Fritz said he’s been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from listeners on social media.
“I’m hanging in there,” Fritz said. “I feel I’ve had a real nice career. Unfortunately, it had to come to a screeching halt.”