Dr. Dean Edell retiring as KGO-AM radio show host
MediaDecember 02, 2010
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Dr. Dean Edell, the self-described "hippie doctor" who hosted a pioneering syndicated medical radio show from San Francisco for three decades, announced his retirement on the air Wednesday.
Long before the airwaves were full of medical docs such as Oprah Winfrey's friend Dr. Mehmet Oz and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, there was "Dr. Dean."
"This is probably going to be the hardest show I've ever done in my life," Edell, 69, said at the start of Wednesday's show, which airs at 1 p.m. on KGO-AM, where it started in 1979. "It kind of reminds me of a feeling I used to have going into an examining room and telling a patient that they had some terrible illness. This is nothing of that magnitude at all, but I feel uncomfortable." he said, and will continue in reruns through the end of the year. His show was recently moved to weekends on KGO, where his last live show for that audience will air at 1 p.m. Friday. Rebroadcasts of his syndicated show will continue to air on KGO from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Sundays through the end of the year.
Heard in more than 200 markets by 2 million listeners a week, Edell "was huge," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, which covers the talk radio industry. A spring survey by the publication ranked Edell as the 28th most-listened to talk show host in the country, a rarity for a medical show in the political- and sports-talk show-dominated industry.
"He was the standard by which medical shows have been measured for years," Harrison said Wednesday. "It is very hard in modern talk radio to find a niche if you're not a political talk show host or a sports talk host."
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Dr. Dean Edell goes over the wall at KGO Radio
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
He tells his listeners today he's "throwing in the towel" after new management at the troubled Citadel Broadcasting talk station said it was paring his nationally broadcast weekday program back to a couple of tape-delayed shows for weekends only.
One of the first physician broadcasters in the country, his "The Dr. Dean Edell Show" has been heard on some 400 radio stations and he's also become a familiar face on television, with ABC 7 (KGO-TV) as a base. ABC 7's website says that KGO Radio had no comment, but issued a press release announcing the return of the Noon News in Edell's time slot. The KGO news item reporting that Edell is "retiring" also contains this sentence: "Edell said today that part of him is very sad and upset."
Add Edell: The Chronicle's Joe Garofoli says Edell's last live show will be heard nationally Dec. 10 and will continue in reruns through the end of the year.
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KGO Radio issues statement over Dr. Dean Edell's retirement
December 1st, 2010 8:54 pm PT
KGO Radio issues statement over Dr. Dean Edell's retirement
When it comes to Dr. Dean Edell's retirement, the elephant in the room is Edell's displeasure over his live show being dropped by his flagship station, San Francisco-based KGO, and whether that played a part in his surprise decision to retire. As reported, Edell announced on his show Wednesday that he would be "throwing in the towel." Click here for the story and for a link to listen to that show for yourself.
After KGO radio announced early last month that it would air only a tape-delayed version of the Dr. Dean Edell show on the weekends, a caller who was unhappy over the move, asked Edell about it. Edell hinted that he would fight the change and promised to forward complaint e-mails he got about it to KGO's management.
For decades, KGO radio has dominated the overall Arbitron in the San Francisco Bay Area market, but as the Chronicle reported, it had slipped to a respectable third place earlier this year behind all-news KCBS, and soft-rock KOIT. Perhaps in response to KCBS's dominance, KGO management decided to add an extra news break during its talk shows and opted to bring back its noon newscast.
KGO's former General Manager, Michael "Mickey" Luckoff, first hired Edell at KGO. Luckoff resigned in October without much good to say about the station's current owner, Citadel Broadcasting Corp. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Luckoff said of Citadel, "These aren't good people. They don't treat people well. They undermine you at every turn."
Edell told the Chronicle on Wednesday that his last live show will be on December 10 and that he will be heard on reruns until the end of the month. His last live show will air on KGO on Friday at 1 p.m. He told the Chronicle he made the decision to retire over the past week after talking with family and close associates.
KGO Radio's General Manager, Deidra Lieberman issued the following statement over Dr. Dean Edell's retirement late Wednesday afternoon:
"Dean has been on the air with us for 35 years and has definitely earned this retirement. While we are sad to lose him as a member of the KGO Newstalk 810 line-up, we are thrilled for Dean and his family. We have lots of terrific options as we begin the job of reworking the KGO line-up and will be making an announcement soon."
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The Dr. Dean Show
Dr. Dean Edell, one of the first physician broadcasters in the nation, is the host of America's second most popular syndicated radio talk show, The Dr. Dean Edell Show. Dr. Dean is heard on more than 400 radio stations, and he it the anchor of Medical Minutes, a series of ten weekly radio medical reports. He is also the host of the daily 90-second Medical Report seen in 75 television markets. Dr. Edell is known for translating complicated medical information into concise, easy-to-understand reports and for tackling topics that are obscure, unusual and often controversial.
Dr. Edell began his career as one of the first "media doctors" in 1978 on KGO Radio in San Francisco. He has been the host of numerous television series on health, including programs for Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and national syndication, and was the author of the Edell Health Letter, published from 1982 until 1994. Over the past 20 years of broadcasting, he has won numerous media awards for his on-air work, including the C. Everett Koop Media Awards competition, the Edward R. Murrow Award, a national Emmy, the American Cancer Society recognition award, the American Heart Association award, and other prestigious medical and media awards.
A native of New York, Edell studied zoology as an undergraduate student at Cornell University and then earned his M.D. at Cornell University Medical School in 1967. Edell moved to California to do his residency at the University of California at San Diego. An ophthalmologist and surgeon, he set up private practice in San Diego and served as an instructor of Anatomy and a clinical instructor at the Department of Surgery for the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.
Edell gave up his private practice to pursue personal interests and eventually moved to Sacramento where he served as medical director of the County Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Center. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980.
In his personal life, Edell has designed custom jewelry, collected antiques, and been involved in organic farming over the years. He studied Fine Arts at the New School in New York City and has lectured on the subject at U.C. Davis. Edell's paintings and drawings have been exhibited at art galleries in Manhattan and elsewhere.
