UTICA/ROME – Dave “Wheels” Wheeler is no longer co-hosting mornings at Big Frog 104 (WFRG). And don’t expect him to resurface at a sister station this time — after 16 years with Townsquare Media, he’s exited the River Road studios completely.
Wheeler’s exit apparently happened over a week ago, but it wasn’t quite clear, with co-host Stacey “Polly Wogg” McAdams and a chunk of the audience away for the station’s “Cruisin’ with Polly” promotion. With no other local full-time air staff available to fill-in on mornings, we hear the station was reportedly running “best of” shows.
When CNYRadio tuned-in yesterday, morning drive was completely jockless, with nothing but “voice guy” liners between songs, including a few mentioning “Polly and Wheels in the Morning.”
Wheeler’s suspected exit was finally confirmed this morning by Polly Wogg (it’s about 40 seconds into that video), who returned to the WFRG studios as scheduled this morning.
She also announced her husband Bill “Tad Pole” McAdams is, for a second time, coming out of retirement to fill-in. The last time he came back as a substitute, the duo won a NYS Broadcasters Association “Best Morning Show” award.
Wheeler joined the Townsquare cluster in November 2009 to handle weekend and fill-in shifts after exiting nights across town at Roser’s Kiss-FM. Originally appearing on WFRG as “Marty McFrog” and tracking overnights under his real name for Lite 98.7 (WLZW), Wheeler eventually attained full-time status with TSM in 2012 as the morning host and brand manager as “Davey Jones” for the former Oldiez 96 (WODZ) in 2012.
At various points along the way, Wheeler would move around to various airshifts on different Townsquare stations, and even serving as the cluster’s Operations Manager for a few years. Before his most-recent position co-hosting mornings at WFRG, Wheeler spent some time co-hosting mornings next door at Lite 98.7 (WLZW). That makes him one of the only — if not the only — people to host mornings on all three of Townsquare Utica-Rome’s FM stations, not counting news-talker 950 WIBX.
No word yet on what’s next for Wheeler, other than Polly announcing he “took another job.”
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