SCENE & HEARD: Vancouver's radio version of Snakes and Ladders picked up its pace this week with more changes than you'll see on any given day at a tire shop.
It started with a 10-person bloodletting at Bell-owned CHUM Radio including the sudden Team 1040 sports exits of Joe Leary, Paul DeBron and Tyler Green.
Leary had been anchoring morning updates, DeBron was a producer who engaged in frequent on-air gabfests, while Green was an operator for Canucks' home games and co-hosted a soccer show. As is usually the case in the broadcasting business, none of them had the slightest inkling their days were numbered.
Leary, who referred to it as "a kick in the career nuts" after having been with the station for seven years, also had to break the news to Lions' centre Angus Reid that their sports talk show Saturday mornings on Team 1410 had been sacked.
While all of this was swirling around the third floor of the CHUM Radio offices on West Second Avenue, there was more to come, emanating from the Corus Radio tower across town.
Dave Pratt had second thoughts about joining Philip Till as part of the 'NW morning news and talk segment and opted to accept an offer to return to Team 1040 as co-host with Bro Jake for a new 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. show that debuts on Sept. 9. While Pratt's agent and lawyer Ron Perrick said: "Dave had two offers on the table and took the one he liked best," the official announcement from 'NW news director Ian Koeningsfest in a staff email read: "We regret to inform you that Dave Pratt has resigned effective immediately from Corus Radio and we wish him the best in his future endeavours."
('NW doesn't mean that, of course, but it was the polite thing to do.) Pratt working with stately newsman Till never did make much sense.
Each of them is tremendously territorial and it could have developed into another Clash of the Titans.
"Jake and I go back some 20 years and I worked with him for the last year-and-a-half at Rock 101," said Pratt, the cat with more than nine radio lives.
"With this new show we'll be two bad-ass guys going at it."
Neither Bro Jake nor Dan Russell had their existing contracts renewed by Corus. There had been speculation that Russell might surface as play-by-play announcer for the Vancouver Giants but that was snuffed out when the Giants let it be known that Blake Price and Brendan Bachelor of Team 1040 would be sharing the team's broadcasts this year.
Bachelor, who did the playby-play with the Surrey Eagles last season, will work the majority of the Giants' road games. It appears 1040's Jeff Paterson is the odd man out of the hockey club's broadcasting mix.
It is difficult, at times, to follow the bouncing ball in the broadcast business.
Unfortunately, bounce is the operative word.
drsport@telus.net Read the latest sports news at vancouversun.com/sports
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