I don't listen to a lot of midday but I swear every time I tune in, McLearin brings up porn or pornstars

walton91 said:

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I'm guessing you don't listen to Why Today Doesn't Suck

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If McClearin was doing that for WTDS, they'd all just be teen porn titles

thankful to be out of town this week but curious...who are the fill ins?

WIP (Monty, DJ and Ham).

a07nathanb said:

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tk for tu juan said:

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Familiar voice at the beginning:

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Was coming to post this. I told me wife I know that voice

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At least they gave him credit in the scroll at the end

Dave is going to have another kid

And he is 54, yikes.

I mean, that's rough…

But we have family friends (husband 2 years older than wife) that had kids 6, 7, and 8, at 59/61, 61/63, and 68/70 (by surrogate). Oldest kid is 43, youngest is 2. They froze embryos and felt called to see them all to life, which by me, that's great. Just think they may could have adopted the last 3 out for logistical reasons. Being 88 when my youngest graduated HS seems really hard to see.

Then again, President John Tyler (born 1790) had grandchildren that died in 2020 and 2025. He had a son when he was 63, and that son had sons at 72 and 75.

Yep. We need more future taxpayers.

I'll make my youngest kid's last college tuition payment at 54 lol

The Shank Ag said:

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I mean, that's rough…

But we have family friends (husband 2 years older than wife) that had kids 6, 7, and 8, at 59/61, 61/63, and 68/70 (by surrogate). Oldest kid is 43, youngest is 2. They froze embryos and felt called to see them all to life, which by me, that's great. Just think they may could have adopted the last 3 out for logistical reasons. Being 88 when my youngest graduated HS seems really hard to see.

Then again, President John Tyler (born 1790) had grandchildren that died in 2020 and 2025. He had a son when he was 63, and that son had sons at 72 and 75.

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Can not imagine wanting to have a new born at 70. Doesn't seem fair to the kid.

Going for the ol Zachry Tyler title.

ham sucks

80085 said:

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ham sucks

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Its annoying when he lowers his voice when talking about something awkward/controversial and you have to turn it up to hear him.

Has anyone sat down and calculated how much vacation the musers go on. Not commenting on whether or not it is deserved, I just would love to know how much work I could in theory miss for vacation and still get paid or keep my job

someone should do that... last summer dry dock was from 6/21-7/20

Maybe they get paid a reduced rate when on vacation? Could be that it is forced.

The Collective said:

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Maybe they get paid a reduced rate when on vacation? Could be that it is forced.

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They took less money and more vacation when they renewed their contracts.

I thought it was generally assumed that in the last round of Musers contract negotiations, they wanted more money since they more the most (and one of the only) profitable components for Cumulus. Cumulus being both cheap and broke couldn't pay them more, so they agreed on same salary, reduced hours per day, and a zillion days off per year.

I think they did.

It was either that or the ticket goes away.

zag213004 said:

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Has anyone sat down and calculated how much vacation the musers go on. Not commenting on whether or not it is deserved, I just would love to know how much work I could in theory miss for vacation and still get paid or keep my job

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when sports talk on-airs come back from vacation is there a pile of work that has accumulated .... aside from knowing what team's won/loss records are or news that they could catch up on by watching espn or cutting commercials/promos?

None. Show back up. Talk a little soccer, baseball, nba free agency, and NHL (the latter maybe get 5 minutes air time), then talk about their vacations.

Get ready for training camp.

Felt like a good thing to throw into ChatGPT:

I looked through several years of discussion on r/theticket, and while nobody has compiled an official calendar, there are enough recurring observations to make a reasonable estimate.

Historical pattern

From multiple threads spanning 20202026, fans consistently describe the Musers' schedule as:

Time of year Typical length
Christmas/New Year's 34 weeks
Summer 2 weeks (through 2023), increasing to 45 weeks beginning around 20242025
Spring Break ~1 week
Miscellaneous individual weeks/days 12 weeks total

What Reddit users have observed

A few representative comments:

More recent discussions (20252026) suggest listeners believe their newest contracts substantially increased their vacation time. Several posters estimated:

* Christmas: about 4 weeks
* Spring: 23 weeks
* Summer: 45 weeks
* Additional scattered time off during the year

Some fans estimated 1215 weeks off, though those numbers are speculative and often include partial-host absences.

My estimate

Based on the recurring reports rather than the most exaggerated claims:

* 20202023: approximately 68 weeks off annually.
* Since their newer contracts (roughly 2024 onward): approximately 911 weeks off annually.

If I had to put one number on it today:

The Musers are probably off the air about 10 weeks per year (roughly 50 working days), give or take a week.

That aligns with:

* a month around Christmas,
* about a month in the summer,
* spring break,
* and several additional days/weeks spread throughout the year.

Why fans notice it

Unlike many shows where hosts rotate vacations, the Musers frequently take their vacations together, meaning the entire morning show disappears for extended stretches. That's why it feels like they're gone much more often, even if the total annual vacation isn't unprecedented for employees with 30+ years of seniority.

If you're interested, I can also reconstruct a week-by-week vacation calendar for the last five years (20212026) to estimate their actual percentage of live shows versus vacation with much tighter accuracy.

Cliffs notes (-and accounting for formatting)

Low end: 7 weeks
High end: 10 weeks

The guys filling in have other jobs at The Ticket but are likely chomping at the bit to get behind the microphone. They don't have to pay them anything extra to get them to do that.

fc2112 said:

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The guys filling in have other jobs at The Ticket but are likely chomping at the bit to get behind the microphone. They don't have to pay them anything extra to get them to do that.

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I find it hard to believe these guys don't get paid for extra time. It's probably $50-$100/day. I'm sure they are happy to get behind the mic but they aren't going to do it for free because if they say "no, I'm busy" then the station has to pay someone to fill in, no point in doing anything for free.

Trajan88 said:

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My company switched to "unlimited PTO."

Years later never really learned what that meant. Nobody did. The bs "you could take time off if the work was complete."

We were so lean and had 8 major deadlines a year ... taking off more than 10 even 5 business days was nearly impossible

Then when I was "reorganized" out of a job of 23+ years there was no "bank" of accrued time off hours... I got zilch for being a team player, dedicated.

Brutal.

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Yep it's a trick for cheap companies or a nice benefit for good companies. Just really depends on the culture. Most places that do it aren't on the "good" side of that equation though.

VP at Pierce and Pierce said:

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fc2112 said:

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The guys filling in have other jobs at The Ticket but are likely chomping at the bit to get behind the microphone. They don't have to pay them anything extra to get them to do that.

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I find it hard to believe these guys don't get paid for extra time. It's probably $50-$100/day. I'm sure they are happy to get behind the mic but they aren't going to do it for free because if they say "no, I'm busy" then the station has to pay someone to fill in, no point in doing anything for free.

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I thought I remembered Jake talking about his fill in time for the musers was a big part of his annual compensation.... maybe I am not remembering correctly. But that would tell me they definitely get a bump in pay when they fill in.