It's not exactly a secret, since it's part of the official biography published at the WYMS-FM (88.9) Web site.
But it's still a surprising admission from Radio Milwaukee's new music director and afternoon voice, Rachel Rose that her musical interests extend from Stravinsky to 2009 "American Idol" silver medalist Adam Lambert.
Radio Milwaukee is considered one of the "Idol"-free zones on Milwaukee radio.
"I will defend my interest in Adam Lambert," she told me during a conversation Wednesday morning.
"I was not an 'American Idol' fan, caught that one season and caught him on one episode and was just taken by the way he interpreted these songs. He was the reason I tuned in that season."
But before listeners to the eclectic music station get worried that "Idol" will infect the airwaves at the left side of the radio dial, Rose is reassuring.
"We're not gonna play Adam on our station," she said. "That's not what our audience wants to hear."
In addition to music director duties, New Jersey native Rose has the 2 to 6 p.m. weekday on-air shift.
You can watch our complete conversation in the weekly TV edition of OnMedia, which is available starting Friday on Time Warner Cable's Wisconsin On Demand Channel 411.
The Jonathan Green farewell: If Journal Broadcast Group history is any teacher, expect five months of goodbyes for four-decade WTMJ-AM (620) standby Jonathan Green.
Remember the Bob Reitman retirement in 2006? It was announced in February, and Reitman didn't sign off until December from the old WKTI-FM.
And his departure was the first sign of the major change that led to a format change as the station eventually turned into WLWK-FM (94.5), which stresses music over expensive on-air personalities.
Green's announcement (it's not a surprise when a 66-year-old broadcaster retires at the end of his current contract) comes as Milwaukee radio makes the move to the new portable people meters to measure radio ratings.
It's just the right time for a generational change in afternoon drive time for the station Green calls "the biggest stick in the state."
And whatever your thoughts on Green as a radio personality, you gotta give the guy credit for hanging on as the business changed around him.
On TV: Channel 12 is teaming up with Milwaukee Public TV, WisPolitics.com, and affiliates of its "UpFront" interview show to broadcast the Mark Neumann-Scott Walker Republican gubernatorial debate at 7 p.m. on Aug. 25. Channel 12's Mike Gousha will moderate the debate.
- Lou Ferrigno, who was in town last week to speak at the IndependenceFirst power lunch, will guest in the second episode of NBC's "Chuck" this fall as the bodyguard of "an evil spy/model," Michael Ausiello reports.
- I finally got word on the fate of 15-year-old Emma Negrete, the Des Moines girl who tried out for "American Idol" last month at the Bradley Center. An e-mail from her mom says she didn't make the first cut, but she's definitely talented.
- Actress Sara Rue, who lost 40 pounds on Jenny Craig and is a spokeswoman for the weight loss company, will host a mid-season "reality" show on the CW Network called "Shedding for the Wedding."
The top talkers of all time: Other than Tom Snyder (No. 85), there aren't any Milwaukee radio figures on Talkers Magazine's "Heaviest Hundred" list of top talk radio personalities of all time.
The trade publication for the talk radio industry compiled the list for its 20th anniversary edition.
Rush Limbaugh leads the list, followed by Howard Stern, Larry King, Sean Hannity, Don Imus, the late Arthur Godfrey, "Dr." Laura Schlessinger, Sally Jessy Raphael, Barry Gray and Bruce Williams.
If you don't know some of the historical figures in that top 10, Godfrey was a broadcasting legend who had various programs from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Gray, who broadcast in the New York City market, is considered the "father of talk radio."
You can find the entire list at Talkers Magazine's Web site.
And if you've never heard of Godfrey, here's a sample of the TV version of the broadcaster's style:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
