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Speaking Out: Fans Protest BronxTalk Cancellation

By JORDAN MOSS

Supporters of Gary Axelbank’s public affairs talk show on BRONXNET, the borough’s public access television network, put on a show of their own last week. With cardboard signs hanging around their necks, they marched from Kingsbridge Road and filed into the station’s studio on the Lehman College campus to protest BronxTalk AM’s cancellation on the day of its final broadcast.

Organized by Anthony Rivieccio, a Bedford Park resident and member of Community Board 7, the orderly march included small cardboard coffins with humorous messages on them like “RIP Bob from Riverdale,” a reference to Robert Press, a perennial caller to the show.

The demonstration attracted a small but spirited crowd that included Axelbank’s mother, Muriel, and his wife, Suzanne. Joyce Hogi of Save Our Parks, a south Bronx group that fought the new Yankee Stadium project, said BronxTalk provided a vital forum for spreading the word.

“It gave us a lot of exposure, a lot of chance to air our views,” Hogi said, adding that once she discovered the show, she was hooked. “I really became addicted to it because you learn so much about the Bronx.”

Joseph Thompson, an east Bronx community activist who ran for Assembly in 2004, said he came out to show “support for the format of the show.”
Most of the protesters filed two-by-two down to the BronxTalk studio in the basement of a Lehman classroom building to be Axelbank’s final guests.

Since its premiere in 1999, 1,450 episodes of BronxTalk were broadcast, with approximately 8,700 interviews, according to Axelbank’s calculations.

The two-hour show, which aired from 10 a.m. to noon, has been replaced by a one-hour show called OPEN, which features two new hosts. Axelbank may host the show two days a week, but he is still in negotiations with the station. He will remain the host of his weekly evening show, BronxTalk PrimeTime.

Axelbank said he has been told by station officials that that OPEN is scripted and that there will be “no extemporaneous talking or editorializing on the new show,” a prominent feature of BronxTalk. BRONXNET’s executive director Michael Knobbe said that the show has just begun and that there would be many opportunities for opinion sharing, such as reporters’ roundtables. The show now airs only a couple of days a week but will eventually broadcast daily.

Suzanne Axelbank, who had never been on the show before, was among the first marchers to enter the broadcast booth for a stroll down memory lane. She presented her husband with a cake and homemade cookies to share with the show’s staff. The couple met at Lehman’s radio station in 1975.

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