Kal Rudman Retires ''Friday Morning Quarterback'' Brand

RADIO ONLINE | Friday, January 31, 2020 | 2:11am CT

Kal Rudman

Kal Rudman, founder and publisher of the Friday Morning Quarterback (FMQB), a radio industry "tip sheet," has retired the title and sold off its assets to Cherry Hill-based Deane Media Solutions. For more than five decades, FMQB provided guidance to pop music radio programmers. FMQB, a play on the phrase "Monday morning quarterback," was founded in 1968 by the Philadelphia native as a mimeographed-and-stapled journal for Top 40 programmers.

"I am retiring from the music industry, but not the radio business," insisted Rudman. "For a long time, I have focused much of my philanthropic efforts in the medical world, and now I am merging that with radio. For over 50 years, I have been the specialist in predicting countless hits for numerous artists, and I've received unique recognition by the music industry as not only a tastemaker but a star maker. However, times have changed drastically, along with the industry, and it was time for me to move on to my original passion, medicine."

"Kal Rudman is a force of nature," proclaims veteran rock-radio programmer Charlie Kendall. "It's Kal's better half who has always been the Quarterback's secret weapon.

"The two of them [along his wife of 61 years, Lucille]," noted Kendall, "turned a basement newsletter into a multi-million-dollar publication that was an asset to music and radio for 52 years. And their philanthropic efforts through the Kal and Lucille Rudman Foundation are legendary."

Legendary Scott Shannon, an on-air powerhouse in the New York market for decades, likewise lauded Rudman, whom he describes as "a giant" and "a visionary who had a tremendous impact on music and radio."

According to legendary composer-producer-label executive Kenny Gamble of Philadelphia International Records, having the support of the Quarterback - and its quarterback - was crucial to those who made the music. "His gift," says Gamble, "was being able to instinctively identify good music. He was one of the people I used to come to all the time and ask what he thinks about a record. He really does have 'golden ears.'"