ESPN Radio

[BBTV]

If you live in Philadelphia area, why on earth would you listen to ESPN radio when the original WIP is right down the dial and actually employes professionals as opposed to fans who win contests to be radio hosts?

If you need more national coverage then I guess mike and mike is for you, but the WIP morning show is far more entertaining. Missineli is a good broadcaster, but pales next to Gargano and Macnow. All the other time slots are no brainers, with WIP coming out on top.

ESPN had their shot when There was a lot of anti Eskin sentiments, and they put Missenelli in that slot and he won, but the revamped WIp kicks the hell out of what has become no more than an amateur radio station.

[Cosmic]

Here's what I know: I used to work construction with a guy who listened to ESPN radio every day. He was a big fan of Colin Cowherd. When I quit working that job my life got better because I wasn't listening to Colin Cowherd everyday.

My local station ran Cowherd from 10-12, but dropped him for a Sabres show. It made my month when he was gone.

A station dropped a national ESPN show for a hockey show?!?!?! The blasphemy....

...the sweet, beautiful, glorious, why-cant-this-happen-elsewhere blasphemy

The local morning guys on before Cowherd pretty much literally mocked him on-air (which was fun in its own way), but better to have him gone. He was an easy target since he hates hockey so much and we only really talk hockey and football around here. We get baseball story-of-the-day type stuff, but if there's no football or hockey, then the sports guys start drafting states or animals or Presidents.

[Gothamite]

Here's what I know: I used to work construction with a guy who listened to ESPN radio every day. He was a big fan of Colin Cowherd. When I quit working that job my life got better because I wasn't listening to Colin Cowherd everyday.

My local station ran Cowherd from 10-12, but dropped him for a Sabres show. It made my month when he was gone.

Even by talk radio standards, Cowherd is terrible. He has this cult image of Vegas and "business", and keeps talking about how smart Vegas is, how they're professional, impartial talent evaluators. According to him, that makes point spreads a better prediction of games than emotional fans are capable of creating, showing that he doesn't actually understand how point spreads work.

[infrared41]

I'm surprised that anyone under the age of 45 even listens to terrestrial radio. Other than maybe news or live sports, there's really no reason to listen. For every decent radio show, there are 20 podcasts that blow it out of the water. Why should I listen to what some idiot PD at a local radio station thinks I want to listen to when I can download exactly what I want to listen to? Hell, a lot of the good national shows, like Dan Patrick, are available via podcast.

Thanks to technology, people can listen to what they want, when they want it. Unless radio can come up with something to combat that (it won't) it's going to be all but dead (bet on it) in 5-10 years. Ratings that win a market today would have gotten a PD fired 15 years ago. Listening is down, ad revenue is down, and neither are coming back. The only viable option for radio is to go hyper local and hope for the best.

[The_Admiral]

Agreed wholeheartedly, which is why it's maddening that when the time has never been more right for radio to step up with unique, local, curated programming, so many stations double down on doing the same stuff as everyone else and live in fear of someone changing the station when they don't recognize the song.

In Chicago, pretty much every station has elided into either Classic Hits (songs guys tend to like) or Adult Hits (songs girls tend to like). Our oldies station issued a memo to cut down on music by women, black people, or anyone from before 1965, because it might be outside someone's comfort zone. This gives you an oldies station that can play "Jukebox Hero" but not "Heard It Through the Grapevine." Our '80s station plays Katy Perry. I can hear every song from the first half of The Cars' Greatest Hits on goddamn seven goddamn stations. And I love the Cars!

[dfwabel]

Here's what I know: I used to work construction with a guy who listened to ESPN radio every day. He was a big fan of Colin Cowherd. When I quit working that job my life got better because I wasn't listening to Colin Cowherd everyday.

My local station ran Cowherd from 10-12, but dropped him for a Sabres show. It made my month when he was gone.

A station dropped a national ESPN show for a hockey show?!?!?! The blasphemy....

...the sweet, beautiful, glorious, why-cant-this-happen-elsewhere blasphemy

Champaign/Urbana's kinda had that happen in reverse. 93.5 used to be this milquetoast quasi-conservative talk station, then it became a sports talk station (Illini and Cardinals mostly but a sprinkle of Chicago and mediocre hosts). Ultimately ESPN bought them up, created ESPNCU.com and fired everyone but 2 hosts.

Don't get me wrong: It's nice not to have to listen to C-rate talent talk about how delicious Mike Matheny's penis is, but at the same time it's not THAT much better having 4/5ths of the listening day devoted to yelling about the same 3 recycled NFL stories.

That being said I think Freddie Coleman's a great host.

ESPN did not buy them, the station willingly re-branded itself as ESPN to sell advertising.

Typically, if a non-top 25 market decides to sign on with ESPN Radio, one must carry, "Mike and Mike" and "The Herd". There are rare occasions in which a morning drive show survives.

As a company, ESPN only owns four stations after the Citadel sale: NYC, CHI, DFW, LA. And 103.3 in DFW just made a LMA with the Cumulus station, 1310AM, the Original "Ticket". ESPN was a far #2 in the market and with only one station and one full time sales team, they "left" the market in terms of staff since Galloway is retiring in December.

There is also a new sports forma, especially if there are multiple stations in a market:

Local on FM, National (CBS/ESPN/NBC/FOX/Yahoo) on AM. Then again, $hit in radio may flip again if the Cumulus purchase of CBS Radio comes to reality as it has been rumored since December 2012 as Cumulus will have to shed stations in nearly every market due to FCC rules.

[mjrbaseball]

Living in an area without a major league team in any sport, I get the full ESPN lineup.

Mike & Mike are tolerable, I listen just to hear the silly stuff they do. Golic is a lot smarter than most ex-jocks on the air.

I don't know how anyone can stand Cowherd. I listen once in a while in the car when I can't get anything else, and he always seems to insult my intelligence. His opinions are so off-the-wall they are unbearable.

I like SVP and Russillo. They have an "I don't care" attitude and tend to go off wherever their mood takes them.

The evening programming is too disjointed to really enjoy.

I would like to see Bob Valvano moved to full time. He does late nights on weekends, and has a local weekday show in Louisville. His show is so relaxed, and he doesn't pontificate. "Bobby V" just chats with people. He deserves to be on the full network. (Although I'm not sure he wants to be.)