Sports Radio running thread

Holy shit. Butch from the Cape. I remember him calling JT’s show in the late 90s when it was on Sports Fan Radio Network or whatever.

 

More about Butch the crook.

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2001-10-18-0110180546-story.html

 

The last of the old fashioned sports talk show hosts. When sports talk radio started in the 7-'s and 80's stations hired hosts with encyclopedic knowledge. Clough was such a host. He is very intelligent and worked very hard.

But those guys were driven out by guys with schtick. Clough stayed on air but he bounced through a lot of time slots.

 

I believe that he had actually worked in every time possible time slot, with the late-night slot he recently had being the last unchecked item on the bingo card. The man was a survivor. He had no schtick and didn't suffer fools, and that latter characteristic made for great radio, especially on the post-game shows after Broncos losses.

 

I envy you. All we had in New York then was John "Get Off My Air, You Coward!" Sterling and Art Rust Jr.

(Carve-out for Bill Mazer.)

 

Clough started at KOA, which has long been the Broncos station, and worked there from when he started in the market until sometime in the early 90's. He did the Broncos post-game call-in show along with doing the 6:30-8:00 P.M. sports talk show.

I remember in the 80's the Broncos games ended about 5:30 local time. After the games I would then go get a stuffed burrito at a really good Mexican restaurant and listen to Clough (I really miss this). He was certainly no house man. There were also callers who would bait him and in his younger days he would get quite angry and go off on people.

When KOA fired him there were two schools of thought on why he was let go. The KOA position was that his ratings were not particularly good. His intensity turned people off. KOA did hire Mike Wolfe to replace him. Wolfe was not a guy who took himself particulars seriously and appealed to people like my Dad who were casual fans.

The second school of thought was that KOA and/or the Broncos had tired of Clough's opinions and wanted a shill.

 

I would guess that the podcasters are taking listeners from radio. I would guess that a show with two hosts at 9:00 P.M. are going the way of stagecoach drivers. I don't think there is enough revenue to justify a local show in most markets.

 

What bothers me in Boston is all the new hosts are guys who have worked only as a radio host. Their style is to have a hot take and they have no more insight than the average fan.