All News format out, ESPN Radio takes over

Scott retired in 2023. Mark Arum is doing traffic for TV. And Captain Herb has passed. But you have it nailed.

I was driving from Ann Arbor to the Detroit airport before dawn one morning and just for fun, dailed up 750. (WJR blasts on 740.) And darned if I couldn't pick up Atlanta's morning show for just a few miles.

 

How bad do things have to be if ESPN Radio, which I’m shocked still exists in 2024, is the healthier product. (We’ve talked before, but Good Lord ESPN could’ve had the biggest podcast line-up in entertainment if they’d have known what they were doing with their radio talent.)

 

My ex worked for the Cox cluster in Atlanta back in the 2000s. That was around the time WSB had the Braves and Hawks. “The sports voice of the South.” The group also simulcast on the FM dial at 95.5.

I worked in radio for a time and while it was fun, it was a dead-end. Unless you’re a star and can get a job in NYC, Chicago, or LA, you’re better off going to school for communication, or something else entirely.

 

I used to listen to KOA Denver in my youth (I was a news/sports nerd kid). I still miss the tone and then the intro to CBS News on the hour. I used to listen to the World Tonight with Douglas Edwards, which was a 15 minute news broadcast, that ran for about 160 years.

Edwards was just flawless. My freshman year in college I sat with a guy who was returning to school but had been an engineer in New York on those broadcasts. He told me Edwards showed up and read a lot of those scripts cold.

 

I loved KOA. Clear nights out here, WLW out of Cincinnati came in here crystal clear…….abd Cunningham was hysterical. (Before he jumped into the looney bin.)
I’ll always have a soft spot for AM radio. In fact, the group that owns the cluster around here reached out to me some months ago to see if I had any interest in coming back…….but there’s just no money to be had. The 7 years I spent there were fantastic. We had power outages…..tower outages…..uncensored George Carlin hippy-dippy-weather man get played…..surprise FCC visits……on air riffs that were a hair from being all out fistfights…..drunk news guys ON AIR……

 

A big part of 880's local appeal (same for 1010) was traffic on the 8s. Driving into NYC has always been a battle, and reliable reports of slowdowns at the GWB or crashes on the LIE were worth their weight in (advertising) gold.

Google maps and Wayze and all the other GPS apps tracking traffic in real time have (mostly) done away with that.

 

I would love to know when the cutoff line for the radio/superstation fanbases is. I’m 40, but still have a feeling there are people out there my age who are Reds/Cardinals fans because of radio reach and Cubs/Braves fans because of the superstations. I can’t imagine that factors intoanyone under 35 choosing their favorite team.

 

Denny Matthews and Fred White put me to sleep in the early 80’s a number of times. I didn’t care that the Royals sucked back then. Matthews just has one of those voices. Had the pleasure of chatting with Fred White a number of times, and that was one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet.

 

Every time I listened to Denny, I learned something. Every time.
+1 on Fred. Hated how he was let go and that he died too soon. Still miss him. RIP, Fred.