 Think of Jerry Springer, in a jock strap. If you like your sports talk coming from guys like Michael "I have no idea how that crack pipe got in my Benz" Irvin, then you are going to love the latest trends: station managers have discovered the 18-34 year old male market, and, just like that, intelligent talk is out the window. The bean counters think that guys in this range don't want solid sports information and opinion. The marketing morons are devolving sports talk radio into E!.
In Southern California this trend can be found at XTRA Sports (AM 570) and at the local ESPN affiliate KSPN (710 AM). Bob Keisser, at the Long Beach PressTelegram, reports that KSPN dumped two men with 70 years of sports radio experience between them in favor of guys who could attract the ever-elusive young male audience. XTRA threw out over 30 years of experience in favor of former pop music DJs.
KSPN seems to be engaged in some early spring cleaning hosts popular with a lot of fans. Neither Doug Krikorean nor Joe McDonnell had their contracts renewed by the ESPN affiliate for 2006. While this move may be good for McDonnell’s career, or so he thinks, one wonders what this will do for “L.A. and O.C.’s Sports Leader.” Some listeners have already decided that they may tune in for Kings’ or Lakers’ broadcasts but they’ll go elsewhere for sports talk.
At XTRA Matt Smith and Lee Grande replaced Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton. Smith started his radio career at KROQ (106.7 FM, an FM alternative rock station. Grande comes from the FM side of the radio dial. He was a member of the Big Boy show on the hip-hop/R&B station KPWR (105.9 FM). These days, it seems, if you want to make it big in sports radio you should start with Coldplay and Mary J. Bilge.
XTRA must not think that Hacksaw is “edgy” enough to make some 19-year-old surfer dude stop flipping his radio dial. This assumes that some 19-year-old surfer is able to navigate the AM radio dial to begin with. Hacksaw has spent his career in sports radio, starting as the voice of the WHA-Cleveland Crusaders more than 30 years ago. He now has the “longest tenure of any sports talk show host in Southern California radio history.” Unfortunately, this didn’t prevent exile to weekends and brief bits during other shows the rest of the week.
Apparently, XTRA Sports doesn’t think sports talk is enough to attract listeners. Therefore, it tries to draw the Howard Stern audience by getting as far away from sports as it can in the morning and evening hours.
From 4:30 - 9:00 AM, listeners have to suffer through Mancow Muller before they can get to what the station is named for, i.e., sports. XTRA’s website promotes Mancow with this factoid: “One of his dozens of appearances on The Jerry Springer Show was named Clip of the Year by the popular E! show, Talk Soup.” This is just what I want from my sports radio station, a guy who not only appeared “dozens” of times on The Jerry Springer Show, but was also elected the “clip of the year”.
At night, from 7 to 9 PM, XTRA features The Phil Hendrie Show. A few of his past hours have included a guy who sued the parents of kids who would rather play in a bounce house than watch his magic show and a couple who wanted to use the money raised from their children’s school sponsored candy bar and magazine subscription drive for a vacation in Mexico. More fodder for the Jerry Springer and Howard Stern crowd.
Go ahead. Blame this devolution of sports talk on the “Entertainment Tonight” mindset that permeates Los Angeles where they don’t even have a professional football team. Tell me how this wouldn’t happen in St. Louis, for example, where real sports fans reside.
If this is what you believe then you’re just not paying attention. Dan Caesar, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reports that KTRS (550 AM in St. Louis) has tried to make its sports talk “more edgy” by firing “most of the on air staff” including “two longtime St. Louis sports radio veterans, Jim Holder and Randy Karraker.” St. Louis listeners will soon be getting their daily dose of sports ala Jerry Springer.
Speaking of St. Louis, Mike Claiborne, at KFNS, has a racial sensitivity meter that is set just a bit too high. Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, in an on-the-air exchange with Claiborne, criticized players coming from the Caribbean, saying, "A lot of the players coming from [there], they don't even know the rules” when discussing what’s wrong with baseball and how many players lack knowledge of the fundamentals. Claiborne then interrupted Feller trying to get clarification on this comment, which irritated Feller. Following a brief heated exchange Claiborne called Feller a racist. Feller, needless to say, abandoned the interview and hung up on Claiborne.
Somehow I doubt that Claiborne would have been so quick with such an incredibly harsh and explosive charge if he had been talking hockey with Wayne Gretzky and they were discussing the difficulty NHL players seem to have adapting to the new rules. Would it be racist to say that players coming out of, say, Canada just don’t know the fundamentals? Calling this kind of comment racist is absurd. It is just as absurd for Claiborne to call Feller a racist because Feller thinks Caribbean players may not be well schooled in baseball fundamentals.
Sports talk is going the route of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer. Rock and Hip hop DJs that once opined on Eminem’s cultural significance are now tasked to bring their intense intellectual scrutiny to Terrell Owens and Ron Artest. Station directors do not want informed sports professionals with years of experience calling games and giving their thoughts on who’s in and who’s out. They want guys with an Edge. They want kids who have an in with Carson Daily and the Daily Show rather than Carson Palmer and LA Clippers front office. Sports radio stations are turning away from folks who can fill the space between the locker room banter with informed sports talk and turning toward boys wallowing in the in-your-face trash talk just to attract the 18 - 34 year old male demographic.
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