By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
February 12, 2016
On Thursday the lowest-rated FM station on the dial announced some changes to its lineup. Yes, Detroit Sports 105.1 program director Dave Shore made some minor adjustments, the equivalent of shuffling lounge chairs on a sinking ship.
After two and a half years of Detroiters ignoring ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” program hosted by Mike Goldberg and Mike Golic, 105.1 finally decided to go local in the morning. The national show never garnered an audience in this extremely provincial market — something I predicted the day the station debuted.
The new AM drive program will be hosted by Sean Baligian, Marc Fellhauer and Tom Mazawey; this decision is further proof that the clueless buffoon Shore has no idea how to program in this market. In fact, this moron makes former PD Jason Dixon — who was canned for low ratings last year — look like Brandon Tartikoff.
In the three decades of sports talk radio in Motown, there NEVER has been a sports-centric morning show that has done well in the ratings. It just hasn’t happened. It’s why the area’s first all-sports channel (WDFN-1130) disposed of morning programs like Spinal Tap went through drummers.
If you don’t believe me, just ask Butch Stearns, Sabrina West, Rob Parker, Lary Sorensen, The Man, Greg Brady, Milk Money, Gregg Henson, Jamie Samuelsen, Damon Perry ……
I mean, there is a reason that the most successful AM drive program in the history of the genre is “Stoney and Bill,” which includes two people who know NOTHING about sports (Bill McAllister and Sara Fouracre) and another guy who isn’t about to rock the boat (Michael Stone) because he has two twin daughters approaching college and a 5,000-square-foot house at Maple and Farmington to worry about.
If that program spends 10% of the time discussing sports, it would be a shock; it’s hard to even criticize that decision because people don’t want to roll out of bed at 6:30 and listen to hardcore sports discussions. The Arbitron ratings have proven that out since 1994.
So what does Shore do? He puts Baligian on in the morning. A guy who hates talking about anything except sports — an honorable trait when on a SPORTS station except when it has proven to be ratings poison over a 22-year sample size.
(The one positive for Baligian is he won’t have to do “Crosstalk” with a guy who thinks he is a “con man” and a “fraud” any longer.)
This programming choice absolutely boggles my mind and that’s before we even get into the worthlessness of Fellhauer and Mazawey. Of course, “Maz” will have more time to shop for the elderly, unwind your kids and lower your cable bill.
Like, if you were going to get rid of “Mike and Mike” you might as well have kept Drew Lane around to host the morning show. It’s the time-slot he once dominated and he could have gotten away with minimal sports talk in the AM, which is what Lane wanted to do anyway.
Then you have the continued employment of Ryan Ermanni and Rico Beard from 10am to 2pm. A show that has NEVER gained any ratings traction since the station debuted in August of 2013.
Ermanni has never been able to attract an audience (even going back to his low-rated WDFN program) and Beard is a nameless, garden-variety MSU slap. Continuing to give this pair airtime is now entering “Matt Millen as Lions GM” territory.
Mercifully, the local programming ends after Ratt Dreary and the Plagiarist from 2pm to 6pm. A show, I am told, that has lost a significant portion of Lane’s old audience and it’s not like he was setting the world on fire in the first place.
Of course, it’s shocking that nobody wants to tune into a show hosted by a career update guy (Matt Dery) and an unrepentant thief who has a speech impediment (Drew Sharp).
Shore continues to show a baffling lack of imagination. He isn’t even trying to infuse the station with young, fresh talent. You mean to tell me that pairing an existing host with someone up-and-coming wouldn’t equal the current ratings while being CHEAPER than the current lineup? Hell, having a young DUO host a show couldn’t hurt them at this point.
I said it on Twitter yesterday and I will repeat it again here. Is Detroit Sports 105.1 owned by Rachel Phelps? Is she purposely trying to tank in the ratings so she can move the station’s antenna to Miami?
That theory sure as hell makes more sense than actually believing that this lineup is going to attract the Detroit sports fans who have been ignoring the station for the past 913 days.
The 2003 Detroit Tigers batting order laughs at that pathetic lineup. You just have to wonder when Shore gets Alan Trammell’d.
My bet is he doesn’t make it past spring. Of course, that he still has this job after posting a POINT EIGHT rating is beyond comprehension already.