By Jeff Moss
July 8, 2011
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
Since I recently returned to my journalistic jihad at the DSR, I have received some emails and Tweets about when the site would start commenting on local sports radio again. When am I going to go after so and so or when will I post the most recent Arbitron ratings for WDFN and 97.1 – The Ticket.
And my answer has been probably never and ummm, I don’t even know if there ARE Arbitron ratings anymore as I think they might have been replaced by the People Meter.
It has been so long since I have been in the loop when it comes to monitoring the daily affairs of the two Detroit sports talk station that I don’t even know how the ratings are determined any longer.
When Gregg Schultz and I first started this site in 2003 we made a conscious decision to place criticism of WDFN and WXYT at the forefront of the site’s content.
There were two reasons for this decision. The first was that the daily idiocy coming out of the mouths of the hosts and callers led to a virtual cornucopia of new material for the site.
The second ended up being a much larger factor and was pretty surprising to us at the launch of the DSR. You see, if we would have created a website dedicated to Detroit accountants and ripped them for improper deductions or not taking enough dependents most people would NOT have read the site. BUT ACCOUNTANTS SURELY WOULD HAVE.
And is that what occurred when we launched the DSR. 99 percent of Detroit sports fans either never read it or never heard of it. But 99 percent of the media in town knew exactly what was being said on a daily basis and they effing loved reading about themselves. Well, until I turned on them and started calling them cunts.
Nobody else was writing about the on-air talent at sports talk radio stations so the DSR became the de facto headquarters for the latest gossip regarding ratings, potential firings and which personalities didn’t like each other off-the-air. It was like TMZ for geeks who enjoyed sports talk radio before TMZ even existed.
Then add to the that mix anyone who had an axe to grind would contact me with their dirt and you had a perfect storm of rumor and induendo we could post on the site to get hits. I mean, hair stylists think that radio guys are big yentas.
Then on January 9, 2006 this website and my radio listening habits changed dramatically. The greatest entertainer of all-time in ANY medium, Howard Stern, took his immense talents to satellite radio.
Instead of Stern’s show ending at around 10:45 every morning and freeing me up to dedicate the rest of my day to monitoring the two sports stations, the Stern show could now be heard ALL DAY LONG on a constant loop.
By that point exclusive sports talk radio had been on the air in Detroit for 12 years and the format had become as stale as a bagel in a Tel Aviv bakery during Passover. I was burnt out from listening to the two stations and extremely frustrated that nobody was pushing the envelope or attempting to put out a fresh product.
Between the absolute Groundhog Day-esque programming (if I had to listen to one more “What’s Your Beef?” I would have slit my wrists), the dumbfuck callers and the mail-it-in hosts I had had my fill. Combined with the groundbreaking radio that Stern was airing on Sirius, I gave up on DFN and XYT cold turkey.
And for over five years I stayed away completely. I’d estimate during that time I listened to a grand total of THREE hours of sports talk radio. And that might be generous.
And this is coming from a fucking loser who used to live blog the “Stoney and Wojo Radiothon” for TWENTY-EIGHT hours straight. From the remote location. Beginning to end.
But two things have occurred in the last month or so that have me turning into 1130 and 97.1 on a more frequent basis.
The main reason is Stern has cut his show from five to four hours a day, he is only working three days a week some weeks and he is currently in the middle of a two-week vacation. And without Stern there are only so many times a guy can listen to the “Les Miserables” 20th anniversary concert on his iPod.
So I figured with more time on my hands to listen to the radio and the need for content for my columns I would check in on “Guy Talk” a little more frequently. Wow, what a mistake that has been.
In the last couple of days I have been driving around a lot for work and I am not sure if I have been tuning into sports stations or the Nancy Grace Network. Have I missed something or did “Tot Mom” once play for the Atlanta Dream?
And when the hosts actually discuss, ya know, sports, I have had to endure Ann Arbor Douglas Allen Karsch the Third pontificating on the Tigers trading for Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez.
Once I got over the initial shock that this douche bag was actually still employed by a station, I listened to him ask the following question:
“Would the Mariners trade King Felix for Jacob Turner, Brennan Boesch, Nick Castellanos, Andy Oliver and Ryan Perry?”
Umm, I don’t know, I am guessing Seattle MIGHT be interested in trading for one of the top three pitching prospects in ALL OF BASEBALL, an outfielder who has stats very comparable to guys who made this year’s ALL-STAR team, the Tigers BEST position prospect, their second best pitching prospect and their 2008 first round pick.
I am not sure why the dipshit didn’t want to throw in the Spirit of Detroit, the RenCen, Eminem, Sanders Hot Fudge, 50 percent interest in Motor City Casino and the Greenfield Village as well.
If on Thursday I went to my physician and he informed me that I had pancreatic, lung and liver cancer, full blown AIDS and every Hepatitis known to mankind I STILL WOULDN’T WANT THE TEAM TO COMPLETELY GUT THEIR ENTIRE ORGANIZATION FOR ONE PITCHER EVEN IF THAT DUDE IS THE REIGNING CY YOUNG WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also had to hear a lecture from Ryan Errrrrmmmmmannnnnnni that nobody should be upset that Jair Jurjjens has developed into the next Pedro Martinez because NO TIGERS FANS WERE UPSET THAT THE TEAM TRADED JAR JAR FOR EDGAR RENTERIA WHEN THE DEAL WENT DOWN!!!!
Ummm, click here asshole and check out the timestamps of the posts: http://www.detroitsportsrag.com/DSRnXtLvL/viewtopic.php?t=11711
PLENTY of Tigers fans were upset that they traded a young pitcher to Atlanta for an aging and proven American League failure whose range was decreasing exponentially.
The other day I had to endure Terry Foster discussing what kind of SHORTS people are wearing this summer. Hell, I guess I should have been grateful that he wasn’t giving advice on how to run a candy business into the ground or breaking down Little B’s soccer games.
Which leads me to the biggest difference between the current landscape of sports talk radio and when I stopped covering it in 2006.
The question I probably have received more than any other in the entire history of the website is this:
“When are Stoney and Wojo going to get back together?”
Even though I would go a FULL YEAR between posting articles on the DSR, I would still get emails frequently asking me when Michael Stone and Bob Wojnowski would reunite.
And the question is a legitimate one. For years the show was one of the top rated broadcasts in the 25-to-54 male demographic even though it was on a station that when I drove down 14 mile between Orchard Lake and Farmington Road it sounded like the hosts were being electrocuted.
But on the day President Obama was inaugurated, Clear Channel got rid of the most popular show in the 17-year history of the genre in Detroit. In some sort of bizarre bookkeeping measure, the media conglomerate figured it would be better financially to pay the duo over $600,000 a year combined to sit at home.
I would like to explain their rationale, but there is a reason this website WAS NOT dedicated to Detroit Accountants.
Eventually Stoney got a gig at “The Ticket” co-hosting the morning drive show with Bill McAllister and some broad whose name I am not even going to bother to look up. But even though Stone is a sports guy and the station is supposedly an all-sports station, this show rarely seems to discuss SPORTS.
Meanwhile, Wojo seems content with his column for the Detroit News and I would absolutely be shocked if he ever pursued another radio gig.
I always got the sense that Wojnowski did the radio show as a lark anyhow. He always viewed himself as a columnist first as his disappearances from the radio show whenever a big story broke would attest.
When the pair received an offer to move from DFN to XYT years ago (the same time Gregg Henson jumped ship), Wojo let Stoney make the eventual decision to stay at 1130 and I got the impression from sources that Wojodamus couldn’t have cared less either way.
I don’t believe the lifelong bachelor has a big nut to maintain financially and between his well-paying newspaper gig and all of the cash he earned on the radio he probably could purchase the entire Nutter Butter brand from Nabisco if he wanted.
I am pretty sure Wojo hung around doing the radio show as long as he did because the show was successful and Stoney was his friend. And as a friend he might want to reconsider teaming back up with Stoney if the opportunity arises because that 97.1 morning show is douche chill inducing.
In the limited time I have tuned into the show, I find McAllister almost unlistenable. I am pretty sure this guy used to serve Henson his coffee when 3-G was still in town. (Before Henson went to Philly, then Dallas, then Philly, then Dallas, then Java Jungle, then Mars, then Dallas, then Fort Wayne …)
And the broad? Holy shit is she annoying. Thanks to the King of All Media, every morning show HAS to have some chick to play the Robin Quivers role which usually means butting in when it isn’t warranted and generally aggravating the audience.
It would ALMOST be understandable if the token woman was hot or something, but this one looks like a glitzed up version of Rosie O’Donnell.
I actually heard her read a promo this week that went something like this:
‘On Friday, the movie “Horrible Bosses” comes out, tomorrow we will be talking about the horrible bosses you have had.’
I mean, are ya fucking kidding me? Could you be a more generic, awful morning radio show if you tried? What is after the horrible boss segment, what is the best hamburger in the D?
Poor Stoney. Can’t really talk about sports and he is paired up with the Inge and Raburn of morning radio.
I’d love to tell you that I will continue to monitor the two stations in the future and make that a regular part of the DSR again. But there is no way I am making that promise.
The product is horrid and I think I’d rather get a job tearing out asbestos without a mask and risk mesothelioma than regularly listen to these jackass hosts and brain-dead callers just for the potential content it might produce.
And I lied earlier. There is no limit on how many times that you can listen to the Les Mis concert at O2 in London. I mean, I have two words for you … Samantha. Barks.