The Appalling State of Detroit Sports Talk Radio

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By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
May 30, 2014

It’s a little odd that I am considered the foremost critic of Detroit Sports Talk Radio in this town considering I haven’t regularly listened to that broadcast genre since early in the first George W. Bush administration.

It would be like Roger Ebert still being hailed as the preeminent film critic in the nation even though he has been dead for over a year now.

I long ago threw in the towel on local sports talk in favor of a combination of Howard Stern on satellite, Podcasts, my eclectic iPod shuffle (Lana Del Rey, Evita, Rage Against the Machine, Roy Orbison, Pato Banton, etc.) and silent meditation.

None of this stops my followers from bitching and whining to me about the various atrocities that are committed daily on 97.1 and 105.1 by the lousy hosts. These are also probably the same people who still email Circuit City complaining about their customer service.

Anyway, here we are. Years after I created this websight™ (Terry Foster) to monitor 1130 and 1270, I am still the one called upon to take these shitheads to task for a variety of transgressions since nobody else will locally.

It is no secret as to why I completely stopped listening to this trash. These supposed sports stations DON’T talk about sports. The hosts are terrible; they’re either uneducated, have incredibly low IQs, display an embarrassing frat boy mentality or are incredible homers who reject basic mathematical certainties.

I’d call it Lowest Common Denominator Radio but that probably would be insulting to Zippy, Bonzo and the Morning Zoo Crew operating out of Topeka, Kansas.

And from what I can gather from my readers, Twitter followers and DSR collaborators, things are getting precipitously worse as WXYT-FM and Detroit Sports 105.1 continue to pollute our FM airwaves.

Here is just a sampling of the toxic waste that I have been able to confirm as having appeared on these two embarrassments in the last month.

1) Earlier this week the only show that was somewhat listenable as late as earlier this year took another gigantic leap backwards. Unfortunately, the ratings have been so poor for Matt Dery’s 105.1 midday show that the broadcaster has had to turn his once-solid program into a three-ring circus.

What started as three hours of airtime focused mainly on high-brow interviews with the day’s newsmakers has turned into a colossal shitshow. The disingenuous program now features Dery parading around like a diehard Detroit sports fan even though he sold himself over his previous three decades in Detroit as the consummate outsider from Cleveland.

Instead of playing it straight and grilling Ken Holland over dumb statements (“Men’s League” and “Kids aren’t the answer”), Dery has now subjected himself to gimmicks like TUFSS (Trade Up For Super Sammy Watkins) and having a psychic on the day of the NBA Draft Lottery to somehow help the Pistons out.

THAT worked.

The whole thing comes across as totally phony, which is a actually a pretty good representation of Dery.

(Looking forward to the golf outing in 10 days!!!!!)

This behavior came to a head earlier this week when Dery’s Facebook page for his show posted the following:

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Yes. Dery and his pervert-in-crime Tom Mazaway dedicated a segment to whether or not Michelle Beadle is hot. I wasn’t even offended on the basis of this being somehow misogynistic.

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(Hell, I am no saint. It took me fewer than 48 hours after the Beadle topic to make a joke about Joe Nathan’s ex-wife’s looks in comparison to Nick Castellanos’ girl.)

I was more appalled that this was being discussed in 2014!!!! Like, MAYBE you could have mailed this topic in back in 2009. Now? Seriously?

Anyway, being the total shit-stirring dick that I am, I decided to send the above Facebook photo to CNNSI’s media critic and defender of women everywhere …. Richard Deitsch. The results were predictable and hilarious.

I would have been satisfied with Sports Illustrated’s media reporter mocking Dery for this tired old bit, but it got even better than that. First, Bloomfield Hills native and former ESPN personality Dana Jacobson got involved ….

Oh, come on, Dana. I am sure you’d be dripping wet for “Maz.”

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Then, Michelle Beadle herself decided to chime in ….

The whole episode was hilarious, especially with George Clooney Mazawey begging Deitsch for the benefit of the doubt on Twitter. A Tweet that Tommy Two-Hotty has since erased. It seems that Maz has had to do a lot of deleting on his Twitter account lately.

2) Not to be outdone by Dery, his fellow 105.1 frat brother douche bags Drew Lane and Marc Fellhauer were up to their old tricks this week as well. Because they don’t have enough “drops” already, they thought it would be funny to splice the Santa Barbara mass murderer’s YouTube video for comedic effect.

To be fair to the bros, this wasn’t nearly as bad as attacking a potential rape victim (the possible victim in the Jameis Winston sexual assault case) with “whore” sound bytes.

3) And back to Dery for a second. Earlier today, the hypocrite was playing Johnny Rebel on the 105.1 airwaves by proclaiming that he was the only Detroit on-air talent who had the balls to take on the Taylor Lewan assault case.

Yes, Matt. You’re a regular Nancy Graceless. Dery’s tough guy attitude towards the former Michigan OFFENSIVE lineman came about 10 months after the Washtenaw Watchdogs implicated Lewan in the sordid Brendan Gibbons affair and nine months after I picked up on it and ran with the story that the kid was a first class jerk-off who allegedly bullied a potential rape victim.

It also occurred several months AFTER Dery refused to talk about any of this on the 105.1 airwaves.

You’re a real hero on the front lines, Rat Dreary.

4) It’s no secret that 97.1 isn’t a sports station. They barely make any pretense about it anymore.

But the research that DSR Elite member @JFunk2800 compiled recently is astonishing.

JumPete went back over the last few weeks and took notes on various show topics from the “Benedict and Whale” “Karsch and Anderson” program.

Here is an assortment of those discussions on this alleged SPORTS station:

Do you hate your boss?
You ever take a new job and all hell broke loose?
Do you have a famous name?
Biggest Detroit controversy?
What’s your success rate at the drive thru?
Ever buy something before you had the money for it?
Who had a great weekend & who had a bad weekend: Champ & Chump of the weekend?
Have you ever been fired from the same job twice?
Ever been attacked by a female?
What do you do “incorrectly” but don’t care?
Peter Griffin or Homer Simpson?
Do you look like someone famous?
Who the most famous person from your hometown?
Is there a difference between dressing up for Comic-Con & Sporting events?
Would you pay to see a hologram concert?
You ok with paying taxes based on miles you drive?
You ever been hit in the nuts?
Have you ever rushed to make a flight?
Would you pay road taxes based on how much you drive?
What’s the most you’ve ever won in a lottery?
Do you like hecklers?
Also what don’t you understand in sports (balk)?
Most famous person from your city?
Were you a Champ or Chump of the grill yesterday?
Should men & women have different parking spots?
Minimum wage to be $9.25 by 2018; too much or too little?
Have you turned on your A/C yet?
Are you more like a cat or a dog?
What should every guy be able to do?
Do you have a common name but spelled differently?
Are you ok w/ today’s airport security?
I have never had a Pure Michigan weekend. Where should I go?

Where should you go? Where should you go?!?!?! How about the fucking Mackinac Bridge and jump off? That seems pretty Pure Michigan to me.

Honestly, those are some of the show topics in the last month or so on 97.1. Can you imagine? This is not some “Funny or Die” parody of an awful sports station. THESE ARE ACTUAL GOD DAMN TOPICS!!!!!

I am not sure how anyone can listen to this trash. But you do …  hence this column.

I will end this article with some positive Detroit sports radio news though. Starting tomorrow (Saturday at noon), 105.1 will be airing an hourlong baseball-centric program hosted by Tony Paul of the Detroit News.

Paul is an acquaintance of the DSR (I wouldn’t want to call him a friend since he actually has to work in this city) and is one of the few baseball writers in Detroit who dares to be critical of the Tigers.  The show will be 100% dedicated to BASEBALL and I am confident that Paul won’t ask his audience questions like, “Where is the most embarrassing place you ever farted?”

His scheduled guests for his inaugural show are Gabe Kapler (the best color commentator in the sport and an avid sabermetric follower) and Lynn Henning discussing the upcoming MLB Draft. Look, ya can’t win them all.

If you care about SPORTS-related programming on a SPORTS STATION, I implore you to support this show. I have no doubt it might be a little rough around the edges to begin with — Paul has no real experience hosting a radio show — but it should be very interesting to hear a substantive baseball discussion on 105.1.

Let’s just hope that Detroit Sports 105.1 program director Jason Dixon doesn’t persuade Paul to start some “Draft Michael Chavis Movement” accompanied by a t-shirt that Paul can’t take off until the entry draft commences next week.

Awww, who am I kidding. There is no way Dixon knows the baseball draft is June 5th.

He is too busy running the #2 sports station in Detroit right into the ground.