THE FAULT LINES BELOW sports radio in Chicago are rumbling.

Actually, the phrasing should be "sports audio."

Is it multiple earthquakes dead ahead -- for both sports talk and the market's major play-by-play rights package?

The quivers are in place.

ALL INDICATIONS ARE THAT the Bears will be leaving WBBM-AM (780) and simulcast WCFS-FM (105.9) after the 2022 NFL season.

As recently as four or five years ago, the move would be considered seismic.

Now, in the rapidly evolving hypersonic age of entertainment delivery, it might be best categorized as "strategically interim."

The team's games must be heard on assorted platforms from some audio base.

The Bears are said to be overestimating their radio value even in the era's inflationary economic climate.

No one at Halas Hall or at the Audacy-owned AM-780 / FM-105.9 will speak about any impending change informatively on the record.

But all signs point to a divorce after 23 seasons of happy together.

MONEY, OF COURSE, IS AT the root of the breakup.

Thirty years ago, the Mike Ditka Bears -- even in their twilight -- commanded an annual rights fee of $6 million-per from WGN-AM (720).

That's approximately $12.6M in 2022 dollars, or more than $600,000 per-regular season game.

That is a ton of advertising to move, even if part of it may be also recouped from weekly shows, marketing co-ops and other profitable Bear waves to surf.

The best the Bears can hope for to max out their audio income, according to industry experts, is a revenue share with a hungry, imaginative partner.

A CONCURRENT REALITY WITH AUDACY is that the corporation appears to be moving toward a rendezvous with some form of bankruptcy.

Shares of the national radio giant are selling for approximately 60 cents.

Earlier this month, Audacy was placed in a six-month "cure period" by regulators of the New York Stock Exchange.

That means before February 1, 2023, Audacy must have 30 consecutive trading days with a closing price of $1 or higher to remain listed on the NYSE.

The ripple effect from such dire straits is already being felt in the company's seven-station Chicago cluster. That group includes struggling WSCR-AM (670), WBBM-AM / WCFS-FM and four FM music stations -- WXRT (93.1), WBBM (96.3), WUSN (99.5) and WBMX (104.3).

MOST SIGNIFICANTLY TO THE CHICAGO SPORTS LISTENER, it's not at all implausible that Audacy may elect to pull the plug on all or almost all local sports talkers at "The Score."

That would leave prime AM-670 parts dominated by suffocating national sports programming, much of it from CBS Sports Radio.

Such operational pragmatism would also provide an enormous gap for a fresh sports station in Chicago, especially with Bears play-by-play and associated programming as anchors.

Most likely candidate is iHeart's WCHI-FM (95.5), a pedestrian rocker slightly better known for past turns as album-oriented WMET and smooth jazz WNUA.

Parent iHeart is the country's largest radio combine. Close to 10% of its 800+ stations are sports talk.

Chicago FM remains fertile, unplowed ground for a sports talk station.

BEST NEWS FOR BEARS FAN may be that Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer are expected to travel with the package.

To get the wagon train rolling, morning-line odds and comments follow with possible landing signals for the next era of Bears radiocasts:

WCHI 95.5-FM (iHeart, 1-1) -- If they can get the Bears, iHeart would be foolish not to premiere Chicago's first major FM all-sports station ... The only competition would be the two upstreaming AM also-rans ... The format flip should be quick and the only working talent of any coherent interest to the new operators would be the properly pedigreed Tom Waddle.

WMVP 1000-AM (Good Karma, 7-2) -- An astounding loss for George McCaskey and Co. if the team winds up on this underfinanced loser ... The NFL-wide perception would be that desperation met desperation ... WMVP was No. 26 in the most recent Nielsen Audios and it is to successful radio what J-Lo is to lasting marriage ... G-Karma lost the Packers last winter off WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee, the only radio base Green Bay had known since 1929.

WBBM AM-780 (Audacy, 20-1) -- Must be listed primarily because of the McCaskey family's long-running fascination with excessive sentimentality ... Game-day wraparound programming has generally been crisply droning, like a whirling floor fan.

WGN AM-720 (Nexstar, 72-1) -- Dat's right, Jack ... This elderberry-stained relic has to do something in the 21st century to show that it cares about listeners 65-and-under, doesn't it? ... Absolutely ironic that the cobwebbed cocoon still boasts Ed O'Bradovich and the best postgame Bears show in town.

WSCR 670-AM AM-670 (Audacy, 100-1) -- Might Audacy be audacious enough to flip "The Score" to AM-780 and WBBM to the more powerful signal of AM-670? ... Arced-out programming poo' bah Mitch Rosen has long shown an arrogant contempt for professional broadcasting talent and his chickens have been coming home to roost.

Bears buy their own radio station (100,000-1) -- Just a kooky fantasy -- right? ... But here's a brutal trifecta for the faithful to consider: What if in the next six months, Justin Fields sustains a serious injury, the team finishes 4-13 and the Arlington Park deal blows up?

That would make some really feel the fault lines quiver.

More likely is getting rid of WBMX, which fizzled out not unlike Jammin' Oldies, moving the Score to 104.3, and running all-national on 670.

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Pull the plug

I''m done. Do what you want.



I'll kill you.

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Over my dead body.

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*HOT MIX 5*

Jammin? Maybe 15 minutes out of a 45 minute mix. 80% of the Hot Mix 5 were crap.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Like the end of a bad sit-com, speculate on the fate of the 670 yackers.

Mully-Early retirement offset by some media work for the Chicago Fire

Haugh- Public relations Director for Mt. Prospect High School

Holmes- Overnights for Fox sports radio. Aspires to be a fill in for Rob Parker's many vacations.

Bernstein-Early retirement offset by being the 'sports essay guy' for 820 WCPT Progressive radio

Parkins- Media for a sports betting entity similar to what Danny Mac is doing but with a daily podcast or daily streaming service.

Spiegel- Baseball podcast with some overnight work on Sirius XM MLB network.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

In the scenario of the Score ending local. Then, a new sports radio station emerging. The only Score on-air talent I'd like to see join the new station would be Hub, Grote, and Leila if she still wanted to do it. I certainly wouldn't want the regular full timers who helped destroy the station forcing their own agenda on sports fans.

Bernstein : Zombie Deadspin :: Ray Ratto : Actual Deadspin is not unforeseeable.

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lol

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That was written way too clearly to be the work of Jim O'Donnell.

Curious's scenario of the Score switching to FM seems like a reasonable possibility. I would imagine that gambling programming will become a much larger part of the daily lineup than it is right now.

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Yup, it seems the gambling entities are the ones with the deep pockets that can snap up rapidly depreciating assets for pennies on the dollar, but highly doubt even they would keep any of the "smart fans" type hosts around because there is no way they would want all that SJW horseshit chasing away half of the potential gambling audience, come to think of it, what for profit business would think it was a good idea to chase away half of any potential audience?

Good hosts will find audiences. I listen to the half-hour podcast version of Chris Rose and Trevor Plouffe's "Baseball Today" from Jomboy Media although I listen more like at 9pm. Rose is a good host, Plouffe is a bit of a frat boy buddy to other players but his baseball analysis is good.

Unfortunately, I don't think the Score has any good hosts left. Somebody like Grote will land on his feet picking up weekend shifts on 1000. LoHo would be an improvement over the horrible and unlistenable Cole Wright on Marquee. Spiegal could land at MLB Radio, although they've been cutting budget lately and even long-time guys like Memolo are finding it hard to find shifts.

The rest of them?? Eeesh.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

The Score's deathwatch creates finally some interesting content. I'm hearing they'll be cuts at the Score soon. I'd think the two biggest salaries are Mitch Rosen & Bernstein first to go. If this plays out the local will start being cut.

If they lay off Mitch, it's all over. The Super Bowl is February 12, and the stock price period is right in the middle of it.

I think Mulligan gets offered a buyout to retire the Friday after the Super Bowl and they move Grote in with Haugh. Everything from 6pm-6am and all weekends move to national except when Cubs or Bulls are on. But it won't last, and eventually they will find a way out of the Cubs and Bulls deals, maybe through an Audacy bankruptcy.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Really?

The two things I gleaned from that column were:

1) Jim O’Donnell is still alive? and

2) I had a headache by the third paragraph.

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Not a mult.

I would be worried if I worked at The Score. They had no problem dissolving the milwaukee station. Don't worry about buyouts though, the cheap fucks at Audacy still have everyone up here under contract and have started assigning them random shit to do to keep getting paid. I can't wait until Parkins is doing a sports minute for the national crap they will put on The Score every hour on the 55's to keep getting his check.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Joe O. could be the new Face of the Station!

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Score is Doomed was posting this crap 20 years ago. As long as they are making money they will continue to exist. It doesn’t matter if it’s ads for strip joints like it was back in what many here consider their heyday or if it’s gambling now.

Also, I don’t believe for a second that you are “hearing “ anything.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

I have a hard time believing sports talk goes away with the rise of legalized betting.

That may put people like Bernstein & Holmes on thin ice - though I suspect Bernstein will do what it takes to survive - but the younger guys and those into betting will be fine.

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Mike North's classic read for bachelor parties at Hawthorne still cracks me up: "...they throw the strippers at ya!"

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If the Bears leave WBBM that leaves a huge hole for the incoming Chicago Jaguars at a much more affordable price.

Audacy will figure out the NYSE listing. Companies just reverse split to regain compliance.

On their finances, they are still growing revenues and generating modest operating income. Their problem is a multibillion debt load. Their trigger date is November 2024 when a large chuck comes due. They also have some debt that is variable in nature so the interest expense will go up.

Longer term, I think the finances need to be restructured. There is no way cost cutting gets them out of this.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Notes from their last earnings call:

My comments first: they are going to be cutting a lot of legacy radio costs. The entire push is toward digital and podcasts. Their legacy radio advertising is not supporting the current cost structure. We will find out more in the Q3 call, and I suspect a very large restructuring is forthcoming.

“ Number five, well, one can debate whether or not we’re currently in a recession. The fact is that substantial portions of our business have effectively been in a deep recession since the start of the pandemic, from an advertising perspective, due to supply chain issues, most notably auto. So while a healthy number of our primary customer categories now exceed pre-pandemic spending levels, auto has remained 40% under 2019 levels.”

“ Number six, expenses. We are working to enact substantial sustainable savings through a number of measures to improve margins and profitability across the business. We believe we will be able to deliver meaningful cost reductions without hindering our strategic priorities and growth plans.”

“ Turning to the third quarter, clearly the level of uncertainty about the outlook is elevated. But based on where we are today, we projected our revenues for the quarter will come in flat to down low single digits.”

“ Look, we have we have the ability to reshape our cost structure and adapt to market conditions and we’re actively working to do that now. And -- but it is not getting easier. And but we look forward to sharing with you the results of this work during our third quarter call and I think you’ll see that we are making and we will have made significant progress.”

“ The company is actively working to reduce its expenses and we expect to be able to reduce the rate of our expense growth in the third quarter to about 1% to 2%. We will provide more specificity about the scope and extent of our expense reduction actions and their impact on the fourth quarter and on 2023 during our third quarter call.”

“ Craig Huber

I appreciate that. My last question guys ratings for your legacy radio operations. Is there any updated data that you can give us there, though, that’s trending versus a year ago?

David Field

Yeah. I mentioned in my remarks that the ratings for our aggregate station group were up 5% in second quarter over first quarter and that compared to industry growth of 3%.”


“ Again, assuming any recession that we face is not severe and that the recovery commences in the second half of 2023, we believe we ought to be able to refinance our $767 million of outstanding first-lien debt well before this debt matures in about two years.”

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Hawaii (fuck) You

"Rong-ey"

It does seem that the current group really can only produce maybe a segment or two per day of unique content, hence the need to fill time droning on and on about the approved SJW takes of the day.

This creates an environment where you only really need a morning show to update and discuss the previous night, national stuff until 3-4 PM, and then wrap around that nights game with pre/post and play by play providing your content until you go back national after 10-11 PM.

Very odd because the mother ship must be doing constant research on the type of content people are interested in consuming via AM radio, cannot imagine having on some random person from some random podcast (most likely the athletic) to do 15 minutes creating fables about the evil of having Tony La Russa manage the sox with two mid day AM radio hosts who are almost foaming at the mouth in their zeal to sound more woke than the random podcast host is something that a large number of AM radio listeners would find appealing, but maybe I'm just a bad guy.

Some of these shows would be better if the hosts actually ever disagreed on anything. I think the hosts must think it's a better show if they are united in that day's conversation, but I'd rather hear some actual difference in opinions from time to time.

The La Russa stuff is interesting from the standpoint that 3 or 4 years ago, the same hosts on The Score who now tell you he's actively losing games, previously told you a manager makes no difference in a team's performance. They would actively laugh at callers who thought a manager mattered. Now, because everything is so political, if you think that TLR is not the main reason the team isn't performing, you're more likely to be called a racist than actually discuss the topic, but that's more of a text message communication now since not many calls are taken.

SJW and political opinions are, too often, the underlying theme for angles a host takes. Some will come right out with their political take, others like to drop hints, but, sometimes (or too often) it makes me extremely skeptical that a sports opinion isn't really just an attack on that person's social/political positions.

The Score would be better if they talked sports and left the other stuff out, but they won't do that. They believe that having a microphone gives them some sort of influence to speak on topics that most of the audience they have left probably would prefer to not hear and they have become much more emboldened in doing so. It's hard to see that stopping since they seem to think that is now part of their job.

Jason Goff as a full-time host is the linchpin to the template of destroying the Score and making it unlistenable. The sjw spiel was ignited by him station wide. Before him old Bernstein was a novelty act. When Goff called out listeners and opposing views as Nazis Larry knew it was wide open now. An only talk sports edict was put forth but it was for show and didn't stick. Goff got canned but left his mark on a station now spiraling downward. Now the sjw's were station wide taking a wrecking ball to it daily pushing more listeners away.

Every host says Managers Don't Matter and then 40 times a year complain about a managerial move in the game. They THINK managers don't matter but they never ACT like managers don't matter.

Danny Deadspin was already bringing the language of "moral clarity" to the Score via his engagement with Brooklyn-based media discourse. Jason just tried to synthesize Senor and Bomani Jones.

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