He's also in charge of making sure you can get the signal everywhere you go.

Well, he's 63. Near retirement anyway. I'm sure he was making pretty good money for the last decade or so managing all of these Chicago radio stations. So he's fine.

Is Ferrall that guy who would "pour" callers a drink when asked?

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Ferrall is the guy who sounds like someone kicked Tom Waits in the nads.

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He dropped that sounded like he was pouring a drink akin to what Pat Foley has when he pitches Miller Lite during Blackhawks games. I recall the very raspy voice.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

As speculated when CBS sports radio launched, now that the SCORE has new magagment, watch Jim Rome be shoved on the SCORE. New York fired Zimmerman. They want Rome in Chicago. He's making 25 million. They want to maximize that investment. So of course they want him in the 3rd largest market. He's on when Goff and Spiegel are on. Goff's Score option is approaching, by the way. So it's any easy out for one of them and they could just pay off Spiegel.

Goff:

Spiegel:

Dealing with CBS's usual New York crap is one thing, but Rome is a Los Angeles guy. I don't think I can stress enough how little an appetite there is for Lakers talk here.

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Yea fuck Rome.

But you act like he's only on in L.A. He must have some success in other cities or he wouldn't have gotten his 25 million per year.

The people I know who listened to Rome the most were in medium-sized markets that didn't need or couldn't sustain a full slate of local sports talk: Wichita, Portland, etc. I know he had a smattering of fans here, but clearly not enough. I can tell you firsthand that he failed miserably in Milwaukee, which also pissed off the Bristol bigwigs when Rome replaced Kornheiser in the market.

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Anything would be better than Dumbass and Fatass, anything at all would be an improvement.

I like Rome but maybe only because I get small doses few and far between. CH, didn't he fail in Chicago because he was always delayed and on at weird times?

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I dunno, I wasn't really plugged into Chicago sports radio when Rome was on here. I want to say he was on in middays at 1000 (same situation as Milwaukee, bumping Kornheiser) and then got relegated to overnights on tape delay. (Unlike Milwaukee, which was and still is just an affiliate of ESPN, 1000 is an O&O, so their decision to carry syndicated programming from Premiere in lieu of their own was uncharacteristic to begin with.) If so, he ultimately failed due to bad scheduling, but got the bad scheduling because he already failed in a useful daypart. Again, I think I was in high school at the time this was all happening, so this is all highly unreliable.

The point is that Chicago has historically not taken to syndicated programming all that well. Sure, Rush did okay once upon a time, but I think he benefited immensely from strong live/local programming in drivetimes. Stern failed miserably in Chicago, the original WMVP with the Fabulous Sports Babe and all that crap failed even more miserably and even the second time around didn't truly catch on until Mac got there -- again, live and local.

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Gordon must be posting on the Larz board.

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Kenny Williams fell for the banana in the tailpipe

its entirely probable that if 670 goes to more national broadcasts, subjecting us to more Scott Ferrell, Amy Lawrence and SATURDAY NIGHT HUGE SHOW, i'll never listen to sports radio again

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

who the hell is up at this time of day posting on a message board?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

its how i stay sane at work. And its the best time to get caught up and sneak in a thought or two.

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

1000 made a full push for his show. He even came to Chicago to do the first show and sat in with Mac.

The backlash was pretty immediate, because he didn't have enough thoughts on the 85 Bears so 1000 starting fucking with the time slot, and we ended up with Mariotti. The majority of Chicago sports fans are morons which is evidenced by the current state of affairs.

Rome is pretty tame now anyway. Back then the show was hard to follow for people who didn't want to give it time which they didn't.

I agree with the stranger.

They almost lost me once about a decade ago when they went national from about 7 pm until 5 am and entirely on the weekends.

Mitch was a savior of local sports talk at the station.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

He was. I kind of liked him on Fridays back in those days. Rehab takes all the fun out of life...for him, not me. I can still drink

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Yeah, but isn't the increased presence of national programming the likely scenario here? It's the easy thing to do if you want to stop hemorrhaging money, and doing so would coincide with the parent company's long-term strategic interest (assuming it is truly committed to a national sports network).

Those celebrating the ouster of Zimmerman may one day look upon his era as a golden age of Chicago sports talk.

Increasing corporate control of a local radio market is likely not a positive development. The interests of Chicago sports talk listeners and those of the CBS corporate masters are antagonistic.

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Agreed. I think the collective we had this same conversation when CBS first took control of the Score.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Fernandez has a background in economics and Pohlman is basically a sales guy. These are not creative visionaries. They are going to roll out the guillotine (Les and Boers will be among the first to go, I would imagine), pump up network programming, and look to increase programming and ad sales associated with the Cubs.

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sounds like a great time for an independent sports station! FANS TALKIN TO FANS!!!

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Absolutely, dolphin. The corporatization of the Score has undermined the quality of sports talk radio in Chicago. As you pointed out, Mitch's "go local" strategy has shielded sports talk listeners from the worst aspects of corporatization. But this is likely to change under Fernandez and Pohlman.

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For a lot of people's sake, they better hope Mitch Rosen stays.

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Somewhat interesting interview with Fernandez here: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20151028/MEDIA_ENTERTAINMENT/151029846/cbs-radio-president-says-traditional-radio-still-has-new-yorkers-ears.

Based on his general philosophy, it sounds like Mitch might be retained.

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These are key points for me:

"1) Your predecessor, Dan Mason, was a lifelong radio guy. Your background is in finance and operations.

I’ve worked in radio and media for the past 10 or 11 years, including parts of media that have been under more pressure than radio and had to transform themselves. That experience gave me a good understanding of the transformation that must take place.

Are layoffs part of the transformation?

2) I need to make sure resources are deployed where we’ve got the greatest growth potential. That means reducing in some areas but also investing heavily in others."

1) Finance people look only in terms of cost/benefit. He'll perform the analysis I outlined earlier, namely the profit margins of each individual station. The bottom rung will face lots of changes. We don't know how WSCR measures up in that regard.
2) Jobs will be cut.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yeah, I think we can assume that local overnights will no longer exist at the station. Boers won't be renewed at the end of his contract (if he doesn't retire), and the hosts that aren't fired will be required to take pay cuts. My understanding is that the station already operates on a shoestring marketing and administrative budget, so it will be interesting to see if further cuts will be made there.

Given Fernandez's stated appreciation for radio "personalities," it's possible that Mully and Hanley may be bumped from the morning slot in favor of a bigger name with greater drawing power across multiple demographics (if such a person exists in the Chicago market).

Fernandez/Pohlman will undoubtedly also be looking for ways to better integrate digital content into their overall revenue strategy. I would imagine they will invest in this area, probably adding at least one staff member.

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TM, do you have any sense as to how WSCR stacks up against other CBS radio properties? Meaning, is it a financial laggard such that upper management would look to make serious changes?

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Hawaii (fuck) You