With it only getting a 1.0 in the latest ratings, is there any point for them to keep it on? Might as well just make everything national radio at this point.

Bernstein and McKnight is still on the air. There is a glimmer of hope.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

Well, ESPN 1500 in the Twin Cities got rid of Reusse ( ) and all other local shows save for one (Mackey & Judd), and replaced it with their ultra-crappy national garbage, so yeah, it's possible. I think Chicago being a bigger market may compel them to keep Kap and W&S, at least, and probably put 2-3 hours of LeBatard on.

Here in Columbus, there is an ESPN AM freq that does all the national stuff, and there is a FM freq that is all live and local (and pretty good), save for the excruciating Golic & Wingo. I believe neither station is an ESPN O&O, however.

Someone please tell me how the melodramatic, simpering Will Cain not only has a national show, but is basically in afternoon drive??? Thank fucking Christ W&S are on instead of him in Chicago. Goddamn, the Spain & Fitz show is more listenable than Cain, which ain't no great feat. The best national radio host they have right now is Freddie Coleman, and he's been stuck on late nights for years. Maybe that's the shift he likes, but damn, the rest of the roster (save for the LeBatard show) is hot garbage.

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Not a mult.

Realistically, at some point it may just be Waddle and Silvy and the rest a national simulcast.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

The funny thing is WMVP could've beat 670 entirely 2-5 years ago if they just had their own local morning show to go up against Mully and Hanley.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

#FatherOfTheYear

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The network was never gonna have an owned-and-operated station not clear their own morning show. Of course, you could argue that in the wake of Mike & Mike, there was no reason to have a national morning show in the first place, but even the stations out west have to run Golic & Wingo, albeit at 3 in the morning. I would have had a regional morning show for midwestern ESPN affiliates, obviously emanating from Chicago, but that's just me and I don't know anything.

But I think newper has it right and significantly cutting down local programming is most likely what's ahead for 1000. They may try to sell it as being local in spirit because Sarah Spain is on it, but it'll be national, and no one likes Sarah Spain much anymore anyway.

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People have gone from hating her to completely forgetting that she exists.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

ESPN only owns and operates three "local" radio stations: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.

ESPN always pumps up their online numbers (which they conveniently don't release), but if the three biggest markets typically produce minimal ratings and barely put a dent in the competition, then...

The thing is that in many other markets, ESPN's syndicate has minimal competition.

Even in a mid-sized market like Raleigh/Durham, one company owns three frequencies. Their flagship has Golic/Wingo, the first two hours of LeBatard, then a statewide syndicated show that is localish (Hurricanes, Panthers, ACC, and a little NASCAR), then a local show 3-7. They also broadcast Hurricanes, Panthers, and AAA baseball, or else ESPN at night. The other two stations have some CBS Sports Radio and NBC Sports Radio (Florio), some live sports, and some other shit. But they really aren't competing at all against each other, just against other talk radio.

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

You can still tell national advertisers that their message is being heard regularly in the nation's three biggest markets.

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taking everyone back into the foggy haze of history, WMVP was pretty much all national when Mc Neil arrived. The success of HFC allowed him to throw some weight around and expand the local programming on the station. I believe they had shifted to all local between 9 am and 9 pm at some point. However, local and national management's heart was never really into local sports radio. They haven't really fostered talent nor developed a local identity and the station has slowly shifted back to more national.

We used to have these types of discussions back when this site cared more about discussion concerning sports talk radio. I don't exactly know what ESPN radio's business model is. They want to own stations but they don't really care if those stations draw listeners. They seem to want the stations in the biggest cities to just hold a place so that they have a country wide network that dominates in smaller areas.

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

Yeah the Will Cain show is a tough listen.

I still think LeBatard is the beat radio show (simulcast) out there. IMO it’s tbe closest thing I can find to the golden days of BmB without the callers.

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I've posted the Radio Faces documentaries a time or two here. One of them features an interview with Norm Van Lier and some other guy, who were hosting at 1000 circa 1995-1996. The other guy said the Score was a station for lunkheads and they were going to be the smarter alternative. I believe it then smash-cut to Harry and Spike doing awful radio. The station has never known what it wanted to be -- remember, they even bungled the launch of the sports format and had to backstep into simulcasting the Loop again until they dreamed it back up again.

It's not hard to envision a parallel universe where North never gets any big ideas about hosting solo, Mac never gets fed up and leaves, and ABC/Disney either gives up on ESPN 1000 as a full-fledged competitor to the Score or sells it off altogether as they exit the radio business. Maybe Chicago would have been a national anomaly in having only one sports talk station, like how we used to have zero top 40 stations.

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I agree with you about DLB. He pisses off the lunkheads because he doesn't talk about sports enough. He has Greg Cote (Tuesdays) and Stan Van Gundy ) Wednesdays) on once a week each for the full show, and today he had Stan talking for a half hour about why he likes plain snack foods like original Ruffles and Chips Ahoy cookies. Meanwhile Stugotz kept on insisting he could return some pro tennis player's serve.

Meanwhile, his new weekly podcast evokes Bob Costas doing Later. A guy like Bernstein would kill his children to be able to do a long form interview that well.

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

If it didn't cave during the Harry and Spike and Fabulous Sports Babe era, I think it will continue to limp along a while longer.

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Fabulous Sports Babe...Hadnt thought about her for a long time. The Original red hippo

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Yeah can you imagine if social media had been present during her "heyday"?

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Whatever happened to her? She still working somehwere

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I remember that awful first incarnation of WMVP as sports. The Flabulous Sports Bore, Dahl being forced to do sports while sobering up and awkwardly paired with Bruce Wolf, Van Lier, Brian Davis' fake ass radio voice, Lance "hey, let's talk about the Cincinnati Reds!" McAllister, and Grobber on DURING THE DAY. They had 50,000 watts 24 hours while the Score was stuck on 820 going off the air at 5:00 in the wintertime, and the Score still kicked their ass.

In a rare time Les talked about his espn days working the day shift. He said Mike North told Him looking back he and the score feared Les in a ratings battle which they infrequently did. I'm thinking Les could beat the score when they went off the air at 5. North pulling Les's leg? But, back then Les was still goofy, but I remember his day afternoon espn show being an actual current events sports show opposed to his current score overnight stroll through Les's sports memory lane of yesteryear and all the locker room good guys he's met.

wasn't it Grobber and Dahl? That was brutal.

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

Dahl did morning sports show awhile there before it was espn. Can't remember who with. Wolf? When with Grobber, Dahl would be vicious constantly trying to humiliate him. Wolf on a podcast said he and Dahl were at each others throats when they paired.

I saw a billboard for Carmen and Jurko on 294 today. It said "They Refuse to Go Quietly." or something like that. Where are they, in the context of the billboard, "going?"

I also saw one for Kaplan, who looks like as much as a cheeseball douche on the billboard as you would expect.

Dahl was paired with Wolf at WMVP. Him and Meier had Grobber as their sports guy a decade earlier at WLS.

That's a good description. Usually an enjoyable listen whenever I happen upon it.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

you gotta keep Waddle and Silvy.

That's as Chicago as Ditka and Harry Caray.

But really, who the fuck listens to these stations during the day?

Don't people work and shit?

I have no idea who these names are on WMVP, except for Waddle and Silvy.

Anyway, I'd like to see more national shows and shit. Like First Take with Smith and Kellerman, etc.

Chicago sports-wise has always been too provincial and not much national perspective.

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They don't simulcast First Take on the radio. Smith has his own radio show that only airs in NYC and on Sirius.

His radio show is simulcast on espnews after the lebatard show at noon.

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