First, a couple of select quotes from around the industry. From the legendary Ben Fong-Torres:
“The A’s deserve a terrific radio signal to be on,” said Dwight Walker, VP and market manager for Entercom/SF. Weak reception “has diminished their exposure in the past.” He said “The Wolf” and baseball broadcasts are a good fit. “Baseball is the national pastime, and there’s no better place to put that than with America’s original music form, country.”
Before the A’s finalized their deal with KBWF, they needed a local station to air the Giants series and called on KFRC. “They needed the favor and we were happy to do it,” said Doug Harvill, Senior VP/market manager at CBS Radio.
KTRB is carrying on with a barebones staff and, now, without the A’s and Dito’s “Press Box,” which ended Friday. “We’re still programming the station,” said Barr, whose syndicated Sports Byline stable of talk shows fills many hours each day. “The station’s still in play. The A’s could still buy it. Maybe Entercom (which also owns KUFX, “KFOX,” which carries San Jose Sharks games) buys KTRB and puts the Sharks and the A’s on it.”
Next up, Inside Radio suggests that some of the programming could be provided by Sporting News Radio.
(Entercom) is looking to leverage a lot of the lessons it’s learned in Boston where sports WEEI (850) has been a dominant station for many years. WEEI VP of programming Jason Wolfe is working with consultant Rick Scott to develop the new San Francisco station’s line-up. They’ll also use network shows from Sporting News Radio.
My guess is that SNR will be used for the late night/overnight hours and weekends. It’s relatively cheap and a step up professionally from Sports Byline.
As mentioned as an update to the previous post, Sacramento’s Rob, Arnie and Sports Show will fill the 4-6 PM block. That’s important, because a lot of the time that programming will be preempted by A’s pre and postgame, plus games on the East Coast. This applies for the Sharks too. It’s a big deal because there won’t be a local host whose ego could be bruised by constant preemption, a la Damon Bruce.
The rest of the regular weekday lineup is up in the air. Surely some of the talent from Sports Byline wants in, especially Roxy Bernstein. Former KNBR host Larry Krueger, who is currently on Sirius satellite radio, might want a shot. I’m curious to see what Chris Townsend’s regular slot will be.
One thing we might see: one of the current local sports anchors on with a regular co-hosting gig. Here’s a list of current anchors on OTA and cable (CSN):
- Larry Beil
- Mike Shumann
- Dennis O’Donnell
- Kim Coyle
- Raj Mathai
- Laurence Scott
- Mark Ibanez
- Fred Inglis
- Joe Fonzi
- Greg Papa
- Jim Kozimor
- Mychael Urban
There’s also the possibility that some KNBR guys could jump ship such as Gary Radnich, who I believe is under contract at the moment. AN regulars have been calling into the Townsend’s show today. I could see AN radio as a weekly hour if it’s be done right. One thing you probably won’t hear: new A’s ballpark radio. I’m pretty sure that would be the most boring thing ever to disgrace the airwaves.
One side benefit of moving to FM is the availability of HD radio. Until now, the HD1 channel has carried the regular analog signal while HD2 had a Classic Country format. HD1 retains the normal FM feed. Anyone out there with a HD radio who can tell me what’s happening with the HD2 channel? Entercom could keep this as is or deploy different programming if they choose.
I’m geeking out right now. And on tax day, no less!
newballpark.org 
Currently HD 95.7-2 is playing country music.
Any chance Rick Tittle could come over to 95.7
townsend at least we’ll have his pre and hopefully 2 hour or so post game shows. i don’t know if he’ll have a local show but i’d guess he will as he’s the one constant with the team and mentioned in the other thread he has a knowledge of the local sports scene here in the bay area due to him being on air in some capacity locally since the late 90s. i wonder if his sportsbyline show at night will be on 95.7. be sort of an extended a’s post game during night games on the west coast.
as for sporting news radio. i agree it’s probably a step up in terms of overall quality compared to sportbyline but i’d perfer fox sports personally for overnight and weekend programming. jt the brick although not a huge fan of him as i was back in the late 90s-early 2000s had a history with the bay area radio landscape including having his own local show from 12-3 on 1050 back in the early 2000s. course when 1050 dropped fox sports a few years ago, although they have bruno’s night time show from 7-10, jt had a huge following here locally especially with raiders fans going back to his sports fan radio network days that also used to air on 1050 during the late night/overnight time period. his show returned replacing townsend’s show during 860 although townsend’s show would return to the overnight spot until the bank got control of the station and nothing was audible at night once baseball season was over.
i’ve been baning on bringing in krueger for probably over a year. think he’d be a much needed breathe of fresh air coming back to the sports radio landscape. he did a few promos on 860 and townsend brought him on his night time show, a show which krueger used to cohost before he went to xm to do a show for russo although he was later fired. didn’t know krueger was back on satellite but i’d def would try to land him and maybe team him back up with townsend who cohosted a show both on sportsbyline as mentioned previously and they did a weekend show for 1140 back in the mid 2000s so they have a chemistry on air.
as for those other names you mentioned, personally not a huge fan of any them since all are huge sf homers and have conistently shown no love towards the a’s org or a’s fans with their coverage or lack of coverage of the team.
papa would be ideal had he remained with the a’s and along with his raiders job but can’t see him leaving his cushy csn job, not to mention the jabs at the org he’s taken over the years.
radnich, no freakin way. he may have “name value” but his shows are boring as hell. he was decent back a decade or so ago during his first run doing sports when he went to the morning and came back, he’s awful and imo half asses it. he too has very little good things to say about the a’s, in fact other than ralphy boy during the afternoon radnich probably has taken the most shots at the a’s and raiders in fact over anybody on that station. the only guy who id’ want from knbr is bruce. i read something interesting a few months ago where a fan who said he knows bruce told him that bruce himself doesn’t think he’ll be on knbr long term. bruce before he landed on knbr was working for sportsbyline.
mcgowen who was on knbr did raiders post game, so did 1140’s ross. maybe they can be hired to do some sort of “raiders talk” on 95.7 and actually take raiders phone calls, something they imo didn’t do enough of when they did the raiders post game show on 1550 this past season. mcgowen actually filled in for buan back in 09 during a nyy road series. he’d bring in some much need experience to a new station.
def would hope tittle would be brought back. imo his show on 860 was great. although reading some in the a’s mb/blog community not being huge fans of his or his callers, i still think he would be an ideal option to bring into the station.
former 1140 cohost and current fox sports radio talent lamb also is a guy who 95.7 could look at. he’s a a’s fan, don’t know if he’s a raiders fan but he knew about the team when talking about it when he used to be on 1140.
tittle, townsend, krueger, mcgowen, ross, lamb…first handful should be really considered for 95.7.
great day. i had been wishing for this to happen ever since the a’s deal with 860 fell apart. been posting links about discussion about 95.7 moving to an all sports format in recent days so glad it happened.
question is even if 95.7 tried to land a big name like radnich, do they have the money to bring him in? personally don’t want him but would entercom/a’s pay that much to bring in a “big name” talent and i use the word talent loosely.
i don’t think it cost that much to hire somebody like a krueger or other names mentioned to do a local show. with the way the sports radio landscape is, i think many quality host who’ve lost their job in recent years would love to do a show for the salary a station like 95.7 or either entercom/a’s franchise would be willing to pay them.
I still think it’d be a good idea if they put a Spanish language broadcast on the HD subchannel. Even if hardly anybody would listen to it, it would still be good PR.
New A’s Ballpark radio, love the concept. Whatever the topic, the callers say the same three things.
also athleticnation radio show? i think there should be an athletics after dark show. that site has all the great interviews and really was the only place to actually have serious a’s hot shove talk this past offseason.
@letsgoas – Good point on Athletics After Dark. Dale Tafoya does a bangup job and his interview shows could work during the weekends as extended pregame material. In Slusser’s blogpost she mentions longtime behind-the-scenes guy David Feldman, who is a font of baseball information and history. Put him and David Koppett (son of the great Leonard Koppett) together and I figure you’d have any and all baseball history covered, especially locally.
i remember feldman was sort of a cohost with herrera back in the late 90s and he filled in nicely as an alternative to herrera due to him actually being an a’s fan all his life knowing as much about the team as anybody else which you can’t stay has been the case with past hosts like ditto, herrera, buan and even townsend even though he personally has been the best postgame host the a’s have ever had imo. none were a’s fans growing up.
don’t know who the hosts were before ditto when he was the host back in the mid 90s but i don’t think they provided the type of platform for a’s fans as townsend has given us.
heck it’s 12:20 am here and the post game show on radio is still going on.
Truly I think this blog is one of the best. I’d listen to A’s New Ballpark radio and be the crank calling in. ML — Appreciate the posts today. Good stuff. I’m still trying to get my core temperature up after that chilly game.
sporting news radio is on the air right now. former espn late night host t.wright is the host currently.
wonder why they chose sporting news when if i had to guess it’s third behind both espn and fox sports radio.
funny reading around a lot want 95.7 to go after bruce. i said it before that he’d be the only knbr host i’d want to hire from that station but would bruce want to leave? he has a pretty good job according to him hosting from 12-4 on 1050. he said he’d much rather stay and doing daytime radio than night time radio if ever sportsphone 680 was offered back to him.
also if you didn’t know bruce did mention the news about 95.7 but didn’t say the station in particular. he said it at the very beginning of his show fri, really the first words that came out of his mouth of his show he mentioned it without really mentionging it and you can listen to it right here.
[audio src="http://www.knbr.com/portals/3/podcasts/damonbruce/0415%20-%20HOUR%201.mp3" /]
i don’t know if any other local host mentioned it, doubt it, but at least bruce acknowledged it.
speculation is that some who’ve worked under cumulus are tired of the bs happening there, don’t know what they mean and they could leave and go to a place like 95.7 which is owned by entercom and their history shows they’d done a good job with radio sports formats across the country. i know i’ve read lieberman in recent months saying there would be shakeups on cumulus stations most notably knbr and that some big name firings could take place soon. now the one big “fire” i guess at this time would be urban who was essentially fired from his weekend post game duties but is that the only guy knbr/cumulus would let go.
would be kind of amusing to have townsend, krueger and bruce on 95.7 down the road. those three i don’t think would hold back on what they would have to stay about cumulus or knbr in general. we know how townsend feels about knbr and just the entire sf sports scene as a whole since he’s a san diego guy although having lived in nocal for a long time he has a sense of the area and he’s made it known what his true feelings are about the area when he was on 860 doing post games for the a’s especially.
krueger we know didn’t hold back and he was from the area. bruce came in with bit of an edge but has lightened up a bit, some have mockingly said that’s a reason why he’s been allowed on chron live more when given other examples of those critical like kawakami and even lieberman aren’t allowed on the show anymore really because of their critical thoughts.
I think we should pray that Cumulus doesn’t end up buying 95.7 and turning it into KNBR FM. Here in Corpus we have a sports station that’s on three different dial positions(two FM and one AM) and I wonder if this is happening in other markets. Cumulus just bought Citadel and will now own KGO and KSFO as well. It doesn’t matter how well Entercomm is doing, either. Buying and selling stations across markets is just the nature of the business,
So, now what about the angle on San Jose, the Giants and t-rights? Did this just raise the Giants price if they’re to be paid for their *inconvenience*. Seems like the first real threat to the Giants dominating Bay Area radio in a long while. Hopefully for Oakland fans, this will make more of a stink for San Francisco.
@whiteelephantparade. That’s true, this is probably the most meticulously maintained hobby blog of any kind in the Bay Area. ML never misses a trick.
from listening to townsend both on his pre and post game show where he took calls, i don’t know how receptive shows or hosts would be if they were to talk anything but east bay sports especially any other baseball other than a’s.
many many times callers would say finally we have our own “knbr” so even though 95.7 at this time wants to be a bay area sports station even playing highlights of the sfg during the promos they aired thru out the day before 4 friday, i dont’ think a’s fans or pro east bay fans would want any pro sfg talk on 95.7. now can that be said about the other teams like the niners? i don’t know. i dont think there is as much hatred for them because they aren’t shoved down the throat of sports fans by the media here in the bay area.
be nice to have 1 or 2 hour shows specifically to talk about the teams here like using generic names like “a’s talk”, “sharks talk”, “raiders talk”, heck even “warriors talk” thru out the week. maybe not all those shows airing every day but have a time of the day from 6-8 PM at night for example or during the day and have a’s/raiders talk on mon-wed-fri and sharks/warriors talk on tue-thurs. something to that effect.
could have townsend doing a’s and sharks talk since he did much of that fri during the afternoon before a’s pre game. some combo of lamb/mcgowen/ross doing raiders talk. maybe krueger if he’s hired can do warriors and or heck even niners talk if they’ll allow it.
Another potential local host is Joe Castellano. He used to host a show on the MLB channel on XM. I believe he sometimes fills in for Damon Bruce now. I will make the caveat that he is a Giants fan, but I always thought his XM show was pretty good.
@Crister-i was thinking the same thing. If there is a price, it has gone up for the Giants. This helps Oakland’s cause in the big picture of things, IMHO.
@Georob and baycommuter–i agree on this being a well run, informative site. ML is right on top of things and has done a hell of a job. I wish it had more Oakland fans than all the San Jose rah rah’s though to balance things out. To steal someone’s line on here from the other day (which I can’t quite find to give credit to): I feel like a hippie at a teaparty rally in here.
It will be interesting to hear the lineup on Monday.
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I wonder if the Entercom is interested in their Sacramento station being an affiliate?
@letsgoas, IIRC over the last 20 years the A’s have the following post game hosts. Mark Ibanez (1992), Steve McPartlin(1993), Vern Glenn (1994 and 1995), Ken Ditto (97, 98) rich Herrera (1999), Robert Buan for a decade and now Chris Townsend.
Got to give props to Buanie for adding stability to that post for 10 years.
how are the a’s getting a sports radio station have anything to do with the territorial right’s ransom increasing?
telling me a team in the area can’t get a sports radio station of their own because the other team has had basically a monopoly of the sports radio airwaves since forever.
if the a’s buy into csnca, does that mean it’s an “inconvience” and the price goes up for sj’s rights too? please.
Agreed. There is no correlation between this radio news and the T-rights matter.
You beat me to it RM. letsgoas is right on! No correlation whatsoever between this outstanding news and the bull shit T-Rights. And as a reminder: the Giants don’t control the “price” of the T-Rights, MLB does. By the way letsgoas, your fingers must be very fatigued…outstanding posts my friend!
ibanez, the guy from channel two here? the biggest sf homer out of all the news sports broadcaster did a’s post gme shows? ha!
still can’t believe buan was a postgame host for this team for close to a decade as he took midway thru the 2000 season when herrera i think left for fox sports radio and at this time currently works for the tb org.
i didn’t mind buan early on, those first few years but those last 2-3 years he was i just couldn’t listen to his show and rarely listend to the post game show which i had started to listen full time probably dating back to ditto when i was in high school. townsend has been a huge breathe of fresh air. he actually lets a’s fans vent and express their thoughts which buan imo never did especially when the comments were critical of the team and they were especially during those last few years when the team was mediocre.
many seem to want lurie back but imo they can have him. like many who do leave the a’s, he took his shots at the org and the fans. i can understand a bit about the org but early last year when he did sf postgames he said that he couldn’t do these long postgame shows with the a’s because he didn’t believe there would be enough a’s fans who called in? well i think that thought is wrong as townsend does have long post games, some reaching as mentioned many times over 2-3 hours at times last season and i’m sure if given enough oppurtunities for a’s fans to call in with 95.7 local programming, there will be enough a’s fans to call in and discuss the team thru out the day. we already see that with tittle during his year plus run on 860.
Hmmmm….Rob and Arnie, huh? I guess thats cool. I’d like to see that connection go one step further and make Sacramento 1320 an A’s affiliate. Add me to the list of people hoping to see Tittle join the new station. Ken Ditto’s (recently demised) Press Box too. PLUS, I’d love to hear a show Hosted by Bip Roberts and Shooty Babbit.
anybody know what kind of format that show starting from 4-6 sac has? is it caller driven where they take phone calls or do they talk with each other and take calls occassionaly.
hopefully we get to read or see the lineup for monday soon, like tonight maybe.
guessing they’ll change the call letters to the station too. KOSJ? lol
Well, I still think that if the stadium issue was close to a resolution Lew Wolff would have swallowed hard and bought KTRB. Of course, he still might but I say the station goes Spanish. As for 95.7, it’s time to get some fresh talent in there, as opposed to all the old names I’m seeing talked about here.
Between KCBS and now this, it may just be that Ipod use has finally reached critical mass and that music on FM is no longer a given.
I agree with Georob on the “talent” being bandied about. I wouldn’t bring anyone from KTRB, really. I love Rick Tittle’s passion but a lot of his takes on things are wildly off base.
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I don’t know that there is a single local media figure I would hear to talk about sports, besides Chris Townsend. It should be interesting to see how Entercom goes about filling out the schedule.
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I wonder if they might take a look at folks like the Rise Guys out in Sacramento?
yeah i don’t agree with tittle’s take all the time on the a’s but at least he’s an a’s fan. that’s something we in the bay area don’t have many of here locally with media types. he grew up an a’s/raiders fan so at least he has the passion for the east bay sports scene and isn’t some “outsider” brought in.
rise guys? i don’t know how likely a local morning show would be put on air. if i had to guess, the morning slot would be something syndicated. i know i’ve read some who want to bring ditto’s press box show to 95.7. i doubt you want to put that as a morning show or even to expand it any further than the one hour when it was on 860. but i could see ditto on 95.7 doing an hour in the morning like from 8-9. not like he’d cost much either to hire since he was basically working for free on 860.
townsend mon-fri from 1pm-4pm.
lieberman’s take on who 95.7 could hire…
http://richliebermanreport.blogspot.com/2011/04/all-sports-957-fm-and-potential-talent.html