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CBS Radio weighs WFAN options
We understand there has been extended debate at CBS Sports Radio Network headquarters as to what should go where in New York — and soon.
When the new, national CBS Sports Radio Network is introduced here — TBA, in the next few months — the brief run of CBS-owned WFAN as an AM and FM simulcast will end.
Thus, CBS and WFAN must agree on what remains on FAN, what’s added to FAN and what’s removed from WFAN. Same for what’s heard on new FM sibling 101.9, which currently carries 660 AM’s programming.
Which becomes the national sports station? Which becomes the local? Or do they share?
It stands to reason CBS is eager to give its new national sports network the bigger boost in the biggest market by placing much or all of its programming on mega-signaled 660 AM.
After all, CBS spent a lot of dough to (slowly) launch this network last September, and on talent, including ex-ESPNers Doug Gottlieb and Jim Rome.
Ah, but it stands to equal reason that the resistance from WFAN and its incumbents would be at least as strong.
WFAN is as eager to sustain ratings-approved weekday drive time shows hosted by Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason (mornings) and Mike Francesa (afternoons into evenings) and live local sports (Mets, Nets, Devils) on AM for the same, muscle-signaled reason.
Everyone and everything regularly heard on WFAN would want to stick with 660, rather than be switched to the unaccustomed and reach-diminished 101.9 FM.
In other words, there are lots of tough decisions for CBS Radio to make, some guaranteed to leave some folks less than pleased, and those decisions must be made pretty soon.
It may be that CBS will attempt a difficult mix-and-match programming format with national and local shows between AM and FM— awaiting a numbers shakeout.
“We have a number of great options and are closely examining each one,” a CBS Radio spokesperson said Friday.
But 660 AM’s mighty signal means it will be the alpha dog of CBS’ two local sports stations. Now to see who and what gets possession of the doghouse, who and what sleeps outside.
No such decisions for ESPN Radio-NY, whose 1050 AM signal — now ESPN-NY in Spanish — is so weak, sundown-to-sunup, that it was eager to move to 98.7 FM, on which Knicks and Rangers night games, for example, can be heard more widely.
And Mets and Yankees radio rights expire after this season. CBS is eager to renew, but for one or both of its two sports stations, not likely any longer for WCBS AM 880. ESPN-NY, which now owns Mets’ Spanish rights for 1050 AM, wants one team or the other for 98.7 FM.
Or, as Groucho Marx, as Prof. Wagstaff in “Horse Feathers” told the movie audience, “I’ve got to stay here, but there’s no reason why you folks shouldn’t go out into the lobby until this thing blows over.”
Gambling risky for filthy rich, too
When Michael Jordan, among many fabulously wealthy and famous athletes, was revealed to be spending illogical amounts of time and big piles of dough gambling in casinos, the instant message from the media was this was of no concern because if anyone can afford to lose — and big — it was Jordan.
Lost or forgotten in this message was Leonard Tose, the late owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, on a parlay buy from his ownership of a huge trucking company, lost both to compulsive gambling.
Last week we saw how Maureen O’Connor, the former Mayor of San Diego and widow of the founder of Jack in the Box fast food franchises, gambled away a fortune likely far in excess of $13 million in cash, plus real estate and other assets, to stoke her addiction. And her story’s just beginning to be told.
The idea one can “afford” a gambling addiction is like saying the guy with the biggest gas tank can afford an explosion.
* MSG’s Islanders-Rangers telecast Thursday was loaded with strong replays and other good tapes.
The video of the Isles’ Michael Grabner accelerating, in 2 1/2 strides from a dead stop to a rocket down the right side was special. Fastest Islander since Bob Bourne?
And an instant before the buzzer to end the second period, Ranger Brian Boyle caught Islander Mark Streit up high near the face, along the near boards just past mid-ice. As they skated off, MSG, live and on tape, showed Boyle talking to Streit — something noted by analyst Joe Micheletti.
But that a picture is worth a thousand words doesn’t always render the picture unremarkable.
Neither Boyle nor Streit appeared agitated. Is it possible Boyle apologized to Streit, that he told him he didn’t realize the period was ending that instant or he wouldn’t have delivered the hit? Or that Boyle, at 6-foot-7, didn’t intend to hit Streit that high?
Micheletti, who played in the NHL, didn’t guess what they might have been discussing, or whether apologies for such things are spoken on the ice. But we would like to know such things, no? Maybe they’ll follow it up, ask both players about it, then get back to us.
Gruden best at ‘QB Camp’
Perhaps most frustrating about Jon Gruden’s relentless, nonsensical, contradiction-soaked verbal excesses as ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” analyst, is he is so good as the host of ESPN’s “QB Camp” — a show in which he calmly, casually talks with NFL draft-eligible quarterbacks.
Last year, the show’s third, Gruden talked theory, practice, strengths, weaknesses and life with rookies-to-be Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III and Ryan Tannehill. This year, USC’s Matt Barkley, Oklahoma’s Landry Jones and West Virginia’s Geno Smith, among others, are scheduled, starting April 4.
If only ESPN could convince Gruden to save some feet-up, take-it-easy commentary for Monday nights.
* ESPN’s continuing Winter X-Games, next month in Tignes, France, last week canceled a Snowmobile Freestyle event exhibition scheduled for Tignes.
The high-speed, downhill, platform-launched, high-flying 500-pound snowmobile stunt exhibition, following the death-by-crash of Caleb Moore while competing in ESPN’s Aspen X-Games on Jan. 31, is on hold, said ESPN, pending a “review.”
Review? Review of what? To determine whether the event is as indefensibly dangerous as designed or just plain lethal?
* Oscar Pistorius, the legless “Blade Runner,” when booked by police for murder in Pretoria, South Africa, on Thursday, hid his head as much as he could, bowed low and deep inside the hood of his sweatshirt. Guess he didn’t want to be recognized.