Nashville radio listeners were left stunned on Friday as 104.5 the Zone’s popular mid day show announced that it would not be back on Monday.
Jonathan Hutton, Chad Withrow, and Paul Kuharsky teased a major announcement before the last segment of the Friday show. When they came back from break, the trio thanks listeners and Cumulus management before saying they were done.
Both Hutton and Kuharsky issued statements of their own on Twitter.
Clay Travis confirmed to The Tennessean that the trio would join him at Outkick. They will not keep the Midday 180 name, but they will be a part of a new live programming effort for the site.
“I believe that they days of you sitting down and watching tradition cable are diminishing rapidly. And I think that people are going to seek out voices that that they care about and brands that they care about to consume their sports content,” Travis told the paper. “During 2021 our plan it to put together a video/podcast network where you can get live programming from Outkick from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. just like you would at an ESPN.”
With the annual BSM Top 20 due to be released in just over two weeks, the show’s departure from terrestrial radio is something of a victory for Dan Dakich of The Fan in Indianapolis. The two shows routinely battle for the top spot on the list of mid-market midday shows, with Dakich regularly coming out on top.
Chad Withrow doesn’t see it that way and he wants to make sure Dakich knows it.
“This is not a concession,” he told BSM in a text. “It’s just a momentary break in our fight to overtake Dan Dakich for #1 in the BSM rankings”.
