Chris “Mad Dog” Russo was a guest of Grant & Danny on 106.7 The Fan in Washington yesterday afternoon. Hosts Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier introduced Russo as one of the legends of sports talk radio.
Paulsen then said, “But now you’re a big TV star as well.” Russo was quick to cut him off and said, “Let’s not go crazy, radio is the love. It starts with the radio.”
Paulsen then asked Russo directly, “Right now doing both [radio and television] is it still for you heavily skewed towards radio in terms of enjoyment?” “Yes,” he replied. “TV is much more powerful. You say things on TV that get a lot more traction. I said a lot of the things on TV that I said on radio for fifteen years and nobody heard it on the radio. You say it on TV and all of a sudden people get excited about it.”
Russo, who has his own Mad Dog Sports Radio channel on SiriusXM and hosts Mad Dog Unleashed at 2 p.m. ET each weekday, is also a frequent guest of ESPN’s First Take. He talked about the differences in the two formats. “The personality, the way you put together a radio show, the guests, calls, rants, figuring out the hour, I enjoy that more. TV is very producer oriented. You have seven segments, each segment is a certain amount of time, you have to pass it to the next guy, it’s a little different, its a very regimented thing.
“Radio, you can do whatever you want, get the breaks in when you want to get the breaks in, you have fun, you can be goofy, put anybody on you want. TV its more of a director’s medium, radio is more of a personality medium.”
