The 97.1 The Freak flag is no longer flying.
What started out as an ambitious, personality-forward format ended last week after less than a year-and-a-half of attempted disruption on the Dallas airwaves.
I was sad to see the reports that talented folks like Ben and Skin, Mike Rhyner, and Jeff Cavanaugh were out, with the iHeartMedia-owned signal returning to its former rock radio roots.
Despite the short run the station had, there were both good and bad items that came from its launch, short stay on the air, and ultimate demise.
The Good
The fact that a radio leader even attempted to do something like 97.1 The Freak is a good thing. We’re at a point where many “sports talk” shows are really “guy talk” shows, disguised as sports programs. And The Freak threw caution to the wind and simply embraced what it was, which I’ve championed in the past.
The station embodied everything local radio should be: personality-driven. People are seeking authenticity, personality, and connection. And that — more than anything else — is something local radio can provide. The Freak went all-in on local, well-known personalities, looking to build a station that featured fun, interesting, and entertaining discussions daily.
Being a boundary or status-quo pusher should be viewed as a good thing. Sports talk radio, in some places, has gotten stale. And talk radio — especially news/talk radio — is a format featuring roughly the same 15 national hosts espousing the same beliefs on the same subjects over and over again.
In my opinion, the talk radio space was rife with opportunity for a format like 97.1 The Freak, and a station, leadership team, and company being willing to take a chance on the idea deserves to be commended.
And while I think ambition should never be viewed as a negative, one of the biggest issues with 97.1 The Freak was its overly ambitious launch.
The Bad
When you try to be everything, you’re nothing. The station bucked the idea that it was not sports talk, it wasn’t political talk, it wasn’t music talk. It was just 97.1 The Freak. Which is great, if it had a full runway from iHeartMedia to let that brand coagulate for years.
But in the situation it found itself in — trying to be one of the forefathers of a fledgling genre — attempting to be everything for everyone proved to be too big of a chunk to bite off.
I think the demise of the station proves that having a baseline format — knowing that if the station says it’s a classic rock station, you’re going to hear classic rock, or sports, or whatever format you’d like to insert here — is still a huge card to play. I know that people listen to podcasts, audiobooks, music, radio, and everything in between of varying topics and interests, but this is still broadcasting, and 97.1 The Freak was attempting to broadcast to too broad of an audience.
I don’t know how well the station embraced the digital content aspects presented to creators in 2024. It sure felt like the station was a natural for a YouTube/Rumble/Twitch simulcast, with a full-on embrace of social media like TikTok. But those things never came. Whether that is an iHeart issue, a Dallas leadership issue, or a station personnel issue is unclear. iHeartMedia has proven to be a company that embraces digital aspects, but 97.1 The Freak never really got that support and push on the digital side.
Also, what’s in a name? I’m personally a fan of show names like The Downbeat or The Speakeasy, but I think when you have a talent like Mike Rhyner hosting on the station, you need to highlight the fact that a talent like Mike Rhyner is hosting on your station by putting his name in big bold letters on the show name’s marquee.
And “97.1 The Freak” doesn’t necessarily instill a sense of wanting to be a member of that tribe, right? Not to get too into the weeds, but “freaks” aren’t generally folks interested in admitting that they’re a freak. And they definitely don’t fully embrace being members of big communities, like tribe-building stations require.
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My fear is the station came on too early. That in the next decade or two, we’ll be talking about how 97.1 The Freak was ahead of its time. That both the sports talk radio and news/talk radio industries shifted to allow a “guy talk” or “hot talk” format to grow into a formidable option seems like a reasonable outlook for the future. The future of music radio is murky at best. At a time when spoken word listenership and usage continues to be a juggernaut, it just feels inevitable that that talk genre continues to grow and innovate in ways like 97.1 The Freak.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. But I hope that doesn’t dissuade someone from attempting something similar in the future.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
