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RJ Choppy is currently in the midst of his 14th year co-hosting in morning drive on 105.3 The Fan alongside Shan Shariff. The formidable duo, which has proved to be a source of information and entertainment to its audience, frequently welcomes an assortment of guests to discuss the local sports teams. During the NFL season, the Shan & RJ program interviews Dallas Cowboys owner, president and general manager Jerry Jones every week to gather his thoughts on the state of the team.
Choppy estimates that Jones has been on their Tuesday show approximately 280 times and knows they have asked him an assortment of difficult questions ranging from matters on the gridiron and beyond. As the Cowboys struggle to collect victories and risk extending its Super Bowl championship drought to 29 years, Jones has received criticism over perceptions of insufficient offseason action and subpar roster construction.
Last month, Jones was asked about his approach in the offseason, a query towards which he purportedly took umbrage. As part of his response, he emphasized to Choppy and Shariff that it was not their job to have him scrutinize previous decisions and that he could get someone else to ask him the questions. Taken as an apparent threat to their livelihoods, Choppy remembers shock pervading the studio with a heightened sense of awareness towards the assertive response being delivered.
“There’s a lot of times where we’re doing a Jerry interview, and he’ll say something and we don’t pick up on it because we’re trying to figure out, we’re trying to listen [and] we’re also trying to figure out what we’re going to ask next,” Choppy said. “That, there was no figuring out. We looked around the room like, ‘What’d he just say?,’ because we know he’s not our boss, he doesn’t employ the radio station, he doesn’t pay the radio station.”
The comments that Jones made quickly circulated around the country and became a subject of national news, eliciting discussion in other marketplaces and debate television. Choppy was inundated with interview requests and ended up appearing with Dan Patrick to talk about the situation and give his thoughts. Measuring its nationwide impact, however, is an onerous undertaking since he has not left the state since it occurred, but he has nonetheless received feedback and plaudits for his work.
“Your name’s everywhere and people like to call you up and say, ‘Hey man, great interview,’” Choppy said. “That’s really cool to hear. I think when you hear other media members compliment you, that’s good to see, especially because it’s about something that is kind of unique to geek out on from a journalist perspective is the interview. The listener loves to talk about the bits you do [and] the fun you have, and then the other media members, they really focus on the technical side of it, and that’s, a lot of times, the interview.”
As Choppy is hosting his show, there are three televisions on within the studio, and he has noticed networks such as ESPN including quotes from the conversation before it concludes. In fact, Jones’ weekly interview has become appointment listening for football fans, recently divulging the impending acquisition of a wide receiver to bolster the offense minutes before the trade was reported. Even so, the show does not navigate their discourse on the Cowboys any differently and works to ask pertinent questions of interest.
“It has become a national interview, and it’s wild because 20 years ago, Jerry didn’t do [this],” Choppy recalled. “They didn’t have all these shows for one – it wasn’t the news cycle the way it is now – but I never would have guessed that they would spend all day, every day talking [about] Dallas Cowboys football regardless of how bad the team is, but that is half their programming on some of these national TV shows and talk shows, and I never would have guessed it would have gotten to that, but it has.”
When the show concluded, Choppy’s boss entered the studio and asked him and his colleagues to hand over their key cards in jest over Jones’ seemingly incendiary remarks. Even though Choppy evinces the power of billionaires and their ability to dismiss people, none of the show cast felt there was a tangible threat that they were going to lose their jobs. Moreover, he is appreciative of Audacy, the parent company of 105.3 The Fan, backing the show amid the fallout, along with the media members who came to their defense.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening, but you know sometimes when you go into these interview with Jerry… he wants to make a statement because he wants the fans to know that he’s upset too, and that totally happens, and I think that’s what happened here and it just went a little bit more off the rails than he had hoped for,” Choppy presumed. “And we didn’t want it to go off the rails either, but it did.”
Having interacted with Jones over the years, Choppy believes that he loves being in the spotlight and wants to be viewed as someone involved in football. Part of this sentiment, Choppy articulated, was in Jones feeling contempt towards the fact that former head coach Jimmy Johnson was depicted as receiving all the credit for the two Super Bowl championships the organization won in the early 1990s.
“I think that if you were to tell Jerry he could win a Super Bowl tomorrow, but he would have to hire somebody else to be the general manager and he would have to step away and have no fingerprints on the team, I don’t think he would do it,” Choppy surmised. “I don’t think he would.”
In addition to the Cowboys, the station is also the flagship radio home of the Texas Rangers, who won the World Series two seasons ago. While Choppy does not want to lose either team and regards them as great partners, he conjectures that 105.3 The Fan would still thrive without them because of the personalities it has established across dayparts. The equation would differ if the outlet was in its formative years; however, it has had ample runway and capitalized on opportunities to establish itself in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
“I don’t think great radio stations feel they need to have play-by-play,” Choppy said. “It’s a good addition – it’s a good addition to every radio station – it should never be the primary reason for your success. If that’s the case, then the success might be a little faulty, and I don’t think that’s the case though.”
As it pertains to competition, 105.3 The Fan faces an array of verticals competing for attention amid a dynamic, multiplatform modern media ecosystem. Within the traditional sports talk radio format, 1310 The Ticket has garnered scores of listenership and also recently won a prestigious NAB Marconi Award given to major-market stations. The shortcomings in the traditional ratings system have required Choppy to evaluate the show through a variety of quantitative and qualitative manners, including whether or not he would end up tuning in and if they can ultimately retain their audience.
“We go on these firehouse tours every month [where] we’ll do our show from a different firehouse,” Choppy said. “Do the people want to show up at 6 in the morning at a random firehouse around town to say ‘Hi’ to us, to meet us, to watch a show? Some of those are all little parts to success that pile up into one really good thing that we’ve got going.”
Choppy and Shariff were both hired by Bruce Gilbert, who formerly served as an executive overseeing the station, but he departed shortly into their tenure to join iHeartMedia. Gavin Spittle was hired to manage programming for 105.3 The Fan, and he arrived at a time when the show was struggling in the ratings and both hosts were nearing the end of their contracts. Even so, he had faith in their abilities and gave them both extensions, allowing them to continue building synergy that would resonate with consumers. The prudent decision has paid dividends, and Spittle has demonstrated his service as an invaluable resource to Choppy and his colleagues.
“He’ll help with content,” Choppy said. “Sometimes we’ll be sitting there – I’ll be just sitting there at 1:00 in the morning, and he’ll shoot us an email. We’re already asleep, but it’ll have a couple of topics that he found or angles that he found, and he’s been really, really good.”
Deviating from common practice of utilizing a producer to ideate and execute topic selection, the individual hosts work together to determine the layout of the program. The process includes Bobby Belt, who was added as a third show voice two years ago. While the show has had three-person hosting configurations before, Choppy discerns that Belt has allowed the offering to take off, part of which comes in the expression of dichotomous personalities.
“I look to laugh first,” Choppy explained. “I also am very counterintuitive. If I hear one thing, I want to look at it and say, ‘Alright, what am I missing here? The whole world thinks of this way – what am I missing?’”
The weekly interviews with Jones have proven to generate content that has engendered discussions within the sports media landscape. Part of the benefit in being the flagship station of the Cowboys since 2009 is the access the shows receive to key personnel before and after live game broadcasts. On the contrary, play-by-play partnerships in general can risk impugning credibility, calling legitimate objectivity into question and leading to speculation towards team control over content.
“They don’t control our programming,” Choppy said. “They never have, they never will. That’s not what the partnership’s about. There are obviously four teams in town – the Cowboys are the least sensitive of the bunch. You would think they would be the most sensitive because they have the most to lose. They’re the least sensitive of the bunch. Everything is fair.”
In addition to listening to audio, consumers are able to watch a livestream of the show distributed on various outlets, allowing them to see the hosts and augment their connection. Despite radio emanating in the audio space, Choppy believes the application of video provides a new means for listeners to gravitate to the show. On top of that, he evinces an inclination for an audience yearning to be part of something special, an implicit correlation of team success with the consumption of related content.
“The show is doing as well as it ever has,” Choppy said. “We’ve never had better numbers, we’ve never had more fun, we’ve never had a better show, I don’t believe. I think the future goal for the show is to continue that for the next 15 years.”
As the morning show continues its journey on 105.3 The Fan, Choppy knows that adhering to authenticity will sustain and potentially hasten its growth trajectory. The trio has established an efficacious paradigm that appeals with consumers and discusses key topics surrounding local teams. Yet through all of the triumphs, Choppy is not parochial in his logic and feels that there are many other people who could be doing their jobs. Arriving to each show with gratitude and humility, he seeks to fulfill his part in cultivating a sound that emits passion, persistence and an unwavering commitment to excel.
“People are smart enough to call you out on your B.S., and I think that’s the most important thing is if you’re going to do this and you’re going to do this for a long time, you have to be genuine in what you’re doing,” Choppy said. “You have to be real, you have to be honest, and you’ve got to have conviction behind what you’re saying, but I think your personality has to pop through the speakers.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
