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Charles Barkley to TNT Management: ‘Just Say Something’

BSM Staff
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Charles Barkley to TNT Management: ‘Just Say Something’

As another week gets set to pass without an announcement on what is happening with the future of NBA media rights after next season, the frustration is starting to boil over with fans and personnel, especially those from TNT who appear to be on the outside looking in. While others, including Shaquille O’Neal, say they are not supposed to talk to the media, that has not stopped Charles Barkley who was the featured guest on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast.

Before diving into the future, Traina asked Barkley his thoughts about the public reaction to the possibility of the show going away if TNT does in fact lose out on continuing with the NBA. “Its been amazing,” Barkley said. “…Just in my everyday life…the response has been incredible. Obviously, we are very proud of what we have accomplished for me, 24 [years], Kenny, 27 [years], Ernie 32 [years] and I think Shaq is either 12 or 13 [years].”

As they got to the heart of the matter, Barkley continued saying a lot of the things he has repeated over the last few weeks. “The one thing that sucks is we don’t know anything. And it’s getting a little frustrating with all of the rumors.”

Barkley said he has seen what has been written and heard what has been said and that, “Every reporter is trying to break the story and they are all kind of lying.”

One of the more interesting parts of the situation of course is that if TNT were to lose the rights after next season, there is still next season that would need to be done. Traina has mentioned a few times recently that he is really interesting to see what Barkley would be like as a lame duck for a year, given how he has handled the recent media reports.

In the end, Barkly has been consistent in his concern, not for he and his on-air partner, but for the people behind the scenes. “It sucks,” he said. “I’m not too worried about me to be honest with you, I am worried about the other people who work there. Me, Kenny, Ernie and Shaq are gonna be fine, but there’s probably going to be 200 people who lose their jobs and that’s the part that really sucks.”

Traina asked Barkley if he had heard from anyone at Warner Bros. Discovery or TNT about things he has said lately, most notably on The Dan Patrick Show where he said, “My two favorite wines are Inglewood and Opus, and these clowns I work for, they’ve turned us into Ripple and Boone’s Farm and Thunderbird. We’ve got the best studio show. It’s so funny – we just won the [Sports Emmy for] ‘Best Studio Show’ – but these fools turn us from Inglenook and Opus into damn Boone’s Farm and Ripple. It’s crazy.”

“They’re not going to call me, they know better,” was Barkley’s reply to Traina.

Part of the issue is that while it has been well reported WBD has matching rights in their current agreement, what the definition of those matching rights are could be decided later on in a court room. About the matching rights, Barkley said, “Something’s going on to be honest with you because if we have the right to match, that would be a simple ‘yes we are going to match’ or ‘not we are not going to match.’ That’s the thing that probably has us disturbed the most.”

The communication or lack thereof is what really seems to have Barkley upset. “I think they have done a really shi**y job of keeping us abreast,” he said. “Just say something. We have not discussed it…just say something to let the people breathe a little bit. I can’t imagine having a family and bills because realistically you probably have to start looking for a job, you can’t wait until next year…If they would call and say ‘Kiss my ass’ I’d feel better about that than not [knowing anything].”

Barkley reiterated what many have said about Ernie Johnson probably not leaving Turner to continue with Inside the NBA on another network and that it is not something they have been talking about as a team since a lot has to happen before they really know what their options might be.

“The weird thing about it is, we don’t know what will happen to the show if we lose it, but it really doesn’t do us any good to try and make any plans until we lose the package or hear something. The limbo is the weirdest dynamic of the whole thing…We are like, let’s just wait…None of this s**t means anything because we still have to work together for another year. Being worried about something that is a year and a half away is really kind of stupid…I don’t know s**t. It’s frustrating not knowing s**t… Just make a decision. Just not knowing is probably the worst part.”

Traina asked Barkley about ESPN, NBC and Amazon and whether one of them stood out as a place he would want to work. Barkley said it is difficult to speculate since we don’t know what the different packages could look like or where a show would even be done.

In typical Barkley fashion, he did say about ESPN, “They’re not gonna work me like a dog. ESPN Radio, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, I mean hell no. I just turned 61. The notion that I’m going to be working like a dog into my mid-60’s that’s definitely not gonna happen.”

NAB: Robert De Niro Won’t Attend Service to America Leadership Awards After Speech Outside Trump Trial

BNM Staff
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NAB: Robert De Niro Won’t Attend Service to America Leadership Awards After Speech Outside Trump Trial

After announcing that it would bestow Robert De Niro with its Service to America Leadership Award, the NAB Leadership Foundation has said he will not be at the ceremony to receive the honor.

De Niro spoke outside of the New York courthouse where former President Donald Trump is on trial facing charges of falsifying business documents. However, the actor clashed with protestors as he strongly rebuked the former President.

In response, the NAB Leadership Foundation claimed that the awards event is “proudly bipartisan.”

“The Celebration of Service to America Awards is dedicated to honoring the vital local journalism and public service that local radio and television stations provide to their communities,” the NAB said. “This event is proudly bipartisan, uniting those from across the political spectrum to celebrate the impactful work of local broadcasters and our partners.

“While we strongly support the right of every American to exercise free speech and participate in civic engagement, it is clear that Mr. De Niro’s recent high-profile activities will create a distraction from the philanthropic work that we were hoping to recognize. To maintain the focus on service of the award winners, Mr. De Niro will no longer be attending the event.”

In spite of De Niro’s absence, the Service to America Leadership Award event will be held at The Anthem in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, June 4th.

“We look forward to a night of celebration honoring the exceptional work of broadcasters and our partners who make a difference in their communities every day,” the NAB said. 

Elon Musk and NewsNation in Talks to Host Alternative Presidential Debate, RFK Jr. Reveals

BNM Staff
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Elon Musk and NewsNation in Talks to Host Alternative Presidential Debate, RFK Jr. Reveals

As CNN and ABC News make plans to host presidential debates, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not qualify. He now claims Elon Musk is working in conjunction with NewsNation to bring an alternative to the X social media platform.

During an appearance with Chris Cuomo Wednesday evening, the NewsNation host asked the presidential candidate if he had planned on creating an alternative to ensure his voice was heard.

RFK Jr. shared plans to have an event on NewsNation and X with the help of Musk.

“We are talking right now with NewsNation — with your network — and Elon Musk has offered us a platform on X. Elon is now talking also with NewsNation to do a joint platform and a joint debate. Kind of an alternative debate,” the candidate claimed. “So that’s something we’re looking at. I obviously would like to be on the main debate stage.”

The revelation that an alternative event is in the works came after Kennedy filed a complain with the Federal Election Commission saying CNN had “colluded with the Biden Committee and the Trump Committee to schedule … a debate with criteria that were designed to result in the selection of certain pre-chose participants.”

CNN has denied those allegations.

Meet The Bettors: Joe Fortenbaugh, ESPN

Demetri Ravanos
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Meet The Bettors: Joe Fortenbaugh, ESPN

When ESPN decided to go heavy into sports betting, Joe Fortenbaugh was one of the first people they called. He was hosting the morning show on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco at the time, a position he got after first coming on the radar by talking about sports betting on radio stations across the country long before the Supreme Court paved the way for states to make their own decisions on sports gambling.

Not only was he well-versed in the practice, but Fortenbaugh is undeniably handsome. He was a natural choice to be one of the faces of ESPN’s new Las Vegas studio.

After finishing his degree at Penn State, Fortenbaugh headed west with plans of finishing law school and becoming a sports agent. He got halfway there. When law school ended, he started playing online poker. Then he got an opportunity that turned his love of sports into a job with the recently launched National Football Post. He was good at what he did but had an inkling that if he learned the ins and outs of gambling, he would be even more valuable in the field.

That was thirteen years ago, and boy was Fortenbaugh right! Not only did his career blossom in the gambling space, but since making the move to ESPN, he has seen his presence on the network grow outside of gambling content, co-hosting Carlin vs. Joe on ESPN Radio.

Joe Fortenbaugh is the latest conversation in our Meet the Bettors series presented by Point to Point Marketing. We touch on the future of betting in California, ESPN’s Las Vegas past, and what kind of bets entertain the masses.

Demetri Ravanos: How does the audience respond when you talk about futures bets? I’m sure they are popular at the start of new seasons, but I wonder if people respond to them the way they do picks for the coming day or week. 

Joe Fortenbaugh: It depends on the price and the rationale. Betting a favorite like the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl because “Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the NFL” isn’t going to land. Anybody can make that pick supported by that rationale. But if you can find a relative long shot with a great reason for why that player or team is undervalued, our viewers and listeners love it. I believe part of that is because it feels like you’ve joined this very small cult that has a very specific rooting interest. 

Here’s an example: back when Preston Johnson was on the show, he had an incredible breakdown of why it made good sense to bet Joel Embiid to win the MVP Award. That might not seem all that impressive right now, but this was before the start of the 2020-2021 season when Embiid was 60/1 before the campaign started. Fast forward 6 months and that 60/1 long-shot finished 2nd in the voting. Even though it didn’t cash, that was a wild ride for all of us who tailed Preston’s pick and was something that led to fantastic discussions on social media. 

A similar situation occurred back in 2021 when we all bet the Baltimore Orioles to go under their season win total. That’s back when the O’s stunk and they finished with just 52 wins that season. 

DR: You were all the opposite of a fan base. A “hater’s brigade” maybe.

JF: Every loss was a party on social media. 

DR: What is your goal for each broadcast? What does the audience need to walk away feeling for you to be successful?

JF: L&L. Laugh and Learn. 

If you’re taking valuable time out of your day to listen to me on television or radio, I owe you big. Wasting somebody’s time is a cardinal sin in this business. People are busy and have minimal free time. So, if they are choosing to spend some of that with me, I need to deliver in a big way. That’s the mindset each and every day. It’s part of the reason I get up at 4 a.m. every morning. 

It’s one thing to make a pick. It’s another to take the viewer/listener through the process of how you arrived at that pick. If I execute that part properly, a look into my process should be something the viewer/listener can learn from. And at some point, during that delivery, I want to get a laugh out of you. Dedicating an extra 5-10 minutes for each topic trying to come up with a joke or one-liner has a major impact long-term. 

I’m not sure how many people will remember me picking Denver over Minnesota in Game 3 when I was on First Take, but everybody who watched remembers me diving off the screen after Kendrick Perkins came back on-air to address all the trash I’d been talking earlier that segment.

DR: You were in California for a long time. What sense do you get of what lies ahead for that state’s gambling future?

JF: It’s the market every operator is salivating over, but none of that matters until the politicians, Native American tribes and other power players figure out how to divide the pie. 

All that red tape is preventing the California consumer from joining the party, which means illegal bookmakers will still thrive. After all, it’s not like the demand to bet on sports is small in California. It’s massive. But there are a lot of people who want to cash in on this gold rush and all that in-fighting has slowed this process to a crawl. It’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising in the least. 

DR: You’ve worked with a lot of former athletes. Have most of them taken to gambling topics easily or did you sense some hesitancy early on?

JF: There are three types of former athletes when it comes to sports betting content: Those who know it and enjoy talking about it, those who don’t really know it but are happy to try and talk about it, and those who don’t know it and aren’t interested in talking about it. 

The good news for any type of former athlete is that when paired with the right host, they can deliver a wealth of sports betting knowledge without even realizing it. It doesn’t necessarily matter what their sports betting expertise looks like. They can still provide immense value to a broadcast; they just need a knowledgeable host to ask smart questions and listen to the responses. 

I worked with Lorenzo Neal in San Francisco for six years. Lo knew his stuff, so it was a perfect match for me. I used to pepper him with questions about what it was like to play on Sunday and then turn around for a Thursday night road game. I’d ask what it was like as a member of the Chargers to play an early start time on a Sunday on the east coast. I’d have him break down what happened during the bye week and how players responded to the extra rest. All of those insights he provided were extremely valuable to the handicapping process. 

DR: Is the audience going to get the same content from you on social media as they do on TV & radio? Do you make an effort to differentiate the two so that the audience gets the full experience?

JF: It’s no secret that I need to be better and more active on social media, but here’s the thing: my wife and kids come first. If I fail as a father or as a husband, then the rest of this doesn’t matter in the least. 

In my cubicle I have a notecard hanging on the wall with the number “9,705.” Tomorrow I will replace that notecard with a new notecard that says “9,704” and I’ll repeat that process every single day because it will serve as a reminder of how many days remain until I turn 70 years old. Who knows if I’m lucky enough to make it to 70? 

I need to remind myself that life is short, and I only get one shot at it. So, if I have the opportunity to produce something for social media, I’ll take it and will apply the same approach as I apply to TV and radio: “Laugh and Learn.” But sometimes you have to draw the line when it comes to how much time you’re willing to dedicate to anything outside of your family. 

DR: What do you miss about the ESPN Bet studios in Las Vegas?

JF: The size, the staff and the location. We had a monster studio in Vegas that afforded several different looks. I was relatively new to TV at that time, so I had no idea how spoiled we were. 

The stage crew was comprised of some incredible people that I’ll always have fond memories of. We spent a lot of time joking around before shows. That kept things light, which is the way it should be in this industry. And the location was killer. Right on the Vegas strip? How could you ask for a better backdrop when producing a sports betting show? 

One thing I won’t miss is the F1 construction traffic. That was brutal.

DR: As someone that has lived in Vegas in two very different sports gambling environments, what’s it like to see the city hosting Super Bowls and Finals Fours? Did that even seem possible when you were there 15-20 years ago?

JF: I absolutely love it. That city is filled with some tremendous people, and I couldn’t be happier for them. 

While it can be staggering to think about where we were and how far we’ve come, part of me always thought it was possible for two very important reasons. First, Vegas is world class when it comes to hosting events, and we’re talking about some of the biggest events in the world in the Super Bowl and Final Four. How could you not take that into consideration? Second, Vegas is world class when it comes to throwing a party, and we’re talking about events that are synonymous with partying. It’s a match made in heaven. 

To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.

Mike Felger Nailed His Take on Rich Shertenlieb and iHeartMedia

Dave Greene
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Mike Felger Nailed His Take on Rich Shertenlieb and iHeartMedia

If you’re a regular here at BSM, you’re most likely well aware of the goings on in Boston sports radio. You know that Rich Shertenlieb unexpectedly left 98.5 The Sports Hub and the very successful Toucher and Rich show just over six months ago. You are aware it wasn’t a harmonious departure but that there wasn’t one incident that took place causing the end of the show. You know Rob ‘Hardy’ Poole took over for Rich and you recently became aware Rich has started his own show on iHeartMedia’s classic rock station, WZLX.

As far as sports radio stories go, this is a big one and we have devoted a lot of coverage to the happenings, the speculation and now the aftermath. We have written about a few of the reactions from people in the market, some of whom have taken direct or indirect shots at Shertenlieb and some, like Mike Felger, who wished him well.

What? Wait a minute, a guy on the old team sent well wishes to the guy who left the team and went to another team? And the sun came up the next day and everything?

Yep, it happened. I couldn’t believe it either.

It’s right there on Facebook, where Felger does The Off-Air Show and generally gets into various topics that aren’t necessarily the typical sports story of the day. On this particular episode, Felger had Kendra Middleton as his guest and after they covered the pictures men direct message to Middleton, the topic of Shertenlieb’s show came up.

“I’ve sampled it, I think it sounds good,” Felger said. “It sounds like Rich. It sounds like what it would sound like when Fred was off, and Rich was in.”

If I wasn’t writing this in a column and it were in text form, I would next use the ‘head exploding emoji.’

Felger didn’t stop there. “I’m glad that he got that gig,” he said.

OMG.

Now, before we go too far, let’s get to what Felger really meant by all of this, because he wasn’t just rooting on his old teammate, he made some excellent points as to why he would say what he said.

“Anything that gets people to turn the radio on I am for,” Felger said. “I just want the industry to be good, I want radio to be strong, the industry to be strong, I want people to listen to the radio. I want radio companies hiring radio hosts to do radio shows. I take that whole thing as being healthy.”

Felger continued and wisely said, “I hope Fred and Hardy beat him soundly in the morning in the ratings, but I want Rich to do well, do well enough. I want ZLX and iHeart to do well and do well enough. I want them to have a good business and a strong revenue stream. I am rooting for that and Rich personally as well, who I know, and I wish personal success to him. I’m more interested in iHeart hiring a real radio host to do a real radio show in Boston and obviously paying him enough to it. That’s a good sign and I hope it does well enough that more radio stations keep doing that and whatever gets you to turn on the radio, I am for.”

I’m guessing 98.5 The Sports Hub owner Beasley Media Group probably wishes Felger wouldn’t have said anything about Shertenlieb and not called any attention to him or his show. But that aside, think about what Felger said here. Two things really stand out to me other than what I have already mentioned.

The first thing is that Felger is smart enough to know that it’s good for him and others that the industry is strong. I bet if you asked most radio hosts, they would say they want their competition to go away, but as Felger said, it is much better all-around that they “do well enough.” The more successful the industry, the more likely it is that compensation can remain higher. Plus, competition is good. Always. It just is. It makes people better, keeps them on their toes and overall makes people less lazy.

The second thing is what Felger said about iHeartMedia when he said, “I want radio companies hiring radio hosts to do radio shows.” For all of the shade that gets thrown on the larger media companies when layoffs occur, or local programming is replaced by voice tracking, here is an example where iHeartMedia continues to invest in a local morning show. Good on Felger to point that out.

I don’t know Mike Felger from Mike Ditka, but I do know that this is the second example I have seen where he is not afraid to speak on the competitors without having to dump all over them. A few months ago, he talked about hating to hear what was happening with Audacy and their bankruptcy. Audacy owns WEEI, a direct sports competitor of The Sports Hub.

The points Felger made then are similar to the ones he made recently about Shertenlieb and iHeartMedia. You want the conversation to be about how healthy the industry is, the fresh ideas that are happening and growth that is occurring. That’s good for everyone. Negative stories about the industry can, on the other hand, be a problem for everyone.

Felger gets it. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. He realizes the best thing that can happen is that a third sports morning show in the market does well.

Or does well enough.

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The Best Thing I Heard/Watched Recently

Kudos to the team at Bally Sports Midwest and the St. Louis Cardinals. Team President Bill DeWitt III reached out to Joe Buck and asked him to work a game with Chip Caray to bring back the nostalgia of a Buck-Caray broadcast booth. Jack Buck and Harry Caray, Joe’s dad and Chip’s grandfather, worked together for 15 seasons on St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcasts in the mid-1950s and 1960s. During that time the Cardinals appeared in the World Series three times and won it twice.

Unfortunately, the game on May 24 was rained out, so fans did not get the chance to watch Chip and Joe work the game together. However, the pregame show and beginning of the broadcast did happen and the two did a few segments together and reminisced about their family connections to the team.

I’m an incredibly biased, lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, but I thought it was awesome and very well done. It really is something you can enjoy if you are just a fan of baseball or broadcasting. You can see what took place by clicking here.

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In Case You Missed It

If you are interested in more on what Rich Shertenlieb is doing at WZLX, Demetri Ravanos spoke to him and profiled him in a recent article. Shertenlieb told Demetri about his exit from 98.5 The Sports Hub:

“I mean, listen, it’s kind of boring because it’s not as scandalous as people might think that it is,” he said. “You only get a couple of times in your career to be able to reevaluate what you’re doing. I would sign long term contracts for about five years. And so, you only get about once every five years to sit and say, ‘I got a chance to try to do something else.’”

You can read the feature by clicking here.

Additionally, check out Garrett Searight’s column where he wonders what could happen if Shertenlieb is successful as a mostly-sports show on a mostly-classic rock station. You can read the column by clicking here.

It’s Time for News Media to Freshen Up Their Emergency Plans

Perry Michael Simon
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It’s Time for News Media to Freshen Up Their Emergency Plans

It’s that time of year again, and by that I don’t mean Kyle Schwarber’s annual June home run barrage or the snowbirds returning to Long Island and making the wait for a table at the restaurants down here manageable. No, June 1st means Hurricane Season, and along with the already (and horrifically so) tornado season, it reminds those of us in the news media to be prepared for emergencies.

You know that, I’ve preached it for years (thank you, Howard Price), and it should be obvious by now that whether you’re a broadcast radio or TV operation or an online media outlet, you should be ready for weather emergencies – alternate broadcast sites, system redundancy, generators, all-hands-on-deck work schedules, contacts with all the relevant agencies, all of that. If you don’t have all of that ready by now, you haven’t been paying attention. You should have it ready year-round. No excuses.

But weather isn’t the only emergency. What’s your plan if a major news event happens? And what qualifies as a news event major enough to break into programming or send out a bulletin or shift gears and drop everything else to cover it 24/7?

Take the Trump trial. Do you break into regular programming to cover the verdict? If you do, do you have reporters to handle the live coverage, or experts to explain what happened? Are you ready to cover the story in full, or with just a headline, or just posting on social? Someone has to make that call, and in this case, at least, you have the luxury to make that call before you need to implement the plan.

The emergency could be the death of a notable person. How notable would they have to be before you’d change your programming? For music stations, how big a star would merit changing your playlist on the fly to fill it up with that artist’s music? Do you have obituaries for major figures prepared in advance so that you’re not scrambling to write a suitable story when the news hits?

Remember, some figures transcend formats, some don’t, and some might fall in between; the passing of Bill Walton, for example, was undeniably a sports bulletin but his fame was wider than just basketball, and a rock station might drop a Grateful Dead tune into the hour to honor the band’s biggest (or tallest) fan.

The fact is, while we’ve pointed out how unprepared many broadcast stations are for things like hurricanes, and wildfires, and tornadoes, preparedness is also an issue for other news and programming.

Now is the time to get your experts and contacts lined up and your procedures in place – especially, who makes the call to treat a story as a bulletin, especially if the person normally responsible for making that decision isn’t in the building. Have your social media plans in place as well, and your email bulletin plans ready to go, and make sure everyone knows whose job it is to do each task. The last thing you want is for something to fall through the cracks because someone didn’t know that it was their job.

Of course, you also have to be prepared for those weather emergencies, and with things getting increasingly unpredictable, you need to prepare for anything to happen. Last year, hurricanes threatened the West Coast and tornadoes began to become more frequent here in South Florida. Wildfires are already active in Canada this year, and the power outage season has begun in Texas. Things that used to be mostly isolated to one region or another can happen anywhere.

While it’s safe to assume Miami doesn’t need to worry about blizzards, most other natural disasters – storms, earthquakes, floods, fire – are everywhere. Make sure your station can stay on the air throughout anything, and if your tower falls down and you don’t have an auxiliary antenna someplace else, stream and let people know about it through social media. Arrange the means to go on the air from your local or regional emergency center. You should know the drill by now. You should have a drill to know.

Be ready for anything. It’s why we do what we do.

Bill Walton Was Undeniably Himself on the Air

Mark Kreidler
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The on-air career for Bill Walton was a powerful argument for authenticity, but almost nobody in broadcasting trusts that. They see Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA being utterly himself and people just loving it, but for some reason they think to themselves, Nah, I’ll adopt a persona.

This just in: Fake is boring.

Walton, who died Monday at age 71, was never fake, and he was rarely boring. On balance, he was himself. And in the end – and well before that – people appreciated him for it.

To be sure, the man could go on a tangent that might madden a hardened hoops watcher, the guy who lived for someone to tell him why a screen worked or how the leaping close-out on a three-point shooter rarely pays off. That definitely happened, and it happened a lot more over these past several years. I’ve watched plenty of Pac-12 basketball, put it that way.

Yet Walton will ultimately be remembered as simply and unapologetically individual. And if anything, his fame only increased over the past decade or so, even as he – how to put it? – cast his thematic net wider and wider during broadcasts.

It wasn’t always that way. In his earlier broadcasting days, like his time with the NBA on NBC, Walton toed the line fairly often, or at least as often as he could manage. It wasn’t really until later in his career that he became more broadly Bill, with all that implies.

He was open about everything – not just monologues on world affairs, historical notes and music updates, but also about himself. He was that rare public figure who didn’t mind being in public. He leaned into that. He pushed into crowds of people to talk, and he refused to be hurried on his way.

I only mention that characteristic of Walton’s here, on a site devoted to sports media, because it’s what enables us to know that the guy we heard on TV was authentic. We didn’t have to guess. Walton was publicly that same person; it was never an act.

I will say that off camera, Walton was often more gentle than you’d probably guess from hearing his oratory during games. His kindness was legendary, and one constant in his life was his steadfast encouragement of almost everyone around him. He was, in his own outsized way, a very humble person, and if you listened closely to the gamecasts you’d hear that come through.

He spoke in a staccato cadence on the air in part because it was the safest way for him to get a sentence out. Walton suffered with a debilitating stutter as a child and young adult, and he often said that finally overcoming it at age 28 was his life’s greatest achievement. A casual listener could easily mistake that on-air cadence for something forced, an act. It wasn’t.

Walton called things the way he saw them, and he loved hyperbole. He variously invoked Michelangelo, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. in describing basketball players in recent years, sometimes two or three of them at once. (Take a bow, Nikola Jokic.)

That approach is certainly not for every viewer, but it is who Walton actually was. As a broadcaster, he was enthusiastically over the top – and well aware of it. He practically spoke with a wink, but he wasn’t faking. And his increasing renown through the last decade of his life underscores the truth that his authenticity, what made him him, resonated with far more viewers than it repelled.

But networks, and too often those in their employ, don’t particularly love individuals. They love carefully called games and, generally, analysts who color inside the lines.

With the NBA Finals about to start, Bill Walton’s passing feels like a good time to revisit the disastrous decision by ESPN/ABC to blow up one of the few memorably distinctive crews on the sports landscape. And when you zero in on why Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy worked so beautifully, it’s impossible to escape the obvious: Van Gundy sounds like himself.

The league most likely didn’t love that, because being yourself means saying what you actually think. Van Gundy is great at that. The NBA and its broadcast partners, maybe not so much.

I won’t argue that we need more Bill Waltons in broadcasting, because there was only one. We certainly need more people with Walton’s kindness and empathy in actual life. But writing strictly as a sports viewer, I would absolutely love for more broadcasters to step back inside their own skins – be who they are.

You won’t forget how to be an expert; you’ll just become a more human one. The world might even love it. It has happened before.

Pittsburgh Native Colin Dunlap Knows the Importance of Hosting Afternoons on KDKA

Garrett Searight
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Pittsburgh Native Colin Dunlap Knows the Importance of Hosting Afternoons on KDKA

After dipping his toes in the news/talk genre, Pittsburgh native Colin Dunlap was named the afternoon drive host at KDKA after the departure of Rick Dayton amid a round of layoffs from parent company Audacy.

Dunlap is no stranger to both the talk radio format — spending several years hosting mornings at Audacy Pittsburgh sports talk sister station 93.7 The Fan — or the Steel City, as the native Pittsburgher knows the significance a station like KDKA holds in the community.

“There’s a lot of responsibility that’s for sure,” Dunlap said. “Maybe people outside of radio don’t understand, but I do think that many people inside radio do understand that when you speak into a KDKA microphone — particularly when it’s a drivetime spot — it’s very akin to putting on a Notre Dame football uniform or wearing a Yankees uniform or a Dodgers uniform in so much as the heritage, and the lineage, and responsibility that comes with it. Especially being someone from Pittsburgh. I know that responsibility and that understanding of history is never lost on me.”

“I see KDKA as a civic trust, just as much as been elected official,” he continued. “We have identifiable quotients that mark our city that people can rely on. And I see KDKA as that for, it’s not an exaggeration to say, generations.”

Dunlap began his media career as a newspaper reporter before jumping into sports talk. And despite switching formats, he believes he has a solid foundation on what it takes to succeed in news/talk.

“Don’t be a paid actor. Be the person that got you in this position which is simply the person tasked with the responsibility and also lucky enough to be on the other side of the mic,” he said. “But very simply put … really all I am is a 47-year-old born and bred lifelong Pittsburgh guy who potentially is listening on the other side and I have much more in common — I think — with the people who are on the other side of the speakers than most people in this industry. Because nothing turns me off more in any realm of talk radio — sports talk, news/talk, whatever — than paid actors. Schtick pedalers.”

And while Colin Dunlap pledges to be his authentic self every afternoon from 2-6 PM ET, he also is cognizant that he’ll get a little more leeway with the tribal Pittsburgh audience than an out-of-town host.

“We might be the most provincial place in the world,” Dunlap joked. “They’re not going to warm to you if you’re not (from Pittsburgh), but (listeners) would absolutely use it against you the very first opportunity they’d get if you’re not. That’s the thing … If a guy comes in from another town, they’re not going to say ‘I’m not listening to him!’, but they’re ready to pounce if he doesn’t do it right.

“And one of the first pieces of ammunition they’re going to use is ‘You don’t get us. You’re not from here. Go back to where you’re from.’ Even if they disagree with me, they know they can’t use that. Call it provincial or what it is, it merits a level of respect. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that’s how Western Pennsylvanians are wired. We stick together even if we disagree.”

He added, however, that that attitude isn’t a bad thing.

“People are more apt to understand if you’re on a different side, if you’re from here and you live it. If you don’t, then they won’t even give you the time of day,” he said. “I think that’s indigenous to the Rust Belt and it’s why I think this medium has persisted probably better in the Rust Belt is it is a communal sense. If you take a nice scoop out of the country and run it from Detroit and through Toledo, and then Cleveland, and then Pittsburgh, up to Buffalo … we have a sense of a tied-in community, in good times and in bad in a sense of trust with each other.”

A hardcore news/talk listener might be dismissive of a host coming to the genre from sports, where the topics aren’t as serious and a little more fun can be hand. However, Dunlap believes there’s a natural defense against such charges.

“I found that preparedness trumps all in all of this,” he shared. “I still draw out a topic tree the same way. And I found that if you have a multi-layer discussion and multi-layered preparedness, that it’s a transferable skill. If you go into talking about the Steelers, or you go into talking about the mayor’s office, and you just have one point and no depth, then your discussion is going to suck. If you go into talking about the Steelers or the mayor’s office, and you have tangentially 14 different things that come off of your main point, you’re generally going to have a successful discussion.

“And the key to both of those is preparedness. Preparedness in depths and layers to your discussion. So from that standpoint, it’s different clay but it’s pliable the same way.”

With his Pittsburgh roots, it might be easy to diminish the importance of a legacy brand like KDKA. However, Colin Dunlap noted he’s often reminded about how important the station is to not only those in Western Pennsylvania but around the nation.

“You have people from Los Angeles, or Dallas, or Denver, or Miami, or wherever, and it always takes me aback in a way, but it doesn’t surprise me when they hear KDKA. They know what it is,” he said. “And there’s a responsibility whenever you talking to that microphone — not to diminish the merits of other stations — but when you’re talking into that microphone … that’s a big deal to me.

“I remind myself every day before I go in that all these words mean something because there’s still a portion of the listening audience — and I would hope it continues in perpetuity — that there’s a big trust variable with them because of who we are and what those four letters are.”

A Reminder to News/Talk Radio Hosts About Authenticity and the Character You Play on the Air

Peter Thiele
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A Reminder to News/Talk Radio Hosts About Authenticity and the Character You Play on the Air

There are many personalities — both on news/talk radio and outside the format — that are no longer real. They have become their character. These people have lost the ability to stop performing off the air. Anyone who is on the air amplifies an aspect of their personality. I will explain why this is essential, but how to control it. 

Being frank, many of us on-air personalities have deep insecurities. That microphone allows us to create a character that we wish to become. Your shyness disappears. You’re now the life of the party and you are everything that you envy. There is a trade-off, though. You can become lost inside your fantasy of how you wish to be perceived. There is an old wrestler named Ric Flair. Ric lives his high-flying character, 24/7. Ric has burned through some marriages. His high-living character guarantees that he always needs money. Ric Flair, the human, has been buried by the character.

As a Program Director, I generally have a rule about no air names. You are on the air to connect with your audience. Air names may create an artificial barrier. This can create real problems in life.

I have a former co-worker who I allowed to have an air name because he was an institution in the market. He told of some of the problems having with his nom de plume. He met a lady at an event. They started to date. About three months into the relationship, someone greeted him by his given name. He eventually married this lady, and she occasionally yells at him over his deception.

There was nothing wrong with his given name. A station owner had given him the name when he was 19 and the dude was using the air name 40+ years into his career. This guy is often angrily reminded by the wife that he deceived her. I am sure that if he could have kept his character name from her he would have done it forever.

Another friend had used an obviously fake first name. This monicker went back to his disc jockey days. I have known this guy for almost a decade and really have no idea who the real guy is. Nice enough fellow, but his “character” has overcome reality. I used to spend a lot of time with this guy. He has lost connection with reality. He is always in character. When you contact the real guy, it is always a very brief moment.

Your life is always enhanced when you can be your true self. You may not be as exciting as I am. You must be authentic.

This is show business. We are all performing. It is quite likely that if you are not performing, you will not have an audience. But you must be real.

There is a relatively well-known talk show host. He is exceptionally talented. I was at a dinner at a radio event where a network was thinking about giving him a syndicated show. This guy was unable to have a conversation. He destroyed the actual offer that was going to be coming to him. This guy was totally unable to have a conversation out of character. It ruined a perfectly nice dinner with some awesome people.

You need to know your surroundings. This guy just couldn’t be a normal guy. He was not on the air. He was surrounded by radio people. You don’t need to be a huge personality. You are not on the radio. Shut it down a bit. Listen.

I know a lovely woman. She has been a top radio personality on many amazing stations. An amazing disc jockey, talk show host, and human being. I don’t know who she is. I have spent time socially and at radio events with this woman. She is an awesome wife, mother, and friend. She can totally be exhausting to be around.

How to solve this? You are not in a radio studio. Shut up. Listen. You are not performing. Be real. Are you lost as to who you really are? Therapy. You may need to speak with someone. You also are an amazing person. People need to accept you for you. While I never used an air name, as a daily host. I was always authentic to who I was.

If you cannot come to grips with this, therapy may be for you. I have had a couple of rounds of therapy. It can be good for you. It was for me. I went through a divorce. It is a tough thing. I felt like I was ripped in half. Radio was certainly part of my recovery. I needed to discover who I was again.

If you are living in an alternate universe, therapy may be the thing for you. You have a radio show. People know who you are. You go into a restaurant and are likely greeted by a fan. I often think about what it is like to be Brad Pitt. The women? Ok, a slightly unhinged woman named Angelina is trying to rip poor Brad limb from limb emotionally. Brad does not look like he could be a radio guy. He doesn’t seem like he will be pitching Jenny Craig with Marie Osmond.

The truer you are to yourself, the happier you will be. Remember, the greatest lie that you can ever tell is the lie that you tell yourself.

Paul McCaffrey on a ‘Murph and Mac’ Reunion: ‘You Just Might Get That at Some Point’

BSM Staff
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Paul McCaffrey on a ‘Murph and Mac’ Reunion: ‘You Just Might Get That at Some Point’

Exactly six months after being let go by KNBR in San Francisco, Paul McCaffrey talked about his exit from the station and a bit about his future with SFGate Sports Editor Alex Simon. McCaffery was a part of the Murph and Mac show with Brian Murphy and had been since 2005.

The end came on November 29 last year and McCaffery told Simon he was asked to meet with management, separate from Murphy. McCaffrey was out, Murphy was still in. Others, including nighttime host and former MLB outfielder F.P. Santangelo were also let go in a round of layoffs.

McCaffrey said since that time he has been paying a lot of attention to former radio hosts such as Damon Bruce and Larry Krueger have done since leaving the medium. He told Simon YouTube is of particular interest to him and that he has visited Bruce’s studio.

“You don’t need the 50,000-watt station, not in 2024,” Simon quoted McCaffrey as saying.

Simon’s article says McCaffrey has something in the works he hopes to announce in a few months and that there would be familiar names involved. Asked specifically about Murphy, McCaffrey told Simon, “If you’re hoping for a Murph and Mac reunion down the road, just know that I’m hoping for that as well. And you just might get that at some point. I’ll just kind of leave it there.”

Simon spoke with Brian Murphy as well, who said he is enjoying working at KNBR with current partner Markus Boucher but that he “would never rule out — never rule out — being anywhere with Paulie Mac anytime.”

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