Adam Jones left one Boston sports talker for another. Earlier this month, he left his nighttime show on 98.5 The Sports Hub to join Meghan Ottolini and Christian Arcand in afternoon drive on WEEI.
In an interview with Alex Reimer of WEEI, Jones made it clear that there was no bitterness towards his old station. It was just time for a lifestyle change.
“I had done 10 years at night,” he said. “My kid is going to be going to school next year. It’s a good life-work balance, which I know a lot of people probably overuse, but it will be a good life-work balance to be home at night for the first time in 10 years and be able to do dinners at home. And it’s a new challenge. I would like to be in a more prominent day part, and try to carve out a niche there, and try to be successful there. I think we did a good thing at night for 10 years, but nights are nights, and I honestly was ready for something different.”
Jones says he knew that if he wanted to make a move, it likely wasn’t going to happen on 98.5. The station’s daytime lineup has a very successful track record and management likely isn’t eager to do anything to jeopardize that.
“I hold no animosity towards 98.5…I think people wonder that and ask that. I get why you’re not gonna get rid of Fred, or Rich, or Wallach, or Beetle, or Zo, or Hardy, or Felger and Mazz and Big Jim. There are limited opportunities.”
Now, Adam Jones is focused on making things work with Mego and Arcand. He told Reimer that there is plenty to consider and that he and Mego are trying to find their goto hot buttons.
He said they are not trying to manufacture debates. They just want to make sure the show is entertaining and doesn’t bore listeners.
“I guess there’s a journalistic aspect to this job,” Adam Jones said. “I’m not a journalist, I’ve never pretended to be a journalist. I didn’t go to school for journalism. It’s not my job. My job is to be entertaining. People might disagree, and that’s fine.”
After a major cyberattack Monday, Skyview Networks has alerted affiliates that the disruption of its distribution will continue through the end of this week.
Skyview has been unable to distribute CBS World News Roundup newscasts after the attack. In response, it has hired “industry-leading forensic experts” to help contain and investigate the attack.
“This has affected a number of Skyview Networks programming and advertisement delivery programs,” the company as it updated affiliates on the incident. “We expect continued disruption to select systems through the end of the week. Through the experience, we will continue to work directly with clients to address specific needs and solutions.”
Skyview has told affiliates it is working around the clock to rectify the issue.
“We apologize for the disruption that this has caused, and our teams and partners are working diligently to swiftly and securely return systems to normal,” the company said.
Details about the cyberattack remain sparse, with Skyview Networks saying the security of their network is of the utmost priority.
“Our highest priority is the security and protection of all data and we are cooperating with authorities on this matter. As a result, we are limited in the amount of additional detail we can provide.”
DraftKings will make its debut on Radio Row at Super Bowl LVII next weekend, and will feature more than 70 hours of original content centered around the event. DraftKings talent will be on hand for both audio and video podcasts, while several shows from VSiN will produce their radio shows live from Radio Row.
“We’re excited to bring together this team of talented individuals to cover what has historically been the most bet game of the year at our company,” said Stacie McCollum, Vice President of Content at DraftKings. “The on-site opportunity will allow DraftKings and VSiN talent to deliver real-time insights and enhanced content featuring celebrities and athletes as the media, entertainment and sports worlds collide in Phoenix for the big game.”
Podcasts from DraftKings featured at Radio Row include The Ross Tucker Podcast, The Sweat with Jessie Coffield and Emerson Lotzia, GoJo with Mike Golic Jr., and Golic and Smetty featuring the legendary Mike Golic and Jess Smetana of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.
God Bless Football, the podcast partnership between DraftKings and Meadowlark Media featuring members Stugotz and Billy Gil of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz will record three episodes from Radio Row.
Meanwhile, VSiN radio hosts and analysts will be stationed at Radio Row for the week. VSiN’s Follow The Money hosts Mitch Moss and Pauly Howard, The Lombardi Line host and former NFL General Manager Michael Lombardi,VSiN’s Final Countdown hosts Stormy Buonantony and Matt Brown, and VSiN Primetime host Shaun King will all be live in Arizona producing content for the sports betting network.
“VSiN has distinguished itself as a leading voice in the sports betting space, in part, by staying at the center of the sports betting action,” said Brian Musburger, founder and CEO of VSiN.
“Super Bowl LVII is the first to be played in a legal sports betting state and we’re thrilled to drop some of the industry’s leading sports betting experts right into the action to help new and experienced bettors alike prepare for one of the biggest days on the sports betting calendar.”
The entire DraftKings and VSiN schedule for the week is included below. All times listed are Mountain Time, and the schedule is subject to change.
The station’s afternoon show — Cattles & Ramie — began without him. Nick Cattles explained to listeners why Makhlouf was absent.
“I am here to tell you that my co-host, my friend Ramie Makhlouf is stuck in an elevator,” Cattles said. “This is not a joke. Ramie is stuck in his apartment building’s elevator. I have a lovely drive into work from Roseville — suburbia — and I was driving in, during this 35-minute trek I felt my pocket vibrating. I felt my phone moving. I thought ‘Someone is sending me a bunch of texts. Something is happening right now. I hope all is good’.”
Cattles then read verbatim the texts he received from his co-host as Makhlouf was stuck in the elevator.
“He usually does the crossover with Deuce and Mo, ’cause I get here too late…At 1:36 PM, Ramie texts in ‘Fellas, I’m currently stuck in the elevator of my building…no joke. Not even sure if you’re getting this. I’ll keep you posted’. I just imagine Ramie stuck in that elevator thinking ‘I hope they’re getting these texts, I hope they’re getting these texts’. Five minutes later, no one has responded to Ramie’s text yet. Ramie texts in ‘And the lights went out’.
“Three minutes later, at 1:44 PM, he texts in ‘Can someone please text me if you all are getting these texts?’ So I text back one minute later ‘I’m getting this’. Ramie then sends back a picture. A very dramatic, moviesque picture…a dark elevator, no lights on, looks like a blue hue in the top left, coming from some energy source, and then you can see the panel of the elevator — just to freak him out even more — with a red light on underneath.”
Cattles then had Makhlouf call into the show from the elevator, with the Sactown Sports host thankful he had his phone with him.
“Thank god for phones, man,” Makhlouf said. “Otherwise, I’d just be sitting here in the dark. I don’t get scared of the dark, I just lose my mind when it’s complete darkness and nothingness. I have the flashlight and the entertainment of Twitter, and you, and other friends I’ve texted to fill them in on my situation to get material out of. I’m fine, just chilling in here waiting to get me out of the elevator.”
After joking that he was stuck in the elevator literally feet away from his apartment, Ramie Makhlouf took listeners through the play-by-play of how he got in the predicament, before saying a technician was 10-15 minutes away. He later joked that his girlfriend offered to come talk to him through the elevator door, but was reserving that offer until he “really started to freak out”.
While on the phone with his co-host, Makhlouf was freed from his encapsulation and was on his way to the studio to resume the normal show.
Tony Romo isn’t too worried about the criticism he received this season for his work on CBS.
The network’s top NFL analyst was once the toast of the broadcast industry. This year though, he was the subject of plenty of complaints. The former Cowboys’ QB says that is because he is still trying to define himself in his new career.
“I mean, the ability to adapt and learn, if you never try to change at all — I just think like the best players in the world aren’t afraid of failure,” he told Jenna Lemoncelli of The New York Post.
“You’re going to fail all the time, but at the same time, you succeed because of that, as long as you think about it and try to understand how to improve and then go about the process to make that happen, which is work ethic and commitment. But you got to have a plan for it before.”
Plenty of sports talk radio hosts laid into Romo for his performance during the playoffs. Even his broadcasting mentor, Dick Ebersol, questioned his commitment to the craft, although Ebersol later walked back those comments.
Tony Romo seems to hear the criticism. He says that he isn’t going to insist on continuing to do the things the audience tells him are not working.
“I mean, some changes are good, some you’re like, ‘Ah, I shouldn’t do that’. But I always trial and error a bunch and sometimes it works.”
For all of the complaints though, Romo says there are still plenty of people that think he is doing a good job.
“You don’t always get it right, but I do think more often than not, just the people that come up to you all the time. I mean, it’s quadruple from my first 2-3 years, of how many people come up to me on the street and want to talk about it and how they loved it and stuff. So it’s really rewarding for that.”
Currently the Executive Producer of On Balance with Leland Vittert on NewsNation, Russell previously worked as a producer at CBS News, working under CNN CEO Chris Licht during his tenure as the Executive Producer of CBS This Morning.
The hiring of a former CBS News co-worker falls in line with reporting that Licht has eyed CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King — who he once worked with — for a primetime role with the network.
Licht has also reportedly been interested in adding a comedian for a “late-night variety” program, similar to that of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which he was the Executive Producer of before joining CNN.
Russell steps into a role previously held by Hall. He piloted CNN This Morning for less than three months before being “reassigned” to the late-night window for the network.
A CNN spokesperson says “no offer has been made or accepted at this time” in regards to Chris Russell.
CNN This Morning has fallen well behind its cable morning show counterparts in the ratings. According to numbers released earlier this week, Fox and Friends saw 1.52 million viewers in the 8:00 AM window, with Morning Joe bringing in 830,000 viewers on MSNBC. Meanwhile, CNN This Morning saw 480,000 viewers in the same time slot.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden — the son of President Joe Biden — has requested retractions and apologies from Fox News and some of its primetime hosts for its reporting on his laptop, with the threat of a defamation lawsuit should the network not comply.
A report from Matt Viser of The Washington Post claims newly-hired lawyers for Biden have completely shifted from his previous strategy, going on the offensive to try to portray their client’s innocence.
“He is not going to sit quietly by as questionable characters continue to violate his rights and media organizations peddling in lies try to defame him,” one person with knowledge of the legal strategy told The Washington Post.
The lawyers are specifically seeking apologies from Fox News primetime hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson after allegations of impropriety were levied against the President’s son. Carlson was the recipient of a letter from one of Biden’s attorneys seeking a correction and an apology to “correct falsehoods” from a recent episode of his popular Fox News program.
Biden’s council also sent letters to conservative commentators Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, as well as computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac for their roles in the dissemination of his laptop’s contents.
“Backing up Mr. Biden’s files for any repair did not require Mr. Mac Isaac to review the contents of any such files,” a lawyer for Biden allegedly wrote in a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as it sought a criminal referral for Isaac.
“Mr. Biden did not consent to Mr. Mac Isaac gaining access to the content of those files in April 2019 or at any other time.”
Philadelphia radio news anchor Denise Nakano is no stranger to being in front of the camera. As a television reporter for 17 years, she made the seamless transition to KYW Newsradio in 2020.
On Wednesday, Nakano announced that she is in a major motion picture and will be in a familiar position. Nakano has a role in Knock at the Cabin a mystery/horror film that will be in theatres on Friday.
“Not giving up my day job at @KYWNewsradio but I definitely enjoyed the process of being a part of a major motion picture! #KnockAtTheCabin is in theaters Friday! Not a far stretch, I play a newscaster in the #movie,” she tweeted.
According to imdb.com, the plot of the film depicts a girl and her parents taken hostage by armed strangers who demand the family make a choice to avert the apocalypse.
Nakano stated that being in a major motion picture was a bucket list item for her. The movie was produced by M. Night Shyamalan.
Nakano told Barrett News Media in December that she transitioned to radio at the right time.
“Half of being on television is your appearance. You have to wear the right outfit, make sure your makeup is right. I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Burden lifted. On the radio I can just be myself. I’m always myself, but now I don’t need fake eyelashes. I can dress comfortably,” she told Jim Cryns.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Tom Brady announced he is retiring from the NFL today. It happened literally a year to the day since the last time he retired.
The last retirement lasted just 40 days. Before the end of March of last year, Tom Brady had decided he was done pretending to be happy about embracing life off of the field and announced he was returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a third season.
I guess we cannot rule out that that will happen again. The difference this time around, at least for Tom Brady’s professional life, is that he has a plan for his future. Now that his playing days are over, it is time for him to start his ten-year deal with FOX to be the analyst in the network’s top NFL booth.
Audiences do not know what to expect. No one can deny that Brady brings star power. He is the GOAT after all, but we cannot say for sure if he will be any good.
The pressure is tremendous too. Not only is Tom Brady embarking on a new career, but football fans seem to have taken a liking to the guy he is about to unseat. Whether Greg Olsen gets kicked back down to the number two booth or he is forced to share the spotlight in a three-man booth, plenty of people will look at Brady as the reason we hear less from the guy regarded by many as the best analyst on TV right now.
Brady does not have much room for error here. Since that is the case, I thought I would get some perspectives from people that can help him out. I asked three people to give me their best advice for Tom Brady.
Our panel includes a fellow player-turned-analyst, a legendary play-by-play man, and a broadcasting coach.
THE PLAYER TURNED ANALYST: ANTHONY BECHT
In 2000, the New York Jets used the 27th pick of the NFL Draft to select Anthony Becht. He played for five different teams during his twelve NFL seasons.
Courtesy: USA Today
His broadcasting career began in 2013. Becht worked on ESPN for eight years as an analyst on the network’s college football games. He has since abandoned the booth to return to the sidelines. He will be the head coach of the St. Louis Battlehawks when the XFL starts its third first season this month.
I texted and asked him to look back on his broadcasting career. What does he wish he knew before he started? Here are the three pieces of advice that he had for Tom Brady.
1. Less is more. Folks want to watch the game and just know the “why”. Providing tangible information in a five or six second window is key.
2. Fans want to know about your personal experiences as a player – information and stories they can’t get or wouldn’t even know about because they never did it at the level we did. Share those when the time comes in a game.
3. Have a strong opinion about what you agree or disagree with, but be able to voice it without being demeaning towards players and coaches. It’s an art form and takes time to articulate that in a way that’s done right. I never bash any player or coach because a lot of work goes into be a professional athlete and coach. That needs to be respected but critiqued appropriately.
Anthony Becht via text message
THE PLAY-BY-PLAY LEGEND: TIM BRANDO
Tim Brando has worked with a lot of people. That happens when you have been calling football and basketball action on TV for as long as he has. When I called him on Wednesday to discuss what is ahead for Tom Brady, he drew on his experience with another Brady.
Courtesy: FOX Sports
Brando was working with Jole Klatt in his early days at FOX, but he and Klatt were not going to be an exclusive team. He remembers Brady Quinn coming in to their booth shortly after his NFL career had eneded. Quinn was about to make his debut for FOX. Before they were ready to turn him loose, the network wanted the former quarterback to get a feel for the pace and atmosphere of a broadcast booth.
I do think it’s important that you have a new talent understand what that workplace is like in the booth – the choreography that takes place, because there is choreography. If the ball is deflected, your spotter’s hands are coming together like a bad clap. If there’s a hit, who caused the hit? Who stripped it? So there’s a hand signal for stripping the ball and then recovering the ball with the arms closing together. So who got the recovery? Who caused the fumble? Those things are always helpful.
There are things that are going on frantically in the booth, but you as a broadcaster have to remain calm, understand it, and sound succinct and confident. That just takes time and it takes reps.
That’s one of the great things I think that Greg (Olsen) probably had an advantage in, as do a lot of analysts that get better over time. They do games of lesser importance that maybe the whole world is not watching.
Tim Brando via Telephone
Tom Brady won’t have the luxury of time or of reps under the radar. He may get to do a few practice games, but the first time he will be calling a game on live television, it will be one of the biggest of the week.
Brando says in that case, it is really important that Brady use his instincts to his advantage in the booth the way he did on the field.
I don’t know Tom well, but I know him well enough to know that he prides himself on preparation. I don’t doubt for one minute that he will be prepared. He’s obviously an incredible competitor. You know, this is a this is a business of competition too.
If you’re a great player, just like a coach, you love the ecstasy of victory. You don’t want to admit it, but you love the agony of the defeat as well. That feeling of defeat is something we feed on to motivate you for your next performance. In television and sports television, you don’t get that in terms of winning and losing, but you do get it if you look at it as a great performance,
I believe that all great broadcasters are performers at heart. It takes a certain level of of a theater. It’s live. It’s not scripted.
I think some players that get in the booth that are looking to have that same, you know, euphoria that they have after playing and winning a game. Some of them get that and understand that in broadcasting and get out of that the same thing and others don’t.
Tim Brando via Telephone
THE BROADCASTING COACH: GUS RAMSEY
Plenty of broadcasters turn to Gus Ramsey for critiques and advice. The Program Director for the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting at Full Sail University is also a broadcasting coach working with clients at all levels of the business. They trust his opinion because of his professional experience.
Courtesy: Full Sail University
In a prior life, Ramsey was the producer of SportsCenter on ESPN. He has worked with a number of incredibly talented people and been tasked with taking newbies to new heights, so I asked him what he would be thinking if it were his job to get Tom Brady ready for his first FOX broadcast.
Sometimes great athletes forget that most humans don’t know what the athletes know. Things that are basic or simple or even mundane to the athlete are incredible pieces of wisdom or insight to the average fan.
When I was at ESPN we had Tony Gwynn in for an episode of Baseball Tonight. In our show meeting, Tony was explaining why a hitter was slumping because we was cupping his wrist. He went on explaining it for 30 seconds or so. The room was in total silence, eating up every word. The greatest hitter of our generation was doing a deep-dive on hitting. It was amazing.
Tony suddenly got a little self-conscious, stopped explaining and apologized for “going on too long” and we were all like “No!! Keep going!” Tony thought is was boring. It was just the opposite.
Athletes can think things they’ve learned and repeated their whole lives are common knowledge so sometimes they don’t share that info because they think “everyone knows this.”
I want to walk away from a broadcast feeling like I learned something. Sometimes the ex-athlete doesn’t realize how much educating they can do in a broadcast.
The other thing I always encourage former athletes or coaches to do is to take the viewer where they’ve never been; on the field, in the locker room, in a contract negotiation, etc. If you can get that viewer to fully appreciate the feelings and emotions of what goes on in those places, you enhance the experience for us.
Terrell Davis was an analyst on NFL Network for a bit after his career. He once described Champ Bailey running back an interception 100 yards by saying as Bailey got to the 50 yard line “right here it feels like someone put sandbags on your ankles.” I’ve never run 100 yards in a football uniform in Denver’s altitude, but Terrell’s line helped me better understand what it feels like.
Basketball and Doris Burke have been synonymous for many years. At the age of 7, she started to play the game that would eventually get her to the top of her profession. Along the way she’s recorded many firsts for women in this field which I’ll detail later. Burke has also become an inspiration to other women already in broadcasting and those thinking about a career in media. Pretty impressive.
Burke was raised in Manasquan, New Jersey. She was the youngest of eight children, and started playing basketball in the second grade. She starred at Providence, where she was the team’s point guard all four of her years there and made an impact immediately.
During her freshman year, Doris Burke led the Big East in assists. She was a second-team All-Big East player once and twice made the all-tourney team of the Big East Women’s basketball tournament. Burke held seven records upon graduation, including finishing her career as the school and conference’s all-time assists leader, a record that has since been broken. She served as an assistant coach for her alma mater for two years from 1988-90.
From there it was time to embark on a Hall of Fame career.
ROAD TO ESPN/ABC
Burke began her broadcasting career in 1990 as an analyst for women’s games for Providence on radio. That same year, she began working in the same role on Big East Women’s games on television, and in 1996 she began working Big East men’s games.
Doris Burke has been working for ESPN covering basketball in different roles since 1991. It has also allowed her to do other things along the way that were unchartered for women in the business. In 2000, Burke became the first woman to be a commentator for a New York Knicks game on radio and on television; she is also the first woman to be a commentator for a Big East men’s game, and the first woman to be the primary commentator on a men’s college basketball conference package. In 2017, Burke became a regular NBA game analyst for ESPN, becoming the first woman at the national level to be assigned a full regular-season role.
If that wasn’t enough, from 2009 to 2019 she served as the sideline reporter for the NBA Finals on ABC. I mentioned it was a Hall of Fame career and it was officially deemed as such in 2018. Burke was selected to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame as the Curt Gowdy Media Award winner.
AS AN ANALYST
“Doris Burke has an ease about her. A quiet confidence if you will.” Relying on her past experiences in the game as a player and coach, the information she brings her audience is relatable. Some analysts struggle to bring home a point in a way that a casual fan will understand. Burke has no trouble with this. Her ability to spell it out, concisely and conversationally sets her apart from most analysts, male or female.
Burke attacks her job, knowing that some will question her authority when it comes to commentary on the NBA. She doesn’t mind steering into the skid.
“I am mindful of the fact that I have not played or coached in the NBA,” Burke said to Sportscasting.com last year. “It doesn’t mean that I can’t do a very competent job. I think I try to do that every single night, and I’m never afraid to ask questions.”
It’s all about the information to Burke, and has nothing to do with the fact she’s a woman covering the NBA.
“If you enhance a viewer’s experience, it doesn’t matter what your gender is,” she said. “As long as you are competent and put in the work … you’re going to be accepted.”
Doris Burke learned the ropes so to speak from several women that came before her. In an NBA.com piece from January of last year, she outlined how much she enjoyed watching former ESPN SportsCenter anchor Gayle Gardner. Early on in her career at ESPN, Burke got to work with Robin Roberts on WNBA and women’s college basketball broadcasts along with Ann Meyers Drysdale and Nancy Lieberman. Roberts was Burke’s inspiration as she started her career path. She admired the professionalism that each displayed.
“Working alongside Robin Roberts … the one thing I would tell you is the most powerful means to change or impact somebody is by your actions,” Burke said. “She was the epitome of professionalism and competency and garnered the respect of the people around her because of the work habits she had. Watching Robin early on let me know that the basis for everything is the work you put into something.”
While Roberts may have been influential to Burke, Burke has been a beacon for other woman that are getting opportunities in broadcasting. When asked about their role model, YES Network analyst Sarah Kustok, 76ers play-by-play broadcaster Kate Scott and former WNBA player and current Miami Heat studio analyst Ruth Riley Hunter all mentioned Burke by name.
“Burke is the best example for anyone — male or female,” Hunter told NBA.com. “I love the way she describes the game. She adds so much to every broadcast, and when I was playing in the WNBA I was always really inspired by her work.”
Burke is popular amongst her colleagues at ESPN/ABC, thanks to a tireless work ethic an ability to adapt to whichever sport she may be calling that day. Count Jeff Van Gundy among her biggest fans.
“She’s the best, most-versatile analyst and commentator at ESPN,” Van Gundy said of Doris Burke in 2017 via Deadspin. “She does it all—great interviewer, commentator, studio analyst—everything. And she is an expert at it all—women’s and men’s college basketball, the NBA and the WNBA. She’s the LeBron James of sportscasters. There’s no better broadcaster out there right now.”
Burke is equally a big fan of Van Gundy and the top broadcast crew for ESPN/ABC’s NBA coverage. That includes Mike Breen and Mark Jackson as well.
“We are talking about three of the best to ever do it. Mark, Jeff and Mike have held down the NBA Finals for over a decade with commentary that is the best of the best. Hubie Brown is a living legend. All of those men have been nothing but gracious and supportive of me,” Burke told the Athletic.
Doris Burke is considered one of the best NBA analysts around. Her bosses at ESPN made sure to re-sign her to a multi-year deal and promised she will be involved in “high profile” NBA games in both the regular season and playoffs. Burke will also call finals games on ESPN Radio and appear on the NBA Sunday Showcase program on ABC.
Good for her and good for fans of the NBA on ESPN/ABC.
DID YOU KNOW?
In 2010, she was featured as the new sideline reporter for 2K Sports ‘NBA 2K11’ video game. She has appeared in every version since, including the latest ‘NBA 2K23’.
As a senior at Providence in 1987 she was the school’s Co-Female Athlete of the Year.
Her basketball idols growing up were Kyle Macy, Kelly Tripucka and Tom Heinsohn.
