Just Heard a Pretty Good Little Show on 103.3

Out driving around today.  Hit The Ticket, expecting to hear SMU football with great play-by-play by Rich Phillips.  Nope, must have been halftime.

Wandered the dial and stumbled on a show on KESN (ESPN) that kept me tuned in for the next hour or so.

Not just "a show"; they call it "The Show."  Pretty aggressive (and unimaginative) title, but it was good, kept me listening with approximate Ticket-attentiveness. 

It featured Matt McClearin (formerly paired with Scot Harrison Sundays on the The Ticket (MaSS) before the two of them decamped to Birmingham for 3.5 years (WJOX)) and DJ Ringgenberg.  They talked college football and Cowboys.

Matt the good cop, DJ the bad cop.  In a show where McClearin is the mature older presence, you know you're going to hear some snottiness, but I liked it for all that.   Ringgenberg's contempt for the Nebraska Cornhuskers was amusing after their shellacking by Iowa yesterday.  (Ringgenberg's an Iowa grad.) 

I see on Ringgenberg's LinkedIn page that he also interned for Norm from June through August 2012.  After describing his duties, he notes:  "I also prepared excellent coffee to the exact specifications of Mr. Hitzges on a daily basis.”

A highlight of the show was an interview with Charean Williams.  She was excellent, damned hard-core sportsy talk and no cutesy.  The Ticket could use a sports-media call-in expert like that; heck, could use a host like that.  Would love to hear her on with the 'Line.  She was with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram since 1999, laid off last May.   Cat should give her a call, she sounds like she'd be worth shuffling for.  Jeez, he's Ops Director for the station, he may have programmed her.  Move her on over, Jeff.

You guys may already know about The Show and Ringgenberg and Williams, but they were new to me, probably because I'm mostly Ticket-centric.   Anyway, a meaty listen and thought I'd pass it along.

Did get to hear Rich Phillips's thrilling call of the final play of the SMU-Tulane game.  Of course, most of Rich's calls are thrilling.

BREAKING: Changes at ESPN

Per Anonymous at 7:06p on September 24:

Per Reddit, Mosely and Friedo out at ESPN.

Steve Dennis to replace Mosely on Afternoon Show.

Friedo-Dennis to be replaced by Jean-Jacques Taylor and an unnamed partner.

This is all I have on this, and if it turns out to be in error, apologies in advance.   My thanks to 706 Anonymous, unless it's wrong.

I liked Cowlishaw and Mosely, but I think Steve Dennis and Tim Cowlishaw will be worth a listen.

Interesting -- in the last thread, I was wondering if Dennis might find a home as a host somewheres.  I speculate that this has nothing to do with these changes.

UPDATE:  Looks like Anonymous had the goods.

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/other-sports/moresports/2016/09/23/matt-mosley-espn-1033

Article places Will Chambers with JJT.  Looks like JJT was reporting on his assignment via Facebook on Friday, so I'm a little behind the times here.

A Couple of Quick HIts to Get a New Thread Going -- UPDATED [2]

(1) My schedule has changed so I'm sometimes not in the car as much during drive, so my Hardline listening has diminished a bit.  When I tuned in this past week, I have to say, I enjoyed the show.  I thought the Danny rat story was overrated, but they did some car talk that got me laughing, and it seemed to me that I heard More Mike than I'd heard in recent months, which always makes for a better show.

(2) I sometimes punch over to ESPN, and heard something that I really liked on Monday afternoon:  a couple of hours of "Football Firing Line," which I guess has been going on for awhile.  It was Tim Cowlishaw and Matt Mosley, the usual Afternoon Show hosts, with Steve Dennis, Nate Newton, and another guy whose name I wrote down and now I can't find the slip.  The Internets say Ed Werder is on the panel, but it wasn't him, it was an AA with a four-letter first name, a middle initial, and a last name.  One of you guys can tell me who it was.  [UPDATE 2:  The other guy had a four letter last name:  Clarence E. Hill, Jr., of the Star-Telegram.]  Anyway, I thought it was a lot of fun with some trenchant Cowboys analysis thrown in for good measure.

What's the story on Steve Dennis, anyway?  He seems pretty spicy and zero-BS but it seems all he does is fill in around the Dallas sports media scene from time to time.  Would he make a good full-time host somewheres?

(3) Danny has a great radio voice, but in recent months it's gotten rough and a little breathy and sometimes cracks, as though perhaps he smokes and perhaps smokes a lot.  (I don't know if he smokes.)  Maybe he's been performing a lot.  (You can tell when Mike's not far past a Petty Theft performance -- his voice gets noticeably tired.)  Maybe he has to yell a lot at the Twilite Lounge.  Maybe he's using a different mic or he's getting EQ'd so the treble is turnt up.  His habits are none of MTC's business; I'm just saying his on-air sound has frayed some.

(4)  UPDATE:  Hey, how long has Matt McClearin been hosting the Cowboys post-game on ESPN?  (Since there's only been one other game, I would think that's probably the answer.)  Maybe the better question is, how long has Matt McClearin been working at KESN?   I punch over from Norm and Donovan once in awhile just to see what's airing on ESPN or The Fan, and he was running the show (it sounded like) with Steve Dennis and Tim McMahon, if I caught it correctly.  I thought it was pretty good.

I knew that he and Scot Harrison had lost their WJOX Birmingham show back in July but hadn't heard anything further.  Since Cumulus is operating KESN, maybe Jeff C welcomed him back.  (Scot's LinkedIn page says that he's "Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Taco Mama."  Matt's says that he's "Account Executive at New Home Guide," which sounds like something you do until Cat can find a spot for you.)

This is Pretty Interesting, but Not Really

From The Observer's "Best of" list, including text, excerpted without permission:

Best Sports Radio Station Dallas 2014 - KESN-FM 103.3 ESPN Radio

Readers' Choice: KTCK-AM 1310 The Ticket

Sure, many might object to this choice. That one station, the one that just turned 20, inspires such rabid passion among its followers that it's hard to fathom that sports fans might tune their radios to anything other than that other station — you know, the one that's won this category here forever. This year, we thought we'd offer some praise to the other guys. Being an ESPN fan is almost like being a Texans fan in a Cowboys city, but for listeners who want mostly unadulterated sports talk without the frills, 103.3 is their destination. We're sure there are people like that out there, and for them ESPN is just the ticket.

*     *     *

I confess:  When my attention wanders between 3:30 and 6, I switch to 103.3.  I do like Cowlishaw and Mosley.  Not that it happens very often, but it happens.

As one of the commenters to the Observer article said, ESPN wins the award basically for just showing up.  It is interesting, though, that the "other guys" they chose to recognize was the partly-outsourced ESPN, and not the homegrown Fan.

Of course  .  .  .  Cumulus programs KESN.

Less Worried Now

Some Dickey somewhere is calling Cumulus's telecommunications lawyer, if it has one, with a few questions.

Thanks to Confessor Gopher for calling our attention to the FCC's rejection of what it is basically calling  sham sale to Whitley Media, a broker.  I'm excerpting without permission from an update to the previous news item from RadioInsight.

Stating that the license transfer is not a true sale in that all economic risk would remain with Cumulus as Whitley would get the same brokerage fee regardless of the price he sells the station for, Cumulus would remain the defacto owner of the station.

The APA, by providing for Whitley to be reimbursed out of the sale proceeds for any losses and expenses he incurs in operating the Station, makes it clear that all of the economic risk of operating the Station would remain with Cumulus. Likewise, because Whitley is required to remit to Cumulus all of the proceeds from the sale of the Station, less his expenses and his brokerage fee, Cumulus would retain all of the risk of loss and potential for profit from the sale of the Station to a third party. Whitley will receive his brokerage fee and no more, whether the Station is sold for $1 million or $10 million. Given these “economic realities,” we conclude that the agreement between Cumulus and Whitley cannot be reasonably characterized as a proposed $100 sale of the Station to Whitley and that Cumulus would remain the owner of the Station.

Cumulus spun-off KTDK to Whitley in order to LMA 103.3 KESN from ESPN. That LMA was set to begin as soon as the KTDK spinoff to Whitley closed. Now both are on-hold indefinitely.

This also answers the question I had earlier, which is whether the "sale" of 104.1 was necessary to allow Cumulus to enter into the management agreement for 103.3 KESN, that answer being "yes."

So sounds like we'll have 104.1 for awhile longer, and ESPN will have to find some other way to figure out what to do with those time slots.