Or Would You Rather Spit on a Star?

This one is out of date, sorry.

Before the third Eagles game, the story circulated of Eagle employee Dave Spedaro, the guy who runs their website, having recorded himself spitting (a couple of times) on the blue Cowboy star in the middle of the field at Cowboy Stadium. It was a major story in the Dallas market.

The Musers and the Hardline both criticized the media coverage, arguing, in effect, that no one should care whether an Eagle employee spit on the star, because it was only a symbol. Desecration of the American flag, they said, was different. I couldn't tell if they thought it was different because (1) the flag is a symbol of America and America is a lot more important than the Cowboys, or (2) the flag is more closely associated with America than that blue star is with the Cowboys (in other words, the blue star hadn't attained true "symbol" status). Had to be one of those.

Surely wasn't #2. The star is sitting in the middle of the field. It's large. We all noticed when it wasn't on the field when the stadium first opened. It is on the helmet. Spedaro thought it was meaningful to spit on it. Terrell Owens thought it was meaningful to preen on it before he was a Cowboy.

So the Musers'/Hardline's thought must have been that, even though it symbolized the Cowboys, it was no big deal that an adversary's representative expectorated on it.

Now, we may all acknowledge that fights having to do with symbols are less important than the play of the game itself, and that a spot or two of saliva on turf are less significant than an injurious personal foul on a player. But to scorn the coverage of a deliberate injury to an acknowledged symbol as dwelling on something insignificant strikes me as wrongheaded. If the Dallas Cowboys are important to people, then a gratuitous insult to its symbol by a significant enemy is also important to those people.

Thus, the Ticket hosts' position translates into an argument that in the grand scheme of things, the Cowboys aren't important enough for it to matter that Spedaro spit on the star. Really? These guys make their living talking about the Cowboys! Of course they matter to people. Yeah, football is a game, it's not life, it's not Haiti relief, it's not government-sponsored health care, but it is a gigantic part of the lives of lots and lots of people. And once you understand that, then the Cowboy star is "important" in the same way, and a Spedaro recording himself spitting on it is a worthy story. I'm not going to argue about degree, or media overkill – but it was a real story that mattered in the grand scheme of coverage of that playoff game, and the Musers and Hardline sounded a little out of touch in dismissing it.

All Right, I'll Bite -- Where Is Barb Smith?

Not that I miss her largely incoherent traffic reports, but I thought I would see something on the Internets about her absence or outright departure.  Nope. 

Anyone out there have a notion of what's happened to her?

If Ms. Smith is out, I see no reason that we should have to listen to anyone other than Doyle King.  This Jason guy whose last name I used to be able to remember is OK, if you're interested in traffic, but Doyle elevates useless traffic reporting to an art form, where one actually listens to the thing even though aware that it's probably a good hour-and-a-half behind the actual events on the roadway.  So if we have to have the advertising segments extended by useless traffic fibs, we ought at least to be able to enjoy being fibbed to by the magnificent Doyle.

Did The Ticket Have to Be AWOL on the Night of the Viking Game?

So here we have the biggest Cowboy game in years.

And over here we have the most popular and famous sports radio station in DFW that prides itself on providing local programming, as opposed to competitors who offer a lot of network or syndicated nonlocal programming.

So why, after Norm and Donovan's two-hour post-game show (which is outstanding), does The Ticket shut down Cowboy coverage and go to a broadcast of a college basketball game – Wake Forest v. Duke, a game of no local interest?

There's a contract in this somewhere, some legal reason The Ticket had to broadcast that game. The advertising already sold, some kind of syndication deal to fill in content. But even though The Ticket might not have had foreknowledge that the Cowboys would be playing today – although the possibility could not have been all that remote – it was a certainty that the weekend would have featured the four playoff games, which would have been of considerable interest to the The Ticket demo.

So the Cowboy game might have taken Ticket programmers by surprise. But what would it have taken to pre-empt that worthless game for the sake of serving the faithful P1's who, I suspect, tuned in to The Ticket's two local competitors' football talk show in droves (like I did)?  Local stations pre-empt network programming all the time for matters of intense local interest.  There is unquestionably a financial hit in doing so, but that begs the question of where management's/ownership's priorities lie.  Maybe it would have been economically irrational to absorb the financial penalty from pre-empting that who-cares basketball game, but to the almighty demo, the effect was unmistakable:    In the P1 Nation's hour of need, The Ticket was, in effect, off the air.

On Sunday, The Ticket didn't seem like the premier sports-talk station in Dallas.

Death in the Family -- I'll Be Back Soon with New Posts -- Thanks

The Musers and Hardline Bury . . . Actually, Avoid the Lede

This entry won't be entirely fair. I think both shows missed a big point today, but it's not their job to anticipate what I think the point is about any given topic. So I concede, in advance, that this critique will be somewhat arbitrary.

Both shows devoted a segment to the NBA's suspension of Gilbert Arenas for pulling a gun in the Washington Bullets' locker room. One of his teammates did the same. On the Musers, Devin Harris (I think) was quoted as estimating that around 70% of the NBA players have guns (unclear whether they regularly carried them). The Musers noted that this did not seem to be a big problem in other sports.

Both shows asked the question, "why are all these NBA guys carrying guns?" Both shows kinda half-heartedly wondered whether it was for protection (the Hardline rejected this more vigorously than did the Musers), and there were a couple of suggestions that players wanted to "keep it real." But they professed to be, for the most part, baffled. 

Really? I would have thought that the answer virtually screams itself: they carry guns because the thug-life inner-city hoops street gang culture – and, I'm guessing, actual street gang influence -- has infiltrated the NBA.  Starts in high school basketball, graduates to college, and on to the NBA.   So I thought both shows missed a chance to say something interesting about the NBA.

I myself don't have any evidence of actual gang influence on NBA players. But there's a reason Arenas was indefinitely suspended, and that is that David Stern is terrified that the league has acquired the reputation as the pro sports adjunct to what is, in effect, organized crime.  Player posses loaded with suspicious characters; players bristling with firearms; Paul Pierce and Derrick Rose flashing gang signs.  

Surprised the Musers and Hardline seemed so perplexed about where the NBA gun culture comes from.

I'm Hearing a Lot More . . .

. . . unsponsored segments. I wonder why station management doesn't discourage the hosts from calling attention to this.
The advertising revenue from Junior’s mama or Mike’s butt would have to be negligible.
 
Could be wrong -- maybe January is the Death Valley of ad sales, coming after the free-spending holidays.

Resolution for The Ticket

If I had one resolution to offer for The Ticket, it would be to inventory the list of host cliches, and get rid of them.  Number one on the list:

"Not so much."

Others:

"It is what it is."
"There is no doubt."
"Ya think?"
"Wellllllllllllllllllll."  (Which single-handedly renders Why Today Doesn't Suck pretty much unlistenable, although there are other elements that render it unlistenable.)

Happy New Year, P1 Nation.

What? He Needs a Holiday?

I've said it before , I'll say it again, and I"ll probably say it in the future:

When incumbent Barb Smtih is unavailable, there is no reason whatsoever that we should have to listen to anyone other than Doyle King doing the traffic.  I'm sure Jason Walker, or whoever it was this morning, is a decent chap, but if you want credible traffic it has got to be Doyle.

I mean, it's not like the guy needs a vacation.

Frankly, her e-brake value aside, I'm not sure there's a lot of reason for him not to do it when she is available.  I was driving towards a traffic situation she was attempting to describe one morning, and it was so garbled and unpunctuated I couldn't tell if the Tollway was open or closed.  I listened for the next traffic report and she hadn't improved.

Corby Misuses "Meshuggenah"

While the station is on hiatus, here's a throwaway observation:

Corby misuses the Yiddish term "meshuggenah." It is heard most frequently when the group is talking about the ambush of Billy Joel, when Corby referred to "meshuggenah comedian Alan King," or words to that effect.

I think Corby must think that "meshuggenah" means "ethnic Jewish Catskills-type," because "meshuggenah" does not describe Alan King in the slightest. "Meshuggenah" means crazy, real crazy, wildly insane. It is not an adjective one pairs up with "comic" or "comedian." (One also sees it used as a noun, to refer to a person or a quality.) If you Google "meshuggenah comic" or "meshuggenah comedian," you come up with nothing.

Mark Elfenbein uses it in a punning way to refer to Michigan fan Stewart Cedar ("Mr. Meshuggenah"), which is perfectly fine. (My notes on Elfenbein's ethnic approach here.)  But Corby needs to brush up on his Yiddish.

Host Disconnect

Or maybe it’s listener disconnect.

The read of every host I have heard on The Ticket is that the Saints victory made it somewhat less likely that Wade Phillips will be fired. That it saved his bacon, at least temporarily.  The thought seems to be that he might survive if the Cowboys make it to the playoffs and win a game.

They may be right, if they’re talking about what might happen if the Cowboys make it into the playoffs and win a game.

But of the dozen or so people I’ve talked to about the game, the feeling is universal that the Saints game showed why Wade Phillips should not get a new contract.  It's the first thing people talk about:  That game, the thinking goes, shows that this team really does have the talent that (you may recall) that all pundits were lauding as the best in the league over the past couple of years – at the beginning of the seasons.  And its failure to play like that every week, and its tendency to play like slugs against weaker teams, is a Phillips/Garrett problem, not a sign of a brighter future with them remaining at the helm.  I’m not hearing hopefulness from my Cowboy-fan chums. I’m hearing disgust, thinking of what might have been. And dread that Wade might be back.

Interesting that this thought hasn’t found much love on The Ticket. Of course, I’m not hearing it from callers, either, so maybe I just travel with a gloomy anti-Wade crowd.

Rich Phillips Checks In

That was an interesting call to the Musers from Hawaii yesterday morning. I thought they were kidding when they speculated that Phillips might have been out partying.

Oh, dear. Slurring, exaggeratedly chirpy responses (I didn’t think his voice could go that high). I can’t help but wonder if the Musers weren’t deliberately jabbing one of their management overlords. (Did I catch someone saying that they were going to tell Ticket management, “We’re not going to do what this guy says,” or words that effect?)

The Ticket's Lousy Signal – And What to Do About It in the Short Run

The Ticket is one of the radio monsters. It is the envy not only of sports radio stations across the country, it is a pearl in the necklace of Cumulus that other radio corporations would love to have.

Michael Rhyner grumbles about Cumulus, and it isn't an act. The failure to nourish the station is a scandal. And it starts with the awful signal. 104.1 is 6200 watt; 1310 is, as nearly as I can tell -- and I'm having some trouble getting info off the the FCC website -- a 5000 watt directional signal. That ain't much. A big FM signal is in the 100-300,000 range, a decent AM signal is at least into five figures. I note that they're now on 1700 AM at times, which I think is 10000 watts during the day and 1000 at night. Now, it is the case that one can't just go to the FCC and say "I want more power." The Ticket is stuck with what they've got on those frequencies.

And it is poor. I travel north and south in Dallas daily, and the signal is dreadful in some of the most desirable North Dallas neighborhoods. AM or FM, doesn't matter -- it sputters and pops and goes in and out. 104.1 is routinely kicked off the air by some East Texas religious talker, I think it's KKUS in Tyler. I can't help but wonder if the Ticket's abysmal coverage had anything to do with the Cowboys taking their act elsewhere. It has to be a problem for their ad sales staff.

But Cumulus is a big boy. When WSCR ("The Score") in Chicago started to get huge, its owner moved its signal to another one that they owned that boosted their power immensely. (Moved it twice, as I recall.) Let's take a look at what Cumulus owns in Dallas, in addition to KLIF:

KDBM-FM, 93.3 (The Bone) -- 50,000 watts
KPLX-FM, 99.5 (The Wolf) -- 100,000 watts

Those are decent wattages. If we look at the ratings, we find The Ticket doing pretty well (approximately 13th overall), but doing spectacularly well – like, the best – in the 25-54 male demographic. We find The Wolf at or near No. 1 in the market overall. We don't find the Bone doing that well, 37th or so overall, but there are lots of ties in this list, so it's actually somewhat further down in the public estimation.

What does all this mean? I dunno, but I suspect it means that the Ticket is a helluva lot more valuable than its overall ratings rank would indicate. And yet it's got this crappy pair of cobbled-together signals. It probably also means that The Wolf is bulletproof. And it probably also means that The Bone is . . . nothing special.

So, I propose that Cumulus give The Ticket KDBN's FM signal at 93.3 FM.  No reason it can't keep broadcasting on 1310 AM. You may think that it would be a sacrilege for The Ticket to broadcast on anything other than 1310, but I am here to tell you that people would forget about it in no time. I'm not a radio technician and I don't know how to measure the improvement that putting The Ticket on 93.3 would work, but I'll bet it would be considerable. (The coverage map for KDBN is not available on Radio-Locator for some reason.) And when I say "improvement," I mean (1) better signal in the DFW population areas, and (2) wider coverage for the signal as a whole.

In the meantime, it's amazing that this station with this weak. spotty signal is gaining national attention and honors. Cumulus can milk the poor little Ticket for all it's worth, I suppose, but wouldn't it make more sense to do something to make it a DFW station of the first rank? Wouldn't it be a profit-maximizing decision?

Michael R is right – someone should come in and buy this thing. Or at least Cumulus should throw up a couple of billboards.

What's On Norm's Mind?

Can anyone figure out what Norm thinks about the Cowboys? Maybe I need to be listening more carefully. I admit, I'm usually doing something else during the post-game show with Donovan. Great show, they work well together, and Donovan is a favorite of mine.

So it's pretty clear from the Norm/Donovan discussion that Norm has the same feeling any rational observer would have, which is that the Cowboys have some serious, if puzzling, problems. Those problems might include Phillips; might include Garrett; might include Romo; might include Jones (take your pick on which one); might include "heartlessness"; might include "softness"; might include any number of other factors.

Yet it seems to me that when a caller takes a critical position on one of those factors, Norm switches into defense mode. Phillips doesn't drop passes; who you gonna get if you don't have Romo; Garrett's offense works 95% of the time; and the like.

So I dunno what Norm thinks is ailing the Cowboys. Maybe I'm not being fair, or, as I say, not listening carefully enough. If you think you know how Norm would improve the Cowboys, let me know.

More Lakeisha, Please

Speaking of The Musers' football picks, I absolutely loved the civilian they were picking against on Friday – Lakeisha.

I wish they had kept her on to chat for a bit; I would like to have heard more from Lakeisha. Is there some way to break down the demographic makeup of the P1 Nation? I suppose it could be roughly extrapolated somehow from overall market ratings, but I would prefer that someone would just tell me. Quite a few callers are black, even though Donovan is the only black host. And, of course, no female hosts. But there seem to be a lot of female listeners who listen for reasons other than having to spend time in the general vicinity of their P1 boyfriends.

Anyway, Lakeisha was a sweetheart – held her own with The Musers, gave Gordon some sass, and not bad radio pipes, either. The Ticket might should bring her in for an air check.

How to Make Money with the Ticket

First thing we need to know is how Junior and George – actually, probably just Junior – do on their football picks if you don't count the high school games. That is, what is their record when the high school games are factored out?

Let's assume their successful picking percentage is at least as good without the high school games as it is with them. Probably a pretty good assumption.

What we know about those picks is that over the course of a season, their winning percentage is noticeably over 50%. My recollection is that Junior usually wins, although I think that as of this week he and George are about even.

So if you just bet Junior's college and pro picks – legally, of course – at the end of the season, you will have made money.

White Elephant Musings

The host exchange days can be very revealing about relationships at the station. I didn't get to hear much of it this year but caught some of every show. It might be a useful thing for the station to do more often, if for no other reason than to keep hosts in line by reminding them that they could be paired with that guy and have to get up/go to bed at that time. Of course, maybe all those guys at the Ticket really, really like one another equally. Mm-hmm.


White Elephant Day also spotlights, shall we say, potential weak links. Because I want to keep this blog positive, I'm reluctant to single out the particular individual I have in mind, who was my least favorite Ticket guy even before WED. I'll probably have to name names llater on when I finally get around to my long-promised series on what to do to improve a couple of the shows.

Yeah, I know, how does one improve on perfection, and don't tune in if you don't like it, blah, blah. But that's My Ticket Confession – I do like it, I love it, it makes Dallas tolerable.  But yeah, I'd tinker with it if I were a god living in the Cumulus clouds.

Listening Too Hard

If I've been away from the radio I try to catch the Top Ten with Chris House. (Chris, by the way, does an excellent job with this recycled material. He doesn't have much to do, but he's not just a rah-rah guy and sometimes has some tasty observations. Keep an eye on him for future daytime assignments.)

So I'm listening and I'm thinking – who is this talking? I've heard these words somewhere, but the voice isn't familiar.

Then I realize – it's Mark Followill from his Hardline interview earlier in the day, one of the snippets of live radio I caught. But it's speeded up – speeded up a lot, as to render the speaker almost unrecognizable.  They've compressed it, undoubtedly for time reasons, and it sounds like Mark Followill might have sounded before his voice changed, or maybe the way is sounds when it's not being EQ'd.

That Dunham & Miller Morning Program Theme – Lyrics Please

Next to the Subway "Five Dollar Footlong" ditty, the ditty that's infecting my medulla these days is the Musers' theme played around 6 AM.

After the repeated "Dunham & Miller" refrain (or is it the verse?) there are some additional lyrics, but someone is usually always beginning to speak over them. Who can provide the full lyrics to the D&M theme?

And the artist?

My Ticket Confession -- I'm Worried About the Hardline

As any regular reader (?) knows, I've been concerned about the Hardline for awhile. I always issue two preliminary thoughts: (1) I favored Hammer's departure, and (2) Corby does not suck. However, I have come to think over the months, now years, that have followed, that the show has lacked balance. Love Corby, Love Danny, but they're overwhelming Mike, whose show it more or less is. The problem is balance – the show has lost it.

Oh yeah, there's a third thing I usually try to remind myself – why would anyone think that something as wildly successful as the Hardline is – still is – needs to be fixed? Well, good question. But it's My Ticket Confession – I love the damned thing, but I sometimes I wish it were better.

I've been thinking about a solution I've been meaning to post for awhile, but it would be a multi-parter and needs a little context. In the meantime, let me throw this out:

The Hardline has gotten a lot more vulgar in the last few months. I'm not a prude and past levels of profanity and misogyny seemed to me acceptable for afternoon drive radio. Let me put it this way: Used to be, when my wife was in the car, she could enjoy the Hardline with me. Now, I have to quickly turn to something on satellite before the next clinical reference to female genitalia. In general, the references to women have gotten pretty difficult to listen to. The profanity is also out of control -- effective in small doses, it's now Stern Lite.

Yeah, it's successful, but it's starting to sound cheap and lazy. I listen every day, I love it a lot, but I worry about the Hardline. I really do.

Hm.

Entertainment News (for You) not sponsored all week. 

Holiday week maybe not a big ratings week?  I dunno, lots of people with non-work time to listen to the radio.  Mike made mention of it today.  "A clean sweep," he said.

Who Is Rich Phillips?

Of course I know who Rich Phillips is. He does tickers. He does "Race Week." He does SMU Mustangs play-by-play.

He is also in Ticket management. I have forgotten his title, but I remember being startled when Cumulus announced his promotion. I thought the Musers were a little uncertain how to react to that as well. And I haven't heard anything much more about it.

Some on-air guys grow on me. Some decline in my estimation. At first, I didn't care for Phillips. I thought he was kind of a dark presence on the Musers, ill-tempered, sarcastic, antagonistic. Yeah, Gordon needs to be smacked down now and then, but it seemed pretty clear that Phillips just didn't like him and didn't really care to disguise it. (And Gordon doesn't care that some of the Ticket guys don't like him.)

But the more I heard of his work, the better I liked him. I could not care less about NASCAR, but when I'd hit the car radio on Saturdays and the Ticket (of course) would emerge from the speakers, there was "Race Week," and I found myself listening to this stuff in which I had no interest. And I realized it was because Rich Phillips was a pretty good broadcaster.

And I caught a few minutes of something else I don't care about – SMU football – and Phillips was phenomenal. Informative, enthusiastic without being sycophantic. His big-play calls were sensational. Man, he was really, really good.

I heard him on with Bob Sturm on Cowboys pre-game a couple of weeks ago. Now if you're on with Sturm, you're not going to be saying much. But he was pretty good there as well.

So I'm asking myself – who is Rich Phillips at the Ticket? Is he in line for a host job? Yeah, I know there aren't any obvious vacancies coming up . . . or are there?

Junior's Pun

I loved Junior's pun today after Gordon read the story about the guy who had to go to the emergency room because he had a combination padlock on his johnson. Junior said that he had run into trouble because "he had forgotten the penal (penile) code." George and Gordon moaned and groaned, but this was surely a tribute to its excellence.

It was indeed choice. The dedicated punster, which Junior may well be, will note homonymic associations in phrases and will store them up, hoping for a chance to convert them to puns. Speaking only for myself, I have saved up some howlers for years until the right moment came along.

This one was a jewel. The pun is near-perfect because "penal" and "penile" are so close in pronunciation, and the application to the combination padlock is not at all tortured. Bravo.

Mike Checks Out

Sorry I've been away.

Anyone else getting the impression that Mike is losing interest?

Late the week before last, I think it was, the Hardline interviewed Mark Followill, always a good segment.

Except that it wasn't exactly a Hardline interview. It was a Corby interview.

Nothing wrong with that. Corby is knowledgeable about the Mavericks and he did a good job, as he usually does. And I didn't hear every syllable of this interview, but I did not hear Mike utter a single word.

This is symptomatic of the continuing imbalance in the Hardline showgram.   Mike just sort of shows up.  He seems not to be terribly interested in the proceedings.  He seems not to know what segments are coming up.  The guys kid about the lack of preparation for the show, and that's fine, we love them for their informality in conducting something as precisely timed as broadcasting usually is, but when the lack of preparation – and interest -- begin affecting the show, the hand begins to reach for the dial

Immortalized by The Ticket

Two Fridays ago I sent a collection of Obama jokes I had written to an Obama-jokes website. (http://barackobamajokes.googlepages.com/) Forgot about it.

This morning I heard the repeat of yesterday's 8:40 interview with the fake George Bush, voiced by the chameleonlike Gordon Keith. He announces he's going to tell some Obama jokes, and one of mine was the first one he told. (Why did Obama cross the road? To apologize for his side of the road.) Went back to the website, and there it was in the "Latest Obama Jokes" section.

That was pretty cool.

Junior Listens Carefully

This is why you have got to love The Ticket.

On Friday -- maybe it was Thursday, my drives to work kinda blend together -- Junior Miller played a clip from a Wade Phillips press conference where he ends a sentence with a dismissive reference to criticism of the Cowboys' recent indifferent play.

From what was little more than Phillips's inflection in those few words, Junior perceived a great deal of what is wrong with the Cowboys -- Wade as Dad whose Boys can do no wrong.  It was an elegant, perceptive analysis, and when he replayed it, you sensed that he was exactly right. 

You don't hear or read that kind of analysis anywhere else.  Not in the newspapers, not in the blogs, and certainly not on any other sports-talk channel.  Sweet stroke, Junior.

The Hardline on Channel 11

Fun to see Mike and Corby holding forth on the poor Cowboy Stadium acoustics Channel 11 news last night.

It would be interesting to know how those cameras got to that remote.  No, I don't mean what kind of van, I mean why were they there?  Did someone at 11 know of Corby's U2 fanatacism and check to see if the boys would be discussing stadium acoustics?  Or did the station alert Channel 11 that the Hardline would be unloading on the Stadium, and are you looking for some video bites?

Finally, I wonder whether the presence of the cameras prompted an unusually heated reaction from both of them.  When I was listening that afternoon, I was startled by the vitriol issuing from them both, then saw that this was the passage that was broadcast at 10 pm.

Nah.

Corby Sounds Unwell

Is the night life catching up with him?

Does he have some upper-respiratory problem that he can't shake?

Has he been hanging out with Greggo?

Is his voice finally changing?

In any event, his voice has been lacking its customary boyish chirp for the last few weeks.  Some days he sounds like he just woke up.  Anyway, best wishes for a speedy recovery.

U2 Much

OK:  A segment or two per show on the upcoming or just-past U2 concert.

NOT OK:  Two weeks of all U2 all the time. 

They slip in some sports and pop culture and reg'lar dude commentary from time to time, but the U2 talk is deadly.  It's not that it's not sports.  I don't really care about that.  It's just not interesting and it is very, very repetitive.

Altex May Want to Reconsider Advertising on the Ticket

Have I been hearing correctly on recent ads running on The Ticket for Altex Electronics that this is where Ticket tech guys get their audio equipment?

If you had to list the top ten themes on The Ticket, the inferiority of their technical setup (to which any frequent listener can attest) would appear there.  The hosts are constantly complaining about their mics, headphones, and the like.  It may be that the equipment is fine but that abuse, misuse, and Cumulus's failure to keep the harshly-used equipment updated and replaced when necessary is what causes the Ticket's inconsistent and error-filled sound.  But it sounds in the ad like Altex is bragging that The Ticket uses their stuff, and that would have to make any professional purchaser of audio equipment think twice.

The Mike and Mark Show Last Friday

I didn't hear the entire Hardline program on Friday (October 2) with Mark Followill filling in for Corby, only a couple of segments. But those segments absolutely rocketed through the car radio. Just Followill and Mike, talking sports and other topics. No Corby overtalking; no Danny needing to step in to keep the show moving (Danny does not overtalk, generally); no self-referential banter about the particular failings of that day's show; no humiliation of Mike; none of the things that can make you cringe about the Hardline.


In fact, Followill's performance left Mike somewhat exposed. It has been some time since the Hardline sounded like a show for which the hosts actually prepare. My sense is that Mike at least, has lost interest in sports and Corby hasn't expanded his sports interests beyond college football, golf, and maybe tennis, to fit his expanded role in the program after Greggo's fadeout. So Mike ended up sounding a little like the junior partner on his own show. But even at that, it was a pleasure to listen to.

I don't advocate Followill as a permanent host on the Hardline. All-show, every day, his metallic baritone (terrific for play-by-play) would tire the ear. (By the way, it sounded like Mark and Mike were broadcasting from different studios altogether, which happens a lot even on Ticket programs with the usual on-air talent – Cumulus needs to invest in some new and matching hardware.) And in general I'm a large Hardline fan with the current format and personnel. But the jolt of energy and expertise that Followill brought to Friday's show suggests that with a little attention to restoring the balance between hosts and actual sports knowledge the Hardline can soar again.

As I have mentioned, I think I have an answer for what disappoints me about the Hardline. I don't mean to be coy, but I want to take the time to introduce it properly, since improving the Hardline is so very important to us all.