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a little overboard with the hockey talk?

C

california

Guest
OK, IM NOT A BIG HOCKEY FAN. I ADMIT IT. EVEN WITH THE PENS GOOD RUN LAST YEAR, I STILL CAN'T GET INTO THE NHL. so you know where this opinion is coming from. i am a sports talk show fan. blogheads explain to me why the two am sports outlets spend so much time belaboring the plight of the penguins. stan and guy opened their show the other day with about 50 minites of hockey blaber....ok, it's a topic, but it's only mid season!!!! does game 40 really deserve that kind of attention? IT'S NFL PLAYOFF WEEK AND I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT FEDETENKO, BADENKO,FLURRY , GITINITZIN OR FLURREY, ETC, ETC.....i know you can't talk steelers all the time........wait a minute, there's an idea......but it seems both eae and 970 are competing to prove to each other that they are the "experts" when it comes to hockey. but do you think the vast majority of the audience really care? maybe i,m wrong. i'd like to hear more pitt basketball, and how about the dukes? they choose to skim coat that coverage. ok, i'll shut up. i need a nap. maybe i'll put on a rerun of the penguins 23 game of the season...that'll put me sleep. california.
 
Unlike most of the country, Pittsburgh is a hockey town and california my friend, you'll have to deal with that if you're going to listen to sports talk here in Pittsburgh. I'm glad every outlet is rambling about the lackluster play of the Pens. I'm a mega-Steelers fan too, but I don't want to hear 4 hours of a talk show discussing one game.

Granted, I guess more can be discussed around Pitt being the #1 team in the country, but the Pens are still the big dogs running second to the Steelers no matter what happens to Pitt. As far as the Dukes go, I'd be hard-pressed to find thirteen people in the listening area that would want the Pens coverage shaved to hear about Duquesne. You can use the argument "If people talked about it then more people would care", but that's as valid as playing a deep cut from a Winger album on DVE.

Maybe by March you'll hear more Pitt talk, but for now, you'll have to suck up hearing the Pens amidst the football chatter.
 
Unlike most of the country, Pittsburgh is a hockey town and california my friend, you'll have to deal with that if you're going to listen to sports talk here in Pittsburgh. I'm glad every outlet is rambling about the lackluster play of the Pens. I'm a mega-Steelers fan too, but I don't want to hear 4 hours of a talk show discussing one game.

Granted, I guess more can be discussed around Pitt being the #1 team in the country, but the Pens are still the big dogs running second to the Steelers no matter what happens to Pitt. As far as the Dukes go, I'd be hard-pressed to find thirteen people in the listening area that would want the Pens coverage shaved to hear about Duquesne. You can use the argument "If people talked about it then more people would care", but that's as valid as playing a deep cut from a Winger album on DVE.

Maybe by March you'll hear more Pitt talk, but for now, you'll have to suck up hearing the Pens amidst the football chatter.
 
bowtie, you may have a point, i'll have to live with it. but if ratings are any indication of how the hockey blabber is being greeted by the audience, then perhaps you should reconsider. weae and 970 are virtually out of the game. at a time when sports talk should be grabbing some numbers, both stations are floundering. i'm not suggesting that hockey talk overload is the sole reason, but combined with weak signals and misguided programming, there is little doubt in my mind it's a factor. i'm learning to live with the fact that penguin talk will be overdone. bring on the pirates! hope springs eternal. california
 
Bowtie- Whatever you do- don't dis deep cuts from Winger albums.

California- Years ago, early '90s, WDVE had Stan and Guy on Sunday nights for a talk show. It seemed to be the perfect outlet for Steelers talk after a game (remember, WDVE did not have the Steelers back then).

I can't tell you how often I heard people calling up to talk about the Pens. I was literally shocked. You literally had more hockey talk than football!
 
KD's problems are solved. They can go all-Duquesne Basketball talk, all the time
 
We can all agree that this has always been a football town. But ever since that first Stanley Cup in 1991 this has become a hockey town, perhaps one of the most knowledgeable hockey towns this side of the Canadian border. Hockey ratings for both radio and TV in the Pittsburgh area on a par with those in cities like Montreal and Toronto and at times even better. The sports stations in the market and the Pens flagship understand that and play to their strengths. Hockey fans are a passionate lot and the stations hear that as well. So do the advertisers.

What this is not is a basketball market. Right now Pitt is the #3 story in sports and would largely disappear from view through the Super Bowl if the Steelers win Sunday. Your only real hope of hearing a lot of basketball talk in this town is if Pitt makes the Final Four and the Pens are out of playoff contention by the middle of March. Its just the way the market is.
 
California,
I respect your opinion but please, not the Pirates. The Penguins are under acheiving this year but the Pirate organization is a joke. At least thePenguins have been competitive in the not so distant past and have a bright future. The Pirates due to their incompetence have no chance to successfully compete.
 
If I may- let me ask "How important is the subject matter on a sports talk show?"

Let's look at two of the more iconic sports talk show hosts in Pittsburgh- Myron Cope and Mark Madden.

When Cope began hosting his talk show in 1973 or so the Steelers were just starting to win, but I have always been told this was a Pirates town around that time.

So, logically, a talk show host should push the Bucs around that era.

It wasn't as if Cope shied away from talking Bucs (though I can't speak of his 1973 subject matter), but clearly he would have been a football guy.

Point is- Cope was successful talking about something other than the most popular team in town.

Now, to Madden. So much of his conversation deals with the Pens and also English soccer. ENGLISH SOCCER?

So how much of a sports talk show's success is based on the content, "playing the hits," so to speak, and how much of it is the charisma and the host's ability to sell snow to an Eskimo?

I could even go on a bit further. NASCAR is popular in Pittsburgh. In the early part of the decade TV ratings were very good and you could drive through the Mon Valley and see more NASCAR stickers on cars than you would in a rural southern town.

Yet there has never been a successful show that talked NASCAR- either independently or within the context of a regular sports talk show.

I know there was one that bounced from station to station hosted by a local enthusiast but it largely dealt with reading off results from local tracks and was a snorefest to listen to.

Had a more dynamic personality hosted the show, or the content been better, perhaps NASCAR would be more prevailent subject matter locally on the radio.
 
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