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Pirates To The Fan?

You could see this coming ever since Ellis Cannon was let go.

Still, it figures that through no fault of his own, pre and post game host David Todd will be shown the waiver wire. Maybe he can have a role on WBGG, or maybe he can land on The Fan, and I'm sure he'll turn up somewhere in broadcasting in some capacity.

But even though a sports station would seem to be a better fit for baseball broadcasts, there figures to be a hit here with the move, and it is the post-game talk show after the game.

Sure there will be post and pregame talk on The Fan. But one of the things that annoys me about the station is that there will be a major news story going on and then the station will just drop it. An example would be when Pitt and Penn State announced they'd renew their football series for a couple of years- front page news on the PG- and some hosts cut short the natural discussion and calls they were receiving on this topic so they could do a rainy day topic of "What's the best Game Seven you ever saw?"

The Fan hosts cut short the opportunity to gauge public opinion and have influence for the opportunity to talk about Aaron Boone.

Todd, and Rocco before him, know the Pirates. Grew up watching the team, do their homework with statistics, know the minor league system, etc.

They can take a guy like "Chuck from Uniontown," with his horrible voice, and instead of giving him the bum's rush because of it bring out his passion and knowledge, making him someone you actually enjoy listening to.

The Fan would/will patronize him. Calls from "Chuck from Uniontown" don't fit well on a resume tape.

I just see the Pirates having another ho-hum season and it's game 127 and right after the ballgame is over whoever is doing the postgame ignore the Pirates to discuss who the Steelers backup tailback should be.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe The Fan will pattern these broadcasts after WFAN's, where the Mets are given an elaborate pre and post game show that fits in to the rest of the broadcast schedule.

But I've always felt one of the reasons the Pirates are still in town is because in 1985 when it looked like they were going to leave, KDKA had on Chris Cross who passionately talked Bucs, their importance in town, created promotions and interest, and said better times would be ahead once first round draft choice Barry Bonds would start to play in the majors.

Others would have said "Who cares about those bums?"

And future post-game hosts on KDKA (Mike Levine and Mike Pintak, for instance) didn't talk Bucs, and I think that had an impact on their lack of popularity in town.

If the flagship radio station doesn't care about the game after its over- why should we?

I just hope that after the Pirates' west coast game on The Fan, we'll have someone to discuss what we just heard and not a replay of the morning show previewing games that have already been played.
 
Well written. You should be a "secondary voice" (TM - Cleveland R-I Board) for Smizik. ;)

Re: The Fan dropping the ball on discussing Pitt/Penn State rivalry renewal, which was just a few months ago, in June... to discuss your favorite Game 7... Is that they way of trying to get listeners amped for the NBA and/or NHL finals? (Keep in mind, Pittsburgh has no NBA franchise.) Could it be that previous attempts at talking college football had fallen flat on the listeners and KDKA-FM decided on talking about the four majors whenever possible?
 
Thanks DJ!

Now, to answer your question- the show I heard featured lots of people calling in talking Pitt-Penn State. This is a topic that always creates great passion and I, for one, think the ways the discussion could go are limitless.

Of course, just about any topic has limitless possibilities. It's just the host's ability to bring it out or not.

To be fair, there was a Game Seven about to be played- Boston/Vancouver in the Stanley Cup. And if there was a guest lined up to talk about it, or if they wanted to discuss "Is former Penguin-current Bruin Marc Recchi a Hall of Famer," or the actual game or storylines surrounding it, or compare Boston's recent decade of sports success to Pittsburgh's in the 1970s to ask what town really is "The City of Champions," or whatever else- fine!

Eventually talk of a football game to be played six years in the future will have to die off, even if it is Pitt and Penn State.

But what they did was stop relevant conversation for a rainy day topic. Not breaking news- as discussion of the Cup Final would be- but rather lazy radio.
 
I know nothing about Todd, but he's working for Clear Channel. CBS will probably want to have its own personnel involved with the programming that wraps around the Pirates broadcasts.
 
And in the case I gave, it failed miserably.

We have a good topic going and the lines are lit! But, wait, let's put that on hold so we can ask if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Boss- could you explain something for me?

If you know nothing of David Todd, then how do you know he works for Clear Channel?
 
I didn't say they made a good choice of topic when they changed, in fact I agree with you, but any major market station owned by a big company will structure shows like that. It was really apparent last year when "Big Ben Went Down To Georgia" was topic A, and they would work really hard to close off segments and move on to a Pens-related guest or something along those lines.

And not to be presumptuous, since you asked the question to Boss, but the post-game show is the responsibility of CC so the host would be their employee, as opposed to the announcers who work for the team. You may recall that Michael J Daniels did some fill-ins in that regard last year.
 
Pratte4Life said:
Boss- could you explain something for me?

If you know nothing of David Todd, then how do you know he works for Clear Channel?
Click to expand...

You said he's currently doing the post-game shows on the Pirates broadcasts, which are on 104.7, which means he works for Clear Channel. The only announcers employed by the Pirates are the ones who do the actual game broadcasts.
 
Parttimer said:
(T)he post-game show is the responsibility of CC so the host would be their employee, as opposed to the announcers who work for the team. You may recall that Michael J Daniels did some fill-ins in that regard last year.
Click to expand...

He has been filling in again recently (and doing a good job of it, too).

C.
 
Boss Radio said:
FWIW, Smizik has changed his story and now says that CC is back in play for the games.
Click to expand...

Yep:
http://communityvoices.sites.post-g.../30114-predicting-winners-pompeani-to-the-fan

"...Clear Channel is back in the picture and from what I hear it was the Pirates who re-initiated talks..."

May as well try and squeeze as much money as you can out of the two companies if you're a team with a, what, 21st straight losing season?

Smizik also reports that, should the Pirates end up on The Fan, and there were a conflict with Pitt football, "Pitt has priority" on KDKA-FM, which would send the Buccos (back) to KDKA-AM.
 
Boss Radio said:
FWIW, Smizik has changed his story and now says that CC is back in play for the games.
Click to expand...

So the CC scenario could be something like this....

Games on 3WS (they will spin it as a better signal, which it is, but some of the team's top brass hate the games being on the conservative talk station)...

Pre- and post-game on 970 (with games simulcast on 970), HD-2 and the internet.

Pirates get a 24/7 HD-2 channel like the Pens have on the X.
 
Anything is possible, but I seriously doubt they'd have any interest in having the pre- and post-game programming on 970. That would be the same as not being on the air at all.

I also doubt if an HD channel would be much of an incentive, given how negligible HD is.

Unless CBS is being impossible, The Fan is still the destination that makes the most sense for them.
 
Boss Radio said:
Anything is possible, but I seriously doubt they'd have any interest in having the pre- and post-game programming on 970. That would be the same as not being on the air at all.

I also doubt if an HD channel would be much of an incentive, given how negligible HD is.

Unless CBS is being impossible, The Fan is still the destination that makes the most sense for them.
Click to expand...

By pre-and post game, I mean the extended content.... as in the 6PM- 7:05 for a 7:35 game, and the post-game call-in...

CBS must have pulled something, because reportedly the Pirates called CC this time...
 
Parttimer said:
Boss Radio said:
Anything is possible, but I seriously doubt they'd have any interest in having the pre- and post-game programming on 970. That would be the same as not being on the air at all.

I also doubt if an HD channel would be much of an incentive, given how negligible HD is.

Unless CBS is being impossible, The Fan is still the destination that makes the most sense for them.
Click to expand...

By pre-and post game, I mean the extended content.... as in the 6PM- 7:05 for a 7:35 game, and the post-game call-in...

CBS must have pulled something, because reportedly the Pirates called CC this time...
Click to expand...

That's what I meant, too. The Pirates basically want a five-hour block of programming for every 7 p.m. game (6 to 11). I don't think they have any interest in having that "extra" stuff on AM, especially on a station that has no audience.

CBS could have pulled something, or Smizik could have been scammed by someone at CC.
 
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