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Rock and Whitney on Animal

B

billyboyblue

Guest
Anybody catch Rock Riley and Whitney Johnson filling in on 620 WDAE? What did you guys think?
I thught they were kind of entertaining.
Beats some of the other fill ins.

B Man
 
Honestly... I thought they sucked. Actually made me tune into (gasp) 1010 for a bit this afternoon. Rock's ok but as I've said before, I just can't take Whitney Johnson. Way too careless and loose for a "reporter".
 
Riley might be the most popular TV guy in Tampa Bay, but he's a radio guy first. Yeah, Whitney is loose. He lives life like he's back in college. Maybe your jealous of Whitney and his care free lifestyle.
Who can be p.o.ed at Whitney?
 
Creative Loafing has been around for how long? And Whitney's been around for how long?

And he's not identified as a long time, popular, local radio personality? Wow....
 
Whitney has found his niche and has managed to have a nice long run at the Animal. Good for him, not my cup of tea for an update guy, but good for him.

As for his talk show chops, he is a nice foil, but little more. Rock found his niche on Bay New Nine a long time ago. As a radio talker, he is somewhat boring. I wouldn't listen to the two of them on a regular basis.

But, they are two genuinely nice guys who have managed to make good careers for themselves in the business. At the end of the day, who can ask for more?
 
i would listen to rock, paper and scissors over dan sileo or the other guy who was filling in for duemig? jason blutarski? seemed somewhat knowledgeable about football, but didn't seem too sharp on baseball topics. Then again, i could only listen for a little while.

the local content on the sports stations in this market is poor in my opinion. Duemig is the only one that keeps my attention.

i have to take a no-doz to listen to the guys on 1010 during morning drive.
 
Whitney Johnson seems like a great guy and is obviously WDAE's top reporter. However (you knew that was coming), I think most sports radio listeners would agree that news updates on the top sports radio station in a top-20 market should be much more polished and newsworthy. The fun, conversational, off-the-cuff commentary should be limited to the program content. The two-minute updates should sound much more like what is heard nationally, filled with newsy-nuggets and quality information. With that said, these reports can still be delivered with some humor and be effective. The best local sports updates in Tampa Bay were performed by Bobby Fenton when he was at ESPN 1470. Too bad hardly anyone noticed with that crappy 1470 signal.
 
Agreed that Whit's a great guy and beloved by many, including the teams he covers, but he manages to get about 30 seconds of information into those 2-minute breaks with all the crutch phrases he drops in between stories.

And by the way, what's your favorite Allman Brothers song?
 
The state of Tampa talk radio is really horrid these days. Sports talk is really bad especially. Its an absolute SHAM that 620 cant even muster up a live LOCAL show, they have been using that piece of crap hack Dan Sileo. Jesus, cant they get this guy off the air fast enough???

Get back Sandy Penner, he was at least knowledgable about something other than steroids and big and tall shops...

Ron and Ian are barely tolerable but at least somewhat entertaining, even though most of it is painfully contrived
 
Bobby has a good show on 1010 from 9-noon weekdays. His show is much better than anything 620 has to offer, minus the Big Dog of course. For us fans of sports talk radio, we are fortunate to have three stations that all have some (not all) good shows. We all have our favorites, but at least we have some options, and a fair amount of local programming. In my humble opinion sports talk radio in Tampa is getting better. Unlike much of the other talk stations in this area.
 
Its almost like Clear Channel is not even TRYING to compete at all for morning drive.

They have MJ (losing ratings very quickly these days) and no one else. Its like they purposely dont want to even attempt to compete for mornings. Look at the series of ABORTIONS on 98 Rock for morning drive (with the exception of cowhead, which they pretty much blew that opportunity) they have no one on FM or AM anymore worth a lick. Washed up Ted and Jack? Lex and Terry? Come on...

Dan Sileo is the aboslute worst though. I am still to this day confused on how this guy even got a weekday slot, let alone morning drive in at least 2 markets (and he had Miami for a while, but someone came to their senses down there). They had opportunities to get other people but its a disgrace what they have on now. And their listeners know, they always call on other shows complaining about him, but the word is out and the hosts cut off any knocking of Sileo.

Its a shame that 1010 cant do any better than sorry ass Mike Pepper, or they would be able to field some competition, if they got some syndicated show it would even do better
 
the heck with dan patrick, we have enough going on here - bucs, rays, lightning, magic, USF - to support another local program. why doesn't one of the sports station find an edgy host for mornings to go up against bubba, what would it hurt? I used to be a regular morning sports drive listener but quit when tony bruno was replaced by sileo - i can't listen to him,
 
Actually they put on Sileo after they let Sandy Penner go. Tony Bruno did I think only 9-10am slot before Chris Thomas was on 10-noon.

Huge mistake.

Sileo is a hack
 
Maybe this should start off another thread but I'll post here since we're talking sports...

Is it just me or does anyone else think the Rays pre and post game host Rich Herrera sounds minor league? Everyday it sounds like it's his FIRST day in radio. I read his bio and it says he used to work for Fox Sports Radio?? Seriously?? I love the Rays and I'm really happy about the season we're having. Andy and Dave sound great and the TV guys are good too. Sorry I gotta bang on Rich but he just sounds like a weak link in a solid broadcast team. Am I alone on this one?
 
You're definitely not alone, billalm. It baffles me how Rich got the gig he has (hate to jump on his case but it's my opinion). I've heard he is a really nice guy like people have said about Whitney. To me, he just doesn't even come close to being the caliber of a radio host for a Major League Baseball team. The rambling, awkward pauses, mispronunciations, etc. I can think of many people they could plug in there from 620, maybe even the producer Steve Carney, who could do a heck of a lot better. The Rays didn't have a separate host for pre/post-game stuff when Paul and Charley were here, and frankly I don't know if they need one now either, especially if that could save them enough money to move the games back to 970 or even 620.
 
Let me try to respond to the last three posts as best as I can. IIRC, Penner departure was his own doing. I don't really recall the reason exactly (I'm sure it's on this board somewhere) but I did find it somewhat peculiar at the time that he was going back to the market he came here from (Charlotte, who I think also had Steve Czaban at the time before he got the gig at Fox). Before Bruno left FSR, he was on 8-10. Sileo's third hour didn't air in Tampa before then.

Honestly, sports radio around here never has been the same since Christian left us way too soon.

Fenton is vastly underrated locally. T-Kraz has come around nicely since landing here--if only he had a better crew to work with on AM drive. Speaking of Fenton, I hate to say it, but I could remotely speculate that a possible national gig could be in the offing for him before you know it--he's filled in for Todd Wright (IMHO the best sports-talk host in the Tampa Bay area although he doesn't do local) on his SNR show late nights on more than one occasion recently, and has done a decent job.

While I'm on the subject of 1010, why in the blue heck is that late Saturday night "Sports Edge" (which I'll refer to as the Wild 98.7 X-Factory pre-show) still doing on the air?

As for the Rays posts, it's true Bill. Rich did work at FSR during its infancy in 2000. He was alongside the other Golic (Bob) and had a rather strange air-shift. By the way, this is what the lineup for FSR looked like in early 2001 (and yes, there is a Sileo sighting):
http://web.archive.org/web/20010603071055/www.foxsports.com/radio/

I thought his FSR show was terrible. I thought that Bob was only useful for football, and Rich was very impatient with callers, and hung up on them very frequently.

As for now, I don't think he's that bad as a show host. I can say radioguy that the awkward pauses is because he does cough...literally. Don't know why and frankly it's NOMB, but I don't think it's that bad a listen. As for Paul and Charley never doing a similar show...c'mon now, I thought five minutes of Charley were enough, let alone three-plus hours (and tell 'em Paul Olden sent ya!). Kind of a shame I never get to hear Paul's "Wagging the wood back and forth" drop on the Animal anymore.

Speaking of which, since you also mentioned radioguy moving the games to 970 or the Animal, I have noticed this week that all of a sudden as the game is coming out of commercial there is a different voice-over (the one that sometimes does promos for the Animal). Not only that, instead of plugging what's on 1250, this guy's now plugging what's on WFLA and WDAE. Hmmmm...I wonder why that could be...

...Oh, one other thing since nobody else has mentioned this thus far. Ever since the Killer B's interviewed college football's resident man-tease (best pc nickname I could come up with) Jenn Sturger, and her subsequent verbal slamming of Erin Andrews, they have been so full of themselves (the loud one in particular) for having their names mentioned on deadspin.com. Really? That's the best you can do? When you actually have a legit interview that will get people talking and maybe just maybe get your station a ratings point, let me know, K?
 
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