Sports radio gets a life
By STUART WADE
After seven years of subjecting us to pointless debates between obnoxious callers and ranting, rude and equally loathsome call-in hosts, sports radio may finally be getting somewhere.
Sports radio, currently the full-time format of 150 stations nationwide, works best when it provides breaking sports news or compelling interviews. But the genre depends heavily on a puerile formula -- involving smartass hosts and ignorant, obsequious sports fanatics -- that's guaranteed to drive the casual listener away within seconds.
Recently, however, two new voices have energized sports radio, adding entertainment and journalistic substance to the mix. Nanci Donnellan ("The Fabulous Sports Babe," ESPN Radio Network) and Scott Ferrall ("Ferrall on the Bench," Westwood One) are tapping a wider audience, appeasing faithful listeners and influencing other on-air sportspeople. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the format still relies primarily on callers to be its talent. While there are intelligent sports fans out there, most of them are not calling sports radio shows. During the call-in segments, oddball sports shut-ins with names like "Vinny from Brooklyn" alternately assert their knowledge of the insignificant and grovel in hopes of attaining the slightest acceptance from the host -- whose personality is usually a hybrid of Chuck Woolery and Andrew "Dice" Clay. Quite often the difference between caller and host is marginal at best. These people have no life. They have nothing to talk about but sports, and they don't even do that particularly well.
Painful as it often is, the call-in segment is the format's lifeblood: It reinforces core listenership and fills airtime. Still, fewer calls per segment and better caller screening would reduce the dork factor and keep the slightly more mainstream listeners from fleeing.
Nanci Donnellan's "Fabulous Sports Babe" show (10-2 EST weekdays, 180 stations) represents a considerable break from the insubstantial babbling that characterizes most of the male-hosted shows. The show offers a fast-paced mix of breaking sports news, commentary and insightful interviews. "Babe" exudes a Lettermanesque quality: The show's whimsical announcer intros, music and pacing -- even Donnellan's stage moniker -- borrow liberally from "The Late Show's" bag of tricks.
Donnellan was particularly impressive during the Olympics, which she actually covered as a global competition, in sharp contrast with NBC's depiction of the games as a scripted, American athletic infomercial. In Atlanta, The Babe might have become the first-ever sports radio practitioner to take full advantage of the genre, interviewing international athletes from every sport.
If Donnellan is sports radio's ebullient den mother, then Scott Ferrall is its hard-rocking evangelist. Nationally syndicated from Los Angeles, "Ferrall on the Bench" (10-1 EST weeknights, 100 stations) is looking to go where no other syndicated sports jock has gone before.
Ferrall's rapport with callers makes you realize that sports radio call-in segments can actually be fun. To hear Ferrall's Harry Caray-meets-Tom Waits voice for just a few seconds is to realize he's an entertainer first and sports broadcaster second. To hear the white-noise heavy metal music he plays at every opportunity is to also understand that Ferrall's appeal is about a million miles removed from the tired old bar-stool-debate formula.
Show promoters liken Ferrall's spastic, fast-talking on-air persona to a "rock-n-roll animal," but underneath the wildman persona, he's a walking encyclopedia of sports knowledge. As you might expect from the world's first speedmetal sportscaster, his target is the 15-24 age range, the demographic most likely to buy Air Jordans or Starter jackets.
Though innovations in radio programming generally begin in large markets, they're quickly co-opted by smaller ones. Thus, a handful of competing networks such as "One on One Sports" or "Sports Fan Radio Network" have developed to provide sports programming to more than 300 small-market stations. The influence of Donnellan and Ferrall is easy to spot in these generic versions. These bottom-feeding networks lack scintillating personalities, but they do contribute a measure of professionalism to the smaller markets.
If sports radio succeeds in moving beyond mean-spirited one-upmanship, journalists like Donnellan and Ferrall will be in the vanguard. It may be too much to hope for, but maybe someday the Nicks from Newark, and their brain-impaired hosts, will get a life and vanish from ours.
Stuart Wade is co-author of "Drop Us A Line, Sucker," a book of prank correspondence.