I find this thread interesting. First people complain that Live local programming is going away. Here we have a station marketing their programing to other regional stations in Washington. These are people live in Seattle having to keep listeners tuned in with there voice. Spoken word formats are hard to pull off. 710 ESPN is doing 12 hours of it. Wrapping yourself around a popular sports team is no different than wrapping yourself around popular music or artist or genre.
I know they have listeners because I'm constantly aware that messing with the transmitters during 9am-6pm can cause listeners to call in and say, "can you repeat that, your engineer switched the transmitter and I didn't catch that last sentence (very embarasing). The only worse thing is having a technical issue during Rushes show and getting the Dito heads worked up.
Sports listeners are out there, I was surprised about a month ago when I walked into our local Post office to hear KFNQ, talking sports in the back ground, I asked why the lone male person there was listening to KFNQ? He said because they were not talking about the Hawks all the time (49er fan).
I appreciate the people that crack the mic to talk to listeners and add continuity to the broadcast in hopes that people don't tune out. I give spoken word host a little more respect because they can't bail into a song, they have to keep the ship on course with their voice, even the talkers on KTTH, although I may not agree with them, they are still hitting the target for the format.
Religious talkers are kinda an exception because some of them are just really preachers and most are just reinterpreting writings that are century's old. Not really original content. Maybe the same could be said for sports since sports have been around a long time. But I think sports is a little more dynamic and does not revolve around how you should live your life. Unless the Seahwks are in the play offs.
So I think 710 ESPN is doing good to be able syndicate what they are doing 7am-7pm. Does Brock get any points for being a local boy who is now syndicated in Washington state? I'm pretty sure he turns his own mic on and off. Would you think differently if Shelly Hart got syndicated from another Seattle Cluster doing a music format (just an example, Shelly is a great person)?
Who will die first, me or the AM license for the station? In the late 70s as a kid walking around the KIRO 710 transmitter I wondered if I would out live the site. Time will tell.
