East Coast bias—live from the mountain time zone
The A.V. Club's weekly sports infection
Left to right: Mike, Mike
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104.3 The Fan must really hate its listeners. I tuned in to the wide-reaching FM sports Goliath last week and was subjected to nothing but Yankees talk. Sure, the world-famous New York team just won its 27th championship, but why are we forced to listen to that all the way out here in Denver? My guess is The Fan thinks we are too stupid to appreciate anything more than dull, nationally syndicated shows, where all they do is yuk it up about East Coast teams from thousands of miles away.
The Fan has chosen an all-national radio lineup for the majority of its daily programming, and on this particular morning, I was subjected to the comedy stylings of ESPN's Mike And Mike In The Morning. These guys are as ubiquitous as cancer and just as funny—Mike Greenberg spent the whole time slobbering and fawning over the Yankees while Mike Golic just slobbered. If The Fan doesn't hate its listeners, it must just hate me, because having to listen to the duo’s half-assed jock/nerd Laurel and Hardy routine is so painful, I think Adam Lambert’s debut album would make for a more enjoyable morning. The decision to cram Mike And Mike onto the Denver airwaves from 6-10—yes, four fucking hours of prime programming time—is truly baffling.
The actual ESPN affiliate here in Denver is smart enough to put two local guys on the air from 7-9 a.m. The Insiders, CBS 4's Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller, catch you up on the latest Bronco game before handing it over to some of ESPN's national talent, which makes The Fan's decision to completely eschew local shows in the morning even more embarrassing. Since we're beaten over the head by the major sports media with teams it believes are more newsworthy than ones in our own hometown, The Fan's morning lineup insinuates that we too can't get enough of East Coast teams. If the Rockies had won the World Series, would there be the same obvious boner-popping through my speakers from those clods at East Coast-based ESPN? Not a chance. The Fan's decision to put these chuckling clichés on my radio, dismissing our far better local talent, is far from inexcusable; it's downright insulting.
It's not like The Fan doesn't have good local radio personalities at its disposal. Once the program director finds it in his little black heart to free us from the tyranny of nationally syndicated crap-fests, there are some options. Long time Fan contributor Mike Evans does yeoman-like work alongside the aw-shucks charm of Scott Hastings, and these two work well together. But by the time their 1-4 p.m. show rolls around, anything new happening in the Denver sports scene is probably old news.
I won't listen to Alfred Williams and “D-Mac,” who are on from 4-7 p.m. An ex-Bronco, Williams is an affable radio personality, but his partner comes off like an escaped strip-club DJ who scored a great time slot. It's no surprise the Fan has gone with D-Mac's babbling fountain of lame “bro-talk”—which sounds like it's directly based on a love affair with Mike And Mike—while putting some of its better talents out to pasture.
Which brings us to Sandy Clough: Clough, an incomparable mainstay of the Fan for many years, was placed in radio Siberia with his horrid 7-10 p.m. time slot. Once the sun goes down, I don't think you're even listening to the radio—by evening, the car stereo has been replaced by that lovely box that lets you actually see sports. Even though Clough is a total curmudgeon who's rarely wrong about Denver sports, his virtual exile in radio land is pretty much an audio death sentence. And for those of us who enjoy some halfway intelligent sports talk, it is as well.
With its penchant for bad programming choices, The Fan runs the risk of hemorrhaging even more listeners with this current lineup. Plus, with the ever-expanding world of podcasts, blogs, and other Internet outlets offering sports news, disgruntled Denver listeners can successfully avoid non-local products like Mike And Mike and their tired East Coast bias by simply turning off the radio. But if all else fails, there’s always Adam Lambert’s solo album.
