Sports Radio News

Greg Hill: ‘I Am Not Sure As Many People In Radio Still Love Radio’

“Is it possible that some of the people in positions of leadership view radio as no different than any other business?”

Published

2 years ago

February 23, 2022

BSM Staff

Audacy

Buzz Knight has a storied history in radio both as a programmer and executive. Now, he is working on his own podcast series called Takin’ a Walk. Buzz picks out people he admires to take a walk with and pick their brains. As you may expect, several radio personalities have shown up on the series.

WEEI morning man Greg Hill is the subject of the latest edition of Takin’ a Walk. Knight tells Hill that he always admired how much Hill wanted to be in front of people in order to build an audience. The response is kind of surprising. Greg Hill appreciates the compliment, but wonders if anyone could build a show that way now.

Specifically, Hill talked about a regular stunt he would pull when he was on WAAF. The station was mainly considered a Worcester signal when he started in 1989, but management wanted to have a presence in Boston. Hill would walk from Worcester to Boston in order to build buzz for his show. Along the way, he would shake hands and collect change for food banks in the two cities.

“I look back on those things as kinda being the great days of radio where you didn’t have lawyers involved,” Greg Hill lamented. “You could do things like that and there wasn’t an argument against it. Now, you bring something up you want to do and now there are ten people telling you why you can’t do it.”

The events would take place over the course of 3 or 4 days each time Hill started his walk. For him, it was putting a lesson he learned from his former boss John Garabedian into action.

“Getting to shake hands with people and being able to say ‘hey listen to me tomorrow morning on the radio’ is the greatest way in which to build a radio show.”

Hill says Garabedian taught him to think about hosting a morning show as if it were a presidential campaign. People want to meet the guy they hear on the radio. He said it was like running for president. The more hands you shake, the more fans you will have.

Knight and Hill then begin reminiscing about their relationships with Garabedian. Hill always admired how much the man truly loved radio. He said in his experience, you don’t find many people in management like that any more.

“I still think there are a considerable amount of those people in this business, but I am not sure there are as many as we used to be when we first started,” Hill said.

His observation is worth pondering. As the audio platform diversifies and heats up as an investment opportunity, do you need to really love radio to run a company? Is it possible that some of the people in positions of leadership view radio as no different than any other business? That is certainly a sad way to think about our business, but it may not be far fetched.

Buzz Knight and Greg Hill recorded their conversation as they walked around Boston’s Seaport area. The thirty minute episode features great history lessons, not just on Hill and Knight, but on Boston radio in general.

BSM Staff

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Sports Radio News

Beasley Flips 2 Sports Stations to New Podcast Radio Format

“Podcast Radio is an idea that Caroline Beasley and our team have been thinking about and researching for years and we’re excited to be the first to launch this format in the United States.”

Published

6 hours ago

September 26, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

Two sports talk stations owned by Beasley Media Group have flipped in favor of a new podcast radio format according to Inside Radio.

Under a partnership with KMG Networks and operating under the Podcast Radio U.S. banner, Podcast Radio Detroit has launched on the former home of The Roar on 93.5 while Podcast Radio Carolinas occupies the frequency at 94.7 that previously aired FOX Sports Charlotte.

The podcast radio format will air some of the top podcasts in the U.S. and the world and is available to stations and groups on a network/barter basis.

“Podcast Radio is an idea that [CEO] Caroline Beasley and our team have been thinking about and researching for years and we’re excited to be the first to launch this format in the United States,” Beasley Media Group chief content officer Justin Chase. “This concept has been highly successful for Gerry [Edwards, Founder & CEO of Podcast Radio] and his team in the United Kingdom, and we believe our audience will fall in love with the Podcast Radio U.S. version we present on our stations.”

Jordan Bondurant

Jordan Bondurant is a features reporter for Barrett Sports Media. He’s a multimedia journalist and communicator who works at the Virginia State Corporation Commission in Richmond. Jordan also contributes occasional coverage of the Washington Capitals for the blog NoVa Caps. His prior media experiences include working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Danville Register & Bee, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, WRIC-TV 8News and Audacy Richmond. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @J__Bondurant.

Sports Radio News

Brandon Stokley: Sean Payton Wouldn’t Do to National Media What he Does to Locals

“If that was a national reporter, if that was Seth Wickersham or Jarrett Bell, he wouldn’t have answered it like that. I can promise you that. And that’s what pisses me off.”

Published

6 hours ago

September 26, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

Courtesy: Denver Broncos

The Denver Broncos got completely dismantled by the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, giving up 70 points a week after blowing a big lead and losing to the Washington Commanders at home. Broncos head coach Sean Payton clearly wasn’t in the mood to deal with many questions from the media afterwards, lashing out at a local reporter who tried to get Payton to expound on the historical significance of the loss.

On Stokely & Josh on 104.3 The Fan on Monday, hosts Brandon Stokely and Josh Dover took issue with Payton’s handling of questions from local media.

“You can be upset, and I understand why you would be upset,” Dover said. “I want you to stand up there and be angry. You should’ve been angry after that game.”

Dover called Payton’s interaction with the reporter childish, which echoed ESPN’s Ryan Clark on Get Up that same morning. Josh felt like Payton owed more to himself, the team and the press corps to not be so harsh.

“You’re the adult in the room. You got to stand up there and take it,” Dover said. “You kept Russell Wilson in the game to take it for four full quarters, right? So why don’t you do the same thing you’re asking your 22 starters to do? You stand up there, you take it like a man, and you tell everybody what went wrong and you answer all the crappy questions that you don’t think you should have to answer.”

Stokely agreed that Payton needed to show some maturity in that situation. But he thought it was further evidence that Payton views the local media covering the team as a lower class compared to national writers and team reporters.

“He’s treated the local media differently,” Stokely said. “You don’t get passes when you come in and you try to change everything and you treat the local media one way but the national media another way. You’re their best friend. They can have full access, whatever they want, whatever they need they got. Local media now, we’ve been relegated and all of a sudden everything looks different than in the past. And the performance was awful.”

Stokely added that Payton has held local media in a different regard ever since he was hired to be the Broncos head coach. He felt like had it not been a local reporter asking that same question, Payton would have acted differently.

“You don’t need to fire back at the reporter like that,” he said. “It’s uncalled for, it’s unnecessary, but I can promise you this. If that was a national reporter, if that was Seth Wickersham or Jarrett Bell, he wouldn’t have answered it like that. I can promise you that. And that’s what pisses me off. And I’m still a Sean Payton fan, but he’s pissing me off a little bit with this stuff. He is.”

Jordan Bondurant

Sports Radio News

Rich Eisen: NFL Can’t be Happy Taylor Swift Overshadowed Super Bowl Halftime Show

“Usher was announced yesterday, and that wasn’t even on anybody’s radar screen about big time musical performing acts and the NFL.”

Published

6 hours ago

September 26, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

Photo: NFL Network

The sports and entertainment world was buzzing on Sunday as music superstar Taylor Swift was at the Kansas City Chiefs game supporting Travis Kelce.

Kelce and Swift are presumed to be dating or in the dating phase of their relationship. Taylor was with Kelce’s mother, friends and family in a private suite at Arrowhead Stadium and the two were seen leaving the stadium together that evening.

Rich Eisen talked about it on The Rich Eisen Show on Monday. He found it interesting that the Swift story completely overshadowed the league announcing that Usher would be the halftime performer at the Super Bowl in February.

Eisen said the last thing the league employees tasked with putting together the Super Bowl halftime show together probably wanted was arguably the most popular musician in the world showing up at a game the same day you announce the halftime performer.

“The only group of people who were actually upset about this yesterday have to be those in the NFL front office who are in charge of making the announcement of who’s performing at the Super Bowl halftime show,” Eisen said. “Because Usher was announced yesterday, and that wasn’t even on anybody’s radar screen about big time musical performing acts and the NFL. It was all about what was going on in Arrowhead.”

“It’s even filtered into Bill Belichick’s world!” he added.

The Patriots coach was asked in his weekly appearance on WEEI on Monday about Kelce and Swift as a couple. Belichick has admitted he’s a Swiftie, and he said of Kelce that if he managed to date Taylor it would be his biggest catch yet.

Jordan Bondurant