The 97.1 The Freak flag is no longer flying.

What started out as an ambitious, personality-forward format ended last week after less than a year-and-a-half of attempted disruption on the Dallas airwaves.

I was sad to see the reports that talented folks like Ben and Skin, Mike Rhyner, and Jeff Cavanaugh were out, with the iHeartMedia-owned signal returning to its former classic rock format.

Despite the short run the station had, there were both good and bad items that came from its launch, short stay on the air, and ultimate demise.

The Good

The fact that a radio leader even attempted to do something like 97.1 The Freak is a good thing. We’re at a point where many “sports talk” shows are really “guy talk” shows, disguised as sports programs. And The Freak threw caution to the wind and simply embraced what it was, which I’ve championed in the past.

The station embodied everything local radio should be: personality-driven. People are seeking authenticity, personality, and connection. And that — more than anything else — is something local radio can provide. The Freak went all-in on local, well-known personalities, looking to build a station that featured fun, interesting, and entertaining discussions daily.

Being a boundary or status-quo pusher should be viewed as a good thing. Sports talk radio, in some places, has gotten stale. And talk radio — especially news/talk radio — is a format featuring roughly the same 15 national hosts espousing the same beliefs on the same subjects over and over again.

In my opinion, the talk radio space was rife with opportunity for a format like 97.1 The Freak, and a station, leadership team, and company being willing to take a chance on the idea deserves to be commended.

And while I think ambition should never be viewed as a negative, one of the biggest issues with 97.1 The Freak was its overly ambitious launch.

The Bad

When you try to be everything, you’re nothing. The station bucked the idea that it was not sports talk, it wasn’t political talk, it wasn’t music talk. It was just 97.1 The Freak. Which is great, if it had a full runway from iHeartMedia to let that brand coagulate for years.

But in the situation it found itself in — trying to be one of the forefathers of a fledgling genre — attempting to be everything for everyone proved to be too big of a chunk to bite off.

I think the demise of the station proves that having a baseline format — knowing that if the station says it’s a classic rock station, you’re going to hear classic rock, or sports, or whatever format you’d like to insert here — is still a huge card to play. I know that people listen to podcasts, audiobooks, music, radio, and everything in between of varying topics and interests, but this is still broadcasting, and 97.1 The Freak was attempting to broadcast to too broad of an audience.

I don’t know how well the station embraced the digital content aspects presented to creators in 2024. It sure felt like the station was a natural for a YouTube/Rumble/Twitch simulcast, with a full-on embrace of social media like TikTok. But those things never came. Whether that is an iHeart issue, a Dallas leadership issue, or a station personnel issue is unclear. iHeartMedia has proven to be a company that embraces digital aspects, but 97.1 The Freak never really got that support and push on the digital side.

Also, what’s in a name? I’m personally a fan of show names like The Downbeat or The Speakeasy, but I think when you have a talent like Mike Rhyner hosting on the station, you need to highlight the fact that a talent like Mike Rhyner is hosting on your station by putting his name in big bold letters on the show name’s marquee.

And “97.1 The Freak” doesn’t necessarily instill a sense of wanting to be a member of that tribe, right? Not to get too into the weeds, but “freaks” aren’t generally folks interested in admitting that they’re a freak. And they definitely don’t fully embrace being members of big communities, like tribe-building stations require.

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My fear is the station came on too early. That in the next decade or two, we’ll be talking about how 97.1 The Freak was ahead of its time. That both the sports talk radio and news/talk radio industries shifted to allow a “guy talk” or “hot talk” format to grow into a formidable option seems like a reasonable outlook for the future. The future of music radio is murky at best. At a time when spoken word listenership and usage continues to be a juggernaut, it just feels inevitable that that talk genre continues to grow and innovate in ways like 97.1 The Freak.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. But I hope that doesn’t dissuade someone from attempting something similar in the future.

Although ratings for the 2024 NFL Draft were down 3% from last year’s event, the metrics still surpassed several other sports league counterparts airing programming within the time slot. The draft averaged 5.74 million viewers across its three days on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and NFL Network, according to the NFL and Nielsen Media Research.

Within those ratings, however, was a strong Day 1 performance that accumulated an average of 12.1 million viewers, which is up 6% year-over-year. Moreover, its total unduplicated audience equated to 34.3 million viewers, the highest mark since 2021. The stellar ratings were a point of discussion on the In The Loop midday program on SportsRadio 610 in Houston.

The program had a discussion on Monday pertaining to whether or not the NFL Draft should be extended to a week-long event. In 2010, the NFL expanded the draft to a three-day format and has been holding the event around the country for nearly a decade. Next year’s draft will be held at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., the historic home of the Green Bay Packers.

“While I wouldn’t go that far, there’s a case to be made for maybe four – maybe four days of it,” co-host John Lopez said on Tuesday. “NFL Draft ratings came out for Thursday and Friday – Saturday, I believe, I haven’t seen those yet – and it was beyond embarrassing for every other sport, especially the NBA.”

While the NFL Draft averaged 12.1 million viewers on Thursday, the next best performance was an average of 3.34 million viewers for the NBA Playoffs Western Conference battle between the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers on TNT. In the earlier time slot as part of a doubleheader of games presented on TNT, the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers game averaged 2.57 million viewers. NBA TV aired the Cleveland Cavaliers’ matchup against the Orlando Magic and averaged 2.52 million viewers across the game. Viewership data for these matchups is courtesy of Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.

“The NBA tried to counter it with three standalone games on different networks,” Lopez added. “Didn’t matter – more than 2 million [additional] fans were watching the second and third rounds of the draft than the NBA Playoffs.”

Earlier in the week, CBS Sports announced that Matt Ryan was joining the cast of The NFL Today and also revealed that Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms will not be returning to the program. As it embarks on five decades of studio coverage surrounding the NFL on CBS, the show will enter the 2024 NFL season with the new studio team that also includes host James Brown and analysts Bill Cowher, Nate Burleson and J.J. Watt. In reviewing the decision, which coincided with Esiason signing an extension to remain with Audacy in morning drive on WFAN, ESPN New York afternoon host Michael Kay speculated about what could have happened.

“I hope CBS buttoned everything up because if you’re getting rid of guys just because of their age, you’re going to get yourself in trouble,” Kay said. “You can’t fire somebody because of their age.”

Previous reports indicated that contracts for several members of the show were expiring after the conclusion of the NFL season. Brown reached an extension with CBS Sports, and Cowher, Esiason and Simms were all reportedly working on expiring deals. In its announcement, CBS Sports divulged that Cowher will be returning, whereas Esiason and Simms are not among the cast members of the show. As he co-hosted The Michael Kay Show on Tuesday afternoon, Kay asked Don La Greca if he felt that Ryan was more relevant than Esiason and Simms.

“I don’t know what it is that they see in Matt Ryan,” La Greca said, concurring with Kay. “He doesn’t jump off as somebody that I gotta go to see, but maybe they’ve looked into it or whatever, but if they’re trying to get the coveted younger demographic, I guess they feel like, ‘I want to get guys that can play.’”

La Greca compared the move to an observation he has evinced in baseball pertaining to older analysts and how some of them struggle to understand the analytics that have become embedded within parts of the modern game. Even though he never felt Esiason and Simms had not reached a point where “the game passed them by” or that their anecdotes and perspectives were old school, he can understand diminished appeal at an older age.

“They probably have some analytic where they’re able to test the market and see what the fans want,” La Greca said. “They’re doing it for a reason and they’re experts at what they do, and I’m all for change.”

Kay then stated that he believed an impetus for this move was the retirement of Sean McManus as chairman of CBS Sports, resulting in David Berson being promoted to president and chief executive officer of the division. Without mentioning Berson by name, Kay insinuated that the company “brought a new guy in who wants to put his own imprint.” Co-host Peter Rosenberg added that he felt it was the main thing surrounding these changes with The NFL Today.

“I guess my only problem with it is is that it doesn’t seem like you need any experience at all,” La Greca remarked. “We saw all of these guys eventually gradually move up to where they were – to prove that they can do it. Now it doesn’t seem like whether they can do it or not is part of the process.”