Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
• Confession: I haven’t listened to one second of DFW sports talk radio since the day I was fired by CBS – April 15, 2013. Satellite radio with Howard Stern and Diplo and Lithium and a little Symphony Hall sprinkled in, along with the omnipresent voices in my head, is just fine by me. But with last week’s sudden departure of Ben & Skin from 105.3 The Fan, I was moved to again survey my old landscape. Though I maintain local friendships and national sources throughout the industry, I come at this much more as an outside observer than an insider expert. Like a former player who has the box score, but didn’t actually watch the game. That said, there is no other rational conclusion than this: 105.3 The Fan is kicking 1310 AM The Ticket’s ass. Comprehensively. Up and down the dial. From dawn to dusk. Over the last six months, the shift in the balance of power in DFW sports talk radio is stunning. The stats:
Among the coveted demographic (Men 25-54) in the money slot (Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-7 p.m.), since May The Ticket has tumbled from a 7.6 rating to a 3.2. The Fan, meanwhile, has surged from a 3.1 to a 5.5. Current score: Fan 5.5, Ticket 3.2. In its 25-year history, I can’t imagine The Ticket every getting lambasted by 2.3 points in a month. Ever.
Not surprisingly, the individual matchups sing a similar song. In mornings, The Fan’s Shan & RJ beat The Ticket’s Musers in October, 5.2-3.7. In middays, The Fan’s Ben & Skin clobbered The Ticket’s BaD Radio, 6.5-2.9. And in afternoons, The Fan’s G-Bag Nation topped The Ticket’s Hardline, 4.9-3.2.
When I was at The Fan, we benefitted from a seasonal ratings boost as the flagship station of the Cowboys. The games. Jerry Jones. The hype. The “football bump”, as it were. But this feels like something bigger, more significant. From the large sample size of May to October, The Ticket’s two marquee, legacy shows – Musers and The Hardline – lost 4.0 and 6.2 ratings points, respectively. The Fan has won mornings for four consecutive months. It’s alarming enough that I’m told The Ticket – a dynasty that has long been smugly resistant to change – responded to the undeniably downward trend not as merely an aberration, but by altering its clock and tweaking commercial formatting. In college football, it’s akin to Barry Switzer’s Sooners losing five games in a row and eschewing the Wishbone for some Run-’n-Shoot.
Could it be merely an exaggerated football hiccup? Maybe. In today’s PPM ratings environment, could it be related to changes in listening habits by literally only a handful of people? Sure. But one thing’s for sure, The Ticket – for the first time – has a legitimate threat to its empire.
Crazy thing is, The Fan is winning not because of its management, but despite it.
• I don’t say this only because they were the show that ultimately replaced mine at The Fan, but Ben & Skin has never been my cup of sports-talk tea. Too homerish. Too chummy with players to ever be truly objective, much less critical. Too much like well-spoken fans with microphones. That said, the decision-makers at The Fan – these days owned by Entercom – are dumber than a bag of hammers for forcing/allowing them to leave. See above for crissakes. You finally assemble a team that can dethrone the Patriots, you do everything in your power to keep that team together. Unless, alas, you’re The Fan. I was on that station when it flipped to sports in 2009. I was there when it grew stronger, when Shan Shariff arrived from Kansas City, Gavin Dawson from Portland, R.J. Choppy from the golf course and Mike Fisher from Valley Ranch. I was there when “TOLO”s (huh?) were known as “Fan Fans” (duh!). I root for those guys now, because I lived their struggle then.
The Fan is flourishing. Finally. If the station raised a mythical radio championship trophy, I’d gladly hobble to the party like one of the ’60s Cowboys players who went 0-11-1 but somehow took credit for five Super Bowls for laying the foundation and establishing the culture. But now, poised to pounce … comes the Ben & Skin debacle. Despite producing revenue and ratings – their 6.5 more than doubles their Ticket competition and is by far the largest for any daypart on any sports talk station in DFW – Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade were first demoted from afternoons to middays and then forced to work six months without a contract. Finally, with their considerable egos soothed by courting from other suitors, they up and quit. My educated guess: They’re headed to 97.1 The Eagle, where they will do afternoons 3-7 p.m. and replace the long-past-its-expiration-date Russ Martin Show.
The ratings prove that The Fan certainly wasn’t broken, so I just cringe at what station management believes it has fixed.
• Every time Jeff Heath takes a horrible angle or gets trucked the rest of the season, I dare you not to think “WWJD”: What Would Jamal (Adams) Do?!
• After all he accomplished on the court, I initially thought getting a street named after him would be an insignificant tribute to Dirk Nowitzki. But, yet again, I was reminded during Wednesday’s ceremony of his unprecedented humility. “After my first year they probably wouldn’t have named a dumpster after me,” he joked. “Let alone a street.” He had freedom in the name change from Olive Street to … “Nowitzki Way.” “Dirk Drive” seemed like a no-brainer, but he wanted to honor his family, not just himself. Truly the GOAT.
• Sex offenders that commit a crime with children should be forced at Halloween to post an identifying sign in their yard. I wouldn’t want my kids trick-or-treating at that door. You?
• When the Rangers enshrined Josh Hamilton into their Hall of Fame in September, I cringed. Great player off the field. But a chronic fraud off of it. I took lots of heat for my column, urging me to forgive Josh and his re-birth as a devout, drug-and-alcohol-free Christian. Wednesday he was arrested for harm to a child under 14 years old, his own daughter. From the arrest-warrant affidavit:
The girl told authorities that Hamilton became upset about something she said and threw a full water bottle, hitting her in the chest, while cursing and yelling at her. He then pulled a chair out from under her feet and tossed it at her before yanking her to the ground, the affidavit says.
Hamilton then picked up the girl, threw her over his shoulder and carried her to her bedroom as she yelled that she was sorry, the document says. She said that he threw her onto her bed, used one hand to pin down her head and then started hitting her legs with his other hand.
He later picked her up by her sweatshirt, causing it to rip, she said, and hit her on her back. After he stopped hitting the girl, he said: “I hope you go in front of the [expletive] Judge and tell him what a terrible dad I am so I don’t have to see you anymore.”
I – yet again – rest my case.
• Hot.
• Not.
• I always say the two most overrated aspects are sports are, in order: 1. Home-field advantage; 2. Coaching. Regarding logistics, last night’s Game 7 of the World Series put an exclamation point on the latest evidence supporting my theory. The road team won all seven games. Glitch in The Matrix? Hardly. Road teams went 5-2 in this year’s Stanley Cup Finals, 5-1 in the NBA Finals and 5-5 in the NFL Playoffs. Add it all up: Home teams in 2019 playoff games are only 8-22.
• DFW recently: Cold. Dark. Wet. Gloomy. Lazy. If I wanted Ireland, I woulda stayed in Ireland.
• Didn’t think the Mavs would win many games this season without Luka Doncic and/or Kristaps Porzingis scoring 30+ points. Tuesday night’s win in Denver, which featured nine players in double-figures, was shocking. But can it be a blueprint?
• Got an email about a foundation. Asking for a donation. Namesake was apparently a wonderful woman who … “waged a valiant battle against cancer. Through her family and friends, God sent an army of angels to love, support, and lift her up … ” Um, why didn’t God just send his army of angels to cure her cancer? (Footnote: I can be a real asshole. Guilty. But … amarite?)
• Last Sunday was the supposedly rare “Sports Equinox”, featuring games from the big four leagues played on the same day. (So rare, in fact, that the last time it happened was waaaaay back in 2018.) DFW, your thoughts? Packers-Chiefs earned a 12.8 TV rating, followed by World Series Game 5 at 8.3 and Mavs-Blazers at 1.5. Hockey’s offering(s) did not register.
• I have been dumb enough to drive drunk, and lucky enough to neither crash nor get ticketed. Why did I make that decision? In part because, let’s face it, the punishment isn’t stiff enough. The latest wrong-way driver in Dallas this week was a man who ultimately received his fourth DUI. This sounds harsh, but that crime should mandate 50 years in prison, no parole. Yes, 50. And, yes, first offense. We’d obviously have to educate earlier and more intensely about the consequences of driving drunk. But faced with 50 years behind bars, the decision to have “one for the road” would suddenly dissolve into an Uber. And we can’t put a price on having safer roads.
• New Cowboys’ defensive lineman Michael Bennett will wear No. 79. The legacies of Harvey Martin and Erik Williams are safe as babies.
• This weekend? I mean, I don’t have sh*t to do, you? As always, don’t be a stranger.
