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Friday Media Links

January 6, 2012 By

A minor family emergency (is there such a thing) took me out yesterday, and will cut today short as well. Here’s the media links from today.

Jaffe is getting lots of ice time – Chad Finn has a look at NESN analyst Billy Jaffe and his crazy schedule.

Boston Sports Radio Fall Ratings: WEEI Strikes Back, But Still Lagging – George Cain has a look at the fall radio book, and a show-by-show look at both WEEI and 98.5 The SportsHub.

Media Roundup: NBC Sports Takes The NFL To The Internet – In my SB Nation Boston Media column, I’ve got a look at NBC’s online streaming of their NFL Wild Card doubleheader on Saturday.

Pats Pregame Points: Playoff Bye Week – Chris Warner has some thoughts for the bye week.

Friday’s Viewing Picks – Ken Fang runs down the sports broadcast schedule for today.

Filed Under: Morning Links
  • latetodinner

    So I read through George Cain's ratings recap. Here are the salient points I learned.

    1) People listen to WZLX in the morning and at midday.

    2) D & C will not change and T & R do a comedy show not a sports show.

    3) George like a lot of us does not like Andy Gresh but George cannot explain why Gresh and Zo kill Mutt and Merloni (Its not that complicated…Mutt and Merloni suck).

    4) Felger is the "king" of Boston sports talk, Tony adds nothing to the show, Holley is the true star of the Big Show (I don't know what George is listening to in order to reach that conclusion), the Big O saw the writing on the wall so he took a $500 K salary hit, Mike Adams sucks, and with all of that the FM signal move gave the Big Show a huge bounce back into the #3 slot.

    5) DA beat Mike Adams at night…which is huge considering the last summer book for Mikey. Yet it was not that big a deal to George who argued correctly that DA loves his own voice and has a short sports knowledge because he is only 32.

    6) George felt a need to again say the Pats have personnel issues which he has been talking about all year but he is happy they went 13-3…how that was relevant to the rest of the column I do not know.

    We take a lot of shots at George for some of his absolutely stupid positions. However he can when called upon write quite eloquently and intelligently. My problem with this piece by George is not his prose but rather his analysis. It added no new insight, and he virtually ignored the big news that DA was now beating Mike Adams. George we expect and demand more of you, especially if you are going to represent the BSMW.

    • Rick

      George, I enjoyed the read. Good job. I do, however, agree with latetodinner that a little more insight and analysis is needed to give some depth to the piece. We need more "why?" instead or rehashing the points people have been making since The Sports Hub debuted and the radio battles began.

      Again though, it was definitely a solid article.

    • latetodinner

      George,

      My observation about DA catching Mike Adams had a lot less to do with DA and Mikey and how valuable their shows are but instead hinted that without the Red Sox even the seemingly invincible WEEI evening show was beaten by 98.5. I could not understand why anyone was listening to Planet Mikey (until recently when DA found contrarianism). Mikey in the SUmmer book beat DA something like 10share to 3share. Now that DA has pulled slightly ahead it tells us 2 things. First the Bruins in Boston are more popular than a locked out Celtics and the carry over to DA helped. Second, when nothing is on people are not so loyal to Mikey.

      Lastly, regarding Mutt and Merloni. I want to be clear so no one confuses me with Tony mazz. They, as a team, suck. That show is disjointed, difficult to listen to and as I listen here and there more I realize they are not as informed or as intelligent as Gresh and Zo…I don't think I can be more damning than that. it is a truly horrible show and pairing. I did not think it was possible in the Boston media to find two hosts and pair them that have nothing to say, no chemistry and who lack charisma yet WEEI managed to do it….as I think about it…maybe Jason Wolfe should be praised for doing the impossible.

  • HighWireNickEsasky

    He can write eloquently? No. No he can't.

    • latetodinner

      Nick,

      I take as many shots at George as anyone else on the board…but the article he wrote explaining the radio ratings was very well written. I did not feel like a hack blog post but rather it read like a real news article. His opinions were clearly present but he defended them well and attempted to be well balanced. We may or may not agree on some of the positions George takes, especially with regards to the Pats but let's also be fair to him…he can, when he does things meant for mass consumption, write well. Certainly better than a lot of the so-called professionals in this town (or Attleboro).

      • bostonsportsmediafan

        Agree completely. You can disagree with the points made but that's still something that could be transplanted into an op-ed within a major paper with little or no revision.

        • HighWireNickEsasky

          There is no way any respectable publication would run this without heavy editing. Here are just two examples of incorrect grammar from the first few graphs:

          "There was three months of Patriot football,"

          "Was it George Constanza that said “we are not men”?

          Then there is the problem with misplaced or extraneous commas. And I won't even start on the style or sentence construction issues.
          This is a blog post so some typos and errors should be expected. But for someone to say that George writes eloquently or that this could be "transplanted within a op-ed within a major paper with little or no revision" stretches reality a bit.

  • bostonsportsmediafan

    Great overview of the area. I think it accurately summarizes what sportstalk fans here have to listen when it comes to options.

  • JFP

    I'm not sure if you saw this, but I enjoyed this from Mike Reiss:
    http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/7423412/…

    Prediction: Playoff questions will be answered

    What I wrote: "This team will be in the mix to win a Super Bowl ring in Indianapolis."

    What happened: To be determined. But I feel good about this one, even if turning on local sports radio sometimes leads to the feeling this is a 3-13 team.

  • bostonsportsmediafan

    Interesting stat:

    According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Tebow will become the first quarterback to start a playoff game after completing less than half of his regular-season passes since Scott Zolak of the Patriots in 1998. The last to do it before that was Dallas’ Steve Beuerlein in 1991.

  • Doc Michaels

    So is EEI stuck with Mutt and Merloni for another year I'm guessing? How long do they hand out contracts for hosts — especially ones that just debuted — is something I'd like to know.

    I agree there's no way they get renewed as their show is the one that still lags behind the competition significantly — in addition to the fact that it's simply dreadful, as ltd summed up.

    It's like a vacuum from 10-2 for EEI and I can't see how they don't make changes there. The sooner the better…as long as it's not Kirk Minihane!

  • bostonsportsmediafan

    Interesting link from Mike Reiss on ESPN when he does his "Around the League" posts:
    http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bryan-burw…

    Looks like Kroenke wants to take STL into a more "Patriots" like model and the McDaniels mode w/o comp could be a sign of respect.

  • bostonsportsmediafan

    Everyone ready for Tebow time?

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