Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Seattle Radio: Sports Talk Heats Up

Seattle sports radio got a lot more interesting Monday, according to Larry Stone at The Seattle Times.

Part of that is because of the reunion on KIRO 710 AM ESPN of Mike Salk and Brock Huard, whose odd-couple chemistry made them a formidable pairing for four years, according to Stone.  That was before Salk took off, in March 2013, for an ill-fated stint at Boston giant WEEI, where he lasted just a year.

But part of the intrigue, undeniably, is the new time slot for Brock and Salk: 7 to 10 a.m., putting them squarely against KJR 950 AM’s morning institution, Mitch Levy. Levy has gone mostly unopposed in local sports programming since he switched from afternoons to become Mitch In The Morning in April 1996.

In their previous four-year incarnation, Brock and Salk went from 9 to noon.

Salk, who grew up in the Boston area and began his career there, found that going home — and replacing fired legend Glenn Ordway — didn’t bring happiness.

Levy is currently on vacation, attending the MLB All-Star Game with his sons. KJR program director Rich Moore is also on vacation. Kent Haehl, the market president of Clear Channel Communications, which owns KJR, declined to comment on the 710 relaunch other than to say, via email, “Mitch is the best in the business. ... They are going up against Mitch, not the other way around.”

Salk resigned from WEEI in March to take a job as 710 ESPN’s program director, which had become vacant. In that role, he engineered the lineup reshuffling that debuted Monday, featuring his return to the airwaves. During Salk’s absence, Huard had been paired with former Seattle Times staffer Danny O’Neil, whom Salk called “an absolute superstar in the making.” O’Neil is now on from 3 to 7 p.m. with Jim Moore and Dave Wyman.




Besides the discomfort of the early wake-up call, Salk said the first show was exhilarating. He and Huard didn’t spend much time Monday waxing nostalgic about their previous four years together, instead getting right into Mariners’ trade-deadline talk.

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