Last week, a post for a Red Sox radio broadcaster position that appeared on multiple jobs websites began making the rounds on the social media platform X. Here is the first portion of the listing:
Red Sox Play by Play/Analyst Announcer
Audacy Boston’s WEEI is seeking a Major League Baseball and analyst announcer (English language) to broadcast during the 2024 Red Sox season. If you have experience and expertise in describing baseball action on the radio — to go along with an engaging personality — you could be a perfect match to call games alongside Hall of Famer Joe Castiglione in the Sox Booth this year!
The posting continues with required qualifications — including “strong on-air voice required with the ability to change tempo and passion as the game dictates” and “must have a flexible schedule to work daytime, evenings and weekends” — along with what the position entails.
To Boston Globe sportswriter Chad Finn the listing mirrored that of the vast majority of fans reacting to it on social media: Wait, this sounds an awful lot like Will Flemming’s job.
Flemming, who joined the broadcast in 2019, alongside Castiglione, has established himself as an easy, good-natured listen. By all logic, he seemed positioned to succeed the 76-year-oldCastiglione as the lead voice whenever that day comes.
Audacy personnel have been told not to discuss the situation. Flemming did not respond to messages seeking comment.
But after talking with sources involved with the Red Sox broadcasts on background, Finn believes the situation seems to be this:
Flemming is not out. But he was apparently offered just a one-year deal covering the 2024 season rather than a standard multiyear deal. He has been a candidate this offseason for at least one television play-by-play opening in another market.
Why would Audacy offer a broadcaster who has done good work a minimal contract? It may have to do with Audacy’s financial situation — the Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 2 that the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy in the next few weeks.
In October 2021, the Red Sox and Audacy announced a broadcast rights extension to keep the games on WEEI — the team’s flagship station since 1995 — through 2028. But Audacy’s financial situation could result in the Red Sox taking over the rights after the 2024 season.
ESPN plans to handle the situation involving popular host Pat McAfee and a prominent executive “internally,” according to The NY Daily News citing a statement the network issued Saturday.
As MC posted over the weekend, McAfee on Friday accused Norby Williamson, ESPN’s head of event and studio production, of trying to sabotage “The Pat McAfee Show” after someone allegedly leaked ratings.
“No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN’s success than Norby Williamson,” ESPN said in a statement to USA Today. “At the same time, we are thrilled with the multi-platform success that we have seen from ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ across ESPN. We will handle this matter internally and have no further comment.”
It was a busy week for “The Pat McAfee Show,” on which Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made a controversial comment Tuesday involving late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and a list of alleged Jeffrey Epstein associates that prompted Kimmel to threaten legal action. ABC, which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and ESPN are both owned by Disney.
McAfee apologized Wednesday for “being a part of” the Rodgers situation. Then on Friday, McAfee — a former NFL punter — took aim at Williamson.
“There are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee claimed. “More specifically, I believe Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program. I’m not 100 percent sure. That is just seemingly the only human that has information, and then somehow that information gets leaked, and it’s wrong.”
ESPN released the official ratings Friday afternoon, saying “The Pat McAfee Show” had “brought in 1.7 million total reach per show across all platforms in [the] month of December — up 21 percent from September.”
Team USA took gold on Friday against Sweden at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship, and one of the most talked about moments was the team singing the National Anthem at the top of its lungs with gold medals around their necks. Many — including former ESPN anchor Sage Steele — were happy for the refreshing sight of a US National Team that was proud to represent its country… unlike some members of a certain women’s soccer team.
However, Steele also had a very good question: Why was this nowhere to be seen on ESPN’s social media accounts?
Steel shared a video of the much talked about moment which was shared on social media by Canadian broadcaster TSN.
Crazy that CANADA's top sports network @TSN_Sports chose to show this special moment from AMERICA's junior hockey team after winning gold..but AMERICA's largest sports network @espn chose to completely ignore it on all social media platforms. Also crazy considering ESPN's rights… https://t.co/yV3cXXBNW6
That is wild, according to Outkick, because while Team USA’s games aired on the NHL Network, quite a few of the tournament games were available on ESPN’s streaming platform ESPN+. It’s not like the tournament would’ve been completely off the radar in Bristol..
Congressional leaders have reached an agreement that could help avoid a partial government shutdown later this month. The plan largely hews to spending caps for defense and domestic programs that Congress set as part of a bill to suspend the debt limit until 2025. But it does provide some concessions to House Republicans who viewed the spending restrictions in that agreement as insufficient. In a letter to colleagues, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday the agreement would secure $16 billion in additional spending cuts from the previous agreement brokered by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden and is about $30 billion less than what the Senate was considering. The deal speeds up the roughly $20 billion in cuts already agreed to for the Internal Revenue Service and rescinds about $6 billion in COVID relief money that had been approved but not yet spent.
➤WHO'S IN CHARGE? Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin passed authority to his deputy last week without telling her that he'd been hospitalized with a serious medical condition, according to senior administration officials. On Jan. 2, the day after Austin was admitted to the hospital, he transferred authorities that required “constant secure communications capabilities” to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement on Sunday. Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico, “keeps a complete suite of communications and capable staff with her at all times, regardless of geographic location,” Ryder said, and she took up Austin's duties from the U.S. territory. Hicks, however, was not aware that Austin had been hospitalized until Jan. 4, according to a senior defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly. In fact, he had been in the intensive care unit after complications set in after an elective procedure.
➤U-S FEARS WIDENING WAR: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday before heading on to Israel after warning that the Gaza war could spread across the region without concerted peace efforts. Blinken started a five-day Middle East diplomatic effort in Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, seeking to avert a wider war in the region. He is also due to visit the West Bank and Egypt this week. "This is a moment of profound tension for the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and suffering," Blinken told a press conference in Doha before heading to Abu Dhabi.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling across the Middle East attempting to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading to neighboring countries. @marcusmoore reports on the diplomacy efforts underway. https://t.co/haTXlB86sTpic.twitter.com/NnFi5Tr6sD
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the intensity of the offensive in Gaza signalled his country's determination to destroy the militant group Hamas that rules the enclave and deter other potential Iran-backed adversaries, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
🛬BLOWN OUT DOOR RECOVERED: A key piece of the Alaska Airlines plane that suffered a serious blowout on the evening of Jan. 5 has been found, according to US federal air safety investigators, aiding their probe into the plane’s “explosive” rapid decompression. “I am excited to announce we have found the door plug,” National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said at a second press briefing in Portland, Oregon on Sunday night in the US. The door plug was found in the backyard of a Portland-based school teacher.
Accident investigators have hailed the miracle that allowed everyone on board the Boeing 737 Max 9 to survive after the 'truly terrifying' disintegration on the flight from Portland to Ontario International in California. Toys, phones and clothes were sucked into the night after the plug door 'departed the aircraft' causing instant decompression with 171 passengers aboard Flight 1282 on Friday evening. But the fact that most people were still wearing their seat belts just 10 minutes into the flight probably stopped them following their possessions through the hole, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). 'We are very, very fortunate here that this didn't end up in something more tragic,' NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy told a press conference on Saturday night.
The 81st Golden Globe Awards were held on Sunday night at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. Hosted by Jo Koy, the ceremony aired live on CBS and Paramount +.
Koy was booed during his opening monologue, causing him to go off-script and say, “Yo, I got the gig ten days ago! You want a perfect monologue? Shut up! You’re kidding me, right?” He later made a joke about Taylor Swift, and her unenthused response went viral on social media. “We came on after a football doubleheader,” Koy said. “The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL … On the Golden Globes we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift.”
Oppenheimer was the big winner of the evening, taking home five Golden Globes in total, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Male Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Cillian Murphy.
Lily Gladstone made history as the first Indigenous person to win the Golden Globe for Best Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon. Speaking Blackfoot upon receiving the award, she said, "This is a historic win and it doesn't belong to just me." Gladstone dedicated the award to “every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream.”
Barbie led the nominations with nine nods, taking home the awards for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Song. “It was exactly a year ago almost that we were shown the movie and I was very miserable and depressed at the time,” Billie Eilish said while accepting the award for Best Original Song. “Writing that song kind of saved me a little bit. A year later, here we are and I feel incredibly lucky and grateful.”
For television, Succession led the way with four trophies, including Best Television Series – Drama. Beef and The Bear followed close behind with three awards each.
Quite a few first-time nominees became first-time winners, including Lily Gladstone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Steven Yeun, Ayo Edebiri, and Ali Wong. Wong made history as the first Asian actor to win the award for Best Female Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made For Television for her role in Beef, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The evening’s presenters included Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Portman, America Ferrera, Ray Romano, Keri Russell, Issa Rae, Orlando Bloom, Angela Bassett, George Lopez, Michelle Yeoh, Naomi Watts, Patrick J. Adams, Will Ferrell, and Kristen Wiig.
Fox Sports is weighing a “massive” bid to snatch all or parts of the College Football Playoff away from ESPN, according to Front Office Sports.
FOS reports the strategy would make sense for Fox. The network’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show has closed the TV ratings gap against ESPN’s iconic College GameDay. And Fox’s gambit to place its top games in the noon Saturday window, rather than in primetime, has proven to be a brilliant programming stroke by the company’s head of strategy and analytics, Mike Mulvihill.
This development comes after Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch warned Wall Street that it was “highly unlikely” he’d bid on the NBA against ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. According to sources, Murdoch and Co. are building a war chest for other rights negotiations. (At the same time, another source vowed that Fox would not overpay for the CFP. The network is counting on ESPN’s newly disciplined approach to rights negotiations.)
Fox and other networks will take their shot as the CFP expands to 12 teams in 2024. In ’26, the rights to the entire package will go up for bid, including for the CFP National Championship. Coming up on the outside is NBC Sports, which added Big Ten Conference rights to its existing Notre Dame package. Along with the NBA’s rights, the CFP’s will be among the most eagerly sought-out sports rights in 2024.
According to a 2021 study, only 23% of Generation Z describe themselves as passionate sports fans, as opposed to 42% of millennials, 33% of Generation X and 31% of baby boomers.
Further, a sizable 27% of Gen Z describe themselves as “anti-sports,” compared with single-digit percentages from other generations saying the same. according to Dace Portas at USA Today.
Sure, you can find plenty of sports-obsessed Gen Zers all around, some people are as eager to passionately follow the same teams their parents grew up watching as they were. However, an increasing percentage view sports fandom as a pointless pastime.
“Part of the lack of Generation Z fandom is due to younger individuals having less intense feelings of group belonging in general,” said Emory professor Michael Lewis in his report on the topic.
Sports is just another cultural institution that Gen Z shows little interest in preserving. Alongside churchgoing, traditional office structures and other sorts of community association, Gen Z is far less involved civically than previous generations.
More than a quarter of those under 40 don’t even know a single one of their neighbors' names. But why are we so isolated? After all, it should be easier than ever for us to connect through our very digital lives.
Gen Z spends an average of 7.2 hours in front of screens – higher than the 6.3 average for Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980.
Disco trailblazer Donna Summer, country-music queen Tammy Wynette, pioneering gangsta rap group N.W.A. and performance artist-turned-sonic-maverick Laurie Anderson are among the Recording Academy’s 2024 Special Merit Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award recipients. Summer was the subject of the 2017 LA Jolla Playhouse production, “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports they will be celebrated at an afternoon ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 3, the day before this year’s Grammy Awards take place. The other 2024 Lifetime Achievement honorees being feted by the Recording Academy — under whose auspices the Grammys are presented — include Motown singing great Gladys Knight and The Clark Sisters, who are top-selling female vocal group in gospel-music history.
“The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason in a statement released Friday.
“Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community. We look forward to honoring these music industry trailblazers next month as part of our week-long celebration leading up to Music’s Biggest Night.”
90-Year-Old radio/TV legend Wink Martindale was the headliner for "Conversations on Elvis," a public talk show-style event Saturday held in Memphis, as part of this week's commemoration of the Jan. 8, 1935, birthday of Elvis Presley. About 300 people attended, to hear stories about the King of Rock 'n' Roll from his friends and colleagues.
Remarkably fit with a voice almost as resonant as it was in his heyday, when he hosted such 1970s and '80s network game shows as "Gambit" and "Tic-Tac-Dough," Martindale was introduced as "a broadcast legend" and "the last survivor" of the historic night that introduced Elvis Presley, the entertainer, to what would prove to be a rapt and eager world.
In other words, Wink was more or less in The Room Where It Happened on that July night in 1954 when his fellow deejay, Dewey Phillips, played Elvis' version of "That's All Right" on the air, after Sun Records founder Sam Phillips (no relation to Dewey) delivered the acetate of the recording to the WHBQ radio studio, then located in the Chisca Hotel on Main Street.
"That was the beginning of Presleymania, and I just happened to be there at night," Martindale told the "Conversations" crowd.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports Martindale, the morning deejay, said he was at the station that night only because he was showing the studio to some visiting high school friends from his hometown of Jackson, Tennessee, where Winston Conrad "Wink" Martindale began his radio career before relocating to Memphis for his "dream" job on WHBQ. He said the Elvis song caused such a "commotion" that he was charged with calling Gladys and Vernon Presley at home, to get them to bring Elvis to the studio, to talk on the air about the song that was driving listeners wild.
"I met him that night, and he remained my friend until the day he died," Martindale said.
Martindale left Memphis for Los Angeles in 1959. In 1975, he married Sandy Ferra, Elvis' former girlfriend.
➦In 1924...After several late-night test broadcasts, using the experimental call letter 6XG, radio station KGO signed on the air from General Electric's Oakland, electrical facility (the original two-story brick building, constructed specifically for the station on East 14th Street, still exists on the site), as part of a planned three-station network comprising WGY in Schenectady, New York, and KOA in Denver, Colorado.
The General Electric Company had been one of the giants of the electrical industry since its founding by Thomas A. Edison in the nineteenth century. After conquering the worlds of power generation and electric lighting, the company became one of the pioneers in the radio field as a partner with Westinghouse in the new RCA manufacturing conglomerate. As a major early manufacturer of radio receivers, they, like Westinghouse, saw the value in operating broadcast stations to promote the sale of radio receivers. General Electric constructed and operated WGY at its manufacturing facility in Schenectady, New York in 1922.
With the success of WGY, General Electric began making plans to build two other high-powered radio stations. One station was to cover the mountain and plains states, while the third was to be heard on the Pacific Coast. They immediately began investigating the San Francisco area as a base for the Pacific station, because of its location midway along the coast, and because of the ample supply of musical talent in the area. Originally, General Electric announced plans to build the station on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, and had drawn up plans for several ornamental antenna structures to be built there. However, they finally settled on a site in Oakland, at a G. E. power transformer manufacturing facility there, located at East 14th Street and 55th Avenue. At the time, what is now known as East Oakland was only sparsely populated, and G. E. had just completed their sprawling plant on a 24-acre site earlier that year.
Construction was begun on the studio and transmitter buildings in June of 1923, about a year before the company's third station, KOA in Denver, was begun. The license was applied for and the call letters KGO assigned. Those call letters had previously been held by a radio store in Altadena, near Los Angeles. That station had gone off the air after less than a year of operation.
Meanwhile, newspapers in the area were heralding the coming of a great new super-station to the Bay Area. The "Examiner" headlined, "Plans Ready for Biggest Radio in the West". It announced that the new thousand-watt station would be strong enough to "throw the human voice one third around the world ... more powerful than any station west of Schenectady, New York," referring to G. E.'s eastern operation.
KGO was first known as the "Sunset Station"; at that time it operated with a then-impressive 1000 watts. As was the custom with early radio stations, the programming consisted of performances by local talent, including the KGO Orchestra which provided some of the music; and a dramatic group known as the KGO Players, which performed weekly plays and short skits, often under the direction of Bay-area drama instructor Wilda Wilson Church. The station's music, which was also performed by other local orchestras and vocalists, would include classical selections as well as popular dance music the next night. Due to GE's involvement in RCA and RCA's launch of the NBC radio network, KGO was soon operated by NBC management as part of the NBC network.
By the 1928 Band Plan, 790 kHz was allocated to Oakland, California, and to KGO, which was then owned by General Electric, on an internationally cleared basis. In order to obtain a clear channel in Schenectady, New York, for what would become the present-day WGY, GE effected a breakdown of 790 kHz, whereby WGY would assume the maximum permissible power, and KGO would be lowered in power to 7.5 kW, which was then lower than the minimum permissible power for a clear channel station (10 kW), but higher than the then maximum permissible power for a regional channel station (5 kW). Both stations retained omnidirectional antennas. Therefore, GE effectively removed from the West one of its eight clear channels and added an additional clear channel to the East thereby giving the East nine clear channels and the West only seven. The other "regions" in the Band Plan all retained their allotted eight clear channels. In 1941, stations on 790 kHz were moved to 810 kHz. On December 1, 1947, KGO was directionalized, and power was increased to 50 kW, the new minimum (and maximum) power for a U.S. clear channel. An article in Broadcasting magazine noted that the increase "retired the nation's oldest regularly operating transmitter -- a 7,500-watter ... in use since Jan. 8, 1924."
KGO's tower falls after the Loma Prieta earthquake (1989)
Today, KGO is a shell of its former greatness. The station is owned by Cumulus Media and is airing a syndicated sports-betting format.
➦In 1926...Milton Supman born (Died - October 22, 2009). He was known professionally as Soupy Sales and was a comedian, actor, radio/television personality, and jazz aficionado.
He was best known for his local and network children's television show Lunch with Soupy Sales (1953–1966), a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark. From 1968 to 1975 he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s, Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM in New York City.
Sales hosted a midday radio show on WNBC 660 AM in New York from March 1985 to March 1987. His program was between the drive time shifts of Don Imus (morning) and Howard Stern (afternoon), with whom Sales had an acrimonious relationship.
Soupy Sales
An example of this was an incident involving Stern telling listeners that he was cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On December 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Sales; in truth, the piano was never harmed. Sales' on-air crew included his producer, Ray D'Ariano, newscaster Judy DeAngelis, and pianist Paul Dver, who was also Soupy's manager.
When Soupy's show was not renewed, his time slot would be taken over by D'ariano. Near the end of his contract, Sales lost his temper on the air, and began to speak very frankly about how he felt he had been treated poorly by the station, and how he felt betrayed that D'ariano would be taking over the show. The show went to break after a commercial - Sales was off the air, replaced without comment or explanation by program director Randall Baumgarten. Soupy would not return to the air. He died October 22, 2009 at age 83.
➦In 1929...the CBS Radio Network purchased WABC in New York City. The WABC calls were once used previously on CBS Radio's New York City outlet, before adopting their current WCBS-AM identity in 1946. Network founder William S. Paley appeared for the first time on the Columbia Broadcasting System to announce that it had become the largest chain of stations in radio’s short history.
Elvis with parents
➦In 1935...Elvis Aaron Presley born (Died – August 16, 1977). Known as Elvis, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
Audacy, Inc., today announced that it entered into a restructuring support agreement with a supermajority of its debtholders on the terms of a comprehensive restructuring that will significantly deleverage its balance sheet and further position Audacy for long-term growth. Through the restructuring, Audacy and its debtholders will undertake a deleveraging transaction to equitize approximately $1.6 billion of funded debt, a reduction of 80% from approximately $1.9 billion to approximately $350 million.
The Company does not expect any operational impact from the restructuring, and trade and other unsecured creditors will not be impaired.
David Field
“Over the past few years, we have strategically transformed Audacy into a leading, scaled multi-platform audio content and entertainment company through our acquisition of CBS Radio and by building leading complementary positions in podcasting, audio networks, live events, digital marketing solutions and our direct-to-consumer streaming platform,” said David J. Field, Chairman, President and CEO of Audacy.
“While our transformation has enhanced our competitive position, the perfect storm of sustained macroeconomic challenges over the past four years facing the traditional advertising market has led to a sharp reduction of several billion dollars in cumulative radio ad spending. These market factors have severely impacted our financial condition and necessitated our balance sheet restructuring. With our scaled leadership position, our uniquely differentiated premium audio content and a robust capital structure, we believe Audacy will emerge well positioned to continue its innovation and growth in the dynamic audio business.”
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