GARY RADNICH is an enigma; the minute you think he's beginning to approach that "mail it in" mode, the Bay Area's dominant media personality, who does a morning show at KNBR, (weekdays, 9-12) and is the Sports anchor at flailing KRON4, (KRON-TV) has you rolling in laughter as he tells listeners one of his famous Vegas stories.Known for his hip, often "inside baseball" humor, at his best, Gary is very funny and quite knowledgeable of sports in general. Just the other day, when quizzed by sidekick Ray Woodson to name the other star player on Larry Bird's Indiana State 1979 team, drafted in the NBA, Radnich nailed it on the fly, (Carl Nicks)
Other days, lately, his shows have been remarkably bereft of the industry chit-chat, self-deprecating humor that Radnich is known for. For one thing, the show has been re-configured by someone at KNBR, who knows?, maybe Radnich himself, with a heavy emphasis on more interviews, and less callers; which is ok--one of Gary's biggest attributes is his interviewing technique, but then again, how many Bay Area sports fans are interested in listening to an obscure radio-sports guy in Buffalo about Terrell Owens? Yawn. And how many more times must we be inundated with Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News? I like Mark, but that's not the point.
Truth is Radnich is at his best if he's got someone like a Tony Kornheiser of Monday Night Football fame or even the Chronicle's esteemed sportswriter Bruce Jenkins. Both have a better "give-and-take" than the infinitely stale CAL coach, Mike Montgomery, who is a great coach, but is remarkably bland, even when he's being prepped by Radnich.
The best part of the show is the daily 30-minute schtickfest with Tony Bruno, but, as noted in an earlier post this week, even that segment has been losing steam with an over-abundant reliance on sound drops and Radnich/Bruno's infatuation with rap songs--I love Kanye West and R Kelly, but I don't need to hear their stuff every day. Just last week, when Bruno was trying to talk, the combination of one of 18 million sound drops at KNBR's studio, plus a caller's voice drowned out all of Bruno's talk; it didn't sound particularly good and destroyed what otherwise was a pretty good Bruno segment.
Another irritating factor is Radnich's over-use of fellow side-kicks, Patrick Conner, and sports/traffic anchor, Dan Dibley. It's YOUR show, Gary, therefore, ostensibly listeners are tuning in to hear you; the give and take with Conner and "Dibs" is ok, but again, not every five minutes. While part of the charm of the show is interaction between host and supporting cast, the 18-gazillion "thanks Patrick" or "that is great knowledge, Dan" sounds tedious and is not funny anymore.
And the incessant "Rich Cerruti's NBC 11" retorts, combined with the relentless, almost shameless plugs of "Joseph J Albanese", (a KNBR sponsor) has reached a point where some listeners are simply turning the dial. Just read the hoard of message boards on the Internet for proof.
Gary used to open his show with some deliciously funny, unpredictable story, usually, it had nothing to do with sports, (a frequent criticism among the anti-Radnich sect) but peppered with references to Larry King, ("did you see Cher last night on Larry's show) and Howard Stern, ("that guy is a 'damn genius) It's that type of obscure referencing that is Radnich's nadir. In other words, more monologue and less dialogue. Even Johnny Carson didn't rely on Ed every time his joke bombed; and that's when Johnny was most effective.
KNBR's Radnich still has enough energy left to somehow manage to put together a decent show every weekday, but he and KNBR need to be reminded that the show is suffering from a sort of creative malaise. Get back to the basics, guys.
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KCBS has been helped by the simulcast of KFRC-FM, (106.9) which has boosted their solid and superb 24/7 news operation, with additional FM enhancement, both from a technical and practical matter. The added sister-station has also helped in the ratings, where the Infinity-owned outlet solidly beat rival KGO in the morning-drive news, according to the January Arbitron's. In fact, KCBS is now in more of a competitive mode with KQED-FM, the local PBS affiliate that a local news show, with added content from PBS outlets from around the country.
CABLE Confrontation of the week: MSNBC Host Chris Matthews got into a contentious, often heated debate the other night with former Bush43 White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleisher. Matthews was inquiring, actually, "interrogating" would be a better word, Fleisher on the ex-Presidents war policy in Iraq, and the Bush administration's economic policies that resulted in the current recession. The interview became contentious four minutes into the segment, with Fleisher telling Matthews, "Chris, can you not interupt me so many times?" and Fleisher scolded Matthews on-air with a "How dare you Chris" when Matthews challenged him on how "9/11 was on Bush's watch, and how can you defend that?". I asked KGO's Ronn Owens, a good friend of Matthews, his reaction to the sixteen-minute interview. "Both in demeanor and substance, Ari chopped him up". Whoa!, didn't expect to hear that from Owens, who has had Matthews on his show in the past, but I couldn't agree more. Although Matthews arguments were fair, his frequent visual sighs, and yes, his constant interruptions were frankly way overboard. It's a fair question to MSNBC brass why they were so quick to recently extend Matthews $7 million a year salary--his Q rating has never been any lower, and he makes Keith Olbermann look like Mary Poppins in on-air etiquette.
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COMCAST Sports will produce a local talk show, "Chronicle Live", set to debut, April 6. It will concentrate on SF Giants/Oakland A's and MLB talk, with an assortment of sports-writers and media personalities in the area. The new show will be hosted by Oakland Raiders play-by-play man, Greg Papa, who also does Giants baseball and college basketball for Comcast.
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