Shake-up at WEEI - D&H out

[Rob0729]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Couple theories:

One of them is that Dale may have been ready for retirement, and that this shake up was to accommodate one of WEEI's longest tenured guys. This is pretty much a semi retirement for Dale, as he'll be on fill in duty (a couple weeks here and there in summer, maybe around the holidays for a bit).

Another is that Holley was strongly considering jumping ship to 98.5. It's been a common feeling for a while that TSH was trying to poach Holley, first for the midday show, but perhaps for the afternoon drive (either a 3 man booth between Felger-Mazz-Holley) or replacing Mazz outright with Holley.

Personally, I'm going to take the easy way out and say it's a little bit of both. If Dale wasn't ready to ride off into the sunset, I don't think he would have agreed to some part time fill in duty.

Personally, I think they are getting read to groom Holley to take over the afternoon drive. Ordway is expensive, takes long vacation breaks in the summer, and is not the ratings powerhouse he once was. Ordway has also had several run ins with management over the years.

I think Ordway is facing a potential Eddie Andelman moment where his style of talk radio has become a dinosaur and his cost not worth his value to the company. This seems eerily like when WEEI paired Andelman up with Dale Arnold to shake things up after Andelman solo act started to slip in the rating. That ended horribly and based on Ordway's past run ins with the station, this could end just as bad.

 

[Tunescribe]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Not surprising they would break up the Big Show format. It is tired and shown it's vunerability against real competition. Hopefully, Holley will have an actual real voice and not just be Ordway's sounding board. Holley needs to take control of the show and be at least on equal footing with Ordway. He can't be another Pete who is there to stroke Ordway's ego and be the butt of everyone's jokes. Holley if used right could make that show listenable again and hopefully he will oust Ordway in a year or two.

Surprised with their midday selection though. Well, not really with WEEI's bias towards the Sox. With the increasing popularity of the Pats and the seeming cooing towards the Red Sox, WEEI could be conceeding 10-2 for the months of August through February unless the Sox make a real World Series push.

I sort of like Holley, but I don't see him being quick and edgy enough to carry his own show. He's more of a reactive type that an "initiator," for lack of a better word. The thing about Ordway is he seems to have pretty deep knowledge about all the teams and sports, and does a good job of steering the conversations as a host should. By the way, I strongly disagree with Icy wanting to see Fred and DeOssie gone -- I love both those guys. Fred makes me laugh and they're both great on football. If I can catch them whenever they're on, that's where I stay.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

I sort of like Holley, but I don't see him being quick and edgy enough to carry his own show. He's more of a reactive type that an "initiator," for lack of a better word. The thing about Ordway is he seems to have pretty deep knowledge about all the teams and sports, and does a good job of steering the conversations as a host should. By the way, I strongly disagree with Icy wanting to see Fred and DeOssie gone -- I love both those guys. Fred makes me laugh and they're both great on football. If I can catch them whenever they're on, that's where I stay.

When Fred started he was great ... he had lots to offer. DeOssie was okay but Fred was the real deal. He's fallen way off since then for whatever reason. DeOssie could offer some knowledge but now all he does is looks for spots where he can showcase his lack of talent. The guy wants his own show and it's obvious and it hurts him as a co-host. He must have known moves were going to be made and he made himself look like a fool leveraging to get the spot.

But hey ... too each his own ... talk radio is kind of like that.

 

[Armchair Quarterback]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

From someone who only occasionally listens to either station:

Merloni bores the life out of me.

Mazz may very well be the most annoying, least informed, least likable person on the face of the earth on top of having a voice that ranges between nails in a chalkboard and Micky Mouse on helium. Maybe one of these days that miserable little bastard will reach puberty.

Was never a fan of Ned Flanders, a pile of wood is more entertaining.

Like Holley.

Was never a fan of the Big Fat O and the never ending Red Sox talk, the only thing more painful is listening to an angry Cedric Maxwell butcher the English language.

Smerlas is amusing, DeOssie is an idiot.

Felger thrives on being the Ahole and he is good at it however they need to mix it up a little. Listening to Felger and his parrot you would think the Pats where 2-14 not 14-2. You simply can't be negative all the time on every subject and still be entertaining. That being said, I would still rather listen to Felger over the Big Fat O any day. I've heard more football talk in one year on 98.5 than I did in 10 years on EEI.

Zolak and Gresh may have a combined IQ of 64 but at least the talk football.

I have no idea who Mike Mutnansky is.

 

[Mogamedogz]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

WEEI is on life support... if/when 98.5 lands Holley... that's the nail in the coffin...


The ONLY two bad apples on WEEI are Mazz and Gresh.

Replace Gresh with Holley and Mazz with _???____ and WEEI is as good as dead.


:rocker::rocker::rocker::rocker:

 

[captain insano]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

WOW!! The Sports Hub must be kicking butt because they've got WEEI cutting their own throat.
Dale and Holley show is out. Holley is going to the Big Show with Ordway and Lou Merloni and Mike Mutnansky are the new duo from 10 - 2. Lou Merloni and Mike Mutnansky??? WHAT????? HUH???????

merloni and mutt??? are you kidding me. thats a show i will never listen to and ive been a loyal weei guy. that is some really boring ass sh!t those two. eei needs a fm station in boston. 850 am is killing them. 103.7 isnt enough.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Couple theories:

One of them is that Dale may have been ready for retirement, and that this shake up was to accommodate one of WEEI's longest tenured guys. This is pretty much a semi retirement for Dale, as he'll be on fill in duty (a couple weeks here and there in summer, maybe around the holidays for a bit).

Another is that Holley was strongly considering jumping ship to 98.5. It's been a common feeling for a while that TSH was trying to poach Holley, first for the midday show, but perhaps for the afternoon drive (either a 3 man booth between Felger-Mazz-Holley) or replacing Mazz outright with Holley.

Personally, I'm going to take the easy way out and say it's a little bit of both. If Dale wasn't ready to ride off into the sunset, I don't think he would have agreed to some part time fill in duty.

This move was all about the loss of ad revenues to TSH.

Arnold is only 54. Retirement comes young these days.

Gotta think that Holley is being groomed for the big chair. However, Ordway has 3 years left on his deal @ $1m per. Maybe EEI has an out-clause? Not pulling in guests may save the station some money.

 

[tuckeverlasting]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

what the ..... ? eei is screwing this thing up bad. dale and holley were fine. the big show was meh, but zo/gresh and felger/mazz are unlistenable. damon amendolara is aight and mike adams is a joke. this new combo big show/holley show sucks and merloni/muttman is atrocious. dale arnold wasn't bad enough to screw everything up like this. maybe if you want to switch things up you could move holley to the big show and do a dale/muttman experiment. this is just stupid. i guess i'm going to be doing a little experimenting of my own. i do know this much. i will never, ever be able to listen to felger/mazz for more than 5 nanoseconds.

 

[patsfaninpa]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

From someone who only occasionally listens to either station:

Zolak and Gresh may have a combined IQ of 64 but at least the talk football.

Only if someone took the test for them. I'm shocked they can find the station every day. Almost hard to comprehend that Zolak was a qb.

 

[DarrylS]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

WEEI is on life support... if/when 98.5 lands Holley... that's the nail in the coffin...


The ONLY two bad apples on WEEI are Mazz and Gresh.

Replace Gresh with Holley and Mazz with _???____ and WEEI is as good as dead.

Pretty much my assessment also, did not like Toucher and Rich at first, but they grew on me.. liked Dale and Holley a bunch, think that Gresch and Zo are idiots... initially like Ordway, but after a while all they did was yell over each other and talked too much.. cannot stand Felger, Mazz, Callahan or Dennis all of whom are absolutely egomaniacal idiots..

Do not see this as beneficial to EEI at all... like Merloni, but not sure of his Football knowledge..

 

[serifyn]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

i thought Dale and Holley was the best show. although the big show was entertaining when Max or Curran were on it, that morning show with DNC is terrible.

i dont think the big show is big enough for both Ordway and Holley though, Ordway rarely makes his own points and mostly just spews empty words to eat up time between laughing at stupid crap, Holley is great but he has his own style and needs room to work it, dale gave him plenty of room and i felt they worked well together even though dale himself was fairly weak, Holley carried the show.

i cant see Ordway letting Holley be the focus of the show however, this seems like a desperation move to beat out 98.5, and it will kill the whole rest of the day.

Honestly i cant possibly see Merloni and Mutnanski could be entertaining. Merloni is a follower, you see it every big show and while mutnanski can lead a conversation, i dont think he has the personality to make for entertaining radio.

i think the big show lost alot of flavor by letting sheppard go, i mean the guy was clueless when it came to actual sports knowledge but he was such a homer that he was entertaining.

imo, give Curran, Max and Sheppard a show, i dont think anyone is going to beat that combo entertainment wise.

 

[stcjones]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Love to listen to Holley and hate listening to the blowhard Ordway. So I'm hoping that this is a prelude to the Michael Holley show in the 2-6 slot. I think Merloni has lots of untapped talent but he needs a football co-host. Troy Brown is a bit dry ... Mutnansky sucks.

No more Fred ....

No more Deossie ...

No more Max ...

Bottom line here ... looking at it financially is that no way Ordway and Holley can co-exist. Hopefully that means Ordway is on his way out also.

I loved Fred ......and liked deossie somewhat.....hope they come back somewhere....

 

[Rob0729]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

I sort of like Holley, but I don't see him being quick and edgy enough to carry his own show. He's more of a reactive type that an "initiator," for lack of a better word. The thing about Ordway is he seems to have pretty deep knowledge about all the teams and sports, and does a good job of steering the conversations as a host should. By the way, I strongly disagree with Icy wanting to see Fred and DeOssie gone -- I love both those guys. Fred makes me laugh and they're both great on football. If I can catch them whenever they're on, that's where I stay.

Even if they are grooming Holley to replace Ordway, it doesn't mean they will give him the spot alone. He will most likely always be paired with someone (seems to be the most successful trend right now in sports radio is to have a duo rather than single host or panel show).

As for Fred and Steve, I loved them both before their Pinkie and the PomPom act started. I am tired of the mink, Fred the Christmas Donkey, and all the other bafoonery. When they talk football, they can be great. But both have become charictures of themselves. They used to be guys who talked football who goofed around occassionally and have become guys who goof around who talk football occassionally.

 

[Rob0729]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

i thought Dale and Holley was the best show. although the big show was entertaining when Max or Curran were on it, that morning show with DNC is terrible.

i dont think the big show is big enough for both Ordway and Holley though, Ordway rarely makes his own points and mostly just spews empty words to eat up time between laughing at stupid crap, Holley is great but he has his own style and needs room to work it, dale gave him plenty of room and i felt they worked well together even though dale himself was fairly weak, Holley carried the show.

i cant see Ordway letting Holley be the focus of the show however, this seems like a desperation move to beat out 98.5, and it will kill the whole rest of the day.

Honestly i cant possibly see Merloni and Mutnanski could be entertaining. Merloni is a follower, you see it every big show and while mutnanski can lead a conversation, i dont think he has the personality to make for entertaining radio.

i think the big show lost alot of flavor by letting sheppard go, i mean the guy was clueless when it came to actual sports knowledge but he was such a homer that he was entertaining.

imo, give Curran, Max and Sheppard a show, i dont think anyone is going to beat that combo entertainment wise.

The biggest reason I hate Ordway is because of his ego. He is obsessed with people calling him to make moronically stupid comments so he can look smart easily dispensing of their arguments.

I wonder if Holley will play into the game of letting morons on like Dakota from Braintree, Al from Everett, Steve from Fall River, or Frank from Glouchester. I know he let them on during the midday, but quickly dumped them when they get absurd. Ordway lets guys Dakota ramble on that that the Pats are so bad that they will lose 20 games the upcoming season (you know the Pats will be so bad that some of the losses will count as two losses) and argue with Dakota point for point eventhough what he spewing utter rubbish. Holley usuallly has no patience for this stuff, but Ordway revels in it.

This is just an example on how their styles are diametrically opposed to one another. It should be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

According to Chad Finn at the Globe and BSMW it was a combination of ratings slippage and the cost of keeping Holley whose contract expired in March. WEEI was still dominating 98.5 midday but at what cost, while the afternoon drive show was losing ground while Ordway was locked in at $1M per for another 3 years. They say Glen was instantly amenable to the idea that it was time for a change. Glen is nothing if not market savvy.., let's not forget he was the program director who resurrected WEEI from the ashes 15 years ago. And he's launched most of his co-horts to competitors careers... Glen will do whatever it takes.

They have also said that Mutt and Lou is not a done deal and neither are returning calls for comment. They invested in Lou in 2009 when 98.5 tried to lure him to their team. So they have to find something to do with him.

Dale will be on today to tell his side of the story. WEEI insists he is not out and will remain somehow a part of their family... I was thinking if they were smart they'd have persued DA and revived the "A Team" format or literally renamed it the DA's show... Doing what each of those guys do best, talking rationally about sports with lots of high end media call in guests.

Not sure what some of you think you listen to either. Any time I've turned on Felger and Mazz in the last two weeks it's full on baseball/basketball or hockey... And while Gresh and Zo may still talk football they are both such dolts it's seldom worth the effort to change the dial... Gresh knows about playing college ball...Zo knows about being a clipboard holder... Zo is also the most useless piece of the All Access puzzle because of the schik he seems to believe he needs to resort to in order to entertain us...

I really think with the looming NFL lockout there is rising panic in media circles about how they will be able to justify maintaining their football mediot rosters. I wouldn't be surprised to see Gresh and Zo fall by the wayside at 98.5 for that as well as ratings reasons. And at WEEI where for the last couple of years they were able to shift their coverage of sox games to other outlets so their talent could remain on air, they may be thinking that isn't cost effective any longer and a return to carrying games live for better advertising value may mean they also can't justify paying a fortune for frequently bumped talent. In that case I'd expect to see just one afternoon show sandwich itself around whatever the baseball schedule dictates starting with the pre season games which commence in a couple of weeks and extend into April.

 

[stcjones]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

I think that Dale is unfortuneatly a very stiff, boring, and uninteresting media personality....and sometimes he just tried to force it like Glenn Beck does....just go over the top in a hysterical fashion and try to get ratings....but it comes across as phony. He and Holley just never seemed to have that good of a chemistry......

I am not overly impressed with Merloni.....he is a decent baseball analyst, but that is about as far as his knowledge base goes......but he tries to bluff his way through the other sports they discuss and he comes off as looking pretty foolish because he is throwing terms out there that he doesn't really seem to understand and often makes NO sense. I think he also comes across a little ****y at times like Ryan Orsillo does (now on Espn but used to cover celts I believe). I can't see him pulling off his own show unless his partner has some good personality/sense of humor....and more sports knowledge than Lou does....

I always switched to Gresh and Zo at that time slot anyways, so won't change my listening habits........Gresh is kind of a pain in the a##.....but I like Zo from an ENTERTAINMENT perspective. He doesn't know all that much about the sports other than his specialty, but he is funny as sh#t.....Gresh does bring up enough good points and has good chemistry with zo....so it is entertaining from my perspective.

Like D & C overall...havent listened to Toucher and Rich that much so can't really comment.....Flip back and forth between big show and Felger/Mazz,........don't really like either one that much

Have no idea who Mike Mutts or whatever his name is......

 

[fnordcircle]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Does this mean less commercials? If not I don't care.

 

[PatsGuy]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Just listened to DA express his own feelings. Very very classy; but im not surprised.
I guess i'm old and old school and the taste of sports radio is generational. If I want confrontational in your face radio, I'll listen to Stern...or not

 

[reflexblue]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Does this mean less commercials? If not I don't care.

Yeah, one of the reasons i don't bother listening any longer, the commercials. I don't know if its still the same but it seemed (especially on the big show) you'd get 12 minutes of talk then 15 minutes worth of commercials.

 

[Jaquelina]

Re: OT: Shake-up at WEEI D & H out

Really? The one show I listen to EEI and they cut it. Zolak and Gresh better be ok.