By Larry Durstin
Despite the Cleveland Indians marketing slogan asserting that ours is a “Tribe Town,” anyone who has been paying attention to the sports-talk discourse over the past few years has little doubt that Cleveland is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Browns. In fact, it could be argued that – media-wise – the team is more like an occupying army than a football franchise.
If it’s true that nature abhors a vacuum, it is equally so in the Vast Wasteland that is Cleveland sports-talk radio. Since LeBron James departed in the summer of 2010, the Cavs have been terrible and so have the Indians, leaving not much to discuss regarding these two franchises.
Of course, during that time the Browns also have been awful, yet somehow their awfulness struck a chord with their downtrodden fans and the floodgates were opened. Also, during that time, CBS-affiliated 92.3 The Fan was launched as a big-time rival to ESPN-affiliated WKNR in the local sports-talk field – thereby doubling the on-air redundancy and resultant dulling of the consciousness of those who, for whatever reason, find themselves exposed to such singularly focused subject matter.
It’s this radio rivalry that ignited a race-to-the-bottom, fueled by each station’s desire to “Out-Browns” the other. That’s where the endless speculation, pained ruminations, blatantly absurd assertions, bizarre theories, out-and-out paranoia, breathless streams of senselessness and barely concealed cries for psychological help were melded together in a ceaseless surround-sound loop focused exclusively on the excruciating minutiae of each and every move made by the Cleveland Browns.
This is not discussion or discourse; it’s obsession bordering on madness. It’s the mind-numbing soundtrack of Ahab pursuing the White Whale. And it’s about to get worse. Those two competing stations, WKNR and The Fan, have recently inked an agreement making them each – along with WNCX – the new “homes” of Browns broadcasts, having out-maneuvered the long-time “Flagship” station of the team, Clear Channel’s WTAM.
Along with triple-simulcasting of Browns games this fall, the colluding stations will provide 1000 hours per year – up from the current 500 – of “auxiliary” Browns coverage. And heaven only knows what that could mean, but the listener can look for each of the Browns ball boys to have his own show available on radio, websites and mobile devices anywhere and everywhere. Additionally, there are plans for an HD radio station to broadcast Browns-centered programming 24/7, 365 days per year. So expect to hear the replay of the Browns 1964 championship game at least twice a day.
But with all this coverage, no one should expect the level of sports-talk to improve in any way, or for any kind of original insight to manifest itself. Part of that, of course, is the nature of the beast. The classic commentary on sports talk radio is the joke about the caller who complains that the particular host is an idiot, has nothing to say, is a complete waste of time, is totally worthless and an insult to the intelligence of every one in the audience, before concluding, “And I know what I’m talking about because I listen to you all the time.”
Faced with the grim prospect of an expanded blizzard of stupefying Browns’ coverage, there is little to look forward to besides, perhaps, seeing how the personalities on the different stations spin the situation. It has always been the case that the sports-talk stations that don’t have the rights to the different teams broadcasts continually brag that they are the truth-tellers, willing to criticize the local teams, while the “Flagship” station (up until now WTAM had the rights to the Browns, Indians and Cavs) are afraid to say anything negative and are nothing more than cowardly apologists for their overseers.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it will be interesting to see if, for example, The Fan’s Dennis Miller-wannabee Chuck Booms continues his vitriolic attacks on the Browns front office — he often refers to the diminutive Browns CEO Joe Banner as “Kim Jong Banner” — or instead becomes just another snarky company man. Or if WTAM’s Mike Trivisanno (whose picture belongs in the dictionary next to the term “Lowest Common Denominator”) abandons his role as Browns shill and now turns into the Avenging Angel against the team and its management.
But aside from watching this kind of inside-baseball sideshow, there is little comfort or joy in this heightened occupation of Cleveland radio by the Browns behemoth. Obviously, the listening public craves endlessly empty chatter about a team that has been a total embarrassment for the past two decades. And just as obviously, radio stations are falling over themselves to serve up thousands of hours of inane programming to feed and exploit this sorry situation and the bottomless fan-misery that undergirds it.
In other words, it’s the immutable law of supply and demand that assures – at least for the foreseeable future – that Cleveland sports-talk radio is destined to remain little more than air pollution.
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com
2 Responses to “Rival Radio Stations Hook Up To Aid Browns Occupation of Cleveland”
IndyCA35
I find the solution is to simply ignore all three teams until such time as they put out a quality product. It’s amazing how much extra quality time I have. If the fans truly want a competent team, they should organize and boycott the Browns until the Browns rise above the pond scum level. As it is, the owners have no incentive to do anything differently.
Peanuts
It has always been a Browns town and, outside of the Indians finally winning another World Series, that is how things have always been and shall remain. No matter how bad Modell and Coach Bozochoke screwed things up, it is a Browns town.
The Cavs are just an after thought. The Crunch won two championships in the 90’s and that’s never brought up nor noted except by the hard core sports fans in town….
Go Browns…..