Big changes at CSNNE and WEEI.com

Patriot_Reign

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well his contract just expired so i guess that explains the timing, although if under contract is it a no-no for an employer to give you a heads up that you might start looking around at other opportunities?
 

soxhop411

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Dec 4, 2009
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who is replacing Evan? seems like VORP for this McAdam-Drellich spot seems low
Who is the new guy?
Nobody

NBC Sports Boston is not expected to hire someone to cover the Red Sox with original beat reporting in the way Drellich and Sean McAdam before him did. Instead, the network is expected to depend more on aggregation of Red Sox news.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2019/02/12/nbc-sports-boston-parts-ways-with-its-red-sox-reporter/y5tqVazaR1xhiaqdl8lkhJ/story.html?event=event25
 

jimbobim

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They put in for credentials with the Sox to send three aggregators to spring training. Not sure of their names. They're not specifically replacing him.
Imagine that would be pretty awkward. Isn't the whole point of going with aggregators is not needing to pay for them to be there?

On another note Drellich and Bradfo's podcast on this move was very good in my opinion.

interesting re his coverage in particular v traditional coverage
Drellich got very careful with his words. McAdam was far more honest and open.

My 2 cents
The Company made a mistake decreasing beat type coverage when they went away from McAdam. Further, I think it's a whole lot more about the fact that NBC Bos doesn't have the rights as opposed to interest in the Red Sox waning in comparison to the Celtics or Pats. Obviously patriots run the show.

On another note, baseball's last 2 offseasons can't be viewed as helpful to baseball journalism.
 

cornwalls@6

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Apr 23, 2010
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With NESN’s saturation coverage of the Sox, and spring training, I won’t really miss NBC Sports Boston cutting back on theirs. Drellich was decent though, hope he ends up somewhere local. As an aside, other than Celtics games, NBCSB is a complete waste of time. Their prime time talk shows are monuments to hot take stupidity, and somehow, for some unfathomable reason, they continue to employ Gary Tanguay.
 

RedOctober3829

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With NESN’s saturation coverage of the Sox, and spring training, I won’t really miss NBC Sports Boston cutting back on theirs. Drellich was decent though, hope he ends up somewhere local. As an aside, other than Celtics games, NBCSB is a complete waste of time. Their prime time talk shows are monuments to hot take stupidity, and somehow, for some unfathomable reason, they continue to employ Gary Tanguay.
Their Patriots coverage is 2nd to none in the area however. Curran and Perry are the best TV reporters covering the Pats for local networks. Their podcasts with Nink and Mayo are golden.
 

cornwalls@6

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Their Patriots coverage is 2nd to none in the area however. Curran and Perry are the best TV reporters covering the Pats for local networks. Their podcasts with Nink and Mayo are golden.
Fair point, particularly on Curran. When he was a regular co-host on the night time talk show, I thought he had slipped into being more of a hot take/content generator, rather than reporting and analysis. He seems have returned to those roles this past season, and you're right, he is excellent when doing that.
 

Haunted

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Aug 23, 2006
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Why is Lou Merloni so insanely thin-skinned?

edit: his rebuttal claiming Chad was wrong about the "sports talk" approach to broadcasting was funny. In WEEI's official unoffical article about it https://weei.radio.com/articles/column/media-column-reimer-weei-not-changing-format-red-sox-broadcasts - Reimer claimed they were absolutely not going to do a sports talk approach and then went on to describe exactly that.

"No, we won't be kicking you in the balls. What we're doing is forcibly pushing our foot into your groin area. See? Totally different. FAKE NEWS."
 

NortheasternPJ

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I'm not saying he's wrong about what Chad reported about who the people were or his "prominent sources" he lost his mind about, but that article you posted is exactly the issue.

But Merloni says there’s a way to call the pitches and not allow mundane matters to trample an anecdote or opinion.

“On radio, you would still describe it,” he said. “It wouldn’t be, ‘Oh, it’s 3-2,’ and you haven’t announced whether it’s a ball or a strike. I think you do have to explain ‘ground ball to short’ and things like that. But ‘the wind up, the pitch, he steps off the rubber’ –– that stuff is kind of slow-moving. I think you’ve got to realize people’s attention spans. They’re looking for more.”
This is exactly the problem. I'm not an old school baseball person by any means, but if i'm listening on the radio I want you tell me what's going on since for some reason I can't see it.

Everything else that you add is great. NHL and NBA are a completely different animal since it is constant play. If you look at the Patriots broadcast, it's way better even if you hate Zo's nonsense. There's a ton of downtime and they're telling you interesting things, stats, what's the formation etc. I never listen to a broadcast and get bored.

If you're telling me there's not enough downtime in a baseball game to tell me what stories and other areas of interest, I don't know what to tell you. Back to McDonough and Remy (probably before that but I'm not old enough) they were able to talk about Billy McGolf and have Inane Banter Warnings because they literally had nothing to talk about. You don't need to talk over the game to have other things to talk about, it's freaking baseball, they do it all the time on the Celtics broadcast and it's not really "conversational" aka "sports talk radio"
 

joe dokes

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If you're telling me there's not enough downtime in a baseball game to tell me what stories and other areas of interest, I don't know what to tell you. Back to McDonough and Remy (probably before that but I'm not old enough) they were able to talk about Billy McGolf and have Inane Banter Warnings because they literally had nothing to talk about. You don't need to talk over the game to have other things to talk about, it's freaking baseball, they do it all the time on the Celtics broadcast and it's not really "conversational" aka "sports talk radio"
Castiglione and his partner have always engaged in anecdotal banter, for better or worse, as it takes time to establish some sort of banter-worthy chemistry. (It took him and Neverett almost two full seasons to come within hailing distance of what he and OBrien had, but I thought they were pretty good during the last post-season.)

IMO, what Merloni is saying is "we're gonna do the same stuff, I just do it better." Which is basically what Lou says about a routine groundball to short. Most everything sucks, in the Lou-cast. Just like it does in non-game talk radio. *That's* my concern -- a tiresome flood of turning every sub-optimal outcome of a single at-bat into the beginning of a 12 season losing streak or a cause to replace the player with Lou Merloni, Jr. That is Lou's stock-in-trade, and I don't want it coming from my radio.
I can log into a game thread for that. ;)

Zolak is not my thing, but he's the harmless drunk at the bar agonizing and exulting over the game. Lou is the annoying guy at the bar drinking club soda who thinks exulting is for people who really dont understand the game.

I'm probably in the minority, but I like Bradford in small doses on the radio. He's knowledgeable enough, but he's not an overbearing tsk-tsker. I'm optimistic about McAdam, as well.
 

lostjumper

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I find Lou Merloni to be absolutely terrible. He thinks he's the smartest guy in the room talking about baseball because he used to be a player. While that could be the case, his takes are horrible so he never brings anything of value to the conversation. He is horribly thin-skinned, can't take criticism, and has to be right. The worst is his nose breathing. It's loud, and once you hear it you can never get away from it. Anything he is a part of is unlistenable to me.
 

begranter

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Patriot_Reign

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it's amusing how comically bad weei has become (again)
every decision they make is just so laughable
 

NortheasternPJ

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Wow. That’s amazingly bad. I wonder if they’ll actually put Hillman on in the morning slot or go to music full time. They need a top to bottom rebuild.
 

Dotrat

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I feel bad for Rich Keefe. He and Holley (when Dale was out) was some of the best sports radio around. Two good-humored, knowledgeable guys who love sports--no hot takes, no lame attempts at frat-boy humor.
 

bigq

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I feel bad for Rich Keefe. He and Holley (when Dale was out) was some of the best sports radio around. Two good-humored, knowledgeable guys who love sports--no hot takes, no lame attempts at frat-boy humor.
Keefe is the only thing worth listening to on WEEI in my opinion.
 

NortheasternPJ

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I tried to find it and still looking. I saw it Super Bowl week when I believe Hillman was actually being dual broadcast on both WAAF and WEEI that drove the speculation. I read it on Twitter which linked to an article. Searching Twitter isn't the easiest thing to do. I'll look more a bit later.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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I feel bad for Rich Keefe. He and Holley (when Dale was out) was some of the best sports radio around. Two good-humored, knowledgeable guys who love sports--no hot takes, no lame attempts at frat-boy humor.
And no listeners\viewers.
 

LMontro

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How the fuck does Rich Keefe have "fans"? He's a DFG truther, has claimed the Madden cover thing was in the Patriots head, and said the TB's sideline comments in SBLI were forced and not genuine. He sucks. I stopped listening to sports radio around the time Holley left the show so I suppose there is some one-in-a-million shot that he somehow has gotten better but I doubt it.
 

Riconway3155

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How the fuck does Rich Keefe have "fans"? He's a DFG truther, has claimed the Madden cover thing was in the Patriots head, and said the TB's sideline comments in SBLI were forced and not genuine. He sucks. I stopped listening to sports radio around the time Holley left the show so I suppose there is some one-in-a-million shot that he somehow has gotten better but I doubt it.

I'm definitely one of his fans. When he was on 98.5 a while back, he filled in for either Toucher or Rich and I immediately liked him. Hes a little goofy and generally doesn't take himself very seriously. I also think hes got the "every mans" version of sports knowledge. I was disappointed when he was moved to mid-days because I really only listen to sports radio in my car and it is during drive time.
 

Haunted

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I'm definitely one of his fans. When he was on 98.5 a while back, he filled in for either Toucher or Rich and I immediately liked him. Hes a little goofy and generally doesn't take himself very seriously. I also think hes got the "every mans" version of sports knowledge. I was disappointed when he was moved to mid-days because I really only listen to sports radio in my car and it is during drive time.
I feel the same. To me, he's the only host there I enjoy listening to, and like you I'm at work when he's on.
 

Dotrat

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I like Keefe because he's amusing, has a nerdy sense of humor, and loves sports. He actually pays attention to games--sadly a rarity among too many host on both EEI and 98.5 (Mazz especially)--and isn't a blowhard. I would love to see him paired with another younger host and get a drive time or evening gig. I don't think he could challenge F&M, but he and a good co-host could probably carve out a solid niche for themselves.
 

Vandalman

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Reporter suspended for this story:

On Monday, we learned that the numbers were not accurate for the entire month of January. They were, in fact, only accurate for one week. Our source did not convey this to us when delivering the raw numbers – however, this person shouldn’t have needed to. We should have fact checked harder, probed deeper. Or, you know, looked at the motherfucking column headers to see that they were only for one motherfucking week and not the month.

https://bjbsjournal.com/2019/02/19/bjbsj-suspends-reporter-for-one-week-over-weei-ratings-debacle/
 

the1andonly3003

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Jul 15, 2005
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Reporter suspended for this story:

On Monday, we learned that the numbers were not accurate for the entire month of January. They were, in fact, only accurate for one week. Our source did not convey this to us when delivering the raw numbers – however, this person shouldn’t have needed to. We should have fact checked harder, probed deeper. Or, you know, looked at the motherfucking column headers to see that they were only for one motherfucking week and not the month.

https://bjbsjournal.com/2019/02/19/bjbsj-suspends-reporter-for-one-week-over-weei-ratings-debacle/
are we sure it's a legit sports media news site?
 

BJBSJ

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Feb 17, 2019
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It’s as legitimate as any other one.

Also, we have the full January numbers confirmed and they’re still terrible for WEEI.
 

BJBSJ

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Feb 17, 2019
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I resent the Mustard and Johnson reference. There’s not one piece of Shaw’s sheet cake anywhere to be found on our site. Purposely.
 

NortheasternPJ

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It's still the worst website I've seen in 15 years. I don't even disagree with your entire topic, the BSM is a pile of trash, but you really need a web developer. Pixelated tweets aren't great.