THE FLETCH: 790 and 680 make moves before football season

In what amounts to Atlanta sports radio’s version of Conan O’Brien taking over for Jay Leno, 680 The Fan’s Chuck & Chernoff radio show has moved into the coveted afternoon drive slot previously held for years by the Buck & Kincade show. 680 The Fan is moving the former Georgia quarterback and his ESPN radio personality co-host to Chuck & Chernoff’s previous midday 12-3 slot. In a recent AJC blog, 680 The Fan executives said that is it not a demotion for the afternoon drive team, just a shuffling around to keep the voices fresh.

Honestly the move just makes sense. Chuck & Chernoff are the “young” voices of the station and the afternoon seems perfect for their energy. Chernoff the joker and the Kang of College Football is knowledgeable on nearly every sport and the two should be able to battle 790 The Zone for the younger audience that Pollack & Bell have been racking up. Various ratings have shown that Pollack & Bell had started to gain and take away listeners from Buck & Kincade, who may have needed a bit of a shakeup to get back on track.

In fact, Buck Belue’s and John Kincade’s talent and popularity may have even hurt them in that afternoon drive slot. Belue was also used in the Braves’ pregame show and Kincade was used in the same capacity for the Thrashers’ coverage so it sometimes felt as though those two were on for six or eight straight hours. The Buck & Kincade Show also confused some folks with the Braves look over the last twenty minutes or so of their show with Kincade, Buck and Leo, only to drop Kincade at the top of the hour and pick up some of the other Braves commentators. It sounded too similar. Perhaps if Chuck & Chernoff did the spot with Leo or with Buck, and then those two stepped aside for the Braves pregame guys, it would go over better.

It will also be interesting to see how Chuck Oliver does going against his former show and his former co-hosts in Mike Bell and David Pollack. When Da Kang first left 790, Pollack & Bell took a while to find its footing as Pollack had to take up more of a leading role, but now the 790 afternoon drive show is really clicking. Both shows will be hard after the 18-39 and 21-49 crowd and both greatly appeal to those brackets. It will be interesting to see if either tries to also nab that former Buck & Kincade target zone (a bit older that the 20-somethings that will certainly be flipping back and forth).

I wonder if Mike Bell will ramp up his “emmm” insults now that Oliver is his direct competition. I always thought those would go away but he keeps trotting them out there. He will surely continue to use them, but if he were to ask me I’d tell him to retire those. I don’t get why either station even talks about the other, its competition. Discussing the AJC is one thing, because it is a different medium, but to allude to your competition is almost encouraging your listeners to tune over. I know the other school of thought is that OF COURSE everyone knows there is another station out there and to try and avoid that is pompous, but I would still not drop the “emms” or the “Hey Johnny” comments that Bell throws out there. Bell isn’t the only one doing that though. Kincade has been known to spout off some not-so-veiled daggers in the direction of The Zone.

And speaking of mentioning the other station, according to the AJC article announcing the switch, 790’s Steak Shapiro was also “crowing” that Pollack & Bell forced 680’s hand. I would give Steak the same suggestion. Just praise your guys and don’t mention the other guys. And please Steak and the rest of Mayhem in the A.M., keep talking sports. I’ve noticed that 680’s The Rude Awakening has gone the way of Q100 in discussing almost every pop culture topic BUT sports. It seems the addition of Sandra Golden has led to Christopher Rude leaving the sports box to talk singing competitions, fashion and court cases. My bad for hoping for sports on a sports talk station.

Despite his retirement from the NBA, Shaquille O’Neal was the biggest free agent of the basketball off-season. TNT snagged his services, beating out ESPN and Shaq will join the Atlanta-based TNT broadcast of “Inside the NBA,” the best pre-game and post-game studio show in all of sports (Sorry GameDay but you lost me with Desmond Howard and Erin Andrews). Shaq will the newest member of the panel which includes ringleader Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Sir Charles Barkley. Shaq was always good for a humorous nickname, but it will be interesting to see if he can carry that monotone voice and wide eyed-smile into some real analysis. One other interesting move in bringing Shaq aboard was the decision to jettison Chris Webber, who was REALLY GOOD first on NBA TV then on TNT. Webber also slid right in on the Inside the NBA set, picking up the chemistry and running with it. If the Shaq experiment turns out to be a disaster (which could certainly happen), it will be interesting to see if TNT tries to turn back to Webber. ESPN should gobble up Webber in a second. They already have one Fab Fiver on staff in Jalen Rose and Webber would fade into the ALREADY crowded table of analysts, but ESPN should try and pick him up just to prevent TNT from doing so.

Finally, did you catch that Barnhart & Durham are back on 790 The Zone? Thank goodness. While I love summer, I hate that these two get a summer break. I am thrilled that they are back.