The Examiner
Today at 10a.m. on ESPN 980AM Tony Kornheiser will return to the Washington radio and The Mike Wise Show on 106.7FM The Fan could be in some trouble.
Radio is far and away Kornheiser’s best medium. He returns to the station where he thrived as a broadcaster and refined many skills that have served him well in his career at ESPN in particular on Pardon the Interruption and Monday Night Football.
He has a very smart and well rounded sports talk show that actually makes the listener smarter if you pay attention.
What Kornheiser does best is draw the listeners in by talking about himself and everything that both gives him joy and better yet what bothers him. Meanwhile he brings in guests like Howard Fineman, Newsweek’s Senior Washington Correspondent or political guru James Carville to take the focus off sports. You tune in to hear about sports and you come away with current events, pop culture and most of all an entertaining- something very rare on sports talk radio.
As for Wise, I like him and listen to his show. He along with co host, Bill Rolhand and super producer Chris Johnson are still finding their way and searching for their true voice as a show. It is both understandable and expected given that Wise has very little broadcasting experience.
So what does Wise do to compete with Kornheiser?
Well one thing that Kornheiser won’t do is talk with athletes, so what Wise could do is fill his show with A-list sports stars from Washington teams as well as the hard to get guys like the interview he did recently with Shaq.
Wise needs to make his show tighter, hipper and break stories.
But beating “Mr. Tony” will be a tall order for the rookie Wise because if ESPN 980AM does things right they will own the 10a.m. till noon timeslot.
The Tony Kornheiser Show will have the talented producer Marc Sterne reprising his role of “Nigel” the British producer but we don’t know who else will be part ensemble cast and that could trip things up a bit.
“Mr. Tony,” had the one of the best sports show in the country when he was paired with Andy Pollin as his side kick. If Michael Wilbon is the perfect TV partner for Kornheiser then it is Pollin that should be his radio partner.
At this point we know that today we will hear everything” Mr. Tony” from Old Guy Radio to The Mailbag and that will be great. But let’s hope that before too long we hear Tony and Andy together again, then we will really know that Kornheiser is back.
