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Sports talk radio stations fight for listeners in Houston

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"I don't go to nearly as many games as I used to and I kind of regret that," Rich Lord says. "But my day is anywhere from three to four hours at home watching games I might have taped the night before, watching highlight shows, on the Internet reading out-of-town newspapers...If you've ever talked to someone who's worked with me, they'll tell you that I am a little ridiculous sometimes when it comes to preparation. I probably over-prepare for each show because it gives me a comfort zone."

Even Pallilo, who regularly attends games, doesn't go into the locker room. Among print reporters and columnists, it can be a badge of honor to show up in the locker room after criticizing a player, making yourself available for his complaints. Pallilo doesn't see it that way.

"If I'm critical of Craig Biggio being in the lead-off spot as often as he is, I don't think it's incumbent on me to wander around the locker room," he says. "If Bidge wants to object, I'm not that hard to find — I'm at games, the teams have media departments and if there's any objection, I'm fine with discussing anything with anybody."

Another longtime, first-time here. I wanted to ask: I'm hearing about all this "guy talk" as being the new coming thing on sports talk. What's up with that?

Some embrace the term "guy talk," some object to it; they all, however, are increasingly doing it to some extent.

When you hear cohosts talking about the latest Maxim cover girl, that's guy talk. So is talk about movies, old TV shows and rock music.

When it's done well, it's entertaining and engaging and you don't even realize you've not been hearing anything about sports for a while. When it's done badly — when management forces it on hosts who aren't really able to handle it — it can be painful to listen to.

Take "Davies & Dukes," KBME's morning show with Brad Davies and Carl Dukes. Recently a long stretch of the morning was taken up with talking about "guy movies."

Defining them as "movies where the typical woman will walk out of the room if it's on TV," the duo energetically listed the usual suspects of the genre. "Death Wish — I mean, he starts killing everyone — he's going into crack dens and they all look up at him and he just starts blowing them away. It's an awesome movie," one said in full frat-boy tones.

The next day there were plenty of chortles over whether one of them wore "tightie-whities." ("I can't use them — I need the room, if you know what I mean," one said.)

The Davies & Dukes show provides the most recognizable red flag that you're going to be hearing bad sports radio: There's a giggling female cohost. Chronicle columnist John McClain, who's usually excellent on the radio — and who is, by the way, part of a growing contingent of Chron writers providing cheap labor for local stations — isn't exactly suited to the strained semi-flirting he does with his female cohost on his one-hour show.

Some hosts, even if they are relatively loose off the air, just possess the kind of stentorian pipes that make the repartee sound strained.

"I hate it when guys come on the air and say, 'We're going to have some laughs along the way.' No we're not. No we're not," says Granato. "When it doesn't work, nothing sounds more contrived."

"I'm fine with irreverence and occasional silliness in a show, [but] our culture has been dumbed down so much that for me, doing a show that caters to the lowest common denominator is a bad show," says Pallilo, speaking of "guy talk" in general.

Finding a balance is difficult, but more and more shows will be seeking to do it. "That's where your growth opportunity is," says KBME's Berry. "There's a limited number of people to listen to sports talk...if you're measuring that by people who want to argue about whether .300 is the barrier of who's a great hitter and who is not. But there is a broader group of people who are trying to decide between political talk and sports and Ellen DeGeneres on the air, and you can keep them if you give them a little bit of all that and keep your core of being a sports station."

Maybe.

"From time to time we've been encouraged to explore [guy talk], but I think we're more about sports than anything else," Lord says. "I like to talk about that stuff as much as the next guy, but I don't think it should be to the extent that if someone tunes into the station randomly, he can't figure out what our format is."

Thanks for taking my call. I know you guys are up against the clock, so I'll just make this quick. Who's going to survive out of all these stations?

KILT has been the most roiled. They've lost their morning hosts, and Rich Lord is on his third cohost in the last two years.

KILT has replaced Granato and Zierlein in the mornings with Marc Vandermeer and Andre Ware. That's raised some eyebrows in town, because Vandermeer and Ware are the announcers for Texans games.

Vandermeer was already being criticized for going easy on the Texans when he was cohosting with Lord, so no one's expecting any huge onslaught of candor from the two when football season rolls around. (Vandermeer and Ware aren't paid for their NFL jobs by the Texans, but the team does have some say on who's in the booth.)

"They are going to have a hard, hard time establishing credibility," one host says. (It could be worse: There's a growing trend now of pro teams buying their own radio stations. The Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Angels have done it; the St. Louis Cardinals ended a 50-year partnership with legendary station KMOX to do it.)

Still, KILT has the numbers, such as they are (see "Jock Radio: Numbers Game"). They're not going anywhere, and KBME also looks like it's here to stay.

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