Former Washington Post sports columnist Tony Kornheiser returned to arguably his best format, local sports talk radio, when his show returned to the air via the Dan Snyder-owned WTEM (ESPN 980).
Kornheiser's comeback comes just over a year after his show on Bonneville radio collapsed with the dissolution of 3WT radio. He had earlier been prohibited from working for the Dan Snyder-owned WTEM due to Washington Post policies against affiliating with sports teams but with the dissolution of his Post relationship, he became available to come back to WTEM.
The unique talent that Kornheiser had (and hopefully still has) was his ability to inject humor and nominaly off-topic asides into the sports talk radio format. Though hardly a purist, he attracted a unique following on local radio, one that now threatens to overwhelm competing sports talker Mike Wise of WJFK/106.7 in the 10 a.m. to noon slot.
My one cautionary note is that Kornheiser's program did not achieve the same ratings success on Post Radio/3WT as it had in previous WTEM runs. To a large extent, that ratings failure was an offshoot of 3WT's poor performance in other slots but some critics also accused Kornheiser of drifting too far away from sports talk during his Bonneville run. Kornheiser will need to find the correct balance between sports & non-sports to succeed in his latest comeback effort.
"The Tony Kornheiser Show" airs on WTEM/980, WWXT/92.7, WWXX/94.3 & via audio stream on ESPN980.com.Labels: radio, sports, sports talk, tony kornheiser, wtem, wwwt
