By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Friday, January 22, 2016
Ryan Stewart, part of the 2 Live Stews who has not had a regular weekday gig on Atlanta radio since 2012, is auditioning next week for the mid-day co-hosting slot at 92.9 The Game. He will be on from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
He will be paired with Rick Kamla, one of the three remaining original weekday hosts from when the Game began in October, 2012. (The other two: Carl Dukes and Mitch Evans.)
Stewart is being tested along with a crew of sports talk hosts seeking full-time work including John Michaels, Dave Archer, Randy McMichael and possibly Kevin Butler.
The replacement will take Randy Cross' gig. Cross was cut without explanation last month.
Stewart, a former Detroit Lions safety, was part of the 2 Live Stews from 2001 to 2012 with his brother Doug. They were a massive success for a time, nabbing an ESPN talk show and syndicating to more than 15 markets. But after the Mike Vick dog fighting controversy, in which the Stews said they thought his punishment was too severe, many fans were turned off and their show began a long slide downward in popularity.
By the the Zone dumped them in 2012, they had already been stripped of their show name and much of their urban flare. Since then, they have not been able to find a full-time radio gig. I wrote about this conundrum in 2014. Doug began his own Spreaker podcast show last year. And the brothers did a weekly show in the fall on WGST.
Here is what his brother Doug wrote on Twitter:
Archer was an afternoon host at 790/The Zone before it dumped local programming in 2014. (The Zone died as a station last summer.) He worked at the now defunct Zone for more than four years. He has been doing part-time at the Game for 11 months. He continues to work with the Atlanta Falcons, which he has done for 13 years.
Michaels already has worked for the Game the past year and has been a sideline reporter for the Falcons going back to 2011. He also worked for 10 years at the Zone and was part of the Archer and Bell show.
McMichael, a former NFL player with the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2013, has been working part-time at the Game for five months.
Butler has been a co-host for University of Georgia football games for eight years.
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