Sports talk station 790/the Zone is going all syndication with ESPN, effectively throwing in the towel against two much stronger competitors.
The station's website now just shows the ESPN Radio lineup.
This means the local morning show with JP Peterson and Alge Crumpler is out and so is afternoon host Mike Bell, the remaining link to the good old days, and his partner Dave Archer.
The arrival of 92.9/The Game in October 2012 was the beginning of the end for 790/The Zone.
Or you can go back to 2010, when Steak Shapiro and Andrew Saltzman sold the station to Lincoln Financial as the beginning of the end.
Back in the early 2000s, 790/The Zone was the dominant sports talk station over 680/The Fan, despite a weaker signal.
But David Dickey and the Fan gradually pecked away at the Zone, taking their talent and building a brand that eventually overtook the Zone.
In the mid-2000s, Shapiro and Saltzman dumped millions into an ill-fated purchase of stations in St. Louis that eventually forced them to sell off the Zone in 2010. Things were never quite the same for the Zone.
Then the Game arrived with a much stronger FM signal in 2012. The Fan added an FM translator at 93.7. The Zone? It has been stuck on the AM and it has been a third-place player for the past year.
When Mayhem in the AM was blown up last June after the ill-fated Steve Gleason bit, Nick Cellini said the Zone was looking to dump them anyway.
Although the Zone is still committed to the Falcons for at least another season, it will no longer have daily local talk shows to promote the team.
The Zone will air the following shows: “Mike and Mike,” “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” “SVP & Russillo,” “The Dan Le Batard Show,” “Sedano & Stink” and the “Freddie Coleman Show.”
Rick Mack, general manager, tried his best to spin this capitulation positively in a press release: "We are excited to launch a new schedule that provides Atlanta-area listeners with an even more robust slate of sports programming."
About the Author
