We’d hinted at this since earlier this month…when we noted rumors of changes on Cleveland’s AM dial.
Building rumors have become reality, as Good Karma sports WKNR/850 “ESPN 850” shakes up its weekday lineup starting Tuesday, July 6th.
WKNR creates a two-person afternoon drive show from 3 to 6 p.m. by teaming incumbent afternoon driver Michael Reghi with evening host Kenny Roda, who currently is heard 6 to 9 p.m.
Roda sticks around for another hour with former college and pro football star LeCharles Bentley from 6-7 p.m., then Bentley sticks around with fellow ex-pro footballer Je’rod Cherry for “Xs and Os with the Pros”, a show currently heard on sister WWGK/1540 “KNR2”.
Finally, from 8 to 10 p.m., WKNR stays local with “ESPN Cleveland Gamenight”, which the station says “will be hosted by the ESPN Cleveland staff, including Ohio Radio Hall of Fame Broadcaster Greg Brinda, along with Chris Fedor.”
The rest of the WKNR weekday schedule, featuring ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning”, the local “Really Big Show” with Tony Rizzo and “Munch in the Morning” with Mark “Munch” Bishop, and Premiere’s “Jim Rome Show”, remains unchanged.
A station press release is reprinted in full, below…
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ESPN CLEVELAND ANNOUNCES CHANGES TO WKNR AFTERNOON AND EVENING LINE-UP
Beginning Tuesday, July 6th, ESPN 850 WKNR will sport a new daily afternoon and evening lineup.
ESPN 850 WKNR’s afternoon lineup will feature current 6pm-9pm host Kenny Roda with current afternoon host Michael Reghi from 3pm-6pm.
In addition, Roda will co-host the 6pm-7pm hour with former Ohio State Buckeye All-American and NFL Pro Bowler LeCharles Bentley.
The evening line-up will go through some notable changes as well. Headlining the changes will be the addition of X’s and O’s from 7pm-8pm. X’s and O’s features three-time Super Bowl Champ Je’rod Cherry and former OSU great and NFL All-Pro LeCharles Bentley.
From 8pm-10pm, ESPN 850 WKNR will debut ESPN Cleveland Gamenight. The show will be hosted by the ESPN Cleveland staff, including Ohio Radio Hall of Fame Broadcaster Greg Brinda, along with Chris Fedor. The show will feature the latest on Cleveland and National games as they happen and a recap of the sports day with interviews and callers.
Good Karma Broadcasting President and CEO, Craig Karmazin said, “I am so excited for these additions to our lineup because they were dictated to us directly by our fans. We’ll see if this additional local talk is enough to satisfy the passion of the Cleveland sports fans.”
ESPN 850 WKNR’s Monday-Friday Lineup:
5am-6am Munch in the Morning
6am-9am ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike in the Morning
9am-Noon the Really Big Show
Noon-3pm The Jim Rome Show
3pm-6pm Reghi & Roda
6pm-7pm Kenny Roda & LeCharles Bentley
7pm-8pm X’s and O’s with the Pros
8pm-10pm ESPN Cleveland Gamenight
Dirty little secret time…
This was done to get Roda out of the evening slot. He wasn’t getting enough listeners due to :
1. being up against Indians or Cavs games on WTAM
2. WKNR’s signal losing power at night.
“ESPN Cleveland Gamenight” will basically be rehash of all the stuff that went down earlier in the day, and will be the sacrficial lamb vs ball games on 1100.
Xs and Os did well on KNR2, so they gave it a promotion up to the mothership.
‘KNR is hoping LeCarles Bentley (being a former Brown and Buckeye) will be their next big star.
Thanks for the info. This thing smelled fishy to me yesterday, and it still does. Isn’t KNR now paying TWO of what I imagine are the station’s larger salaries for only one show? Doesn’t seem to make much economic sense.
Also, it will be interesting to see if these guys can develop some chemistry.
Reghi and Roda have been working together (on and off) on both Sports Channel/FS Ohio and WKNR 1220/850 for close to 20 years on various projects.
And a couple of weeks ago, they did a week long “test drive” of working together on the PM Drive show, so they’ll be OK.
And with Reghi’s college football TV duties starting up again in the fall, that still leaves Roda to do the show solo (or with Bentley) when need be.
Like I said, the evening hours are usually dead on KNR (due to the Tribe/Cavs on 1100 and nighttime power reduction), so they’re actually doing Roda a favor by promoting him to PM Drive.
By doing a rehash show from 8-10 (ESPN Cleveland Gamenight) KNR is pretty much surrendering evenings now.
It should be far better than the ill-fated Greg Brinda-Kendall Lewis pairing way back.
In addition, WWGK is now using the slogan “ESPN 1540 KNR2”, even during Fox Sports Network programs. I wonder if that means some changes are on the way over there also..
Not really.
Good Karma just slapped the “ESPN” on there to continue to play off of ESPN2.
Besides, 1540 runs ESPN shows from 9a-4p, (the bulk of their on air schedule) and a lot of MLB/NBA games during weekend afternoons via ESPN Radio, so ESPN is their main priority. The Fox stuff is mainly just filler really.
Not really, unless if WKNR were to go local in morning drive and displace Mike and Mike to KNR2. I’d personally prefer that M&M be simulcast on both 850 and 1540; but then again, that would make too much sense. Aside from that, there is no point to keeping Fox Sports Radio on KNR2 now…
M&M are gonna stay on 850 due to the fact they can be heard 6-9 with no problems.
Remember, 1540 in the winter doesn’t sign on till sometimes as late as 7:45.
Good Karma is keeping Fox Sports Radio if for no other reason than to play keep away from Clear Channel
So they run it in the mornings and afternoons (and since it’s summer, into the evening)…just enough to justify keeping them on board, but still playing 2nd fiddle to ESPN.