Letters to the Editor
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Media Consolidation
King, I think that you miss one importrant thing that has changed in sports talk radio in the past 30 years - media consolidation. In the 80's when I listened to sports talk radio frequently, all of the shows were local. The shows were done by local guys and they focussed on local teams. Maybe I was just blessed to be in a good market, but it didn't seem like syndicated shows had much support, at least for sports.
Since ownership rules were loosened up in the 90s, syndicated shows have exploded, as has ESPN Radio. It is a lot cheaper for the big companies to use syndicated content, but it is also a lot less interesting. In many markets, local shows are hard to come by and the syndicated radio shows are just doing less expensive versions of what is already on ESPN TV.
Sports blogs do seem to be a natural reaction to nationalized sports talk radio. With blogs you can usually find someone discussing the teams that you care about.