Though the usually prompt expunging of a jettisoned host from a radio website still hasn’t happened as of this writing, Dan Ceasar of STLToday.com is reporting that his fellow columnist Bryan Burwell has been yanked from his own show on the FM sport talk station, 101 ESPN.
Sources said the move was ratings-related and not tied to any other issue, and that Burwell still could be involved in Rams game day programming. It is not known who – or if anyone – will replace Burwell alongside Bob Stelton in the 9-11 a.m weekday slot.
Stelton is expected to be off the show next week as fill-in hosts man the slot before a re-tooled program in unveiled after that.
The midday show has been the shakiest of any of the 101 ESPN shows from the very beginning with the odd hire and pairing of Fox Sports Midwest’s Pat Parris with Byran Burwell. Parris was later let go, leaving Burwell to his own devices with a smattering of co-hosts for a while until they found a “permeant” solution which ended up being out-of-towner Bob Stelton. Now Burwell himself appears to be out and its hardly a surprise. What is a surprise though is that his management doomed him to this fate with an ill-advised show change.
Burwell was always the standard “overbaring voice” that people like to experiment on air with and usually that meant teaming him with someone that tones him down (enter Pat Parris) since he, despite being a nice guy personally in our interactions with him, comes off as overly douchey on the air. It’s tough to tone down the constant name dropping and condescending blather, but that’s the right instinct since Burwell can be counted on to at least get a conversation going despite what you think of his side of the argument.
Recently though, with the pairing of his current partner, Bob Stelton, the direction seemed to have changed. It seemed as though he was being told to amp up his superiority act with joke setups by Stelton about Burwell’s ego and even the show’s imaging (sound bytes and bumpers) reenforcing the role. Bad move. The chances we had to listen to the 9a-11a broadcast were admittedly slim, but we did give it a chance on more than few occasions and to say it was “unlistenable” would be overly nice.
Stelton seems to have some talent though, despite being drug in to this SNL-sketch of a sports show. Hopefully they can go a different direction when the show returns and chill out on the self-inflated importance schtick for a mid-day “everyone just got to work so no one is listening” broadcast.
Maybe 101 ESPN can dust off that JC Corcoran silhouette again!