Pressroom

Peter Brown blew into Milwaukee in January 2005 with a brash, tough-talking style that quickly distinguished him from established sports talk radio hosts. Less than two years later, the WSSP-AM (1250) personality is gone – and with him, that acerbic approach. So where does that leave sports talk in town?

During Brown’s first day on the air, he punctured the media eulogies praising just-deceased former Green Bay Packers star Reggie White. “There were unflattering aspects of Reggie’s personality Peter was only too willing to bring up,” recalls Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sports columnist Bob Wolfley. “He came to the market with the reputation of one who would take on sacred cows.”

And he never let up. This past November, just two weeks before he was fired, Brown directed a harangue at Milwaukee Bucks big man Andrew Bogut and his lackluster on-court performance. “Andrew Bogut’s going to be my whipping boy!” Brown crowed to listeners of his afternoon drive show. Not for long, it turned out.

“I think the market is diminished now that he’s not on the air,” says Wolfley, who occasionally mined nuggets from Brown’s show for his own column. “Of all the guys who work sports talk, he was the one with the biggest national reputation.”

Brown’s departure raises the question of just how much radio audience there is for sports talk in town. Taken together, SSP and its larger local rival, WAUK-AM (1510) account for a mere 1.5 percent of the radio audience – dwarfed by market leaders such as WTMJ 620, which commands more than 10 percent, and two music stations with around 6 percent each: WMIL (country) and “Kiss 103.7” WXSS (contemporary pop).

In Boston, by contrast, sports talk station WEEI is essentially in a three-way tie for the market’s top spot, with as much audience (6.2 percent) as that city’s news talk station WBZ (6.3 percent). In Chicago, two sports talkers rank 20th and 28th, but that market is more fragmented, less dominated by a single station in any category.

Milwaukee is an intense sports town yet has lagged in nurturing radio talkers. “Like every other national trend, in Milwaukee it takes five to seven years to get here,” quips Drew Olson, a former Journal Sentinel baseball writer who now shares a morning show on WAUK and is senior editor for the Web site OnMilwaukee.com.

Sports talk is an attractive format because it’s relatively cheap (although Brown, whose salary was reportedly in the low six figures, was a pricey exception) and can

attract a desirable audience for advertisers: “men who buy flat-screen TVs every two years and buy all the latest gadgets,” as Olson puts it.

SSP Program Director Ryan Maguire sells it this way: “Our research tell us this type of radio reaches a lot of men who have a good income, who have a college education. If you can win with men, you may not get a huge 10 [percent] share, but you can score big with advertisers.”

But that audience can be fickle, says Andy Smith, former TMJ radio newsman who now heads communications for the Elm Grove School District. “It’s a form of entertainment that allows you to have a lot of fun on the air,” Smith notes. Yet when big news stories break, like the fatal explosion at Falk Corp., listeners often turn back to stations with strong news departments, he adds. Moreover, Smith points out, those bigger stations hold an edge with sports fans with their broadcasting rights for major teams like the Bucks, Packers and Brewers.

That might change. Aggressive WAUKowner Craig Karmazin scored a coup in August by grabbing the rights to broadcast Marquette basketball games. This came just a year after capitalizing on WISN’s decision to bump Steve “The Homer” True from his 6-8 p.m. time slot in favor of right-wing syndicated talker Sean Hannity. Now True anchors sports talk for WAUK.

But WAUK has one handicap – with just a dawn-to-dusk license, it must migrate its local and ESPN-provided programming over to WMCS-AM at night. The latter station programs for black news talk audiences during the day. But Karmazin professes not to worry: “People know how to change the channel.”

Meanwhile,SSP’s program director Ryan Maguire – who just came to town in August – touts his station’s newly acquired rights to broadcast Badger hockey games, capitalizing on UW-Madison’s national championship last year.

Maguire doesn’t quite deny he’s backing away from Brown’s in-your-face style. “We want someone willing to make a commitment to this town, to learning and embracing the great traditions of the teams fans care about in Milwaukee,” Maguire says. That sounds like a different direction indeed.

Maguire also says the station might try to broaden its style. His description: “Combining talk about Brett Favre with, ‘When is a good time to put up your Christmas lights?’ – a little bit of real-life type topics.”

Translation: Even for ballgame-obsessed men, there may be a limit to how much mileage can be gotten with all sports, all the time.