Snyder Looks to Grow Media Empire

But Patrick continues to attract big-time national newsmakers to his show every single day, and has never been shy about asking them tough questions when appropriate. He focuses on all the hot-button sports issues of the day but rarely preaches or takes himself all that seriously. Most of all, he always sounds as if he's having a delightful time on the air, offering up an easy listen that would very much be missed if Red Zebra completes this deal and decides to drop his show.

All ESPN all the time, perhaps punctuated by Redskins broadcaster (and full-time team employee) Larry Michael's kid glove interviews with players and coaches and John Riggins' mildly amusing but often bland afternoon show would not be my idea of must-listen radio. I've heard Riggins a few times (I must have been a few blocks away from one of the Red Zebra stations), and I'm happy to know he's very gainfully employed.

I'm also astounded that Riggo actually is not broadcasting from the Nation's Capital, but does his show mostly from a studio in New York. Yes, he's occasionally irreverent, but you're also not going to hear him take any shots at the boss, at least not if he's being paid a very handsome salary I'm told has lots of zeros and a couple of commas in it. Riggo is definitely not in Kansas any more, and can definitely do the math. He knows full well it wouldn't be wise to bite the hand that now feeds him a steady diet of filet mignon and lobster.

All of this is not to say that WTEM is the bright and shining beacon of sports talk radio in America. But at least, it's pretty much local sports-oriented most of the time with the exceptions of Patrick and Czaban's Fox Sports Radio-syndicated morning show. It's also not ESPN Radio, whose hosts far too often pull punches when discussing controversial issues involving rights fee "partners" like the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA.

Thankfully, WTEM also is not the mean-spirited, slash-and-pounce sports talk that seems so popular in many markets around the country. Our version of the genre has always seemed a little more politically correct than that, as you might expect in the Nation's Capital.

Still, with Snyder at the top of the WTEM corporate ladder if this deal does go through, listeners would be wise to tune in elsewhere for hard-hitting radio talk focusing on the town's favorite professional football team. Then again, there may be no other place to go, with Red Zebra seemingly soon to dominate the local sports talk market, controlling the medium and the message every lock step of the way.

E Mail of the Week

Why must the public be protected from their own choices?

I'm not a fan of Mark Madden's act but I realize that's all it is, an act, never intended to be "fair comment and criticism." He was not employed as a commentator by NPR. His job was to generate the ratings that justified the highest afternoon drive time advertising rates in the market. Madden's latest bleat is typical of what he has been doing for years. If the Essentially Self Promoting Network truly felt justified in firing him because of outrageous comments, that should have been done about twenty minutes after they bought the station. Instead, ESPN happily took the money he generated until someone in Bristol ran a spreadsheet and decided that the bad publicity from this one was going to cost Disney more money than he was producing. The hypocrisy of meeting to decide his fate while near continuous taglines were running on WEAE, identifying 1250 as "The Mark Madden Station" should be far more disturbing to a media observer than a boatload of dead Kennedy jokes. Personally I'm offended by slasher movies, hard core rap and Rush Limbaugh but I don't advocate that they be removed from public access. I just don't watch or listen. Why isn't that enough for you?

Scott Wertman,

Pittsburgh

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at len.shapiro@washingtonpost.com.