ESPN 700

[Kellso]

I turned on 700 today for the press conference. O’Connell’s program sounded like BYU radio. Is that a normal day for his that program?

[NashvilleUteFan]

Spent way too much time talking about BYUs honor code. Super corny. Not a fan of OC, I miss Bill.

[EagleMountainUte]

I said this very same thing awhile back as well. 700 is home of the Utah culture obsessive personalities.

[HATUman]

These guys are handcuffed. Whitt has Utah Football locked down like a steel trap. The dude is paranoid, so what exactly are they supposed to talk about? I just stopped listening, a while ago.

[Tman]

I agree, O’Connell is obsess with BYU. I stop listening to his show. I want till 2 to start listening to 700AM. I use not miss the earlier show (11AM-2pm)
I have no problem with someone who enjoys the loves BYU football, but he should go on the other channel.
It’s always humorous when Individuals that are on radio read messages like ours they take it as a badge Of honor that they have stirred up emotions and has truly not that it’s just it should be Utah radio that’s what it’s called and it’s not with him and they’re losing viewership.

[Rick]

I used to be a very loyal listener to ESPN 700 and 1280. Both have gone downhill IMO. I just stopped listening to all of it and I have been much happier. I have also stopped obsessing over recruits, NIL, and the portal. When I did, it put it all in perspective for me and it has made me become less obsessed with all things Utah, Big 12, etc. It is much less stressful believe me.

[Utes 69]

Spence sucks for sure, biggest byu homer yet.

[Central Coast Ute]

Yep. I haven’t listened to an entire show on 700 since they let Gunther and Ben go. I never listen to checkers and I would only listen to certain interviews with Bill. O’Connell is hard to listen to. Like you I gave up on all of that and life is much better.

[SteelUte]

For the most part OC is pretty good. He travels a lot so he has a replacement host that is awful. I agree the home of the Utes shouldn’t be talking about the Y. I get that this past season they were up and we were down so it was maybe more appealing to talk about them, but the only interview should be maybe on a rivalry week.
I listened and thought, do you think that Criddle on his BYU espn radio show talks about the Utes? Does he interview any Ute coaches or players? There is no way!
I try to only listen to the Podcast format and listen to the interviews I want to hear. Don’t get all the radio B.s stuff.

[Trailgoat]

Utah sports talk radio 101 content is capturing both BYU-Utah, and the hybrids. Kall 700 is very protective of KW. Occasionally poach the Utah football specific guests, Weddle, Mitchell, coaches, pressers, etc on the podcast rewind. Other than that, OC’s program is hard to listen to live. I imagine filling 3-4 hours of talk radio everyday is challenging especially with KW’s no access mandate. OC does have a solid radio presence. I have given his show a couple shots, half the time chiming in it was some loud mouth friend of OC sitting in clearly from somewhere outside of Utah. Another time it was another of OCs buddies talking Oregon football the entire time. Stopped listening live after that. To be fair, I listened very infrequently so hopefully better overall than what I’ve experienced. Bottom line, Riley’s a tough act to follow. I do find it odd when listening a few times to Checketts how he bagged on Utah fans collectively from a small sample group of Utah/trolls on social media posts. Guessing it’s a tactic to get more BYU listeners? Not sure, but it certainly was a factor in me losing interest in his show. Upside is Utah football is being talked about, all depends what you want to listen to. Go Utes!

[Utah]

Man, I don’t think it would be that hard to fill 3-4 hours of time. Between Utah football, Big 12 football, Big 12 basketball, Utah Jazz and whatever the f**k your hockey team is, there is so much.

4 hours = 60 min blocks.
Each block has about 20 mins of commercials, which means 40 mins of talk time. You are talking for 10 mins, 5 min break.
You don’t have to find new topics for every single block of time. Every 70 mins or so, you just refresh the show and start all over again. That means you only need 4-5 topics a day to talk about.

The problem is, finding new and interesting stuff to talk about takes work. You gotta research things. Spend a month breaking down every Utah football game for a couple blocks a day. Easy stuff, if you rewatch the games, take notes, talk about what else was going on, etc.

The next problem is, these guys get paid close to nothing. It’s crazy how little they get paid. Utah used to be a stepping stone job. So many great radio personalities came through this state. BUT the radio station realized that they could put some dope on, pay him even less, and just have them rant about BYU vs Utah and they will be fine.

So, that is what has happened. You have these long term guys making less than their counterparts, but they won’t leave, and younger radio guys (who are becoming older) who get paid even less and do an even worse job.

Radio in Utah sucks.

[Tman]

I’m going to write a letter to the Director at 700 AM
You’re right Ben critical does not interview Utah coaches or players unless they’re coming over.. I don’t fault him for that

I don’t know if he’s trying to stir up the hornets nest between the two fan bases.. But that’s not his job. And I do like that they do talk about BYU occasionally so we can understand what’s going on there. To your point Ben Criddle Is a Kool-Aid drinking BYU fan.. And again, nothing wrong with it. He’s on the right station and he has a great I’m sure.

[Tony (admin)]

I don’t listen to the radio at all anymore. Talking heads get more and more annoying to me the older I get (get off my lawn). I want to hear ZERO anything about TSPP.

[China Rider]

Sports talk radio. I quit them all as well as the two fish wraps. I don’t want BYU any thing. I have no appreciation for basketball and my NFL attention span is short. My unit works well, my taxes are paid and I have windows in my house & a bed to sleep in. Got a car too and I don’t buy protein bars either.

Not buying what they are selling.

[Charlie]

Being retired and trying to have 700 on while working the the garage etc., has become very difficult. Pretty much an all time low. For some reason the SLC radio market tries to attract Y and U fans together even though there are several stations. In the old days, you flipped to KSL to hear about the Y and KALL to hear about the Utes. Even both papers were easy in that you could look at a headline and always quickly know if an article was for you or someone else. I also went to school in Tucson and it was simple to avoid ASU media. It’s not an experiment, its been done before – 700 simply needs to return to the Utah perspective. Tell us about other Big-12 programs, even the Y, mostly the team we are about to play but do it from the perspective of a Ute fan and what this fan would be interested in. And keep sports segments to sports and let random other heartfelt issues go. I have often wished I was wealthy enough to purchase a SLC station to make it entirely Ute focused. I would prefer student journalism and radio students that are Utah focused doing stories over polished slick talking professionals that do not understand the simple content that Ute fans prefer.

[Author]

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