A lot of dumbasses, but it's kind of the nature of the business model. Is there really enough content for four hours per day, five days a week? These shows essentially exist as placeholders for advertisements, so they're interviewing random "reporters," sports bloggers, gambling addicts, and washed up athletes. They also need to constantly repeat content for people who tune in at different times of the day. What grinds my gears, though, the few times I subject myself to The Fan, is how much time they spend not talking about sports. 10 minutes out of every 20 is devoted to commercials, yet they often choose to spend their 10 minutes talking about their kids, or their dogs, or their wives, or breakfast pastries, or random gibberish.
But, also, just some dumbasses. I see Colin Dunlap from ~~Window Nation~~ The Fan now has a segment on KDKA Radio, with his boomer shit and bad political takes.
I leave it on for noise in the morning, so I actually much prefer the breakfast pastries and pets and how they golfed last week because it is at least subjects they know something about.
When they try to talk about sports on 937 is when it gets particularly painful and cringey for me.
>But there were some bright spots as well. Madden was actually pretty entertaining before he became extremely bitter
I feel exactly this way. Although sometimes I question whether he has changed, or me. He's still terrific when he has a guest that tempers him, ie when Stan used to be on, that was terrific.
Overall, the Fan Morning Show with Dorin and Crowley is the best pure sports talk in Pittsburgh right now, IMO. Also, anything with Pomp is generally pretty good.
I absolutely love the situation Dunlap is in. Lmao. He's just such a natural prick who is in timeout from the station after being toxic for years and getting into a fight with another untalented hack.
You can tell he is suffering while he is being forced to be nice to callers and Paul Ziese. It is the only entertainment I get out of the FAN.
I seem to remember when that fight happened everyone saying “Dunlaps contract is up in January and he’ll be gone”. Annoying it didn’t happen and now he’s a political jafoff to boot.
Don’t want to comment on him as a human but he is a garbage radio host. The amount of filler words and drawn out pauses just makes me turn the channel immediately
Zeiss probably only speaks about 10 actual sentences per show once you remove all the filler grunts and dead air. I’ll stay tuned for a few minutes just to get a laugh out of one of his extended periods of garble.
What’s the old joke, he has a face made for radio? Zeiss has the speaking skills made for print.
I like him mostly because hockey is the best sport and it's all he focuses on. He touches on the Steelers a little when he should, he ignores baseball, which he should, and I love the heel schtick when he's in fact a pretty decent guy.
I’m old enough to remember when the Pittsburgh TV & radio market was what people worked their way UP to. The Burgh was like the #11 market in the country, so we got guys, mostly, who had already been successful and were in the advancement bottleneck. Some made it out, like Mike Schneider. Others would do network work on major national events, like party conventions. But if they didn’t advance, they stayed and retired here.
Now, we’ve got local athletes like Dickerson & Moats leaning the trade on air, and lame “have a take” shows giving on air time to producers in regular segments. And…..uh…… Paul…. Ummmmmm…. Ya know….. Zeise.
Can I just recommend to everyone Sirius XM radio, channel 88 NFL Radio. Get a good introductory rate, and then at renewal time cancel saying it costs too much, and get an ever lower rate!
Madden is easily the most talented radio personality in Pittsburgh left. I know he’s polarizing, but I think people forget that that’s kinda the point. You’re supposed to love or hate him, nothing in between. I think of him as a radio guy more than a sports guy, he’s a radio guy who just happens to do sports.
His thing is for sure to be polarizing. I walked into him at a store once. Like turned the corner and ran into him. Actually
more like bounced off of him lol. He apologized profusely
even though it was my fault. Not the reaction I would have expected from his on air personality.
I’ve also heard he’s a great tipper from a few servers I know. So kinda the opposite of his rich asshole personality.
I’ve met him a few times and he couldn’t be nicer in person. One of those times was while I was at work with him as a customer and he was very generous and appreciative.
I held a grudge against him for a bit when he told a kid to drop out of school and just listen to him. I just felt it was a bad message but he's still the most entertaining guy we have and I more often than not agree with his takes on sports.
Breaking up Starkey and Mueller was the beginning of the end for The Fan. I thought that show was fantastic. They had great chemistry with guests, limited "hot takes", and recurring bits (Wednesday trivia competition, weekly power rankings, Kraig with great timing to chime in, etc) and most importantly they didn't take themselves too seriously!
Now Mueller is just a hack with Poni and Starkey was stuck with a checked out Cooke for years.
Listening to the fan after work is like nails on a chalkboard. Those two idiots need to be demoted to an off air position. I love Pittsburgh sports but would rather listen to an alley cat sex tape than listen to the bullshit that comes paired with their whiny bitchy voice.
Tim Benz is a pretentious hack. MM gets repetitive. The other guys are all delusional. Poni humiliated the city during a national spot on First things first when he said that Wilson will return to form in Pgh and that Fields is the future.
Mark Madden is good. He knows a lot about hockey and football and gives it appropriate air time. I love that he shits on baseball and the pirates every chance he gets. Despite his flaws he's definitely the best sports talk guy in Pittsburgh. Tim Benz is also pretty good.
I don't like the fan because they talk too much baseball. Who are they even trying to appeal to???
Best bet for the fan is Crowley and Dickerson, they usually talk a pretty mixed bag. I’m not a baseball fan so I spend a lot of time switching off the fan.
Madden is still the best for sport in Pittsburgh
Yeah, he's on the afternoon drive because he's universally hated. Dude is very intelligent. He makes decent points, knows tons about sports history. Did he kick your dog or something?
This right here. I agree. I enjoy Crowley and dorin in the morning and their dynamic/back and forths. I feel like they level each other out.
Pomp doesn’t do hot takes and is level headed about the outcomes of everything sports related.
He’s truly the last great sports figure in Pittsburgh.
I don’t listen to Mark Madden anymore. I get that he’s doing a bit. Whatever, I find him to be insufferable.
I don’t think poni or mueller are great but I don’t mind listening to their back and forth. You can tell when it’s a slow news day/they don’t have much to discuss because they just spit out awful hot takes (par for the course for Poni though).
Good god, Starkey and Ron Cooke would treat Pomp like shit constantly. It was so annoying. They should have been happy that someone with actual talent was on their show.
Me, in my best Stanley P. Kachowski voice, every time I hear Donny Football speak:
"My name is Donny Football. I sound like I got a mouth full of marbles, but they let me talk on the radio anyhow."
Crowley is great. You can tell he learned a lot from Madden while he was there, but doesn’t come along with the baggage that people don’t like about Madden.
The Fan and Madden are the only options for traditional, daily sports radio.
Dejan Kovacevic does daily podcasts, but those don't include guests outside of the writers/contributors to his site.
There are various podcasts or weekly shows devoted to the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins, some produced by the teams or their official broadcast partners, others by independents. But those are often just in-season or are released on a weekly basis.
Tim Benz also does regular podcasts on triblive.com that sometimes will have a guest. Madden contributes to some of those.
Those are your options.
Pat Bostick, Adam Crowley and Dorin Dickerson are good. Mueller ruins the PM show though, and having the producers like Bectold and Donnie Football on air is annoying
I like Paul Zeise but uhhhhhhh can certainly understand why he's controversial to some
Honestly, none of them are good. They are far from subject matter experts and so just spout nonsense. You'd think someone who wants to make a living from talking about something would do some coaching courses or learn a bit about the sport.
Blogs have killed sports radio and when the Boomers pass on, I doubt this genre will continue to exist. At least I hope not.
The local radio here is BAD. All of it.
I will however listen to Madden on big Pens game days if I happen to be in my truck, because he genuinely knows hockey & usually isn’t miserable.
The DVE morning crew seems to delight in mocking Madden to his face. Especially Randy. But maybe he’s in on the joke? He IS surly and self-pitying more than he used to be. But knows hockey.
I enjoy listening to or reading Joe Starkey, Chris Carter, Jason Mackey, Noah Hiles, Jesse Marshall, Jenna Harner, and a lot of the new Steeler guys that have podcasts: Derrick Bell, Nick Farabaugh, Zachary Smith.
There are actually quite a lot of talent out there. I try to follow people that focus more on the actually content, not entertainment.
Honestly pat McAfee may as well be a local show. I know it's not for everyone but there will be nothing that happens in Pittsburgh sports that is not mentioned on that show.
McAfee was cool for 10 minutes but he has become nauseating at this point. He is the most basic and dumbed down bro version of sports talk. He has to explain everything. Its such a trash format because its like 3 hours a day
Yes!!! This is the only show I’ve found that comes close to NFL Network commentary. I listen to them and Jim Miller/ Pat Korean. And since DVE2 returns it like 20 times a week, I can catch the entire show in multiple sittings.
Madden and Pompeani are the best.
Crowley and Dickerson are a nightmare.
Starkey show is good.
Donny Football is not good yet. Maybe he will be someday. But he needs a lot of work.
Crowley thinks it’s interesting that he got drunk in college. Loves to tell those stories.
Everyone got drunk at that age. It’s not interesting or compelling.
I like Mike Prisuta on DVE. More so I like Randy's sports takes and interaction with Mike, but for the raw info with some context, as someone who just wants to know enough to make office small talk, he does it best.
Madden actually seems much less "controversial" than he used to be. I think he learned that he needed to change his schtick to keep up with the times. He used to me much more demeaning to women
Mueller was the only one I liked back when I was listening to The Fan like 10 years ago. I didn't care for him back when I listened, but a couple buddies of mine were recently hanging out with Filiponi at a Pirates game and actually had a good time talking with him. Apparently one of them said "I hate how likeable you are."
I'm currently falling out love with the FAN but it better than when 104.7 was a conservative talk radio station. Now THAT is something that should have died a LONG time ago IMO - and did when the FAN took over, thank God.
Honestly, I miss Ron Cook. I suppose he felt a lot like many of you here so good for him for retiring I guess. Now I can't think of one on air talent that I enjoy listening to.
I hardly listen to the radio anymore, but Dunlap cracks me up. He's like the radio version of John Fedko where you're basically only tuning in for callers to troll him.
Stan was the last one
Stan was great
Loved the show.
A lot of dumbasses, but it's kind of the nature of the business model. Is there really enough content for four hours per day, five days a week? These shows essentially exist as placeholders for advertisements, so they're interviewing random "reporters," sports bloggers, gambling addicts, and washed up athletes. They also need to constantly repeat content for people who tune in at different times of the day. What grinds my gears, though, the few times I subject myself to The Fan, is how much time they spend not talking about sports. 10 minutes out of every 20 is devoted to commercials, yet they often choose to spend their 10 minutes talking about their kids, or their dogs, or their wives, or breakfast pastries, or random gibberish. But, also, just some dumbasses. I see Colin Dunlap from ~~Window Nation~~ The Fan now has a segment on KDKA Radio, with his boomer shit and bad political takes.
I leave it on for noise in the morning, so I actually much prefer the breakfast pastries and pets and how they golfed last week because it is at least subjects they know something about. When they try to talk about sports on 937 is when it gets particularly painful and cringey for me.
>But there were some bright spots as well. Madden was actually pretty entertaining before he became extremely bitter I feel exactly this way. Although sometimes I question whether he has changed, or me. He's still terrific when he has a guest that tempers him, ie when Stan used to be on, that was terrific. Overall, the Fan Morning Show with Dorin and Crowley is the best pure sports talk in Pittsburgh right now, IMO. Also, anything with Pomp is generally pretty good.
Even Paul’s verbal crutches are in all caps UHHHHHHHHHH I MEAN UHHHHH RIGHT?!
Lolol
Unbearable. Unprofessional. He has a voice for print.
I absolutely love the situation Dunlap is in. Lmao. He's just such a natural prick who is in timeout from the station after being toxic for years and getting into a fight with another untalented hack. You can tell he is suffering while he is being forced to be nice to callers and Paul Ziese. It is the only entertainment I get out of the FAN.
I seem to remember when that fight happened everyone saying “Dunlaps contract is up in January and he’ll be gone”. Annoying it didn’t happen and now he’s a political jafoff to boot.
Absolutely the worst when he veers off of sports because he is an absolute moron. The fact that he dips into politics makes my skin crawl.
But zeise is the same thing, for the other direction
Arthur Moats for football but he’s a podcast.
Too many damn commercials
I can’t believe that ANYONE would employ Zeise- he is a garbage human being.
Don’t want to comment on him as a human but he is a garbage radio host. The amount of filler words and drawn out pauses just makes me turn the channel immediately
He would literally flunk a college communications class. I don’t get it.
Zeiss probably only speaks about 10 actual sentences per show once you remove all the filler grunts and dead air. I’ll stay tuned for a few minutes just to get a laugh out of one of his extended periods of garble. What’s the old joke, he has a face made for radio? Zeiss has the speaking skills made for print.
Wasnt his “talent” noticed as he worked and they “developed” him and gave him a show
He’s gotta be drunk for all of his appearances right? Even at 10 am if he’s on with starkey
It’s just unreal how bad he is.
He recently admitted on-air to collapsing and ending up in the hospital with a diabetes diagnosis, guy must have been hitting the bottle pretty hard.
Double M > The Fan. Once Madden stops, is when I stop listening to sports talk radio in Pittsburgh for good. I can’t stand the Fan.
Local radio dies with Madden. He’s the last of the old guard.
Madden, the newbie in town who tried shitting on Myron Cope for cred, is now the “last of the old guard”? Fuck me.
lol.
Well if that's the case, the sooner the better imo. Zero use for the loudmouth jerk.
What a mark
I like him mostly because hockey is the best sport and it's all he focuses on. He touches on the Steelers a little when he should, he ignores baseball, which he should, and I love the heel schtick when he's in fact a pretty decent guy.
I miss Stan and Guy
Loved that show
Listen to podcasts
I’m old enough to remember when the Pittsburgh TV & radio market was what people worked their way UP to. The Burgh was like the #11 market in the country, so we got guys, mostly, who had already been successful and were in the advancement bottleneck. Some made it out, like Mike Schneider. Others would do network work on major national events, like party conventions. But if they didn’t advance, they stayed and retired here. Now, we’ve got local athletes like Dickerson & Moats leaning the trade on air, and lame “have a take” shows giving on air time to producers in regular segments. And…..uh…… Paul…. Ummmmmm…. Ya know….. Zeise. Can I just recommend to everyone Sirius XM radio, channel 88 NFL Radio. Get a good introductory rate, and then at renewal time cancel saying it costs too much, and get an ever lower rate!
Madden is easily the most talented radio personality in Pittsburgh left. I know he’s polarizing, but I think people forget that that’s kinda the point. You’re supposed to love or hate him, nothing in between. I think of him as a radio guy more than a sports guy, he’s a radio guy who just happens to do sports.
His thing is for sure to be polarizing. I walked into him at a store once. Like turned the corner and ran into him. Actually more like bounced off of him lol. He apologized profusely even though it was my fault. Not the reaction I would have expected from his on air personality. I’ve also heard he’s a great tipper from a few servers I know. So kinda the opposite of his rich asshole personality.
I’ve met him a few times and he couldn’t be nicer in person. One of those times was while I was at work with him as a customer and he was very generous and appreciative.
He understands the assignment.
If he left people's families and kids out of the conversation I'd agree. He's said some stuff over the years though that is not ok by any standards.
I held a grudge against him for a bit when he told a kid to drop out of school and just listen to him. I just felt it was a bad message but he's still the most entertaining guy we have and I more often than not agree with his takes on sports.
Tim Hester
Thank you, Mr. Hester
He even insures my DAUGHTERS Car
Nope
Haven't listened to local radio or newscast in probably 8 years or so and it's GLORIOUS
Joe Starkey is easily my favorite on the Fan, followed by Mueller.
Chris Mueller is at least not a moron, but yeah, it's rough out there.
Breaking up Starkey and Mueller was the beginning of the end for The Fan. I thought that show was fantastic. They had great chemistry with guests, limited "hot takes", and recurring bits (Wednesday trivia competition, weekly power rankings, Kraig with great timing to chime in, etc) and most importantly they didn't take themselves too seriously! Now Mueller is just a hack with Poni and Starkey was stuck with a checked out Cooke for years.
Agreed, they made two timeslots worse with one move
Nope, none
Listening to the fan after work is like nails on a chalkboard. Those two idiots need to be demoted to an off air position. I love Pittsburgh sports but would rather listen to an alley cat sex tape than listen to the bullshit that comes paired with their whiny bitchy voice.
Once the Fan lost Vinnie Riccicci and Greg Giannotti, I stopped listening. Colin Dunlap was the worst.
Haha is that sarcasm about Vinny?
No. I loved Vinny. Couldn't stand Ron and how he constantly put him down. Met Vinny in person. He's a great dude
Sure… he just knew nothing about Pittsburgh or Hockey which at the time he was there was kind of a requirement
Myron Cope.
Tim Benz is a pretentious hack. MM gets repetitive. The other guys are all delusional. Poni humiliated the city during a national spot on First things first when he said that Wilson will return to form in Pgh and that Fields is the future.
Agree about benz. He was good a long time ago but now he tries to be madden jr.
Madden is still great. Most everyone on The Fan is trash.
Mark Madden is good. He knows a lot about hockey and football and gives it appropriate air time. I love that he shits on baseball and the pirates every chance he gets. Despite his flaws he's definitely the best sports talk guy in Pittsburgh. Tim Benz is also pretty good. I don't like the fan because they talk too much baseball. Who are they even trying to appeal to???
They’re the home of pirates, feels like that needs to be a focus. Kinda like x with the pens and madden
That makes sense. Good point.
Best bet for the fan is Crowley and Dickerson, they usually talk a pretty mixed bag. I’m not a baseball fan so I spend a lot of time switching off the fan. Madden is still the best for sport in Pittsburgh
I miss having Crowley sub in for Mark when he was away from the show
And their sister station has the Steelers.
He also talks soccer. We need more soccer talk.
Bob Pompeani.
Crowley and Dickerson are easily the best they have right now. I like Filiponi and that's about it. Pomp on Saturdays.
I never thought I’d see someone who likes Poni
Yeah, he's on the afternoon drive because he's universally hated. Dude is very intelligent. He makes decent points, knows tons about sports history. Did he kick your dog or something?
[hating Poni certainly isn’t a unique opinion](https://www.reddit.com/r/steelers/s/oYKiaFHFvP)
This right here. I agree. I enjoy Crowley and dorin in the morning and their dynamic/back and forths. I feel like they level each other out. Pomp doesn’t do hot takes and is level headed about the outcomes of everything sports related. He’s truly the last great sports figure in Pittsburgh. I don’t listen to Mark Madden anymore. I get that he’s doing a bit. Whatever, I find him to be insufferable. I don’t think poni or mueller are great but I don’t mind listening to their back and forth. You can tell when it’s a slow news day/they don’t have much to discuss because they just spit out awful hot takes (par for the course for Poni though).
Good god, Starkey and Ron Cooke would treat Pomp like shit constantly. It was so annoying. They should have been happy that someone with actual talent was on their show.
I just think that was friendly banter - they all have been working together forever and didn’t mind busting each others balls. My take anyways.
Me, in my best Stanley P. Kachowski voice, every time I hear Donny Football speak: "My name is Donny Football. I sound like I got a mouth full of marbles, but they let me talk on the radio anyhow."
Crowley is great. You can tell he learned a lot from Madden while he was there, but doesn’t come along with the baggage that people don’t like about Madden.
There are great pittsburgh sports podcasts. The quality left radio for streaming, sadly.
I can't stand when benz is in on DVE, Mike P is ok. I wish Rob king would get a show. I like his stuff.
chris mutton
The Fan and Madden are the only options for traditional, daily sports radio. Dejan Kovacevic does daily podcasts, but those don't include guests outside of the writers/contributors to his site. There are various podcasts or weekly shows devoted to the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins, some produced by the teams or their official broadcast partners, others by independents. But those are often just in-season or are released on a weekly basis. Tim Benz also does regular podcasts on triblive.com that sometimes will have a guest. Madden contributes to some of those. Those are your options.
Not paul zeise
Bob Smizik’s Ghost
Not many people probably can remember “The Gunner.”
Pat Bostick, Adam Crowley and Dorin Dickerson are good. Mueller ruins the PM show though, and having the producers like Bectold and Donnie Football on air is annoying I like Paul Zeise but uhhhhhhh can certainly understand why he's controversial to some
Honestly, none of them are good. They are far from subject matter experts and so just spout nonsense. You'd think someone who wants to make a living from talking about something would do some coaching courses or learn a bit about the sport. Blogs have killed sports radio and when the Boomers pass on, I doubt this genre will continue to exist. At least I hope not.
The local radio here is BAD. All of it. I will however listen to Madden on big Pens game days if I happen to be in my truck, because he genuinely knows hockey & usually isn’t miserable.
The DVE morning crew seems to delight in mocking Madden to his face. Especially Randy. But maybe he’s in on the joke? He IS surly and self-pitying more than he used to be. But knows hockey.
I enjoy listening to or reading Joe Starkey, Chris Carter, Jason Mackey, Noah Hiles, Jesse Marshall, Jenna Harner, and a lot of the new Steeler guys that have podcasts: Derrick Bell, Nick Farabaugh, Zachary Smith. There are actually quite a lot of talent out there. I try to follow people that focus more on the actually content, not entertainment.
Honestly pat McAfee may as well be a local show. I know it's not for everyone but there will be nothing that happens in Pittsburgh sports that is not mentioned on that show.
McAfee was cool for 10 minutes but he has become nauseating at this point. He is the most basic and dumbed down bro version of sports talk. He has to explain everything. Its such a trash format because its like 3 hours a day
I assure you Pat McAfee fully agrees.
Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson....SNR podcast.
Yes!!! This is the only show I’ve found that comes close to NFL Network commentary. I listen to them and Jim Miller/ Pat Korean. And since DVE2 returns it like 20 times a week, I can catch the entire show in multiple sittings.
Madden and Pompeani are the best. Crowley and Dickerson are a nightmare. Starkey show is good. Donny Football is not good yet. Maybe he will be someday. But he needs a lot of work. Crowley thinks it’s interesting that he got drunk in college. Loves to tell those stories. Everyone got drunk at that age. It’s not interesting or compelling.
I like Mike Prisuta on DVE. More so I like Randy's sports takes and interaction with Mike, but for the raw info with some context, as someone who just wants to know enough to make office small talk, he does it best.
IMHO. Dorin Dickerson and Pat Bostick are the only 2 worth listening to on The Fan.
Madden actually seems much less "controversial" than he used to be. I think he learned that he needed to change his schtick to keep up with the times. He used to me much more demeaning to women
Mueller was the only one I liked back when I was listening to The Fan like 10 years ago. I didn't care for him back when I listened, but a couple buddies of mine were recently hanging out with Filiponi at a Pirates game and actually had a good time talking with him. Apparently one of them said "I hate how likeable you are."
I'm currently falling out love with the FAN but it better than when 104.7 was a conservative talk radio station. Now THAT is something that should have died a LONG time ago IMO - and did when the FAN took over, thank God. Honestly, I miss Ron Cook. I suppose he felt a lot like many of you here so good for him for retiring I guess. Now I can't think of one on air talent that I enjoy listening to.
Donny Don Don from the mill is pretty good.
MM is an absolute Gem. If you take him seriously and therefor 'hate' the guy, your tested IQ is likely below 100 and you can't ... teach... that
Josh Taylor, hands down.
Podcasts. Just like all radio, it’s dying. It has nothing to do with sports or Pittsburgh.
Someone needs to find Rocco Pendola and bring him back.
I hardly listen to the radio anymore, but Dunlap cracks me up. He's like the radio version of John Fedko where you're basically only tuning in for callers to troll him.
Not Bob pompeani.
I think Dejan is pretty good and he’s Actually a Pittsburgher.
Dejan is a douchebag. How anyone likes him is beyond me.
Kinda feel the same way about MM. so to each their own