Sean McDonough and Boston's sports radio scene

["Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>]

I had a chance to listen to Sean's show on my drive home Monday, first when
I was on I-84 in northern Connecticut around 3, then later on as I hit the
NY Thruway and then the Garden State Parkway. At one point toward the end of
the show, an e-mailer made a quip about how Sean misses so many shows due to
play-by-play conflicts. It inspired a 10-minute rant of frustration where
McDonough went off on the listeners (for criticizing his work schedule),
other media (for supposedly embellishing quotes by Sean Grande in reference
to McDonough's work schedule) and even station management. He mentioned how
ESPN pays him twice as much to call a game as he gets to do a WWZN show then
said that there were some things that "quite frankly, they [WWZN] haven't
even lived up to." (I could practically hear his co-hosts, Ron Borges and
Michael Holley, rushing to duck under the table for cover.)

Given the moves made by WSNR in New York to go almost exclusively brokered
time on weekdays, comments made by former Zone employees regarding the
station's finances (for the sake of the argument, let's take them at face
value), and the recent firing of Mike Adams, one has to wonder if those
obligations that Sean refers to are fiscally-related responsibilities.

My questions:

1.) If WWZN does disappear, does an Entercom AM competitor flip an AM to
all-sports? Does WKOX ever have a prayer of building out its CP for the WUNR
site? If it did, Clear Channel could fill the schedule almost exclusively
with Fox Sports Radio programming.

2.) I know WTKK is doing OK with talk but would they ever consider flipping
sports? (My odds: 1,000-1.)

3.) There is definitely a dearth of full-market, full-time AM signals in
Boston, with WBZ the only real one. Eliminating the Entercom stations, that
leaves you with 590, 950, and 1260 as AM stations that have decent signals
market-wide by day, but also have some nice-sized holes at night. Salem
probably isn't flipping 590 or 950 any time soon. How did Radio Disney do in
the most recent ratings book, if it even appeared? Could anyone see ABC
taking a gamble, dumping Radio Disney and turning 1260 into an ESPN Radio
affiliate, maybe picking up the Celtics?