Dallas radio station 97.1 FM is returning to rock after a brief trip to talk radio. Station owner iHeart Radio is pulling the plug on 97.1 The Freak, a talk show that debuted in October 2022, according to radio writer Richie Witt. It lags far behind in evaluation.
The company held a meeting on April 26 and laid off staff, including radio veterans Mike Reiner, Jeff Kavanaugh, Danny Burris and Ben & Skin.
Mr. Reiner admitted he was fired in a lame tweet that read, “And one more thing: There's no end in sight to the massive office redo.”
He told the Observer that the station will return to rock music programming as “97.1 The Eagle'' starting Monday, April 29.
As of early Friday afternoon, The Freak was airing reruns of past shows.
In 2022, the station will transition from music radio to talk radio, with the highly publicized return of radio great Reiner, who came out of retirement to co-host a weekday afternoon show with Mike Sirois.
Other programs included a morning show with Jeff Kavanaugh. The Ben and Skin Show, an afternoon show featuring Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade. The show “Cash In'' is hosted by Jason Page. and a show called Just Sain' It hosted by Cole Thompson.
However, The Freak's ratings were far behind its competitors, The Ticket 1310 and The Fan 105.3. The talk format also required paying salaries to multiple hosts for multiple shows.
In a Facebook post, Ben and Skin said: “We are heartbroken to see the station we worked so hard to build change in direction. We are all part of The Freak. “The best thing about the last 18 months was getting the job.” Every day with our closest friends and favorite his DFW radio personalities is hard to beat, but it was the most fun I've ever had on radio. We will hold a Ben & Skin Show as soon as possible. ”
Reiner said this demise was not surprising, and attributed it to the fact that iHeart Radio was primarily music and not talk.
“We all knew we were walking dead for a long time,” he said.
Ratings for the first quarter of 2024 from January to March reveal the station's slump.
morning:
- Ticket 12.8 (1)
- Fan 9.2 (2)
- Freak 1.9 (17)
noon:
- Fan 7.2 (1)
- Ticket 6.9 (3)
- Freak 2.0 (18)
afternoon
- Ticket 11.3 (1)
- Fan 7.8 (2)
- Freak 2.2 (17)
Radio is currently the official broadcaster of Dallas Mavericks games, so the change in format could be problematic.
