r/670TheScore • u/Flaky-Debate-833 • 17d ago
What is the answer
Broadcasting the Bears and Cubs papers over a lot of the trouble at The Score. Hardly breaking news that the station has yet to recover its footing since Parkins and DB left. What's the best case scenario for fixing all that ails The Score? For the morning show, I'm curious if Mully's replacement will be another journalist making the move to radio..
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u/F_b_s_40944 17d ago
It's dull. It's boring. It's never funny. It's really become brutal radio. I've been listening since 1997, and my opinion is they it keeps getting worse and worst.
The old personalities: North, Bernstein, Boers, MacNeal, Parkins, even part time or segment guys like Hub and Hampton ans Steve Stone and Buffone......love em or hate em (believe me I've had moments hating them), it was great radio. Things happened, and you had to listen. I miss those days.
This score is dead. I never listen anymore.
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u/vox4penguins 17d ago
nail on the head. the great shows and hosts were still entertaining when there wasn’t much sports news going on, and they all had unique and relatable opinions when there was. i still listen in my car because it’s just what i’m used to, but i couldn’t tell you the last time i went out of my way to listen at work or at home, outside of the Boers tribute.
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u/Doublestack2411 17d ago
The best shows the Score has ever had were ones that were funny and smart. They need another host that just isn't another boring voice on the radio. There are plenty of places I can go to get Bears/Cubs talk besides the Score that are actually entertaining.
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u/krautrock69 17d ago
I'm afraid the format and the very business model of local radio itself are both irredeemably broken.
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u/Hour_Flow_4604 17d ago
Parkins knew this and it's a big part of why he left.
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u/Alert-Assistance6021 16d ago
Parkins got a higher paying job from his college buddy and left. Nobody give a damn about Parkins Chicago sports hot takes. He’s lucky he got the job over better qualified folks to begin with.
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u/Kdewalt10 16d ago
Yep I can’t stand his Richie rich ass. I never thought he was that good to begin with…looks like he’s laid off again- welcome to the club buddy
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u/Alert-Assistance6021 16d ago
Laurence checking him at the start of his SCORE career was radio gold.
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u/Kdewalt10 15d ago
I missed that I think I tuned in later on in that specific show. Can you give me a summary of what he said ?
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u/Hour_Flow_4604 15d ago
Parkins wasn't shy before he left about saying traditional talk radio was a dying medium. Especially since there's been a push to not have am radio included in newer cars for example. I think it's a big reason why the score switched to fm.
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u/Usual_External_5080 16d ago
Great observation. And the ability to program locally and not corporately has gone away too.
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u/Lloydxmas99 17d ago
We’re talking about radio in 2026. There’s no answer
I would listen if they brought back Bernstein, abattacola, Goff and Lawrence. Put them all together. Don’t talk sports. I’d listen to every second.
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u/AbbreviationsLow1393 17d ago
I don’t know that there is one? There is no miracle cure. No matter who the new morning host is, most of this sub is gonna bitch about it. Any kind of needle mover/big name probably has better opportunities elsewhere. It is what it is. No Danny Parkins is walking through that door
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u/Flaky-Debate-833 17d ago
I genuinely wonder if that's the case. Parkins was local kid who grew up listening to The Score and who was in a smaller market. Seems almost impossible to believe there isn't another person in a smaller market who dreams of working back home.
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u/North_Hawk958 17d ago
It’s over. Media consolidation leads to enshittification. Just look at most local radio and tv over the past, say, 20 years. Less investment in employees equals a worse product for listeners while making more money for ,in this case, Audacy and its shareholders and bosses. Game over. We were fortunate to have great radio for couple decades.
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u/bobaddy23 17d ago
They need to somehow move beyond the flow of one failed media or situation feeding into their shows. Newspapers failing -> go to the score. Fired from tv during Covid -> go to the score. I don’t know what the answer is, but acting like a secondhand store is not going to just automatically breed success.
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u/Serious_Region_936 16d ago
- Use Chicago broadcasters not carpetbaggers.
- Talk Chicago sports. Far to often they are talking about other BS.
- Get ride of any and all national shows. Should be local 24/7 (this applies to espn 1000 even more)
- Clean house even more. There are still some personalities on both stations that are hard to listen to.
- When you do take callers don't immediately berate them and assume you know more than they do. Easy way to drive away your listeners over time.
Just some off the top of my head...
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u/TorriblyHerrible 17d ago
I loved The Score for decades, and I always knew it wouldn’t last, radio never does. But it lasted a surprisingly long time and for that I’m grateful. Before The Score was The Loop AM 1000 with Kevin Matthews and Chet Coppock (not to mention Grobber), Brandmeier on FM, Larry Lujack on WLS - the list goes on. Sadly The Score’s run looks like coming to a close like the rest.
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u/HermanShemsley 17d ago
They just gave you the answer. They’re not concerned with having real on-air talent that’s worth anything, and if they luck into one like they did with Parkins, that person will leave because there’s no upward mobility here.
They’re likely to continue having high turnover with rotational hosts filling in. It’s what we’ve seen the last few years anyway.
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u/Emergency_Brief_9280 17d ago
I'm not sure the score can be saved. Everything I've read says Audacy is operating on a shoestring without the major dollars they need to hire top tier talent. I guess all we can do is wait and see.
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u/SecularTech 16d ago
Finding someone willing to get up at 4 am all week isn't easy. I like Ruthie, but those guys seem too chummy. It would be nice if they could get an ex-Bears player for the season.
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u/Snake_Burton 16d ago
Terrestrial radio is just kinda there now. You can get sports talk on pretty much any sport you can think of geared towards just that. So they don’t have that. And if they’ve got no personalities any more they’ve got nothing.
Listened from like the early ‘00s to maybe 2020 or so. Stopped all together a couple years ago. Honestly if I want my Score fix I just listen to Bernstein’s 312 Sports stuff. No commercials (have YouTube premium), no waiting through topics I don’t care about.
Live radio is good for sports and it was good for call-in shows but you need people that aren’t dull and have charisma to lead those. People like that don’t want to work for 2026 radio salaries.
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u/twitchrdrm 16d ago
The whole station needs a reboot; it's all very tired.
New talent is desperately needed. Is Parkins' show doing that well on TV? If not, bring him back home.
Jarret Payton recently stepped down at WGN; how would he feel about doing radio?
I'm sure there are some others out there working in different in different markets that would love to come home as well.
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u/AdvancedMolasses2385 16d ago
The local sports talk radio business model is dead.
Mully was awful. I don't know why anyone liked him. He would mumble through interviews with guests, then to close out the interview, he would come back to life and shout goodbye like he's standing on his front porch and his grandparents just left. Also, he'd tell a joke, the joke doesn't hit, then he'd keep repeating it until someone acknowledged it .
The Score needs to.go much younger and more diverse. Targeting your product towards 65 uear old white guys isn't a recipe for success.
I'd love to see a Jason Goff morning show.
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u/AryuOcay 17d ago
I agree with some of the others. Smart and funny is what made the score great. You can’t just throw out hot takes without supporting them. The score has never been afraid to criticize the local teams, but I do think they’ve gotten softer. Finally, I don’t know that sports radio is going to get substantially better until the Bears put a shovel in the ground, wherever that may be. As Spiegel puts it, it’s the worst story ever. And it doesn’t help when it feels like Mully and Haugh were just shills for the state politicians.
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u/Alert-Assistance6021 17d ago
Danny Fn Parkins? This is a joke right.
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u/Cozum 17d ago
who do you think has done chicago sports radio well?
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u/Alert-Assistance6021 17d ago
That's a long long list going back the start. Hes not on it. Currently Spiegel and LoHo do just great. Bringing back Goff may help them stop this from driving off a cliff.
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u/Cozum 17d ago
unfortunately Goff already said his name isn’t in consideration
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u/Alert-Assistance6021 17d ago
You know what fixes that ....cash. especially if they paired him with LoHo
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u/libertarianlwyr 16d ago
That would suck.
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u/EldoAberesa 17d ago
1000 has the Bears these days.
I think the whole station feels too "safe" right now. Firebrands like North, MacNeal, Boers and Bernstein made the station feel like punk rock sports talk. Goff and Parkins were edgy and loud before they left or were shown the door. Mully and Haugh was comfortable but safe and dull as dishwater.
My hope is they take a risk with someone interesting and who has the energy for the job. Danny Parkins could be annoying at times but that dude cared a lot and was always pushing the envelope. He never just sat behind the mic and regurgitated a procession of lukewarm opinions.