Change At Sportsnet Fan 590

This was going to have to happen, it was just a question of how soon. The almost universal condemnation of his shock radio style and his extremely limited (to maybe the Leafs) sports knowledge just personified what an extremely misguided hire this was in the first place by Don Kollins.

I imagine they will park him somewhere until he can be bought out.

im really happy! i’ve written to the FAN multiple times in the listener panel surveys asking him not to be so offensive with his comment, to stop being rude to callers and stop interrupting his on-air guests. it also does not help that he is constantly saying crap like “im right, you’re wrong” and being one who prefers a “shock radio” personality! it’s not how i enjoy waking up to the FAN 590 in the morning and i don’t think i will miss him!

So Simmons WAS correct on his tweet last week. Krystal was in the wrong element for his style of show. Ultimately, this is not his fault, but rather the mistake of Kollins who hired the wrong personality! I didn’t care for him or his show, but I still feel a little bad for him. Six months and he loses his show after giving up a good gig in Halifax. This story is going to get really interesting now! As he said to Simmons on his response tweet, “time to contact a lawyer”!

I feel bad for him too. There is a demographic for him but it sure wasn’t The Fan. But much like Vernon Wells, when someone parks a pile of money on your doorstep, you can’t be wrong for trying. Brady in the morning was great today, I’d love to see Gordo back with him. They could easily move beyond just sports with a better style(for me) than AK did.

I do not listen to morning radio, so I can not comment on Krystal, but having read the comments on this board, I feel really bad for the guy. Sure he will get his money, but it really seems his hire was completely wrong for the Fan format. This is not his fault, but the fault of the program director.

does anyone know what his numbers were like in the most recent book? i have to believe that was, more than anything else, the reason for the move.

he might be a decent option to try as a late evening host where all you do is take calls on the sports issues of the day. call it Krystal at Night or something. i think he’ll eventually end up back on a news/talk station where controversy for controversy’s sake is more accepted as a shtick.

They need to get a real guy in place immediatley. No more of this ‘Interim Host” gargage. If there isn’t a real plan this time – they may as well cancel the mornings and use ESPN programming.

Maybe they’ll swap in Brady and Krystal will have Brady’s spot and just let him die on the vine in the afternoons… (Can you imagine him hosting the Hockey show with Kypreos and MacLean?)

Krystal wasn’t a perfect host… he did interrupt WAY too much, and sometimes he was too “shock jock” for sports radio, but he was head and shoulders better than Landry and Stelleck in the Morning.

I enjoyed listening to something different in the morning. Greg Brady is great… but I’d rather see him in Blair’s spot and Blair in Greg’s spot.

They need a big name morning guy. Can’t replace him with a schmuck.

When I heard brady this morning I thought something was up. That said, it was VERY refreshing – brady is just so much better, and like a previous comment said, I don’t need to wake up to AK’s offensive style. Brady intrigues the mind, poses a lot of good questions and analyzes them. Hope he stays on as morning guy – I don’t get to listen to him during the day.

All I can say is ABOUT time. I do feel bad for Krystal though but the real blame lies with Farraway and Kollins. Now we need something to be done to get rid of Blair. Cannot stand the guy! BTW, what was the point of having Krystal on with McCowan on Tuesday?

@Adhish..”what was the point of having Krystal on with McCowan on Tuesday?” Sooo true!!! If Kollins is still making the decisions it just proves he does not have a clue and is way over his head.(now that’s news)
As for Krystal,I did not like him and stopped listening to him.Glad he is GONE but, I do not feel sorry for him at all.He will be paid very well $$ for doing NOTHING and land a job somewhere else …

WOO HOO! IMO, this move isn’t so much because of the current ratings book but because of the future one once TSN radio starts. Krystal was set up to be slaughtered by Richards based on what I heard about him in Calgary. Brady now provides substantial competition.

Also, I can’t really feel bad for Krystal since he didn’t seem to adjust to his role as a sports host and become more knowledgeable about the games. He couldn’t have expected to last long doing the same shtick as a Halifax news host.

@Adhish..”what was the point of having Krystal on with McCowan on Tuesday?” Maybe Krystal is leaving the morning show to take over Prime Time since he is still an employee.

Mike makes a good point about this move being about positioning Brady to compete with Richards, but if Krystal’s numbers were strong then they would have kept him in the morning to compete with Richards himself. the reason it was going to be a slaughter is that Krystal’s show was not well received.

i also think the point about Krystal’s lack of flexibility is dead-on. His shtick seemed identical to what he did on MOJO in the old days. I think the hope is that he would be smart and topical and broad, both within and beyond sports, and keep people tuned in even if the topic was not Leafs. Brady is a much better fit for that task.

i deleted the tuesday hour with his appearance on PTS from my podcast feed. maybe i’ll have to go back and listen now.

Wooo! This made my day. I can start listening to the FAN morning show again. Krystal was just too negative and not enough of a sports guy to keep that show going. I can’t wait to listen to Brady tomorrow!

Be interested to read Dowbiggin’s take on this topic.
My guess he will read all the comment’s on here then,make up a “sources tell me” story.

Can we just have Gord and Don come back please? Is that too much to ask? Not popular with everone, I know, but dammit I liked them, and miss them every morning commute.

Krystal was not a smart hire by Kollins. Sure, his numbers were good in Halifax – but Halifax radio is awful! He was the best of a very limited set of options out there. How he was supposed to transition to sports radio in Toronto, I’ll never understand.

Assuming he’d take it, Rogers would be nuts not to give the job to Brady. I do remember when Brady left 640 he tweeted that one of the factors in his decision was the chance to have a slot (12-3) that gave him more time with his family. Maybe he wouldn’t want the 5:30-9 slot if that’s the case.

I suspect (and have not heard anything about this) that we will be reading about Kollins’ new vocation rather soon. They hired Krystal thinking that he would make inroads on the CFRB/640 crowd and keep the sports crowd, who had nowhere else to go. With TSN Radio in the future, they now have to protect their sports flank. I seem to recall that someone bragged about all of the money they were saving with Krystal. I bet that P/L spreadsheet has been revisited in the last few days!

Wow. I maintain that Krystal can be a good radio host. I’ve said before that I worked in Halifax this summer and caught his show a couple of times. It was genuinely refreshing. He was very clued in to stuff like city planning and had some really cool science stuff. It was unique.

But yeah. His show has been too awkward to last on The Fan. Felt like he tried to make up for his lack of sports knowledge by being ‘forced controversial’. They must be kicking themselves for not shelling out for Richards.

Maybe you could have Krystal on at 6? Really, the ideal thing would be for him to land at a news/talk station.

Brady definitely deserves the morning show. Having said that, I’ll miss him in afternoons.

So, if Brady moves to mornings, who takes his old slot? I suggested before – Gord and Damien?

Tough call Oldsalty…

Kollins has done some things that haven’t impressed me at all. I hated the Wilner suspension. And his inability to find a morning guy is pretty brutal.

But, frankly, Blair, Brady and McCown might be the best stretch on The Fan I can remember. I’ve been really enjoying the Blair and Brady shows. Plus I think that shortening updates was a great idea as well.

So overall, I do actually prefer the ‘Kollins era’ to what was here before by quite a wide margin.

By the way, for what it’s worth – Krystal is saying on twitter that is he ‘not out’ and is ‘gainfully employed by The Fan 590’.

Kinda hard to take his denials seriously at this point. Do feel bad for the guy though.

Not quite sure why he is denying that he is out as morning host, given TSM’s multiple sources on it, but regardless, this is a business, and the ratings do dictate everything, especially with the new management in place at Sportsnet Radio Fan 590. The Nelson Millman era of loyalty is over for good, and with TSN radio around the corner, this is to be expected.

As a listener, I feel very little empathy for Krystal here. As others posted, he was obstinate in how he conducted himself on air and refused to change. Even so, I highly doubt there was anything he could have done to make things go differently. You don’t suddenly develop an in-depth sports knowledge. This is the real mystery, how Kollins either knew he lacked the necessities to do his job, just from a sports knowledge level, and still hired him, or did not, which is even worse, as he should have done his due diligence on this.

McCown in his format, no problem, as his show is not about the actual games themselves and the players. His ability to cover the big picture and get the high profile guests is what has made him so successful. If only we can eliminate the FOB’s and get Bob to focus more on content and not the fluff that seems to be dragging on too much in terms of small talk, we will be set.

I didn’t like Krystal but do feel sorry for him As someone said hard to turn down all that money; bet he wishes he stayed in Halifax. I don’t like Blair so perhaps Krystal could move there.

I’d like to see Gord back; if not with Brady in the morning then give him the old Brady slot which was mostly his old slot before he went to mornings.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. And whether Kollins remains.

Will tune into PTS at 3PM (still getting use to Prime Time starting at 3 PM, I guess everyone else whom thinks Prime Time is 8PM-11PM are wrong) anyways…
I am sure Bob will have something to say (either directly or indirectly or read between the lines)
Maybe he will announce he is moving to mornings and Shannon will be the new permanent host of PTS

Listening to the Tuesday PTS podcast. The final straw for me: He liked the Super Bowl halftime show. That about says it all.

As McCown would say “THANK THE BABY JESUS!” Everyone has said all there needs to be said about Krystal so i’ll just say that this has been a long time coming.

I heard a bit of Brady this morning and the show was a million times better. I loved the segment with Stellick and think those two would make for a good pairing in the mornings if they choose to go that direction.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Krystal now and well, Kollins’ days are numbered as well IMO. The man has shown that he was a big fish in a small pond and is now drowning in the sea of the Toronto radio market.

I was listening when Krystal was on PTS the other day, and despite the fact that Krystal has been kissing McCown’s ass since he was hired by the Fan, McCown wasn’t all that subtle in criticizing the guy about his show. Bobcat openly brought up Krystal’s tendency to interrupt everyone and his fascination with talking about the same Leaf stories every single day. In hindsight, something was definitely up.

Granted, Krystal tried to run with McCown’s “losers associate with losers” remark regarding the Leafs, but I don’t think he’s smart enough to understand that the same old shtick isn’t going to work.

Maybe I will start listening to The Fan590 again!

Krystal is out as the morning man. That’s why pencils have erasers. Not to beat a dead horse, but you can’t have a non-sports guy in a prime slot on a sports station. Personally, Brady belongs in the morning drive spot. Maybe Krystal takes back his mid-morning spot and Blair shuffles to early afternoons. Potentially Krystal takes on evenings when the Raptors/Jays aren’t playing. Gord and Damion could take an afternoon show, with Damion sticking around for the first hour of PTS.

Either way, the show ID’s haven’t been changed yet, so nothing has been concrete yet. That being said, they’d better get a solid plan in place soon or Kollins could be following Krystal on the train out of town.

Just about every trace of Krystal is off the Fan web site now (2pm). A link to his blog is all I could see just now. The Morning show under “On Air” has a place holder. No link or name associated with it.

He’s gone according to dough boy:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/fan-590-ends-the-andrew-krystal-experiment/article1902351/

Bring back the guy they had this summer! And by “bring back” I mean “don’t even think of bringing back”.

My god… please stop saying “Bring back Don and Gord”. Nicest guys in the world… but Gord is a TERRIBLE host. Good for content, terrible host.

Couple interesting things from the Globe article:

Brady agreed to do the AM shift temporarily as long as he could keep doing HC at noon, and emphasized that he’s very happy in afternoons. Is that just him being a good employee?

Krystal said he’s going to keep doing on air shifts, and they’re working on something new for him. Yeah, I guess you could have him do the 6pm hour and evenings when there’s no play by play? I’m not sure you could put him in Brady’s old spot.

I agree with you, Mike. Don and Gord were knowledgeable, but in my opinion that morning show was painfully boring. Gord could be good in a different role.

One more thing: why in the world would a cash-strapped station give this guy a new contract in December? There’s no way Don Kollins can keep his job after this crap.

I would also like to see Gord back in Brady time slot.

Crystal was horrible but Landry was just as bad if not worse!

No matter what anyone at the Fan/590 WKRP wants to put any kind of spin on it,You will never ever hear krystal on air again at 590
Gassing the guy mid-week with No permanent replacement now come- on think about it
Would that EVER happen in your workplace???

It makes sense that 590 has now changed the “On Air” section of their website to reflect the departure of Krystal from the mornign show…………but it doesn’t make sense that they spelled the word “Morning” wrong

Brady is the worst on air personality I have ever heard in my life, and Ive heard some terrible people (Fabulous Sports Babe?) If you guys think that he can save Krystals spot then sports radio in this fine city is at an all tiime low.

It looks like 590 has now fixed the spelling mistake on their website.

The dumping of Krystal has Pelley’s fingerprints all over it………….but isn’t it a direct slap in the face to McCown??………….after all, McCown was the person who told Kollins to hire Krystal and put him in the morning slot (according to our friend Julian anyway)

@Mike S…Yes I see they made the correction.Kudos to the NON-PAID inters from Ryorson..
The same interz whom ran the website Fadoo for Bobcat!!

Hey also – how about someone other than Lajoie fills in for Brady? Stellick? Hogan? Anybody?

I liked him

Is it always wrong to be happy about somebody losing their job?

Every morning I would wince when I turned Krystal on, and lately I was simply not bothering to. Simmons’ weekend tweet gave me hope and when I heard Brady’s voice this morning I knew the deed was done.

Krystal was horrible. He did not know the Leafs at all, although he always wanted to talk about them. His Jays knowledge was laughable and did he even know the Raptors, TFC and Argos existed?

I would like to see either Stellick (who I am convinced they kept on retainer with Blue and White for this eventuality) or Stellick and Brady or George S as the morning man who maybe they will revisit in light of TSN’s big hiring.

Anyway, I know its ridiculous to make this big a deal about it, but I am so happy Krystal is done.

Smart move by Brady not to publicly “lobby” for the job, knowing full well he’s the person best suited for it – and the suits at Rogers know this as well. Next to McCown, Brady might be the best sports radio talent in this city. And IMO, a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Personally, I think it’s a waste of his talent to have him buried in mid-days.

Hey Pat McGroin…………the interns who run the 590 website as at it again…………they put the Bob McKeown interview from today’s PTS on the website but they referred to him as “CBC reporter Bob McCown”

No, it says “CBC reporter joins Bob McCown and John Shannon”

And, “as at it again” is worse, guy who throws stones from glass house.

He was a lot better then who he replaced and I actually like having someone on the radio who could have an intelligent discussion about something other than the Leafs Powerplay or trade rumors. I don’t mind him being opinionated either- its his show. Oh well- I’ll still listen to him if he ends up in another time slot. I guess the morning mouth-breather demographic couldn’t deal with not having Leafs talk 100% of the time.

Yes Chris is right………..a typo in a comment on a blog is definitely as big of an error as getting a name wrong on the website of a popular radio station………my apologies

But other than the typo my original post was not incorrect………..the website definitely said “Bob McCown CBC reporter joins Bob McCown and John Shannon”……….they have since corrected the error and it now says “Bob McKeown CBC reporter joins Bob McCown and John Shannon”

Not realizing any of what happened today, I was listening this morning just before nine and was pleasantly surprised to hear Brady. He was great in his back and forth with Blair and someone else (Dunleavy?).

And shockingly, for the first time ever, I actually laughed *out loud* during the Fan’s morning show. Brady’s comment about sitting at the Boston Pizza in Ajax with his screaming kids feeling like his life was over was brilliant and totally dead-on.

Brady has the smarts to adapt and grow, and his show felt alive, as opposed to being schtick. Based on the few minutes I heard this morning, he should be their long-term solution for mornings.

I liked Andrew Krystal when he was part of the 640 team back in the day, when 640 was either TALK or MOJO. His style does not fit as morning host on an all sports radio station. His sports knowledge is extremely limited. He didn’t have much in the way of hockey knowledge to even fall back on as a crutch for his show. I literally stopped listening to the morning show and found myself tuning into Oakley on 640 and I really can’t stand him at all. At least Landry and Stellick were good for some laughs and strong hockey knowledge and discussion. Maybe the FAN should dip back into the well and bring back Stormin’ Norman Rumack and make him the Early Morning Vampire.

Bring back Mumbles!

How about Gareth Wheeler as a possible morning show host? Now that the Grill Room is done he might be a good candidate. He seemed pretty lively on his shows and knowledgeable about Toronto sports and sports in general.

I don’t mind if they put AK to use instead of buying him out. He’d be fine doing sports updates for the overnight shift.

@Wildman, Thank god you are alone in you opinion. We are lucky to have Brady on board at the Fan, I really think without him the lineup would be very, very sparse indeed.

Especially his contrast to Blair is vital I think to both their success’. Too much of either style can get grating after too much of it, but the switch-up from one to the other is perfect. Blair has more insight and experience, and probably contacts – but Brady is more energetic, does cultural stuff around sports, great with callers, etc.

I think Don&Gord were a good morning pair, but Brady deserves this position (if he wants it). Then Gord&Damien could do a hockey-focused show in the afternoon possibly linked to HC in some way….maybe rework HC and go back to 1 hr each of Mac/Kipper with the pair and 1 hr of them alone?

Anyway Brady is needed to go head-to-head with Richards. And actually, I think that Cox might fit in well with Blair in the mornings…the combinations are endless.

James – I totally agree with you about Blair/Brady.

They also seem to focus on different sports, which works I think. Blair is fairly evenhanded with Jays/Leafs/Raps, and with particularly great Jays coverage. While Brady is really NHL and NFL heavy, and quite Leafs focused.

I like that it’s not all just one note.

If you haven’t been following twitter..

Greg Brady wrote:

Just mentioned I am not a candidate for The Fan590 morning show, but might be hosting for a good amount of time. They are on the hunt…

for someone who’ll be great – and the city and station AND listeners deserve it. I have negotiated to keep doing HockeyCentral at noon in…

…the meantime. In a perfect world, they nab a guy or guys or girls to do a fantastic show & I can do 12-3pm for as long as possible.

While Andrew Krystal wrote:

I am totally not fired. I’m being looked after and will be re-assigned. In 2 weeks I will be in 1-3 pm. I can sleep!

Maybe Krystal means he’ll be filling in for Brady I guess…not actually taking the shift permanently.

Hey Daniel…………if Blair focuses on different sports then why did he talk only about the Leafs every day this week during the 9-10 call-in hour?……….on Monday pretty much his entire show was about Phil Kessel…………he didn’t talk at all about the Super Bowl, which had only finished 12 hours earlier

Blair is definitely a much more interesting host than Hogan……….but there are still way too many phone calls on his show………..on many days there are calls for 6 (sometimes more) of the 9 segments during his 3 hour show

And for those who say that they like Blair’s show more than Hogan’s because Blair doesn’t have the usual suspects (Berger, Armstrong, etc) as guests you hopefully didn’t listen to today’s show…………he had 3 guests, and they were Berger, Armstrong, and Wilner

Well, there’s not that much going on right now. He seems pretty even handed to me, I dunno!

Im with you on the phone thing, Blair has an obsession with opening the radio to phone calls. Based on what McCown has said in the past, I think that comes from the top, not something that Blair wants.

The phone thing is definitely dictated. Outside of PTS, the daytime formula seems to be talk to guest in first segment (20ish mins) of the hour, then calls for the rest of the hour. So listen for first 20, flip stations for the rest of the hour. It’s tiring, and I don’t even get to listen that much.

Hearing that Krystal was removed from the morning show is not shocking in the least. Krystal was at various times, abrasive, shocking, demeaning and rude to guests, callers, hell even other on air staff at the radio station (that verbal throw down with Blair over UFC/MMA was definitely something I wasn’t comfortable listening to)

As to who replaces him? Frankly they have to put someone in place who can recover what the station has lost in the mornings, assuming that they can with the new TSN radio game coming to town.

Kollins, I think, is skating on ice that’s so thin you can see through it after this.

It might be true that 590 management has been asking their hosts to take more calls…………..but I get the impression that Blair really likes to take calls………….when he fills in for McCown on PTS he always takes calls in the first hour every day……….that is a departure from the normal PTS format, which is taking calls in the first hour only on Mondays and Fridays

Well, the 9 to 12 show was the exact same format when Krystal hosted. A guest for about 10 minutes, then calls. So I’m guessing it’s Kollins’ choice.

GREAT NEWS!!!! This is a guy who said early on when he started at the FAN, that kids who get abused by their coaches, that it is not the coach’s fault that it is the parents fault!!!!!! This coming from someone who does not even know the first about kids since he has none. NOTHING BUT A CLOWN. Krystal enjoy being the “Fill in” guy until they can get rid of you completely!!!! Bring back Landry and Stellick!!

Unfortunately for Blair, since his show is so rigid in that format I refuse to listen pre-10 am.

(I’m not convinced that the calls aren’t mandated from above Blair…but who knows)

In fact, there is hardly any show I will listen to during call-in segments. Even PTS is unbearable when you get these complete morons calling in every day.

Literally there is only 1 in 10 callers that has triple-digit IQ. A typical hour goes like this:

Caller 1 – Kessel Trade
Caller 2 – Wilson sucks
Caller 3 – Wilson sucks
Caller 4 – Burke sucks
Caller 5 – Komisarek sucks
Caller 6 – Trade for Crosby
Caller 7 – Wilson sucks
….ad nauseum

And it doesn’t matter which sport. I am now of the opinion that they administer an IQ challenge prior to allowing anyone on – if you pass you are dropped.

But its just so crazy to do full hours of callers…I will stay on if its a quick 10 min segment in the midst of Hockeycentral or something, but god help me I will not listen to a full hour of morons. I listen to the radio to hear insight, not retarded monkey-fans (I’m guessing these people are where Andrew Krystal found a demographic).

p.s. Thanks Daniel for posting those tweets, those of us who don’t follow appreciate it.

Does anyone find it strange that AK would bring up a move to the 1-3 slot? It seems very odd considering the only rumor about Brady moving from there would be to take AK’s position.

If anything the afternoon would be a downgrade from morning, but strangely it seems Brady doesn’t want the morning shift – so maybe the pay isn’t a factor?

The reason for more phone-in calls than guests is that phone-in calls are free, guests are not!
Make no mistake…Krystal brought this all on himself.
As for Kollins…..GOODBYE!

Really, James?

Seems to me that you’re the one with the low IQ. Clean up your act or take your bullshit attitude to another forum.

Classless douche.

Work some magic and reincarnate Pat Marsden!

It gets worse than Krystal (is that possible??????)
Greg Brady implied this week that Fergie Olver will be taking over the early morning show! Not sure as just a fill-in or fulltime!

TSN1050 can’t start soon enough!