ON TV/RADIO
Charlie Pallilo is coming back to the airwaves, but don’t expect big changes.
While many of you have been pining for Charlie Pallilo’s return to radio, Pallilo has been having a grand old time.
Pallilo ceases becoming a full-time man of leisure Aug. 21, when he begins hosting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on KGOW (1560 AM), but he made the most of his free time since being let go last October by KBME (790 AM).
“I didn’t qualify for Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, so I probably will have to give up that dream,” he said. “But I’ve been enjoying life — to paraphrase Marvin Zindler, softball, tennis and whatever makes me happy.”
The joke among Pallilo’s friends is that he still possesses the first dollar he made when he arrived in Houston in 1989. So he could afford to bide his time for what many considered his inevitable return to radio on Gow Media, the only local group for which he has not worked.
“It’s a good time to jump back in with football getting ready to start and the Astros rolling toward the playoffs and the Rockets looking toward an interesting season,” he said. “And this is what I like to do. It will be good to jump back into in a new role and a new environment.”
Pallilo will return at a time when listenership to Houston sports talk radio has shrunk to one of its lowest levels in a decade.
During his final month on the air, his show had a 2.3 percent rating among the key sports demographic of men 25-54, according to Nielsen Audio, and was the highest-rated show on KBME. Jose Innes, who until last week aired in the same time slot, had a 1.6 percent share in the June ratings period but was still the highest-rated show on the station.
The three all-sports stations that register in the monthly Nielsen Audio ratings — KGOW being the exception — last month combined for a mere 4.3 percent of the audience among men 25-54 and just 2.5 percent of the average weekly audience among all listeners, with combined weekly cumulative audience of 589,100 listeners.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, by contrast, the top three all-sports stations in June combined for 6.6 percent of the audience with 1.1 million weekly cumulative listeners. WFAN in New York had 1.6 million weekly listeners in June, WSCR on Chicago had nearly a million and the top two San Francisco area sports stations had 1.3 million.
“Whether it’s more than places like Miami, Atlanta, Phoenix, Southern California, it’s win big and you’ll pique people’s interest if they’re not inherently engaged with a team,” Pallilo said. “Everybody loves a winner. Short of that, it’s a softer sports market for a market its size.”
Dallas-Fort Worth, of course, has transplant residents, as do other Sun Belt cities, including Houston. And it’s not the only major market with a significant Spanish-speaking population that doesn’t engage with English-language sports radio. So the difference between Houston and D-FW ratings remains a puzzlement.
At any rate, Pallilo intends to be the same host, albeit in a different time slot. The question is whether listeners will seek Pallilo out at the ratingschallenged far right end of the AM dial. People demanded Pallilo’s return, but will they listen when he’s back?
Big MLB weekend
It’s a 3½-hour drive between the National Baseball Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, N.Y., and MLB Network plaza in Secaucus, N.J., and Greg Amsinger and Harold Reynolds will be making the seven-hour round trip to document an interesting weekend for Astros fans.
Amsinger will host from Cooperstown as Jeff Bagwell enters the Hall of Fame and then motor back to New Jersey for Monday’s trade deadline coverage. Reynolds also will be on hand for both events.
“If you’re a fan of the Astros, it’s a dream weekend,” Amsinger said. “You have a guy in Jeff Bagwell who, with the Killer B’s, represented one of the best times in Houston baseball. It’s fitting that he goes in now.
“Fans had to wonder if they ever would have a three-headed monster foundation like Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman, and the answer is, yes, in Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer.”
Sunday will be given over to nostalgia with induction coverage beginning at 11 a.m. Uncertainty will be the order of the day Monday, when MLB Network begins trade coverage at 9 a.m.
For the Astros, the prevailing question is whether the team should pick up a starter or a reliever. Reynolds would focus on the bullpen. Amsinger opts for both.
“Maybe a rental starter, a Yu Darvish type, might be a better fit so you’re not giving away the entire farm,” he said.
“Maybe they can do both and get Brad Hand, who has been so good for the Padres, or do the unthinkable to get Zach Britton from the Orioles. When you’re this good, you can’t let one part of your club hold you back from going to the World Series, which is where the Astros should be.”
Reynolds, though, cautions that the Rangers and Orioles are in what he described as “contenders or pretenders” mode, and it won’t be until Monday until both make it clear how they consider themselves.
FSSW still high on HS football
Fox Sports Southwest’s agenda to promote high school programming, which began under former general manager, Jon Heidtke, continues under Steve Simpson, a Waltrip High School graduate who managed Fox’s Southern California networks before returning to Texas as GM last year.
Simpson’s brainchild for this year is Texas Football Days, a weeklong series of programs and game replays culminating in the first regular-season Friday night telecasts sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League, a Sept. 1 doubleheader featuring Shallowater against Idalou and Austin Lake Travis against Converse Judson.
Weekday programming will include a re-air of the 1998 Astrodome classic between Duncanville and Converse Judson and games featuring Katy and Hightower plus assorted shows from the network’s studios in Irving. Game night programming will include live updates from 10 games statewide, including Manvel-Crosby and Austin WestlakeKaty.
Fox also is expanding its Friday night “High School Scoreboard” show to two hours with an 11 p.m. start time and will continue to include features on the weekly player of the week program sponsored by Ford.
UIL rules for years have precluded Friday night live telecasts, and league officials said that ban will continue for the foreseeable future with the exception of the opening-week doubleheader, which is patterned after similar Fox regional extravaganzas for hockey in Minnesota and basketball in Indiana.
Remembering Paul Berlin
Paul Berlin, the great Houston disc jockey who died last month at age 86, was remembered Tuesday at a memorial service at South Main Baptist Church, where he and his late wife of 62 years, Inez, were married two years after Berlin’s arrival in Houston in 1950.
Berlin’s friends, fans and co-workers heard eulogies by two of Berlin’s five sons, Brad and Glenn, who paid him the ultimate compliment for a baby boomerera dad — they said he was a cool guy.
Greg Funderburk, South Main’s minister to adults, noted Berlin’s talent as the master of segues, the fine art of blending stories, songs, experience and faith in a seamless manner that entertained Houston listeners over parts of seven decades.
Afterward, listeners traded Berlin stories of their own, including a good one by longtime Houston sportscaster Bill Worrell.
Worrell said he was engaged in a latenight trivia contest during a Left Coast road trip when he excused himself for a bathroom break. He used the restroom pay phone (we’re talking pre-internet, pre-cellphone era here) to call Berlin in Houston, where it was well after midnight.
“So a groggy Paul Berlin picks up the phone and says, ‘Worrell, are you in jail?’” Worrell said. “I said, ‘No, Paul, I’m in a bar, and I have a chance to win $500 in a trivia contest if I can name five Glen Campbell songs written by Jimmy Webb.’
“Paul rattled them off, and before he hung up, he said, ‘Hey, Blue Eyes. Next time call me from New York (which is, of course, three time zones ahead of Los Angeles).’”
Ronnie Renfrow, one of Berlin’s protégés, said he and others are planning a Berlin memorial broadcast in a few weeks on a station to be determined.
Berlin’s family has designated for memorials the Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Houston.
Four DVRs, no waiting
After watching his antics with AT&T Sports Net field reporter Julia Morales during the Astros-Phillies series this week, I think we can safely conclude that the Phillie Phanatic is a phlirt. … KFNC (97.5 FM) has resolved its interference issues with a Spanishlanguage station at 97.3 FM. That station is off the air, which removes a recent reception problem in west and southwest Houston. … Former Texas football player and Austin radio host Rod Babers has been doing some fill-in work this week on KILT (610 AM). Program director Ryan McCredden, however, said it was a combination of Babers being in town for a few days and KILT hosts being on vacation. … Todd Kalas said during Tuesday’s Astros telecast that his late father, longtime Phillies announcer Harry Kalas, passed up a chance to be in the original “Rocky” film because he had a previous commitment for a team promotional event. Kalas said his father was asked to portray the sportscaster who interviewed Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa character as he trained while punching a slab of meat, but the elder Kalas couldn’t make it to the set on the day the scene was filmed.