http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/columns/dulac/story/12671844p-13525016c.html
Media savvy: Montemayor has a new night game on KHTK
By J. Freedom du Lac -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, April 4, 2005
Hide the women, children and all those thin-skinned Kings fans - Tim Montemayor has finally talked his way into a nightly time slot.
Montemayor, the stentorious sports-talk radio windbag best known for his stinging criticisms of the Kings, has been handed the 9 p.m. to midnight shift at Sports 1140 (KHTK).
The new weeknight show will be launched tonight, immediately after the NCAA men's basketball championship broadcast.
Montemayor will continue to host Sports 1140's Saturday morning NBA roundtable, "The Insiders" - a show that often turns into a shoutfest, with the abrasive, contrarian Montemayor huffing and puffing the loudest of all.
"The new show isn't going to be what 'The Insiders' is," says the man dubbed "King Killer" by a Sacramento Kings spokesman. "The Saturday show is tough - I've had to save everything I have and pound it out on one day. Being on Monday through Friday gives me a chance to air it out every night.
"And I don't have to stick to just sports. I get to talk about my life or that big concert that's coming to town. It'll be a very different thing."
So is Montemayor - called "an ax murderer" and much, much worse by Kings fans - suddenly going soft?
"Come on, man. I don't have a soft bone in my body," he shouts. "I'll have the same edge. I am who I am. I'll just do a lot more than sports. I want to have fun. Everybody takes life so seriously in this town."
Montemayor landed on the Northern California sports scene with the subtlety of a thunderclap in 2003, after working as a producer in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Almost immediately, he managed to get Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon riled up at an interview session, during which Gannon completely lost his cool.
And it wasn't long before the Kings joined in - to the point that Chris Webber, long a Montemayor target, eventually scribbled a message on a basketball that was delivered to the radio host.
"Tim," Webber wrote. "Watch your back."
The ball is now on display in Montemayor's apartment.
"Webber came back around," he says. "We had some interesting conversations before he left. He told me once that he respected what I did. He said he thought I was misunderstood by people here."
One person who doesn't misunderstand Montemayor is his boss at Sports 1140.
"I haven't heard anybody come through the radio, take you by the neck and squeeze like Monty does," says the station's hyperbolic programming director, Mike Remy. "He has a great radio presence."
Even so, Remy says: "We realize that not everybody in the world is going to like his style."
But, then, that's partly the point.
Montemayor is keenly aware that talk radio is driven by conflict.
In fact, conflict is his currency - which is why Remy refers to the combative broadcaster as "our own bad boy."
Montemayor is surfing into a time slot previously assigned to the syndicated sports-talker J.T. The Brick.
"Monty 'Til Midnight" will be the fourth locally produced show on Sports 1140's weekday lineup, with Jim Rome and "The Don & Mike Show" standing as the only syndicated, waking-hour interlopers.
Rome is a perfectly sensible fit from 9 a.m. to noon, given that he's the most-listened to sports-talk host in the business.
"The Don & Mike Show," however, is a comedy program whose Washington, D.C.-based hosts, Don Geronimo and Mike O'Meara, touch on the topic of athletics only occasionally - and then, in the service of a punchline.
Thus, they have no place on the market's only full-time sports station.
Except that "The Don & Mike Show," which airs weekdays from noon to 4 p.m., generates some of Sports 1140's best ratings.
So don't expect it to go away anytime soon.
Niners 86'd
When the 49ers punted their radio rights over to KNBR last month, the team immediately lost its FM affiliate in Sacramento.
The Eagle (96.9, KSEG-FM), which broadcast 49ers games in Sacramento over the past few seasons, will do so no more, station manager Curtiss Johnson says.
"Our contract was with KGO (810 AM) directly," he says of the 49ers' previous flagship station. "Now that the team is with KNBR, we won't even pursue a new contract. KNBR's signal is so strong in this market that it wouldn't be in our best interest."
Cynics might say that carrying the sagging franchise's games in the first place wouldn't be in The Eagle's best interest.
Still, Johnson says: "Even in their bad seasons, the 49ers are tremendously popular. We really liked carrying them."
The Bee's J. Freedom du Lac can be reached at (916) 321-1115 or jdulac@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dulac.
Media savvy: Montemayor has a new night game on KHTK
By J. Freedom du Lac -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, April 4, 2005
Hide the women, children and all those thin-skinned Kings fans - Tim Montemayor has finally talked his way into a nightly time slot.
Montemayor, the stentorious sports-talk radio windbag best known for his stinging criticisms of the Kings, has been handed the 9 p.m. to midnight shift at Sports 1140 (KHTK).
The new weeknight show will be launched tonight, immediately after the NCAA men's basketball championship broadcast.
Montemayor will continue to host Sports 1140's Saturday morning NBA roundtable, "The Insiders" - a show that often turns into a shoutfest, with the abrasive, contrarian Montemayor huffing and puffing the loudest of all.
"The new show isn't going to be what 'The Insiders' is," says the man dubbed "King Killer" by a Sacramento Kings spokesman. "The Saturday show is tough - I've had to save everything I have and pound it out on one day. Being on Monday through Friday gives me a chance to air it out every night.
"And I don't have to stick to just sports. I get to talk about my life or that big concert that's coming to town. It'll be a very different thing."
So is Montemayor - called "an ax murderer" and much, much worse by Kings fans - suddenly going soft?
"Come on, man. I don't have a soft bone in my body," he shouts. "I'll have the same edge. I am who I am. I'll just do a lot more than sports. I want to have fun. Everybody takes life so seriously in this town."
Montemayor landed on the Northern California sports scene with the subtlety of a thunderclap in 2003, after working as a producer in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Almost immediately, he managed to get Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon riled up at an interview session, during which Gannon completely lost his cool.
And it wasn't long before the Kings joined in - to the point that Chris Webber, long a Montemayor target, eventually scribbled a message on a basketball that was delivered to the radio host.
"Tim," Webber wrote. "Watch your back."
The ball is now on display in Montemayor's apartment.
"Webber came back around," he says. "We had some interesting conversations before he left. He told me once that he respected what I did. He said he thought I was misunderstood by people here."
One person who doesn't misunderstand Montemayor is his boss at Sports 1140.
"I haven't heard anybody come through the radio, take you by the neck and squeeze like Monty does," says the station's hyperbolic programming director, Mike Remy. "He has a great radio presence."
Even so, Remy says: "We realize that not everybody in the world is going to like his style."
But, then, that's partly the point.
Montemayor is keenly aware that talk radio is driven by conflict.
In fact, conflict is his currency - which is why Remy refers to the combative broadcaster as "our own bad boy."
Montemayor is surfing into a time slot previously assigned to the syndicated sports-talker J.T. The Brick.
"Monty 'Til Midnight" will be the fourth locally produced show on Sports 1140's weekday lineup, with Jim Rome and "The Don & Mike Show" standing as the only syndicated, waking-hour interlopers.
Rome is a perfectly sensible fit from 9 a.m. to noon, given that he's the most-listened to sports-talk host in the business.
"The Don & Mike Show," however, is a comedy program whose Washington, D.C.-based hosts, Don Geronimo and Mike O'Meara, touch on the topic of athletics only occasionally - and then, in the service of a punchline.
Thus, they have no place on the market's only full-time sports station.
Except that "The Don & Mike Show," which airs weekdays from noon to 4 p.m., generates some of Sports 1140's best ratings.
So don't expect it to go away anytime soon.
Niners 86'd
When the 49ers punted their radio rights over to KNBR last month, the team immediately lost its FM affiliate in Sacramento.
The Eagle (96.9, KSEG-FM), which broadcast 49ers games in Sacramento over the past few seasons, will do so no more, station manager Curtiss Johnson says.
"Our contract was with KGO (810 AM) directly," he says of the 49ers' previous flagship station. "Now that the team is with KNBR, we won't even pursue a new contract. KNBR's signal is so strong in this market that it wouldn't be in our best interest."
Cynics might say that carrying the sagging franchise's games in the first place wouldn't be in The Eagle's best interest.
Still, Johnson says: "Even in their bad seasons, the 49ers are tremendously popular. We really liked carrying them."
The Bee's J. Freedom du Lac can be reached at (916) 321-1115 or jdulac@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dulac.