Take on the Subsititute

As an avid sportstalk fan, I have a major issue when the regular guest goes on vacation.   Now I'm not saying that they should strap Mike Francesa or Colin Cowherd to his chair and not let him get up for 365 days per year although that might make for some interesting radio.   The issue I really have is that the guest host should really have a similar style or worldview as the original host.    

Last night as I was going through some insomnia spell after some bad Korean Beef, I turned on ESPN Radio to listen to AllNight with Jason Smith, one of the best smoozing shows on the air.    Smith talks sports but keeps it light and throws in enough pop-culture stuff to keep his audience awake as they are barreling down Route 80 in an 18 wheeler.  

Well Smith was on vacation and instead they got some dude named Mike Hill instead whose style, delivery and content was completely different that Jason Smith.   This dude sounds like a bad version of Stuart Scott who himself is a bad version of Stephen A Smith.   Mike Hill should sit in and just do AllNight without force-feeding the audience to prove he's got street-cred.  

I'm not anti Mike-Hill although his style and delivery are irritating, what really bothers me is that it clashes completely with the style and content of Jason Smith.   Somebody at ESPN should look at the audience and notice that the AllNight Audience likes a dorky host talking about Sketchers or how hot Kim Kardashian looked in US Weekly not a dude whose has to throw 'keepin it real' into his dialogue ten times in the first 5 minutes.  If you are regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh, maybe Glenn Beck could work for you but you'd probably not be thrilled if you got Ed Shultz sitting in while Limbaugh was on a weekend bender of Oxicontin with a chick who isn't his third wife..    In sportstalk it's similar; you have to get a guy to fill in who if not already pretty familiar to the audience should not try to change the direction of the regular show too much.  If Brandon Tierney sits in for Bill Daughtry or when Erik Kuselias sat in for Mike Greenberg I'm OK with it because even if I'm not crazy about the guest-host because the style and topics they cover are similar.