Tony Bruno Replacement Named
From tomorrow's (Saturday's) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bob Smizik's column:

Fox Sports Radio 970 will have a new voice in the morning from 10 a.m. to noon. Tony Bruno, a pioneer in national sports talk, has left The Tony Bruno Extravaganza after being unable to reach a contract agreement with the network.

He will be replaced by Van Earl Wright, who has been heard in Pittsburgh market on Fox's National Sports Report. Wright will join co-host Anthony Siciliano.

The show had formerly been heard in Pittsburgh from 8 a.m. to noon, but its first two hours were preempted beginning last month by The Locker Room, a program running from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and hosted by Tunch Ilkin and Craig Wolfley.

I don't know him, but back in 1999 Philip Michaels hated him:

ESPN has had its share of fine anchors over the years -- Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, Charlie Steiner. They're able to run you through those all-important highlights, turn a clever phrase or two and elevate what used to be a three-minute segment on the local news wedged between the nightly weather report and the fawning human interest story into an hour program that can match more than half the shows on the air for pure entertainment value.

Trouble is, an entire generation of local sports anchors saw the Patricks and the Olbermanns of the world cracking wise and getting to appear in Hootie and the Blowfish videos and concluded, "Shtick is my way out of this lousy berg."...

And among these blow-dried blowhards, these rejects from an open mike night at Zanee's Comedy Hut, Van Earl Wright is their king.

Should you be fortunate enough to live outside the reaches of the cruel Fox Sports nexus, Van Earl Wright is an amalgam of hair-spray and suits from Botany 500 intended to pass for a sportscaster. He blurts out scores, news and injury reports in a rhythmic cadence, occasionally barking or rolling his r's for added emphasis. He may also be -- and there's just no polite way to say this -- the worst sports anchor in the English-speaking world....

Part of the problem is, of course, the fact he's on Fox. That channel is pretty annoying in and of itself, what with all the swooshes and the logos and the glowing hockey pucks. But Van Earl doesn't help his case by choosing to read the TelePrompTer in a voice that sounds like an auctioneer gone to seed. As normal people do not speak this way, I can only conclude that this is a conscious choice on his part....

As family and friends will attest, there are few sports-related programs that I will not watch....And yet, when the elongated face of Van Earl Wright appears on screen, and he's about to open his yap, the TV gets turned off, put in its box and sent back to the original manufacturer, lest one syllable uttered by that Ken Doll come to life manage to rattle around in my brain.

If this were a just world -- a world where substance trumped style -- the likes of Van Earl Wright would be relegated to giving the five day forecast in Abilene or reading off high school baseball scores on a Sioux City UHF station. That way only a select few would be exposed to his deadening blather, saving the larger populace from the shattered tympanic membranes and bleeding ears that are sure to follow when Van Earl's on the case....

Back to the present, and Ben Maller:

Van Earl Wright is joining the FOX Sports Radio Network as host of The Morning Extravaganza, the Los Angeles-based national morning show that airs live from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. PT/8 a.m. to noon ET, Monday through Friday. He joins Co-host Andrew Siciliano and Sports Anchor Krystal Fernandez. In addition to bringing millions of listeners up-to-the-minute news, scores and highlights, Wright and his team will talk with top-line personalities from the worlds of sports and entertainment.

For more information on Tony Bruno and/or Krystal Fernandez, click here: [1] [2] [3] [4]