On Tuesday, March 8, just 10 minutes before our live broadcast of the South Jersey
Group 3 championship game between Ocean City and Camden, our Sports Team was informed by John
Ford, the new radio manager of South Jersey Radio (he was fired a few months later), that the station's
format would change immediately after the broadcast of the game. The fact that we had been responsible
for developing and directing the programming for the station and had never met with Mr. Ford made the
circumstances that much more bizarre, even for the radio business.
When informed that we had scheduled broadcasts of the Holy Spirit championship doubleheader in
Lakewood the next night, Atlantic City on Thursday and state championship games over the weekend, he
basically said, "I don't care".
The timing was poor and nearly unprofessional. The action not only prevented fans from hearing the big
championship games of the basketball season, it also stifled a venture with the Atlantic City Surf that
would have brought high school teams to The Sandcastle for baseball games that would have been
broadcast on radio.
1490-THE GAME was a good sports station that suffered from a uniquely inept sales effort. A group of
sales professionals - nice people - did not attempt to sell it and, strangely, received little direction or
motivation to sell from sales management.
Those of you who miss Tony Bruno, James Brown, Tim Brando, J.T. The Brick and the other sports talk hosts we
had brought together to form the 1490-THE GAME lineup, can listen them elsewhere. Brown & Brando
can be heard online at Sporting News Radio. Many others
can be heard on XM Satellite Radio.
And if you are a big fan of Tony Bruno, like we are, you can listen to him online at his new home,
1540 The Ticket in Los Angeles,
every weekday morning.
Our Sports Team will continue to offer live play-by-play of Cape-Atlantic League sports. Keep checking back at
primeevents.net for a schedule of games
and additional coverage.
Here is a reminder of what we were doing at
1490-The Game.
