Why Krantz is no longer on Joe Rose’s WQAM show. And Dolphins, Heat, Marlins media news
A six-pack of media notes on a Tuesday:
▪ Zach Krantz, Joe Rose’s longtime sidekick and one of only six remaining talk show hosts on WQAM, has left the popular morning program by choice to take a new job at the company.
Krantz accepted an offer to be a digital content producer for WQAM’s parent company, Audacy.
In his new gig, he will produce and narrate videos, including interviews and commentary. And he’s not being limited only to sports; he also has permission to book guests from the entertainment world.
The content will appear on WQAM’s website; any of Audacy’s stations nationally can link to Krantz’s content. Some of the content will be called “Krantz’s Korner.”
“It was a move that was good for me,” he said. “My name is all over the website, and I get to tell stories.”
Among his guests this week: former NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman and Bills radio analyst and former center Eric Wood.
“I was on the radio 20 years in the market and 16 with Joe,” Krantz said. “And I’ll be back on WQAM; I can still do fill-in work when they need me.”
Krantz’s move to the digital side of the company is the latest in a series of changes at Audacy’s South Florida sports operation.
790 The Ticket switched formats from sports to Spanish news talk in October, but Audacy is still using 790 to air sports when there are conflicts involving the Heat, Dolphins, Hurricanes and Panthers.
Longtime jost Jonathan Zaslow was dropped and is now doing a podcast.
And Brendan Tobin and Leroy Hoard shifted from mornings on The Ticket to middays on WQAM.
Rose, Tobin, Hoard, Marc Hochman, Channing Crowder, program director Len Weiner and Krantz (albeit in a new role) are the most prominent staffers who have survived numerous Audacy sports layoffs during the past few years.
Rose — who’s now hosting his WQAM morning show with on-air contributions from his sharp producer, Danny Rabinowitz — must get official authorization from soon-to-be new Dolphins rights holder iHeart Radio to call the Dolphins games on iHeart while doing a talk show on WQAM.
That shouldn’t be a problem, because there has been considerable precedent for this. Dolphins play-by-play announcer Jimmy Cefalo has called Dolphins games for years on WQAM and anchored a morning show on WIOD, one of iHeart’s stations.
The Dolphins and iHeart haven’t announced their deal, so there’s no clarity on which iHeart stations will carry games beginning next season. WIOD 610, WINZ 940 and two FM stations (Big 105.9 and Y 100) are logical options.
The Dolphins’ final playoff game will be WQAM’s final Dolphins broadcast.
▪ I’m surprised at the low (by NFL standards) TV rating in Dade/Broward for the Dolphins-Jets game Sunday on WSVN-7 (a 9.9).
That means 9.9 percent of TV households in Miami-Fort Lauderdale were watching.
The last game in our market that was this important, Game 7 of the Heat-Celtics Eastern Finals last May, was seen in 12 percent of Dade/Broward TV homes even though it was on cable television (ESPN) and thus available in far fewer homes than Sunday’s Dolphins game on Fox.
Sunday’s Dolphins-Bills wild card game will be the first Dolphins game of the year called by CBS lead team Jim Nantz and Tony Romo…
This is the first time that ESPN/ABC will get the most coveted game of wild-card weekend (Dallas-Tampa Bay on Monday night), and that’s justified because ESPN lost the Cincinnati-Buffalo Monday night finale because of Damar Hamlin’s medical emergency…
A year after being replaced by Mike Tirico on “Sunday Night Football,” Al Michaels returns to NBC in an emeritus role Saturday and will call the Chargers-Jaguars playoff game with Tony Dungy. Tirico and Cris Collinsworth work the Baltimore-Cincinnati game Sunday night.
▪ TNT replaced Detroit-Philadelphia with a Heat-Oklahoma City on Tuesday night, hoping to get a more competitive game, only to find out that Miami would be missing four starters.
ABC will carry Heat-Bucks – a rare Saturday afternoon game – at 1 p.m. this weekend.
“They can’t win a championship with this roster,” ABC lead analyst Jeff Van Gundy said of the Heat. “The problem with their lineup is they’re absolutely tiny.”
Mike Breen, Van Gundy and Mark Jackson call the 1 p.m. Saturday Heat game.
▪ Though the Marlins aren’t ready to make any announcement, all signs continue to point toward Marlins radio host Kyle Sielaff replacing dismissed Glenn Geffner as the team’s new radio voice on WINZ-940… The Marlins and Bally Sports Florida are not expected to hire a fifth TV analyst to replace JP Arencibia, who was dropped. Instead, the four returning analysts — Tommy Hutton, Gaby Sanchez, Rod Allen and Jeff Nelson — will alternate alongside play-by-play man Paul Severino.
▪ Among those who won local Suncoast Sports Emmy awards in recent weeks: Bally Sports Sun’s Heat game coverage (Eric Reid, John Crotty, Will Manso, Jason Jackson, Kristen Hewitt - who left the broadcast business last summer - and the production team) and Bally’s much-improved Marlins coverage (Severino, Kelly Saco, since-dismissed Arencibia, Hutton, Sanchez, Jessica Blaylock and the production team).
Jackson and Bally Sports production officials won a “diversity, equity, inclusion award” for an MLK Tribute. Saco won in the sports talent category for her Marlins reporting work; she’s now also doing Heat sideline work for Bally Sun.
Steve Goldstein, Randy Moller and the Bally Florida crew won in the single event category for a Panthers playoff game in May.
▪ Quick stuff: NFL Films will debut a one-hour documentary on the 1972 Dolphins at 9 p.m. Friday. “The 72 Dolphins: A Perfect Football Life” includes interviews with Larry Csonka, Bob Griese, Mercury Morris and 15 other players…. A source confirmed a New York Post report that NBC is hiring Fox’s Noah Eagle (son of CBS’ Ian Eagle) and Todd Blackledge (ESPN/ABC’s No. 2 college football announcer) to call their new prime time Big 10 package, which debuts next year.
This story was originally published January 10, 2023 at 5:08 PM.
