I remember when 128 first came on the air, I locked it in and ripped the knob off. Really good stuff, Poole was awesome in spite of Snider being the co-host, Ricky Craven and Buddy Baker in the Driver's Seat, Moody wasn't all played out yet. I never missed Stewart's show....
...and now:
- A worthless morning show
- A midday show that struggles to be mediocre
- A Speedway show that has moments of excellence, but generally sounds tired
- Too much Claire B.
All that aside, it's the call-in format of everything that has killed it for me. I really can't stand the callers anymore. I'll be enjoying an informative and intelligent show on the channel, and boom! someone calls in and ruins it all.
John Daly has crusaded for a few years to get 128 streamed over the internet. For those that don't have access to it, it may sound like a great idea. But all in all, you'd have people listen for a few minutes and log off after a few callers. There's is so much junk in between the good bits, it's really not worth the time to deal with.
IMO, what Sirius/MRN need to look at is separating the news/interviews from the call-ins. I would gladly listen for an hour to a show on Mondays, recapping the weekend's events, complete with interviews and soundbites. I would gladly listen to a half-hour show every day during the week that had all the day's news and soundbites neatly packaged.
Second, give some driver his own show. The loss of Stewart's show was big. The channel needs a name-brand regular driver to be on the air for an hour or two every week. Biffle has a radio studio in his shop, give him a shot. Not that he has the time, but a Harvick show would be fascinating. Anyone other than Kenny Wallace would be fascinating.
I hope over the off-season, the channel does some work to freshen things up, but I kind of doubt it. Really needs to happen, tho'. Any radio show gets stale after a while, and 128 has a whole lot of stale right now.