Dallas radio station 97.1 FM has ended its brief excursion into talk radio and will return to rock: According to radio writer Richie Whitt, station owner iHeart Radio is pulling the plug on 97.1 The Freak, a talk show format it debuted in October 2022 that was lagging badly in ratings.
The company called a meeting on April 26 and fired the staff, including radio veterans Mike Rhyner, Jeff Cavanaugh, Danny Balis, and Ben & Skin.
Rhyner confirmed he'd been let go with a droll tweet that said "and another thing - now we’re not gonna see the end of the big office re-do."
He told the Observer that the station will revert back to its rock music programming as 97.1 The Eagle beginning on Monday, April 29.
As of early Friday afternoon, The Freak was airing replays of past shows.
In 2022, the station made a change from music to talk radio, with a big fanfare that included the comeback of Rhyner, a big name in radio who came out of retirement to host a weekday afternoon show with Mike Sirois.
Other programming included a morning show with Jeff Cavanaugh; the Ben & Skin Show, an afternoon show with Ben Rogers and Jeff “Skin” Wade; a show called Cash In hosted by Jason Page; and a show called Just Sain' It hosted by Cole Thompson.
But the Freak's ratings lagged far behind the competition, 1310 The Ticket and 105.3 The Fan. The talk format also required an outlay on salaries to multiple hosts on more than one show.
Rhyner said the demise was not a surprise, and attributed it to the fact that iHeart Radio is mostly music and not talk.
"We’ve all known we were dead men walking for a long time," he said.
Ratings for the first quarter of 2024 from January-March reveal the station's poor showing:
Mornings:
- Ticket 12.8 (1)
- Fan 9.2 (2)
- Freak 1.9 (17)
Middays:
- Fan 7.2 (1)
- Ticket 6.9 (3)
- Freak 2.0 (18)
Afternoons
- Ticket 11.3 (1)
- Fan 7.8 (2)
- Freak 2.2 (17)
The change in format is possibly problematic since the radio is currently the official station for Dallas Mavericks games.