Oklahoma City morning radio has gotten a little more cheery.
As the Buster Olney of the local sports radio beat, I have a duty to report that John Rhode, the grumpy Oklahoman sports columnist turned curmudgeonly morning sports radio host, was let go by The 107.7 The Franchise on Monday. He is being replaced in the lineup by Paintbrush, Driver and Running Girl.
Okay, I'm joking around. The real replacements are former Oklahoma linebacker Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufus Alexander and one of my favorite lads to troll on Twitter, Andrew Gilman.
The lineup change marks The Franchise's latest attempt to usurp The Sports Animal in the ratings game, something the station probably thought would happen when they originally hired Mike Steely, Lump and Rohde away from the WWLS in 2013. Out of those three talking heads, Steely is the only regional radio star who remains. I guess taking on the ESPN of the OKC sports media landscape has been more challenging than everyone thought.
Anyway, I've never been a big John Rohde fan, and he was out of his element as a morning radio host, but you still have to feel sorry for the guy. As he foreshadowed in his original column for the Franchise, I guess his transition from newspaper to radio worked out about as well as Billy Tubbs' move from OU to TCU in the mid-1990s. We wish him the best of luck, and hopefully he'll land on his feet at some other radio station or newspaper. It's never too late for a career-mulligan mulligan.
