If you can’t get enough South Florida from the Heat Index alone, breathe easy, because the Worldwide Runner-up is expected to confirm this week that 790 the Ticket’s Dan Le Batard will be hosting a regular 30 minute TV show next fall.
Le Batard’s multi-media career will take its biggest step yet when ESPN2 announces next week that it will give him his own TV show, from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays beginning Sept. 12.
The title: Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable. The name was suggested by Erik Rydholm, executive producer of Pardon the Interruption.
Le Batard will continue hosting his radio show but will cut back from four hours to three (probably 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., though that remains in discussions). He will tape the TV program a short time before airing, which will allow him to do his radio show when the TV show airs.
“I won’t be live. I drown in a puddle of my own sweat in live television,” Le Batard said. “Nobody wants to see that. Well, actually some people might want to see that.”
PTI fans who have seen Le Batard called up to fill in for a vacationing Kornheiser/Wilbon probably already know that 1. he is prone to sweating on camera and 2. he is “highly questionable.” But as anyone who gets the appeal of PTI’s format understands, there is value in having a bloated contrarian espouse his opinion for others to argue with. I don’t know if this show will get off the ground, or how it will affect the incumbent at 4:00, SportsNation, but if it means cutting down on the daily serving of Colin Cowherd by half an hour, I’m all for it.
Full disclosure: As a native Miamian, I listen to the Le Batard show (which is barley a sports show btw) regularly on 790, and my only complaint about the show is that he can be insanely repetitive. Like sentence to sentence. What I mean is that Dan Le Batard, South Florida AM radio host and Miami Herald columnist Dan Lebatard, is repetitive – that is to say he repeats himself constantly. He says things, and then he re-says them, reader. He then solicits a response from co-host Stugotz by repeating the same statement a third or even a fourth time while Stugotz forms an opinion, while also making sure to say the name Stugotz at least a couple of times throughout this process. I guess what I’m trying to say is the guy is repetitive. He repeats himself, if I’m not being clear.
Maybe the fact that his TV show is scheduled to run just 30 minutes and will be taped by cutting an hour off of his radio show will help him avoid leaning on that crutch. Plus it means that net-net, Le Batard haters get to live in a world where Dan is on the airwaves for 30 minutes less every day, so it’s a potential win-win for everyone.
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