Snyder shuffle quiets Riggins, leaves many listeners irked

“The Game” called an awkward audible on its audience this week when John Riggins’ afternoon drive-time talk show was abruptly canceled.

Don’t blame John Castleberry, station manager of 102.1 FM and 1490 AM, who’s fielded “some pretty angry e-mails.” When Redskins owner Dan Snyder expanded his radio empire this summer by purchasing WTEM 980 AM, the Washington, D.C., area’s leading sports talker, it set in motion a series of changes that impacts Redskins Radio outlets.

At the moment, “The Game” is filling time during Riggins’ former 4 to 7 p.m. slot, patching in syndicated Fox broadcasting until technical issues are settled and the new broadcast schedule is up and running next week.

Taking the place of Riggins’ show will be “The Sports Reporters,” hosted by Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin, old hands from WTEM who have been brought into the Snyder stable.

Their show, Castleberry said, “was getting better ratings than Riggins was” in the D.C. area, “and was a money-maker for WTEM.”

Riggins was cut from the daily weekday lineup after Snyder merged programming from his old and new stations. But Riggins will make two or three appearances a week on “The Sports Reporters.”

Maybe the best news for listeners to “The Game,” though, is that Dan Patrick’s syndicated show will remain in its 9 a.m. to noon slot. Along with Colin Cowherd, on ESPN 1310 between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., it’s the most entertaining sports programming piped into this market.

Even better news, perhaps: Jim Rome’s peculiar, rant-driven show is gone from “The Game.” It’s being replaced between noon and 2 by “The Locker Room,” another D.C. production, featuring former Redskin Doc Walker and ex-Riggins sidekick Kevin Sheehan.

That will be followed by Castleberry’s show, which remains in its 2-4 slot. It’s an island of normalcy in an otherwise shifting afternoon schedule.

“I would have liked to have a smoother transition,” Castleberry said, “but unfortunately, things that were beyond my control were already in motion.”

By asserting so much control over the radio market serving Redskins territory – from the greater Washington area through Richmond and on to South Hampton Roads – is Snyder trying to control what can and can’t be said about his team?

People will naturally assume the worst.

How can we be sure that Czaban, Pollin, Doc Walker and others who appear on “The Game” to talk about the Redskins won’t begin pulling their punches so as not to upset the man who signs their checks?

We can’t, but we’re free to harbor misgivings.

Castleberry says Snyder does not have much to do with the daily operation of his stations, and that he only steps in when it’s time to buy another property. The talk jocks, he believes, needn’t worry about criticizing the Skins, “as long as they can make a responsible case and not make it a personal attack on Dan Snyder.”

On his defunct show, Riggins walked that tightrope without appearing to hold back. Riggo has a reputation for being his own man, but for everyone working at Snyder’s network – the voices we will be hearing locally – when it comes to suspicion of conflict of interest, appearances are just as important as what is actually said.

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