WSCR afternoon drive host Dan McNeil fired

IlliniFaninHoosierLand · Sep 15, 2020

McNeil sent out the following tweet about ESPN's Maria Taylor, who was the sideline reporter for last night's game between the Steelers and Giants. Here's what he said:

The tweet stayed up for about 30 minutes before he deleted it. Here is Taylor's response:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1305719693207121921

Honestly McNeil was on borrowed time as it is. This was at least the 4th or 5th chance he has had at the Score and the show with him and Parkins was tough to listen to. A lot of meatball Chicago sports takes and more sports betting talk then was probably needed. McNeil would commonly admit on air to not watching the NBA (granted the Bulls haven't been great in years but still). And I've never been a big fan of Parkins to be honest. Part of the reason they even brought Danny Mac back was because of the uproar with the Kaep stuff a few years back and some of the complaints they got for Jason Goff's comments on the issues. They moved Bernstein to mid mornings (who was probably going to be moving at some point to that time slot with a kid in college and another in high school) and let go of Goff (who honestly ended up getting the best end of the deal anyway as he's since had a national weekend show on ESPN Radio and now has a role as a pre and postgame host for the Bulls on NBC Sports Chicago).

Illiniaaron · Sep 16, 2020

Really a stupid comment by McNeil. Don't really see how anyone could find her outfit or appearance objectionable in any way. Maybe he's trying to set a record for how many times a host can be fired by the same station in a career. The SCORE has really slipped, and the lack of sports during COVID hasn't helped. Bernstein has been insufferable for decades and the McNeil-Parkins afternoon show stunk.

IlliniFaninHoosierLand · Sep 16, 2020

Illiniaaron said:
Bernstein has been insufferable for decades and the McNeil-Parkins afternoon show stunk.

Agreed on the McNeil-Parkins portion of your comment. Couldn't disagree with you more on Bernstein though. I love listening to his show as he does more of an intellectual or analytic take on sports rather than the meatball sports talk you usually get from a lot of sports talk radio hosts.

wpr · Sep 16, 2020

I stopped listening to the Score years ago. Their shtick grew tiresome. There were a few personalities I liked to listen to but they were few and far between. Laurence Holmes is interesting but I am usually at work when he's on so I don't hear him very often.

IlliniFaninHoosierLand · Sep 16, 2020

wpr said:
Laurence Holmes is interesting but I am usually at work when he's on so I don't hear him very often.

If you have the abilitiy to at work, you can listen to the Score on the radio.com app. That's how I listen to Bernstein and then a portion of Holmes' show when it's on from Noon-2PM.

wpr · Sep 17, 2020

IlliniFaninHoosierLand said:
If you have the abilitiy to at work, you can listen to the Score on the radio.com app. That's how I listen to Bernstein and then a portion of Holmes' show when it's on from Noon-2PM.

Nope. I am should to be working not listing to the radio. (Or posting on message boards. Shh.)

bdutts · Sep 17, 2020

IlliniFaninHoosierLand said:
Couldn't disagree with you more on Bernstein though. I love listening to his show as he does more of an intellectual or analytic take on sports rather than the meatball sports talk you usually get from a lot of sports talk radio hosts.

That's exactly what he wants you to think...

For me, he's too condescending to callers. Granted, I haven't listened to either SCR or MVP since I left Illinois (7 years ago) so maybe things have changed with him but I doubt it.

ILLINIShox24 · Sep 17, 2020

If you are only partial to certain hosts or guests on The Score, I highly recommend subscribing to the podcasts for their shows. Each podcast is an hour segment uploaded about an hour after it happens live. The episode description is very detailed so it allows you to skip segments entirely if you aren't interested. Plus the podcasts avoid most of the ads and you can increase the playback speed.

champaignchris · Sep 17, 2020

bdutts said:
That's exactly what he wants you to think... For me, he's too condescending to callers. Granted, I haven't listened to either SCR or MVP since I left Illinois (7 years ago) so maybe things have changed with him but I doubt it.

IMHO, the callers he condescends to generally deserve it.

Ramrod2010 · Sep 17, 2020

Bernstein has grown on me like a bad fungus over the years. He can still be a wad, but I think I understand it more now.

I couldn't stand Goff, he was difficult to listen to most of the time.

I actually liked the McNeil/Parkins combo - along with their producers (by the looks of this thread maybe I was their lone listener, haha). That said I don't think I'll miss McNeil, and I think it will be pretty easy to match someone up with Parkins.

IlliniFaninHoosierLand · Sep 17, 2020

ILLINIShox24 said:
If you are only partial to certain hosts or guests on The Score, I highly recommend subscribing to the podcasts for their shows.

Holmes has his own podcast aside from the Score called the House of L podcast. He basically uses it for stuff he doesn't get to talk to on the show or other stuff he wants to talk about.

IlliniFaninHoosierLand · Sep 17, 2020

Ramrod2010 said:
I actually liked the McNeil/Parkins combo - along with their producers (by the looks of this thread maybe I was their lone listener, haha). That said I don't think I'll miss McNeil, and I think it will be pretty easy to match someone up with Parkins.

I like the producers just fine though they've both been working the afternoon shift (Tannehill especially) for years now.

As far as Parkins, this will be the third co-host he has had since he came to the Score.

STLIlliniMike · Sep 18, 2020

I hadn’t actually seen her outfit until now. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting but it was probably something a little more questionable than showing her partial shoulder. Yikes.

Ramrod2010 · Sep 18, 2020

STLIlliniMike said:
I hadn’t actually seen her outfit until now. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting but it was probably something a little more questionable than showing her partial shoulder. Yikes.

I thought the tweet was directed more at the amount of leather than what she was "revealing".

But who knows what the purpose of the tweet was.

wpr · Sep 18, 2020

A few excepts from the Daily Herald story.

McNeil was guilty of absolutely nothing out of character or unpredictable.

He was sexist, he was impulsive and he generated a line that in days of yore would have called for backslapping guffaws and a round of Malört's at the old Mill Gate Inn in his native Northwest Indiana.

McNeil -- a fellow who has built his broadcast career on low-hanging fruit -- overlooked the mine-laden crossroads of stagnant sports talk radio in Chicago and the ceaseless third rails of paralyzingly spooked America 2020.

He was working at an Entercom/Chicago station that has lost close to 40 percent of its audience from last year.

The situation is no better at rival ESPN AM (1000), where a new engine stuck in "neutral" dominates.

The critical difference is that WSCR bosses continue to wheeze out the claim of being "Chicago's sports talk leader."

AM 1000's Mike Thomas retains the pandemic-sustained benefit of clearly marking his station as one being in a state of "rebuild."

https://www.dailyherald.com/sports/...an-mcneil-just-did-his-business-and-got-fired

I didn't realize how much their audience has dropped off.

WSCR afternoon drive host Dan McNeil fired

Orange Krush '04 & '05