DALLAS — The North Texas sports radio market couldn't go long without another big change.
Danny Balis, the former longtime producer of "The Hardline" on KTCK's "The Ticket", has joined "The Freak," the upstart talk format featuring ex-Ticket legend Mike Rhyner.
Balis is joining Rhyner's "The Downbeat" afternoon drive program as a third host, alongside Mike Sirois, an another Ticket ex.
Michael Gruber, a former board operator at The Ticket, is producing "The Downbeat," which debuted in early October.
Balis described "The Freak" as a "pillowy place to fall," given his experience working with Rhyner, Sirois and several others at the station.
He was also realistic about what he was feeling Monday afternoon, when the announcement was made on air.
"I'm excited," he said. "I feel kind of nervous because I haven't done this in a long time. I haven't thought this may ever happen to me again, to be doing radio, especially with people that I've known for a very, very long time. When you put it all together, it's hard to make sense of it all. There's a lot of emotion around it. There's a lot of uncertainty about it. But I can say that I'm very happy. I feel excited. I think it's going to take some time to knock the rust off.
"I'd be lying if I said there weren't some pretty real emotions about coming back to a format I had left six months ago, not really thinking about this ever happening for me again."
The latest change means 2022 will end much different than it started for sports radio listeners in North Texas.
Here's the laundry list of departures, shuffles and arrivals:
-. In the spring, Balis and Sirois left The Ticket on apparently amicable terms, explaining their decisions as a chance for new opportunities and challenges.
Here's what Balis told Rhyner, who retired from The Ticket in 2020, on Rhyner's podcast:
"I don't want this to be about money. I don't want this to be, 'Well they didn't pay me enough.' It's not necessarily about not getting paid enough. It was more about feeling undervalued, or not utilized or appreciated in a way that reflected what I had put into this thing. And it's nobody fault. It's not their fault they have a budget. It's not their fault that nobody is really retiring to open up a spot for you to maybe shine a little bit more and do the things you want to do."
- Balis' and Sirois' departures led to a ripple effect of staffing changes: David Mino, the Hardline board operator, took over as producer. Matt Bermingham, the host of the nightly Ticket Top 10, replaced Mino on the board. Sean Bass, who was on Ticket Ticker updates in the mornings, replaced Sirois as the producer of the Norm And D Invasion. DJ Ringgenberg replaced Bass on morning Tickets.
And then, in maybe the most notable move of all, Dave Lane, a longtime Ticket contributor, was added as a third host to the Hardline, joining Corby Davidson and Bob Sturm.
- And that was just the beginning, at least for the Dallas radio market as a whole. In October, news broke that Rhyner, who founded The Ticket, was returning to the airwaves on 97.1-FM. The station was a rock and talk format as The Eagle. With Rhyner on board, 97.1 was rebranded to all-talk with a new name: The Freak. Sirois joined Rhyner as co-host, and Julie Dobbs, another former Ticket personality, joined the lineup as a morning drive host.
Caught up yet?
