If not for an entry on the messageboard posted by Dave B. I would have completely missed this obviously heralded announcement that Mike North is building a sports “radio” station on the Interwebs.  I’m sure North has been promoting it on the TV show he and Dan Jiggetts do weekdays on Comcast, but since nobody watches, it’s fallen on deaf ears.

What is the name of that show anyway, “The Snooze Button with North and Jiggs”?  It ought to be because turning it on means you’re going to sleep for at least nine more minutes.

The Web “radio” station is an interesting idea.  I refuse to call it Webio because that’s just dumb, so I don’t know what to call it.  I’m sure this venture will be called an abomination, but who knows?

As an award-winning podcaster myself (Kermit and I won a Webcast Emmy for “Most times interrupting each other in an hour and a half”), I think that within a few years terrestrial radio will be dead.  It won’t be long before all new cars are WiFi enabled.  When that happens the way we access media in the car will be forever changed.  I for one, will just channel my innter Eddie Griffin and watch Internet porn while I drive, I don’t know about you.  (And yes, I do know that Eddie got hit by a train and died not long after.)

But, when that happens, the first thing that will die will be satellite radio.  The damn thing is hanging on by a thread as it is.  I love my XM, but the things I listen to are all pretty much available on the Internet.  I won’t need to pay for them anymore.

Next up will be regular radio, which isn’t exactly thriving right now.

What kind of “radio” will we listen to?  Podcasts.  Live sporting events.  Whatever songs we actually want to listen to.

So, by that logic, a station like North’s Chicago Sports Webio should be a great idea.  So why isn’t it?

Two big reasons.

One, WiFi enabled cars aren’t all that common yet, and Internet radio isn’t exactly thriving.  The sites that do reasonably well like Pandora are music based.  So this idea is probably ahead of its time.

Second, and most importantly, the lineup sucks.  The talent is a mile wide and an inch deep, and about as fresh as a Foghat concert.

6 a.m. – 9 a.m. Monsters in the Morning, Dan Jiggetts and Mike North
There’s a reason the Score split these two up years ago.  They’re boring.  They’re still doing the same schtick they did in the early ’90s and it wasn’t all that great then.  The addition of Jen Patterson to the mix hasn’t helped either.  She looks like Danica Patrick’s dumber extra chromosomed sister and her fingernails on a chalkboard voice makes you yearn for the soothing voice of Dorothy Humphrey.  Yeah, it’s that bad.  Plus, on TV you can’t help but be concerned for Jiggetts’ health.  He’s undoubtedly on the wrong side of 400 pounds.  Let’s just hope somebody taught North how to use the Automated Electronic Defibrillator.

9 a.m. – 11 a.m. Webby and Freddy, Matt Weber and Fred Huebner
We all were just clamoring for the return of Huebner because we can’t get enough talk about the White Sox and soccer.  Weber used to be a producer at the Score, and since he’s only working two days a week here, I hope he still is.  Huebner apparently only got the job because Teddy Greenstein had agreed to do this shift and the Tribune told him he couldn’t.  It would have been awkward anyway, what with Teddy gazing into a mirror for 120 minutes and Weber trying to talk to him.

11 a.m. – 3 p.m. – Mini Monsters, Jonathan Hood and Tim Doyle
If you’ve seen Jonathan Hood, there’s nothing mini about him, and do we really need four hours of him?  Tim Doyle is the irritating former Northwestern guard who used to jack his white socks up this waist, and does his hair like an extra in Dead Poets Society.

3 p.m. – 6 p.m. – Chet and The Champ, Chet Coppock and (wait for it…) Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini
I know the world has been clamoring for a sports talk show with Boom Boom Mancini.  I had it on my list right between sports radio shows featuring Lech Walesa and Apollo Ono.  And who the fuck decided it was a good idea to put the Chetster in front of anything that broadcasts farther than a baby monitor?

That doesn’t even mention the real talent.  The world’s most unctuous update man, George Ofman and one of the dumbest humans ever to learn to speak English, Jesse Rogers.  Ofman will be an update man on the pretend radio station and Rogers is the program director, and what a lineup he’s helped to assemble.

What part of this lineup would motivate you to find them on the Interwebs and listen to them?

The best part of this endeavor is that it’s cleared up the Score so that it’s almost listenable again.  North, Huebner and Patterson had made the Score’s mornings so bad that it made the milquetoast Mike and Mike 10 percent more listenable (so about 14 percent).  Rogers’ baseball reports were embarassing, so it’s nice to have him gone.  Ofman will be missed about as much as an ass rash.

So it’s good to have them all in one spot.  It’ll make them that much easier to avoid.

And the best part.  Check out one of their prime sponsors.  They’re literally disaster experts.  They know ’em when they see ’em.