Sirius Canada’s Hardcore Sports Radio (HSR), a news and information channel produced by the Score Television Network, will relaunch in January by adding a talk component which “will include profanity,” according to William Houston of the Toronto GLOBE & MAIL. HSR Exec Producer Richard Garner said that the goal of the network is “authenticity, not shock.” Gardner: “It won’t be gratuitous or exploitive. The hosts will speak the way they would if they were in a bar with their buddies or just sitting around having a conversation. Nobody says Terrell Owens is a malcontent or that a game was uneventful. Guys don’t talk that way.” But he added, “There will be a level of intelligence to the conversation. ... The fact you can drop an f-bomb here and there doesn’t guarantee success.” Houston notes The Score’s Steve Kouleas will host a new show called “Hardcore Hockey Talk.” Mike Gentile, “perhaps the best sports-radio producer in [Canada],” left Bob McCown’s afternoon drive show at The Fan 590 in Toronto to become supervising producer of HSR, “with special attention to a new afternoon-drive show.” HSR will also be available through the U.S. Sirius service (Toronto GLOBE & MAIL, 10/19).
