ESPN Senior VP/Productions & Business Divisions Traug Keller believes it is important for on-air talent to push their own opinion out there, "even if it makes people uncomfortable," including their own bosses, but that "doesn’t mean you need to be nasty or you need to be degrading," according to a Q&A with Richard Deitsch of SI.com. Keller: "You need to kind of talk the talk in what I believe is a very authentic medium." Excerpts of the interview are below.
Q: How would you define the line between pushing the envelope and going past that line?
Keller: This should be all our lines: Whatever you do, don’t make anything personal. We can’t preach that enough. Do we always succeed? No. Do we constantly have to remind ourselves that it is a privilege to have the microphone? Yes. You can be critical but you cannot be personal. I know it happens, but at least we strive not to do that.
Q: How would you define the overall content philosophy of ESPN Audio?
Keller: We take what we cover seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. I do think it needs to be fun. ... I do believe people come to sports talk radio as an escape. We need to keep the fun quotient. Not that today’s sports [are] not really helping us out, but we need to be relentless in trying to strive for that.
Q: When it comes to specific comments from [Colin] Cowherd, say about [Wizards G] John Wall or [late NFLer] Sean Taylor, there is a perception that certain talent at ESPN have a [Michael] Jordan set of rules and he is one of them. Fair or unfair?
Keller: I would disagree on the Jordan set of rules. Colin is a unique talent. When you think about the amount of live, unscripted talk going on, there are always going to be times when things cross the line. However, I would not want to harness Colin’s energy and passion because it is what makes him.
Q: How critical can ESPN Audio hosts be of ESPN?
Keller: I think if you listen carefully, you hear it. You hear it if you listen to The (Dan) Le Batard Show and Colin has been critical and so have [Scott] Van Pelt and [Ryen] Russillo. If we can’t poke fun at ourselves, then we are not staying true to our mission.
Q: You recently changed your Saturday and Sunday programming dramatically including adding Sarah Spain and Prim Siripipat to the lineup. They are the only national show hosted by two women. How would you evaluate the current lineup of ESPN Radio?
Keller: The weekend is a place for us to kind of bring people in and give them a chance and hopefully that is our bench. Honestly, there is a lack of female on-air talent. It’s a market issue. We are really doubling down on that. Women are increasingly more and more sports fans and they are underserved. There is growth there. Hispanics are underserved. There is a real opportunity there (SI.com, 3/3).
