Plugged in to Talk

broadcaster launching topical talk show online

Tom Giffey |

AND HERE’S THE PITCH! Sports broadcaster Scott Montesano is launch a non-sports local talk show online.
AND HERE’S THE PITCH! Sports broadcaster Scott Montesano is launch a non-sports local talk show online.

A topical, local radio talk will return to the Chippewa Valley airwaves later this month – sort of.

Eau Claire Hometown Radio – an hour-long talk show broadcast at 3pm weekdays – will debut May 20, but for the time being it will only be available streaming live on the Internet (at echometownradio.com) and downloadable in podcast form. The program is the brainchild of Eau Claire’s Scott Montesano, who has spent years as a sports broadcaster but has always had an itch to delve into talk radio as well.

With the help of some silent (literally and figuratively) partners, Montesano decided to launch the show this spring out of his home studio. He’s been kicking around the idea for years, and began to consider it more seriously in 2016 after WAYY-AM 790 dropped its local morning talk show and switched to an all-sports format.

The decline of the news-talk format locally has left a gap in local radio, Montesano believes. “There been a vacuum of that in the area, and we’re trying to fill that need,” he said.

Montesano – a native of Utica, New York – spent years broadcasting Eau Claire Express baseball games and now is the radio voice of UW-Eau Claire Blugold athletics as well as the Chippewa Steel hockey team. He lived in Eau Claire from 2006-10 and returned in 2016. Over a two-decade career he has also manned the radio mic for teams in North Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, and more. Everywhere he’s lived, Montesano said, there have been local talk shows that serve as a sounding board for the community.

It’s exactly this kind of environment that he’d like to foster with Eau Claire Hometown Radio. “The conversation will be timely, but if someone listens two or three days later, it will still be fresh,” he said. Expect interviews and conversations with local newsmakers and government officials as well as segments on travel, cooking, sports, and civic groups. Ideally, Eau Claire Hometown Radio will supplement – not supersede – the coverage that other local media already provide, he said.

There will be no live phone calls, but Montesano expects that listeners would be able to contribute questions and comments to the show via social media. He hopes audience members share their opinions on what’s in the news as well as what subjects the program should address.

While it’s hard to predict what topics the show will cover – that will depend on what’s happening in town on any given day – Montesano suggests recent local debates about roundabouts, backyard chickens, and the proposed Memorial High School athletic field would be good fodder for discussions. While conversations may touch on politics, don’t expect the show to take a conservative or liberal slant, he added.

Montesano said he will handle all the on-air work. Several other partners are also involved, he said, but they would prefer to remain out of the spotlight at the moment because they are connected to local media.

The new program will be supported by sponsors, and while Montesano won’t rule out trying to get it on a terrestrial radio station eventually, that’s not his main goal. Instead, he’s focused on creating a professional, engaging, and locally oriented program. “Whether one person listens or 1,000 people are listening, we’re going to put in an effort, because that’s how you build an audience,” he said.

And even though Montesano will be the only one at the microphone initially, don’t expect any dead air. He’s a born talker: “The job’s always been I never let a ballgame get in the way of a good story,” he said of his sports broadcasting career. “Now there’s no ballgame.”

To learn more and to tune in on May 20, visit echometownradio.com.