St. Louis' Sports Station 1490 Drops FOX Sports for "Urban Sports"

Simmons Media in St. Louis will drop Fox Sports Radio on Wednesday, and go with all local talent focused on urban issues. WFFX will also go back its original call letters, WESL-AM, (for East St. Louis) which were dropped in 2007 when the station flipped from oldies to sports.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports the station will cut loose with the syndicated Dan Patrick & Jim Rome, and bring on all-local talk shows that have African-American hosts, focusing on politics in the morning, then morphing into sports the rest of the day. The weekday talk lineup will include Richard “Onion" Horton in morning drive, followed by Rob Desir & Robert "Moses" Knighten from 9am-11am, Charlie "Tuna" Edwards 11am-2pm, Craig Black from 2pm-4pm, and Maurice Scott in afternoon drive, who will be joined by former Olympic track star Jackie Joyner Kersee and Deneen Busby.

As to why the change, WFFX GM John Helmkamp told the St. Louis Dispatch, "There was no demand at all from a listenership standpoint and a revenue standpoint. Local is what drives things. Having Patrick and Rome never got us on the radar.”

That's a great comment by this GM, however it sounds like The 2 Live Stews out of Atlanta's 790 The Zone and The Sporting News Network might be a good fit on this station in a town like St. Louis, with two other sports station.