Right on target: 'Oprah for men'

When is sports talk radio not just sports talk radio?

When you tune into sports talk shows in major cities around the country and find talk that is not all sports, all the time.

You still get sports chatter, but in morning and evening drive-time hours on these stations, you will find something different, something called ''Guy Talk" radio.

Guy talk is fine-tuning sports talk radio, focusing on what ''guys" -- a prime target audience for advertisers seeking the 25-54-year-old age group -- want to talk about.

And it's not all sports.

As one program director put it, it's like creating an ''Oprah for men" format.

At WEEI, the runaway leader in sports talk radio in the country, ''Dennis and Callahan" in the morning and ''The Big Show" in the afternoon, it's a forum to vent on any subject, whether it's the state of the Red Sox or the latest episode of ''24."

Take Tuesday's ''Dennis and Callahan" -- co-hosted by John Dennis and Herald columnist Gerry Callahan -- for example, which treated listeners in the 6-10 a.m. slot to topics ranging from the whereabouts of Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramírez to the future employer of Roger Clemens to the state of mind of new Yankees center fielder Johnny Damon. But there was also talk of Jack Bauer, the main character in ''24," and of the mental capabilities of former University of Texas quarterback Vince Young, who reportedly scored poorly on the Wonderlic intelligence test at the NFL combine.

On Wednesday, a prime topic was the lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the displaced people taking their time leaving government-paid-for hotel rooms. But then the show became the ultimate in sports radio for Red Sox fans, switching to Florida for a live feed of Ramírez's news conference on his arrival at spring training camp in Fort Myers.

ESPN, the sports king of television, is also making noise on the radio.

If you want simply sports, tune in to ''Mike and Mike in the Morning," the show with Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic that has been so successful that ESPN-TV bumped its less-than-hot ''Cold Pizza" to later in the morning to simulcast ''Mike and Mike." ''Mike and Mike" is probably the closest thing to what original sports talk radio was all about -- two sports fans who know what they're talking about.

The other end of the spectrum is WFAN in New York with ''Imus In the Morning," which was in place when the station went to sports talk. The show offers a view of the world through the eyes and voice of Don Imus, who uses sports only as a break between much wider political viewpoints. After 10 a.m., WFAN joins the rest of the sports world.

In Atlanta, the top drive-time sports show is on WQXI, where Stew ''Steak" Shapiro leads a three-man panel each morning on ''Mayhem in the AM." All subjects are open for discussion.

''Morning drive time can't survive on sports alone, the competition is too fierce," said Shapiro, a Boston native. ''Our main goal is to make guys laugh, to entertain them. It's easy to know what guys want to hear, whether it's about playing golf, their kids or their wife, or their family vacation."

Angelo Cataldi has been the highly successful anchor of ''The WIP Morning Show" in Philadelphia since 1989. He recognizes his audience. ''We just can't do straight sports talk in the morning," said Cataldi. ''There's too much competition for the age group we're going after [men 25-54]. What we do is build off a foundation of sports every day and we might talk about great-looking women, dining out, anything which might fall into the interest range of our target audience.

''We'll always take a hot-button sports topic, something that might be the talk around the water cooler in the office," said Cataldi, whose show starts at 5:30 a.m. ''And we'll go from there. It's a pretty concise formula, a sports topic, and guy topics."

At WEEI, ''Dennis and Callahan" and ''The Big Show" -- anchored by Glenn Ordway -- keep crossing lines each day, with no guarantees on what to expect. The underlying philosophy is that guys want to talk about more than sports and sometimes it's not PG stuff. Anything goes, from sports to politics to Hollywood gossip.

Ordway understands the dynamics as well as anyone. ''People say we're doing stuff for the ratings," he said. ''No kidding. Our job is to reach the widest audience. And to do that, sometimes you have to do other things."

Ordway says there is a formula that all sports radio stations use: Target the 25-54 male group and then try to draw others in, but always be aware of the core group. ''In Boston, it's Red Sox and Patriot fans," said Ordway, who says the emphasis in his afternoon/evening slot (2-6) is slightly different from the morning slot. ''In the morning, people are on their way to work, a lot of things may have happened overnight to talk about. In the afternoon, they're coming home, they're tired. Talking about sports is entertainment, a break for them."

It is guy talk radio, although Ordway winces at that description, feeling it may be too simplistic.

In other words, ''Oprah for men."

''That's pretty close to being dead on," said Cataldi. ''We just haven't had the courage yet to call it that."