KNSD’s New Sports Guy as Un-Silly as They Come

Bobby Estill is the Danny Quayle of local sportscasters. He’s young, blond, good-looking and doesn’t seem to have a clue.

The new Sports Guy at KNSD-TV (Channel 39), Estill is even more hokey than KGTV’s (Channel 10) Larry Sacknoff. At least Sacknoff seems sincere. His bubbling, uncontrollable exuberance for everything remotely connected to sports makes him reasonably believable, in an obnoxious kind of way.

Estill simply seems baffled. After more than a month with the station, he still looks unsure when to raise his eyebrows to look surprised, or when to look sad, or when to have an opinion. He can’t ad lib, can’t synchronize his comments to the tape and he’s constantly looking down to read from papers in his hand.

Perhaps he’s reading from a “How to Be a Silly Sports Guy” book. There is nothing worse than an un-silly person trying to be silly. Originality is not Estill’s strength. He does Letterman-esque things, like Top 10 lists. Except Letterman’s are funny. And he shows lots of silly tapes of silly athletes doing silly sports stuff, while he says silly things, all guaranteed to send anchors Marty Levin and Denise Yamada into hysterics.

Estill comes from Boston, where, according to a Channel 39 press release, “his informal, humorous broadcasting style won over audiences.” That’s not exactly true.

After three years as a weekend sports anchor with the third-place station in town, CBS-affiliated WNEV-TV, Estill’s contract was not renewed after a change in sports directors, according to published reports. Certainly it is no disgrace to have problems in the Boston market, where Celtic fans have been known to stop just short of human sacrifices to aid the team. And, don’t forget, KFMB-TV’s (Channel 8) Ted Leitner, the reigning king of San Diego sportscasters, loves to tell how he was run out of Philadelphia.

Estill just seemed a little uncomfortable, unable to come up with the quick banter about Larry Bird’s shoe size, according to Boston Globe television sports reporter Jack Craig.

“He really was a very nice fellow,” Craig said. “But he made the sports anchor desk look as hard as it seems.”

In Boston, Estill was a favorite target of local critics. He was seen as “frivolous” in a town full of frivolous sportscasters, according to the Globe’s television critic, Ed Siegel. Estill’s cute bits just didn’t grab the Boston fans.

“He was almost a satire of what a local news person is like,” Siegel said. “It was almost like Bill Murray playing a sportscaster.”

Estill is trying to continue the silly gags in San Diego, a town without a Silly Sports Guy. After years of running Serious Sports Guys at Leitner, guys like Al Janis and Al Keck, Estill’s predecessor, KNSD has opted to try frivolous. Why not?

After 10 years, Leitner remains a power in the market, the most talked-about sportscaster in town. His salary is reportedly well above $200,000 a year, perhaps even surpassing that of Channel 10’s avenging angel of the airwaves, Michael Tuck. Leitner usually commands about $2,000 a pop for speaking engagements, and his cynical, it’s-only-a-game commentaries are still popular, even though he has been in the market for more than 10 years.

Channel 39 clearly believes a young, good-looking, fun-loving Sports Guy is the man to chip away at Leitner’s audience. But Estill has to prove he’s up to the task.

I’ve seen Bob Costas and Estill. Estill is no Bob Costas.

Former editor Bill Missett is returning to his old job at the Blade-Tribune, the Oceanside-based daily newspaper. The Missett family has controlled the paper for decades, and Tom Missett, Bill’s brother, is the publisher. Bill Missett left the paper two years ago to pursue personal interests. His return means current editor Earl Biederman is looking for a new job.

“I told Bill before he left that a time may come when he wants his job back,” said Biederman, who has worked for the Blade for seven years. “We all foresaw this. I’m not being squeezed out, and they’re not screwing me.”

Many staffers, though, were surprised by the news.

“There is a feeling among some of the long-time staffers that the paper has made some real strides toward the 1990s in the last few years and we don’t want to go back to the ‘50s,” said one staffer, who asked not to be identified. Missett is scheduled to return in January, and Biederman expects to leave by April. . .

Mike Real, chairman of the telecommunications and film department at San Diego State, is finishing up his second book, “Super Media,” for Sage Publications. Due out in May, it examines some of the world’s largest media events, including the Olympics, the Academy Awards, the Bill Cosby show and the effects of anti-communist ideology on Hollywood films. . .

Here’s a strange move: KFMB-AM (760) will be cutting away from baseball playoff games, no matter what the situation, to air SDSU football games in their entirety. “It would be different if it was weekday at 5:30 and people were in traffic listening to the game,” said KFMB program director Mark Larson. “But this is the weekend and more people can watch it on TV if they want.” That makes sense.

Leitner took another shot at his old enemy Lee Hamilton, the Chargers play-by-play guy, last week. Talking about the Chargers game during his Channel 8 broadcast, Leitner said, “I sure wouldn’t listen (to the game) on the radio, my stomach’s not ready for that” . . .

KGB-FM’s (101.5) “Beatles A-Z” weekend featured several tracks from promotion director Scott Chatfield’s personal collection, including an acoustic version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with an extra verse and an acoustic version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” . . .

Former KIFM (98.1) morning disc jockey Jerry Evans is moving up in the world. He and his wife recently paid $415,000 to purchase a radio station, KNTI, in Lakeport, California . . .

Last Sunday, Channel 39 cut away from the Jets-Chiefs NFL game in overtime, with the Jets driving for the possible winning touchdown, to go to Estill’s “Sportswrap” show. Channel 39 lost the NBC feed, according to program director Penny Martin. When the signal returned, they didn’t want to risk losing it again, so they stuck with Estill’s show.