Coming Friday: 18 years in the making: The annual best/worst of L.A. sports radio guys

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News Staff Photographer (website linked here)

The 18th edition of the Daily News best and worst of the L.A. sports media traditionally starts with a feature story about a sports-talk host. But we're kind of beyond that. And, there's not as many to pick from as in the past.

Both good and bad.

Maybe there are three so-called all-sports radio stations in Southern California -- four, if you count the one in San Diego that has one of our favorite guys still hanging on for dear life -- but the amount of local coverage continues to dwindle -- except at KSPN-AM (710).

Is there not enough going on in L.A. to make something happen? The economy, my friend, has a big say in that. Radio is hanging on as a viable medium as much as newspapers and Western Union Telegraph.

We took Wednesday to examine how a show like "Mason and Ireland" gets glued together, hanging around executive producer Dave Singer (above, in the control room, and here with Steve Mason discussing the rundown before the show) to watch all the hurdles that get in the way of trying to get the news and discussion out there to the listeners.

Luckily, we happened to pick a horribly busy day as well --since KSPN-AM (710) is the home of the Lakers and USC, both had entitlement to the headlines, even after the Clippers announced that Blake Griffin would be on the shelf for the rest of the year. The upcoming Lane Kiffin press conference kept getting pushed further and further into the station's pregame show for the Lakers-Mavs broadcast at 5:30 p.m. Eventually, the Kiffin arrival had to be put on the station's podcast.

We'll have the usual Top 10/Bottom 5 list as well, plus our favorite syndicated radio shows and local sports anchors. Feel free to submit your own opinions. Mine are only worth what the blog will hold.