Denver — Sports Talk Radio Host Zach Bye got behind the mic at the 104.3 The FAN studio Tuesday ready for an interesting day. “It was like any other morning until my producer Raj called me, and said, ‘did you see the news?’” remembers Bye.
Broncos backup quarterback Chad Kelly had been arrested, and videos of a team Halloween party were getting a lot of attention on social media. Bye knew those Broncos stories would dominate the day’s coverage.
“We had the whole show lined out,” says Bye. “Prepped. Planned. Ready to tock and then you just throw it in the garbage.”
Big news like the Kelly arrest means the station covers that story all day, so their listeners get the information they’re looking for.
“For three hours yesterday we did not deviate from the Chad Kelly news,” says Bye. “When a story like that comes, it’d be like a storm coming here to Denver. If you flip to the weather station it’s going to be talking about that storm, and nothing else. We are the home for that storm for the Broncos.”
Talking about the same topic while keeping the chatter interesting and entertaining is a welcomed challenge for Bye.
“You just stay focus and try to be creative,” he said. “You have to find out what’s next, and find different branches of the conversation. You need to spin it forward, and back.”
At the end of a three-hour marathon shift focused on one topic, it’s fair to assume Bye would be burned out on Kelly talk. But what did you mother tell you about assuming?
“It was a big sigh of relief that the three hours about the same topic were over,” says Bye. “At the same time, I wanted to be open to what our guys in the afternoon had to say. I was locked in for the entirety of yesterday."
Watch more in the video above from photojournalist Mike Grady.