Griffith runs out of time for The Game

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Howard Griffith

Howard Griffith

After little more than six months as midday co-host on WGWG LP 87.7, Howard Griffith has cut back to a part-time role as college football insider for the Tribune Broadcasting sports/talk station.

Alex Quigley and Ben Finfer, who previously shared billing with Griffith, now co-host the show themselves from noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“It’s unfortunate,” Finfer told listeners Monday. “We loved working with Howard and hopefully he’ll still be a part of things here on the station in some form. But he simply just did not have the time to dedicate to a daily radio show, and he felt it would be wrong for him to continue on if he can’t be here a hundred percent of the time.”

Added Quigley: “It’s absolutely no bad-blood situation. . . . We like him a lot. But there’s only 24 hours in a day.”

Game logoTodd Manley, vice president of content and programming, said the change was prompted by an increased workload for Griffith at Chicago-based Big Ten Network, where he’d been under contract as an in-studio analyst before joining The Game 87.7 FM at its inception last February.

“BTN has been expanding Howard’s commitment to them and they asked us revise his role with us,” Manley said. “The daily radio show proved to be too much for them, and we had originally sought their blessing to bring Griff on board. He only appeared sparingly over the past month during his midday show due to covering the Big Ten caravan for BTN.”

Manley said Griffith made regular call-ins to Quigley and Finfer from the road, but BTN moved up his time for the network’s shows, making it difficult to continue his daily work for the radio station. In addition to his new role as college football insider with live appearances on all of the station’s weekday shows, Manley said, Griffith also will serve as analyst for the Sunday morning NFL kickoff show.

A University of Illinois graduate and two-time Super Bowl-winning full back for the Denver Broncos, Griffith retired from the NFL after 11 years to become a football analyst for Fox and NFL Networks.

In the latest Nielsen Audio survey, The Game 87.7 FM tied for 42nd place overall with a 0.4 percent share and cumulative weekly audience of 141,600.