Glenn Ordway, a Boston sports radio veteran with nearly 40 years in the business and a fixture at WEEI since 1987, has been relieved of his duties co-hosting the Entercomm property’s afternoon program, “The Big Show” with Michael Holly. On Wednesday, Ordway had the extreme displeasure of seeing his professional obituary penned by the same media critic who wrote in 2009, “passing yourself off as some sort of insider because of an association with the Celtics two decades ago does not count, particularly when there is mounting suspicion that you haven’t watched more than a handful of out-of-market NBA games since the days of short shorts and sky hooks.” From The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn :
The fall is a precipitous one for Ordway even by the volatile standards of the radio business. The former Celtics radio broadcaster was the ringleader of “The Big Show” until he was paired with Holley two years ago. Ordway signed a five-year contract worth a reported $1 million per year in January 2009, but there were out-clauses if certain ratings benchmarks weren’t met.
In September 2009, Entercom, WEEI’s parent company, cut his salary in half after the program failed to finish among the top three stations in the Boston market for a particular demographic in a specific number of consecutive Arbitron books. As recently as this past spring, the program had strong ratings, finishing second in the men 25-54 demo, a spot ahead of The Sports Hub’s “Felger and Massarotti” program.
But in the fall, The Sports Hub’s “Felger and Massarotti” was first (9.1) while WEEI’s “Ordway and Holley’’ show was fifth (5.2).The irony is that Michael Felger got his big break as one of the rotating co-hosts on “The Big Show.” Now, it appears he and Tony Massarotti have helped bring down Ordway, with Mike Salk (WEEI’s replacement for Ordway), who worked with Felger at 890, now coming back to challenge him.