A sports media website called Awful Announcing has released its annual ranking of local game-day TV broadcasters for the 30 Major League Baseball teams. For the first time since 2014, when the website started scoring local baseball TV announcers, the San Diego Padres’ Fox Sports San Diego (FSSD) TV team of Don Orsillo, Mark Grant and Mark Sweeney were named the best in baseball. The Padres broadcast team has climbed over the years from #12 in 2014, #5 in 2016, #4 in 2017 and #3 in 2018. The top 5 behind the Padres were the San Francisco Giants (#2), New York Mets (#3), Baltimore Orioles (#4) and Los Angeles Dodgers (#5). The worst announcers were with the Washington Nationals (#30), Pittsburgh Pirates (#29), Detroit Tigers (#28), St. Louis Cardinals (#27) and Miami’s Florida Marlins (#26). The complete list is available online here.
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iHeart Media San Diego, operator of seven local radio stations, has paired two of its broadcasters, including sports talk-show host Darren Smith of KLSD-AM and news reporter Jack Cronin of KOGO-AM, for a new hour-long, weekday evening talk show called “Not Sports,” airing 7 to 8 p.m. on News Radio 600 KOGO. Smith also hosts a weekday sports talk-show from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays on iHeart’s KLSD-AM XTRA 1360 Fox Sports San Diego. He joined KLSD after 16 years with XPRS 1090-AM The Mighty 1090 until the station ceased business operations in April of this year. Cronin, who joined iHeart’s KOGO in 2014, also is a daytime reporter and co-host with Marilyn Hyder of KOGO’s “San Diego Evening News,” heard 6 to 7 p.m. The addition of “Not Sports” has shifted “KOGO at Night” with host Chris Merrill to weekdays from 8 to 10 p.m., the station said.
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Nuffer, Smith, Tucker (NST), a San Diego PR firm now in its 45th year in business, has hired Rob Peugh as creative director. Peugh will manage the creative department in partnership with Aaron Blomberg, in-house digital media manager. Peugh previously operated his own design firm called Think Deep Creative. He specialized in iOS and Android app design and web, social media, print and digital design. His clients included Microsoft, Disney, Oculus, Sony, NPD Data, Tzumi Electronics, Best Buy, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, The American Red Cross, Harris Ranch, Cambria Tourism Board and Visalia Transit. Peugh graduated with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from California State University Fresno in 2012.