The local media is running out of topics. Look no further than this absurd hashtag discussion-generating hashtag topic hashtag debate hashtag cutting edge question from BOB. Sarah Baicker, commendably trying to generate buzz for her show, puffed on the flames with her retweet, which was quickly put in its rightful place by Billy Penn’s Dan Levy:

Voila_Capture 2017-01-17_10-26-04_AM Voila_Capture 2017-01-17_10-26-14_AM

Even if this is a fun little segment for a morning show, it speaks to what is wrong with needing to program GOBS of content each day– there’s simply not enough interesting stuff to discuss. So, you wind up with BS like this or 97.5’s ridiculous “call in and we’ll give you a team and number and you have to name the player” topic yesterday.

The Process is, inarguably, one of the best, most authentic and fun nicknames in recent memory. EVERYBODY LIKES IT! It works, as Dan said, because it’s a tongue-in-cheek dig at both the haters and the team itself, which was hesitant to embrace the movement until they realized it could be highly profitable.

There’s no malice on the part of BOB to decry the name, and I’d venture to guess that just about everyone who works on the show, including Baicker, thinks the nickname is fantastic. But, when you have two hours to fill, and it’s a Tuesday morning in January, you have to resort to stuff like this that actively tweaks your audience and ultimately works against mainstream media in the process, making them seem woefully out-of-touch. Pissing off your own viewers is the exact sort of Skip Bayless nonsense that most people have come to hate. And I couldn’t think of a worse topic right now, for any local sports outlet, than taking a dig, however minor, at anything relating to Joel Embiid or the Process. At this point, Embiid could skin a cat live on Twitter and brand it with “The Process” in exclusive photos posted to his Snapchat and 92% of fans would be totally cool with it, and the other 8% who actually like cats can screw off anyway. There are literally thousands of people, every game, home and away, chanting trust the process when Embiid steps to the free throw line – a near record-setting number of times last night – and we’re raising the topic that there could be a better option? God that’s bad programming. Just really bad.