Austin's First Segment -- 10/8/25

Austin opens the show with the news about Tony.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Skyline Chile. Since he three to sixty about
Cincinnati from Cincinnati, sponsored in part by Skyline Chile. Stop
by Skyline Chile for a three way or cheeze Cony today.
Feeling good, It's Skyline time. This is ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi, Hello, and welcome in to since E three sixty
here on ESPN fifteen thirty. My name is Austin Elmore.
I am not Tony Pike. You may have noticed yesterday
Tony was not with us then, and if you followed
Tony on social media, you saw about twenty five to

(00:40):
thirty minutes ago Tony made the announcement that he has
been laid off by iHeartMedia here in Cincinnati found out
yesterday uh in the morning prior to the show, and
I was instructed not to talk about and understandably so

(01:01):
and wanted to wait for Tony to decide whenever it
was right for him to announce it, and he decided
to do that this morning, and thus I have the
go ahead to talk about it. I am shocked. I
didn't see it coming. I don't think anybody saw it coming.

(01:25):
The growth that Tony has had over the last couple
of years especially, and I think really finding his voice
and seeing his talent come through has been really fun
to watch and fun to be a part of. And
it makes this a decision that is difficult to understand,

(01:46):
not only for him and his family, but for this
radio station, for the listeners, for sports fans. He was tremendous.
He was valuable. He provided insight and had a unique
way of being able to teach the game. I learned

(02:08):
so much about football through Tony and will always cherish
being able to learn the game from his perspective. I'm
heartbroken by this. I'm gutted by it. He's one of
my best friends and had turned into an older brother

(02:31):
for me, and that dynamic really worked for us on
the air. And you know, I started back at iHeart
seven years ago, eight years ago almost, and I knew
who Tony was, but I didn't really know him. I
just knew that I wanted to do sports, and Tony

(02:54):
had started working here, and I think he was still
trying to figure out what he wanted to do, and
he was kind of thrust into this role of being
on Sincy three sixty and maybe didn't entirely know what
he was doing and wasn't getting a ton of support
in doing so, And so when the position came open
when his previous producer left, I was really adamant that

(03:18):
I wanted to do that, and I wanted to work
on a sports show, and I wanted to help Tony.
I wanted to be involved with him, and I didn't
expect that I would start producing the show and then
a year or two later be co hosting the show
with him. But he was so generous in allowing me

(03:40):
to speak and allowing me to have a voice. He's
a huge reason for the growth of me personally over
the last several years. It has been a total joy
to work with him and to learn from him, and
to butt heads with him and to disagree with them

(04:03):
and to joke with him. Like every day was a
joy to work with him. He would play tricks on
me constantly. He just played one on me last week
where he taped a picture of an animal flipping me
off to the bottom of my mouse and I couldn't
figure out why my mouse was working, and I turn

(04:27):
it over and here's a picture of an animal flipping
me off. He loved to play pranks on me, and
it made work fun and it built a relationship and
it was an insight into the type of person that
he was. And Big Tone and I have been through

(04:47):
a lot together over the course of us doing this
show together. Each of us had our cars stolen, We've
had we've lost family members, We've had a lot of
difficult times where it was just me and him in
this room talking to each other about everything but sports,

(05:11):
about life. He would talk to me about being a
father and a husband and we would talk about our issues.
Just sucks, man, I don't know how else to say it.

(05:34):
I owe Tony so much and I'm so thankful for
him and giving me an opportunity. And you know, to
see him grow and to flourish in a lot of
different roles over his time here was awesome. The Tony
and Moe Football Show. I mean, if you are a

(05:56):
football fan in this town, you had to listen to it.
It was so good, so funny. I especially love the
pregame shows with him and Ken Brew where they would
make fun of Ken and also talk about the game
and just all that. Like it was, you had to

(06:16):
tune into your radio. You leaned into your radio or
into your iHeartRadio app or whatever. It was to listen
to what they were going to say and the jokes
they were gonna make, or whatever it was. And it's
just I don't know entirely what to say. I don't

(06:37):
really know how to explain it. But it sucks. And
I feel awful for Tony and for his family and
obviously his kids, and all the positive momentum that he
had been building up over the last couple of years,

(06:59):
and to to no longer be a part of things
here at iHeart is not going to be easy, and
I'm left with more questions than answers. I don't know
many of the answers that many of you will ask.
Questions wise, these were layoffs that happened all across the country,

(07:23):
and there are a lot of people in this business
that are hurting over the last couple of days. And
Tony wasn't the only one from our market. There were
two other people that I have friendships with that aren't
here anymore either. It's just difficult, you know, being a
human being. There's no other way to say it other

(07:45):
than it sucks. And I haven't really allowed myself to
think about it or get too emotional about it until now.
When you look back on all the different stuff that
we did, and there's always this thought of, you know,
I have this thought of like it's never gonna last forever,

(08:09):
have fun, enjoy it, but you never think it's just
gonna stop one day. And that's what it did. From
talkbacks to the wig that Tony and I had to
wear whether the Reds won ten games in a row
or lost ten games in a row, and the wig
is still sitting in here in the studio, or the

(08:35):
Pickham segments which were absolute comedy, the Hot Ones Challenge
where Tony was nearly dying on the air trying to
eat hot chicken wings. There's just so many memories, the
outings to Augie's where I would be bartending and Tony
would be bartending and we'd be finding a way to

(08:57):
raise money for some sort of cause. And you know,
it really reminds me the first time, first time we
did this big Augie's outing, I had lost a bet.
I don't even remember. We made all these dumb bets,
as you know, and it was like right after my

(09:18):
car had been stolen, and Tony, you know, gets me
back there behind the bar at Augies and I'm bartending
and all this and I didn't know he was going
to do this, and the next thing you know, he's
making an announcement to everybody at Augie's. Hey, Austin had
his car broken into, were taking up you know, funds

(09:43):
or an offering basically, And for him to do that
for me it was crazy nice and unexpected and he
didn't have to do that, and it raised a bunch
of money for me in a tough time. That's who
Tony Pike is. And I'm not He's not dead. Okay,

(10:04):
we're not acting like he's dead. I'm not trying to
act like he's dead. He's not dead. He's live, he's fine,
he's with us. But he's my friend and I'm gonna
miss him, and this show and the station are going
to miss him. So yeah, Tony, I'm sure you're listening

(10:25):
because you can't resist. Thank you, and I appreciate you
and owe you so much for what you've done for
me and for the radio station and for the show
and so many other people over the years. And I

(10:48):
hope that the growth that Tony has had over the
last couple of years and the just how good he
is he is at what he does. I hope that
leads to a soft landing soon for him and whoever
you know that might be, or wherever that might be,
or whatever it is. I hope that it's it's soon,

(11:09):
and I know that they're going to get somebody who
is really talented and is going to do a great job.
I didn't want to go you know, I'm off starting
tomorrow through Monday of next week, and I didn't want
to go through that period of five days off without

(11:30):
at least addressing this news and talking about it. I
also understand that there is a a show that has
to be done. There are topics that need to be discussed,
most notably the fact that the Bengals chose Joe Flacco
over Tony Pike, even though Tony was available. That is

(11:53):
shocking in and of itself. We'll have to talk about Joe.
You We're gonna have guests today. At one o'clock, we'll
talk to you on Sharing. At two o'clock, we'll talk
to James Rapine. We'll do our typical talkbacks, we'll talk
with Mo for quick hits at the end of our show.
We're gonna try to make everything as normal as possible.

(12:15):
I don't know that anybody wants this to be you know,
just I don't know. I don't know how to do this.
They don't teach you how to do this. Yeah, so

(12:36):
that's it. Tony posted on his h on his Twitter
page at Tony Underscore Pike fifteen a announcement basically about everything,
and I haven't really I'm talked to Tony like a

(12:58):
lot over the last you know, twenty four to forty
eight hours, but I don't know that I ever, you know,
said everything to him then that I have just tried
to articulate over the last thirteen minutes. I don't know
if this has been good radio. I don't really care
if it's been good radio. I just needed to talk

(13:18):
and get it out. And it sucks, man, it sucks.
It is the brutal nature of our business. It is
not uncommon across the country. But that doesn't make it

(13:40):
suck less. And so, as I said earlier, there are
a lot more questions than there are answers, a lot
of things that I don't know. I have no idea,
But for the time being, we'll try to be entertaining
and informative and energetic and funny and a helpful distraction

(14:07):
from the horrors of the everyday realities of life. That's
always my goal in producing a radio show every day
to be entertaining, informative, energetic, and funny. Now we all
know I'm not all those things all the time, but
that's the goal, and we're gonna do our best each

(14:30):
and every day to make that happen. So from this
point forward, we're gonna try to have a normal show.
We're gonna come back, We're gonna have football in the Natty,
We'll do our Call of the Day segment, We'll get
to John Shearon to talk backs to James and Tomoe
and others, and I'm sure Mo will have a lot

(14:51):
to say about this later today as well. So for
all of you that have listened to this show over
the last four years that Tony and I have been
together working on it, thank you. Thank you for letting

(15:17):
us have so much fun and for building this together
over the last several years. Really means a lot. And
we're gonna miss Tony. ESPN fifteen thirty. Now your chance

(15:37):
to win a thousand