The end of summer yields disappointment, no doubt, yet brings forth two important beacons of encouragement (is that redundant?) as well.

They are: football… and Tony Kornheiser.

Yes, Mr. Tony has emerged from his summer holiday, yesterday launching his “new” daily podcast, available wherever podcasts are sold. The new angle of Tony’s show is that it is now podcast-only, no longer a tape-delayed version of what appeared on radio. Tony’s not on radio anymore, which may bring about the ultimate death knell for that medium. If a famously-Luddite geezer like Tony Kornheiser moves into cyberspace… terrestrial radio is kaput.

I’m happy to report The Tony Kornheiser Show podcast is hardly distinguishable from its predecessor. I suppose it makes a difference only if you lived in the Washington, D.C., area and were home between eleven and one to listen to it live. If you were listening to it via the podcast all along, there’s no difference. Same players, same guests, same roundtable discussions, same silliness masquerading as adult talk (or is it the other way around?).

The reason I love The Tony Kornheiser Show more than most programming is that it is not rushed, and the podcast format only reinforces that. There are no timetables, no deadlines, no engineer pointing to his watch. It’s like a real conversation, one that is marked only by a logical flow, not commercial breaks.

Kind of like a blog, no?