97.1 The Fan Reviews

by Bentzie99

I came to leave a review on how terrible this streaming app is, but a simple search shows that many people have already stated the obvious. A review from TWO YEARS AGO states the same issues that are STILL currently happening. I try to enjoy listening while doing yard work or other misc. tasks but become too frustrated with how often the service is dropped. In comparison, I have not had this issue with any other podcast or listening service. Only this one. Mowing the yard? How about listening to the same ads over and over and over again. Receive a phone call, even if you don’t answer it? Congrats, you get to listen to more ads before you get to listen to any content. Accidentally tap on something that has sound? More ads for you. Hit pause briefly to answer someone? Ads, ads, and more ads. Ironically here in central Ohio you’ll get to listen to many ads from… Michigan? If I could I would rate this with a -1 star. Going on 2 years of a pandemic where many people work from home and 971TheFan has consistently been terrible. The hosts have mentioned that 971TheFan has been updated multiple times to fix issues, yet none of the issues have been fixed. This is utterly pathetic and sad that a radio station takes such little pride in what they put out to their listeners. Do better!

by Dmoening

971TheFan is a joke. They consistently have issues with the stream dropping. It’s been this way for months. Show some pride in your product and fix the issues. 971TheFan is filled with reviews with the same problem. I’ve tried other apps and they all have the same problem with your stream. It’s 2019 and you can’t figure out something as simple as a basic audio stream over the internet. I listen to plenty of online radio streams, of which all seem to work just fine....except for you.

by Ashesandfire

I listened to the 97.1 stream directly from their webpage for months with the stream constantly dropping. If you get 30 minutes of uninterrupted content it’s been a great day of using their stream. I tried using TuneIn but the results were the same. So I decided to try 971TheFan thinking surely they wouldn’t create an app that doesn’t work. But alas I was wrong. This station’s streaming service is quite an embarrassment especially given the size of the company. This isn’t some startup. This is the largest station in central Ohio. “The Home of the Buckeyes”. I can’t imagine that the people in charge of the station would be ok with their over the air signal constantly being turned off, then restarting and playing ads over and over with little or no actual content being delivered. However, for whatever reason, this seems to be perfectly acceptable for their streaming services. From what I can gather from the comment section here and from 971TheFan ratings this has been an ongoing thing, not something new. Until the station takes more pride in the product it is providing, this issue will never be fixed. They really should be embarrassed.

by Troy1285

971TheFan has so many bugs that I don’t think the developer actually tests 971TheFan themselves. Such as the stream dropping and not restarting so 971TheFan has to be reset then the commercials play again. Then I just had to delete 971TheFan and redownload it because I couldn’t access the old recordings of the different shows. 971TheFan could be awesome but just doesn’t have the support to be.

by BriGuy24

Love this radio station. Only reviewing because I want to listen more but 971TheFan is currently very frustrating. The commercials when opening 971TheFan are ridiculous (ones you have to manually close to skip and the auto play ones). App crashes and then makes you go through the commercials again when you reopen.

by Mr__Reese

It’s not even playing the Rose bowl even though it says it’s playing the rose bowl. Just playing ESPN radio stuff. Abysmal app which is unfortunate because they have a lot of radio talent I’d like to hear. I also don’t appreciate having to listen to an ad just to start the radio and every time 971TheFan crashes ( which is frequent) I have to listen to another ad to start listening

by Heeeeeey Fix It!

971TheFan constantly drops the stream for no reason, fails to load without explanation (but still is able to play the load-in ads every time without fail), and worst yet- it will randomly play ads during the broadcasts. But it doesn’t pause and break into the audio. Nope. It plays the ad and steam at the same time, so its two different voices at the same time. Often times playing at a higher volume than the broadcast audio.

Terrible app. I hope who ever is in charge of this gets fired.

by Jimhowie333

971TheFan has been like this for awhile. It constantly crashes, and then when it picks back up, it plays at least 2 advertisements, even if the actual show isn’t on a break. It’s a let down, because this has always been by far my favorite station, and now that I recently moved to Alabama, I can’t listen to the actual radio station, all I have is this crappy app, and I’m constantly missing out on content because it’s constantly crashing, and then playing ads. please please PLEASE FIX!!! :(

by Sdrucken

I keep getting an error message “Network Alert: problem connecting to the internet. Please check your connection and try again.”

I agree with other reviewers that 971TheFan was problematic even when I could get it working. The feed frequently drops.

I use the Simple Radio app, and it’s much better to connect to your feed. Please fix your app

by Big Al 81

I like these apps designed for particular radio stations, but whoever created this one for 97.1 The Fan, is either not checking for errors or doesn’t care. 971TheFan freezes for no apparent reason, when you take it off pause you hear the “brought to you by” Commercial again, this happens when you pause it as well, I may just start listening to the podcast a day late to avoid the problems, but would prefer to listen live. This could be a real problem come Football season, as well as a current issue for people listening to Jackets or Crew games

by Ballgame100

This should be embarrassing for such a large company. Like other reviewers, I have found the entire streaming service for this station almost entirely unlistenable. This direct and branded app is further punishment (at least in iOS) to would be consumers. Constant stream drops, local ads randomly playing over content... it’s an absolute mess. A dreadful mess. I caught A snippet of host B.Carp the other day complaining of his own experience with 971TheFan, only to have the stream dropped mid-story. By the time I got thru the startup ad (which always plays flawlessly), his story was over.

by Bern8800

971TheFan is constantly interrupted when streaming the local radio shows, with network connection to the station. I have other apps I stream music and podcasts from that never have an issue and can be played all day with out interruptions. For some reason it feels like every five minutes 971TheFan drops the stream and then can’t reconnect for 10 minuets and then plays for 5 seconds and drops out for another ten minuets. Terrible and would really appreciate it if the IT or app developers at the station or wherever could figure out the issue.

by ScooterMcGavin1

I feel like someone made this as a high school science project without ever really taking a coding class. It crashes so often. I travel a decent amount and want to listen to my home town sports radio and there are times it works for like 30 min without crashing and I’m overjoyed when that happens. But it’s rare. Be better

by DDawnS

See review from Bentzie99 dated January 18. Copy & paste here. It’s frustrating how often it cuts out and I’m sick of hearing Little Animal’s voice on a commercial endlessly when it picks up again. He isn’t in Columbus anyway.

by Crose28

Love 971TheFan. Use it every day all day when I’m at work. One issue I have with 971TheFan is it won’t allow me to download the podcasts to listen offline on my phone. With my job, there are days that I work in an area that doesn’t get good credit service but I use to be able to listen to the shows from the day before even if I didn’t have cell service. For some reason that has changed. Would love to see that fixed

by Pickleapb

Like the title says, it’s a good upgrade over the previous version of 971TheFan . However, and I’m not sure if it’s relevant to this forum, the new update caused a bug when asking Alexa/smart speaker to “play 97.1 the fan.” I don’t think this is an error on Amazon’s side so I’m posting here. When going through the Alexa app and starting the fan manually, there are no issues— only when giving the voice command.

by Patrat37

I use 971TheFan all the time to listen to the shows as I live out of state. It was previously very bad, but the new version 7 update has been amazing for me. I no longer lose connection like I used to and the sound quality seems to have improved too.

by Pineconn

Friends, ignore all reviews from 2020 and before. They just relaunched 971TheFan and it is a monumental improvement. There’s an up-to-date program list, a catalog of all shows and podcasts, and the ability to switch among the three streams (FM, AM, and HD3). Most importantly, it’s a fast, responsive, and stable app finally!

by Zach4prez

I long to hear ted’s soft nasally voice whisper sweet sexy nothings into my moist ear holes. I’m not sure if it’s part of the program plan already but I think the addition of Paul Keels would be a fantastic piece for perverTED. But he’s not a co-host or even allowed to talk he’s just there to go mmmm and oh yesss whenever Predator Ted is being incredibly sexy. This would definitely add to the Lake Tahoe that is currently developing on top of my loins just thinking about it.

by Go Bucks From New Mexico

I am surprised with all the negative reviews. I live in New Mexico and 971TheFan has been nothing but incredible for me. I listen to it everyday at work with no problems.

by Real American Believer

So anytime there’s a live sports game on and you try and listen it just plays ESPN radio and not the live event. OSU or CBJ games, don’t waste your time downloading to try and listen.