Nothing against the established local sports talk-radio stations, Sports Radio KJR (950 AM/102.9 FM) and 710 ESPN Seattle, but when I’m driving around, I find myself tuned in to 1090 The Fan more and more.

1090 AM is CBS sports radio. You get the opinions of national personalties like Jim Rome, Doug Gottlieb and John Feinstein. And you still get your local Seattle fix from 3-6 p.m., with Steve Sandmeyer, formerly of KJR, and longtime Seattle broadcaster Bill Swartz interviewing local athletes and coaches and breaking down the hot topics of the day.

Nothing wrong with the old standbys at KJR (if you’re a Husky fan, you gotta get your Husky Honks fix) and ESPN 710 (The Go-To Guy, who writes a weekly column for my favorite daily newspaper, remains a favorite), but it’s nice to have an alternative. Instead of getting the same old stories hashed over and over again, you can go to 1090 and get something totally different. Just throwing it out there in case you weren’t aware that you had another choice.

While we’re at it, it’s nice to see that Fox is launching an around-the-clock cable station that’s going to take on ESPN. Fox Sports 1 is scheduled to launch on Aug. 17. It’ll be tough, probably impossible, to take down ESPN, which has over the years mostly lived up to being the “world-wide leader in sports,” as it claims. ESPN has contracts with the NFL and NBA. But Fox seems ready to take ’em on. The network already has contracts with the MLB, NASCAR, the Pac-12, Big 12, soccer’s Champions League and Europa League and the UFC. When ESPN’s contracts with the NFL and NBA expire, some think FSI might have enough millions (ESPN paid the NFL $1.9 billion for its latest contract) to make a serious play. And maybe they’ll come up with some better alternatives to ESPN’s tired day-time programming. First Take I can’t take anymore. And Around the Horn, Pardon the Interruption, Sports Nation, Mike and Mike etc. etc., they stuff the same topics down listeners ears hour after hour.

Let’s hope FS1 will be worth tuning in to. It’s good to see somebody taking on the big dog in sports broadcasting.