Taylor Made Job For Colts

What should have been a simple announcement about the Indianapolis Colts radio broadcasts moving forward was ruined for all concerned, primarily due to speculation.

Although the Colts announced that Matt Taylor will remain as the team's radio play-by-play voice for next season, which removed the "interim" tag he had throughout the past season, his glory was overshadowed.

Taylor took over the play-by-play in August following the retirement announcement of 79 year old long time Colts voice Bob Lamey. Although the retirement announcement was unexpected since it took place during training camp, some attributed the change to a reported incident of Lamey, who was not on the air, possibly using a racial slur while sharing a story from years earlier.

Both Lamey and team stated that it was a retirement announcement and that it was not due to any incident. Yet, because of the speculation, Lamey did not get his proper recognition.

Along with having called the Colts games for years, Lamey spent years calling games for the most important teams in Indianapolis. Few remember his early days as "Hockey Bob Lamey" when he called the Indianapolis Racers games in the World Hockey Association. Even fewer recall that it was those same Racers that had a star rookie with them by the name of Wayne Gretzky.

After the Racers folded (and Gretzky wound up in Edmonton), Lamey soon after found his way to calling the Pacers games, switching from "Hockey Bob" to "Roundball Robert".

We would like to think that after more than 40 years of high profile sportscasting that Lamey would have been given a proper sendoff, no matter how or when he announced his retirement. And, that Matt Taylor would have his big moment and not have it overshadowed because of speculation about an incident which was not on the air - or even in social media. The Colts games continue to air locally on WFNI 107.5 and 1070.


Those that question the need for Los Angeles to have two NFL teams, let alone one, love the story that the L.A. market TV ratings for both the NFC and AFC Championship Game telecasts last Sunday (1/20) were comparable. Keep in mind that the Rams were in the first game of the day, and that technically neither was a prime time telecast in Los Angeles. The Patriots vs. Chiefs game ended shortly after 7 PM Pacific time.

It's a rare circumstance when having a local NFL team in an important game has little to no impact on the ratings. The Saints vs. Rams telecast wound up as the lowest rated "early window" conference championship game since 2013 at the national level. The Patriots vs. Chiefs thriller had a 26% audience increase over the "late" telecast of one year ago.


On the NHL side, it was actually no surprise that NBC stayed with its originally scheduled telecast of Washington at Chicago for its Sunday national telecast (on 1/20), despite the teams being at almost the opposite end of the standings. NBC Sports Network, which again this season is showing an extensive schedule of NHL telecasts, had Capitals telecasts this season in each of its top four highest rated telecasts.

While the Caps are Stanley Cup Champions, the Blackhawks may not make the playoffs for what would be a second consecutive season. Yet, four of the next five highest rated NBCSN telecasts so far this season involved the Blackhawks, which continues to have a large national following.


The holiday period Nielsen radio ratings were released this week. Although it is considered to be the least important of all of the monthly ratings, there were a few interesting trends from the big markets.

In Boston, WBZ-FM Sports Hub showed a .5 increase, moving from fifth to third in overall audience.

As the flagship station of the Patriots, the January ratings are likely to soar. WEEI-FM, on the other hand, dropped by .7 during the holiday period, falling to #11 overall and failing to finish in the top 10 overall for the first time in many months.

Without any of the New York teams going anywhere, both WFAN and WEPN dropped during this book, while in Chicago both WSCR and WMVP showed increases as the Bears went to the post-season.

This is something we have been pointing out for years. As much as most sports stations push their on-air talent, it is more often the teams and the local sports scene that drive the audience.

Los Angeles and Houston sports radio stayed in trend, however, despite each market having NFL teams heading for the post-season during this ratings period. KSPN 710, despite being the flagship station of the Rams, dropped from #26 to #27 overall in the market. It is worth noting that KLAC 570, the Chargers flagship, did show a nice overall audience increase. In Houston, KILT 610, the Texans flagship station, showed a half-point increase in the ratings. Yet, once again, none of Houston's three sports stations cracked the top 20 overall.


DALLAS: The December ratings showed that KRLD-FM The Fan moved up to #14 overall, passing up KTCK The Ticket which suffered its third consecutive ratings drop. KTCK 96.7 and 1310 are celebrating the station's 25 year anniversary this weekend with a series of big event live broadcasts.

Venues include Texas Motor Speedway and the Plano Events Center, with special guests including Troy Aikman and Jay Novacek.


WASHINGTON D.C.: WJFK-FM 106.7 The Fan has announced a long-term extension of "The Sports Junkies" morning show as it finishes its 23rd year on the air. The station also revealed that it will soon be announcing a syndication of this show to affiliates within the Mid-Atlantic region. While we understand and appreciate the success of "Junkies", other markets may not take to the D.C. talk nearly as much. More importantly, the D.C. market is not likely to accept lengthy discussion about teams not specific to the D.C. area. This could turn into one of those radio "Your mileage may vary" situations once this happens.

Long Time Voices Staying Only A Short Time

As we prepare to find out which teams will be in the Super Bowl this coming Sunday, it's baseball broadcasters taking the headlines this week.

While Bob Costas will call at least 20 telecasts for MLB Network again this season and have an expanded role there, The New York Post confirmed that Costas is officially gone from NBC Sports. The report claims that his NBC contract was ended three years before it had been scheduled to per mutual agreement.

As for the most significant baseball broadcaster announcement of the year, "this one belongs to the Reds". Marty Brennaman, who is about to start his 46th consecutive season calling Reds games, announced that the 2019 season will be his last. The 76 year old Brennaman took over the Reds job for the 1974 season, which began with his calling Hank Aaron's 714th career homerun during the opening series.

Despite his longevity in the position, the broadcaster he replaced in Cincinnati remains on the air as well. It was none other than Al Michaels who left the Reds gig after the 1973 season for his network career.

Although Brennaman settled on baseball, his basketball play-by-play early in his career included calling the Virginia Squires of the ABA, which had a star forward by the name of Julius Erving during his tenure there. Michaels, while now associated with calling NFL games for NBC, called baseball for ABC and is also known for calling the 1980 Olympic hockey games during the USA's run to the Gold Medal.

Brennaman was joined for the majority of his career by the late Joe Nuxhall. Looking forward to his being honored at the visiting parks throughout the season.

It's a similar story in Pittsburgh, where Steve Blass is also going to retire following his 34th full season in the Pirates' booth. Even more incredibly, Blass will have been with the Pirates, going back to his pitching days, for 60 years. Blass and former pitcher Bob Walk will have been broadcast partners for 25 years. He is also 76 years old.

In New York, Howie Rose has his new broadcast partners on Mets radio starting with the coming season. Wayne Randazzo joins the booth as analyst, while continuing as host of the post-game show. Ed Coleman, who covers the Mets for sister station WFAN, will take over the pre-game hosting. The Mets broadcasts are moving to WCBS 880 starting this season.

The Detroit Tigers TV broadcast roster is finally settled after the ouster of both Mario Impemba and Rod Allen resulting from their reported altercation late last season. Matt Shepard, who filled in for Impemba in September, has been given the play-by-play spot. Kirk Gibson and Jack Morris, who were used occasionally as analysts last season, will rotate in the role. Shepard has been the morning host of WDFN-AM. He has been the radio voice of University of Michigan basketball and Eastern Michigan football. No word yet as to whether he will continue with the football broadcasts.

Not a change, but still another honor for Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes. The National Sports Media Association has named him "Illinois Sportscaster of the Year", the ninth time he has earned this honor. These are in addition to having won this Award in Wisconsin during his tenure with the Brewers prior to coming to the Cubs in the mid-90's.


Elsewhere, Yahoo Sports has partnered with Turner Sports and the NBA to produce a streaming game night show. The show will air for three hours five nights per week and include updates, highlights from live games, interviews, and analysis. The show will also have social media interaction. It will run from 8 to 11 PM ET starting on Tuesday (1/22), with a special debut edition from 5 to 8 PM on Monday (1/21) due to earlier action on Martin Luther King Day.


Along those same lines, Fox Sports will co-produce a streaming MLB highlights show, also slated for five nights a week, to begin with the coming baseball season. This show is expected to have live look-ins. The length and time slot has yet to be announced, but we do know that this show will be separate from Fox's MLB Whiparound and MLB Network's MLB Tonight.


MINNEAPOLIS: The new Sports Director at WCCO-TV is Mike Max, who comes across from his "Sports to the Max" show on WCCO-AM. No word yet as to whether or not his radio show will continue.


NORFOLK: Now we know more about why Nick Cattles returned to WVSP-FM ESPN 94.1 last june after having left for WBZ-FM Boston Sports Hub. Cattles has been promoted to Program Director. His first stint with the station was from 2012 to 2017.

Wizards Telecasts Betting On More Numbers

Two sports telecast trends are coming together as one starting later this week (1/11), with NBC Sports Washington leading the way. Having a duplicate telecast on a separate channel is not new, as evidenced by ESPN showing its college football championship telecast last Monday on several of its channels.

Perhaps a better example is when ESPN did a separate Statcast version of its National League Wild Card telecast this past October, showing a ton of statistics and having a separate broadcast crew talking up the statistical angles.

What NBC Sports Washington is doing on Friday, and on seven other Wizards telecasts over the remainder of the season, is providing a duplicate telecast with an emphasis on betting and fantasy sports. Although it will show the same basic telecast and have the same announcing crew, its NBC Sports Washington Plus telecast of the Wizards game against Milwaukee will show additional data.
Information such as odds and point spreads, along with fantasy sports updates will appear in layers toward the bottom of the screen. According to Sports Business Journal, the look will be similar to what CNBC does with its daily stock market coverage.

The plan is for these telecasts to also offer contests and sweepstakes, allowing "fans" to guess things such as the number of points scored in a given quarter by both teams and individual players.
From a ratings standpoint, this concept could be the even bigger winner. When a telecast with this feed is a blowout, this is the sort of thing that could keep fans watching longer than they normally would to find out how their "guesses" turned out. The plan is for this alternate telecast to also include the same commercials as the "regular" version. Thus, the potential for 4th quarter advertisers to have more impact over the course of several games.

It will be interesting to see how quickly other NBC Sports regional networks adopt this idea over the next few months. It is possible that parents of younger children may complain about this possibly encouraging gambling. What is even more interesting is that, so far, the NBA is going along with this idea, even though it is very early on. That's a far cry from the days nearly 50 years ago when the NFL publicly did not like Jimmy The Greek on CBS talking about the teams against the point spreads on NFL Today.


Looking back at long term TV ratings from 2018 we see that The Golf Channel showed perhaps the most impressive increase. It was not from a tournament or special programming. The network show an approximately 7% increase in overall audience, which puts it ahead of "average day" viewers of MLB Network for the entire year.

On the other side, NASCAR ratings slumped for the year, as did MLB telecasts on FS1. Although the FS1 viewership grew for the year (which in a way wasn't much of a challenge), a lot of fans still don't know to find their hidden telecasts. Another problem with FS1 and its MLB coverage was inconsistent start times for its Saturday coverage and being locked in to the majority of its telecasts by the start of the season. Starting telecasts anywhere between 1 PM and 10 PM ET on Saturdays, and having no pattern for occasional weeknight telecasts is no way to develop audience habits. Their MLB Whiparound show, even with little to no more competition with ESPN reducing "Baseball Tonight" seemed to have that name because they "whip around" its starting time each night as well.


Speaking of MLB Network, their tendency to keep coming up with innovation and improvements throughout the year seem to have gone the way of the complete game. This network should be able to access an expansive inventory of video from MLB as well as from each team. Instead, all we get for most of three months are the same 20 stale baseball movies and the Ken Burns series they have been airing for most of their 10 years of existence.

Here is an idea, which is actually their own, but needs to be expanded. Just like their "30 Teams In 30 Days" approach during spring training, they could be spending one day out of each off-season month emphasizing one team. Show one of their classic games, a player profile, past season highlights film, and add some discussion about them from their analysts. Give fans of each team a reason to keep track of which day their favorite team will be highlighted. Save the movies for overnight or up against Sunday Night Baseball, and not twice every week.


NBC lucked out with its NFL Wild Card telecast last week (1/6) between the Eagles and Bears. The thrilling end resulted in the best ratings for an NBC Wild Card telecast in 25 years, and its highest rated "non Super Bowl" telecast since regaining NFL telecasts in 2006. The audience ratings for the game were more than double what the network had for its prime time Golden Globes Awards telecast which followed.

Yet, the NFL has another audience statistic to be more proud of. The Green Bay Packers were long gone before the playoffs, but their rivalry against the Bears was very much in evidence. It seems that Milwaukee's ratings for this telecast were higher than those for Dallas, although both markets had the same audience share. What makes this significant is that this game had zero impact on the Packers, while Dallas fans watched because it directly impacted who the Cowboys are playing this coming weekend.

ESPN killed in the ratings with its Colts vs. Texans telecast, being the most watched show of the evening.

Meanwhile, ESPN showed its highest overnight ratings since last January with its college football championship telecast on Monday (1/7). 

However, the most entertaining media story from that game came from Birmingham's WJOX 94.5, which aired the radio broadcast. During its local post game show, following the Alabama blowout loss, the station mistakenly aired a commercial for U. of Alabama championship souvenirs being available at a local sporting goods store.

NFL PreGame Shows Out Foxed

As we get ready for a big weekend of football over a variety of networks, it's interesting to note viewer trends of the surrounding studio shows from the just concluded 2018 NFL season.

Even with all of the coverage of the NFL throughout the week, it is noteworthy that viewership was up overall for the pre-game shows offered by the televising networks compared with the 2017 regular season. Coincidentally, both The NFL Today on CBS and ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown showed viewership increases of roughly 4% for the season. 

NBC's Football Night In America, which has most of its first hour going against the doubleheader game(s) of Fox and/or CBS each week, gained roughly 200,000 viewers from the prior season. The only decrease, curiously, was Fox NFL Kickoff, which showed a decline of approximately 1%.

It remains to be seen whether Fox will make any changes from its long in place lineup of hosts, or if they will stand pat and consider this season a fluke. Whether they do or don't, there is plenty of reason for concern on their part.

2018 was the first season that Fox had the benefit of Thursday Night Football for much of the season, providing them with the first chance to promote their Sunday pregame show most weeks. Although the NY Giants got off to a poor start, which likely had an effect with fewer views from the nation's largest market, the next two largest markets, Los Angeles and Chicago, had teams which aired mostly on Fox that were in first place for the majority of the season. The Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles also had the majority of their telecasts on Fox.

Even though Fox did not lose very many viewers from the previous season, the point is that the other networks combined to increase viewership well beyond the audience numbers which Fox's show lost. Fox needs to find one or more reasons why they are the only pregame show which did not increase its viewership. 



This Monday night is ESPN's turn to shine with its coverage of the college national championship game between Alabama and Clemson. They are arranging it so that even the casual fan will find a reason to tune in. Unlike when Fox moves important baseball games to FS1, this Monday's game will be easy to find. As of press time, it is scheduled to air on 17 separate places if you count streaming feeds on ESPN3!

The feed will include ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic, Goal Line, and even the SEC Network. Feeds will range from the participant team announcers to multi-camera views to enhanced statistics such as real time drive charts. Camera angles will include from first down markers, the orange pylons, and sky cams.


It's possible that NBC Sports Radio has come up with a way to draw some attention. The new year brought "The Daily Line" to the network each weekday from 3 to 7 PM ET, with the focus being on betting lines and fantasy sports information.

Still in works but not finalized at press time is that portions of the show will be simulcast, or possibly edited highlights, each day on the NBC Sports Regional Networks. The length of the planned TV version is not known, nor is it certain whether each regional network would air the same length show.

It remains to be seen whether or not "The Daily Line" would replace the afternoon highlights version of The Dan Patrick Show, or would air in different time slots.

The feeling here is that this show has a lot of potential. At least in the early stage, it will be the only show with betting and fantasy as a center point, and provide factual information and discussion about upcoming games. Some fans prefer to learn information instead of hearing the same discussion about the local teams over and over again.


HOUSTON: It's a new challenge for the new Program Director brought in for KILT 610 and KIKK 650 as the sports stations struggle to build a larger audience. Armen Williams takes over, coming in from Denver's KKFN 104.3 The Fan.


SAN FRANCISCO: It's official that long time 49ers radio voice Ted Robinson is cutting back on his schedule and will be handling Community Affairs for the team instead of calling the games.

Stepping in will be none other than Greg Papa, who comes across the Bay after having called the Oakland Raiders games until after the 2017 season. 


BALTIMORE: With WBAL Newsradio 1090 adding 101.5 FM as a simulcast, it means that the Ravens games now air on three signals within the Baltimore area. The game broadcasts also air on Rock 97.9, with those expected to continue even with WBAL's FM simulcast. 


LOS ANGELES: The Dodgers have extended the contract of radio (and occasional TV) voice Charlie Steiner through the next three seasons. The 69 year old Steiner will celebrate his 50th year as a broadcaster during the upcoming 2019 season.


Happy New Year!