The December into the first weekend of the New Year radio ratings are not among the most important, but did show a couple of interesting trends. Atlanta's WZGC 92.9 The Game continues its impressive rise, having added more than 40% to its overall ratings since June.
We also saw the expected impact in some NFL markets, especially Minneapolis/St. Paul. Vikings flagship KFXN finished #1 in the market, which made it the only all sports radio station in the country to achieve that distinction. The Ravens' great regular season finish spurred Baltimore's WJZ-FM to rise by more than one-half of a ratings point for the month. Philadelphia's WIP-FM also increased overall for a top three market position.
CHICAGO: It's now officially less than one month before Marquee, the new Chicago Cubs TV Network, makes its scheduled debut on Feb. 22nd. The Network has added some nationally known analysts as contributors as well, including Rick Sutcliffe, Doug Glanville, Dan Plesac, Ryan Dempter, Mark DeRosa, and Carlos Pena (all former Cubs players). In addition, Lou Pinella will appear occasionally as an analyst.
However, as of press time, the AT&T family of providers and several smaller cable providers such as RCN are the only ones to sign up to carry the Network. With Comcast Xfinity not signed up, this means that roughly 40% of the Chicago market would be able to get Marquee. The significant difference from the Los Angeles Dodgers TV situation is that fans are able to subscribe to an AT&T outlet from the majority of locations. Comcast could very well be waiting to gauge the number of subscribers it loses to AT&T before making a decision, but continues to own a large part of NBC Sports Chicago, which shows all White Sox games available to it.
Faced with no over-the-air pro sports for the first time in more than 70 years, WGN-TV is taking an interesting approach toward serving the baseball fans without cable or satellite, along with its local audience. Starting on Monday (1/28), WGN-TV will present a live half hour sports recap Monday through Friday nights at 10:30 PM, following its local news. Many stations in Chicago and around the country do this on Sunday nights to feature NFL highlights. It will be interesting to see how the ratings go for this weeknight attempt.
Shea Peppler is out after almost two years as sports reporter and weekend anchor at WFLD-TV, along with contributions on WMVP ESPN 1000. Peppler is moving east to join her husband, who is ESPN anchor Jordan Cornette.
PHILADELPHIA: In addition to wonderful ratings just released, a nice honor for WIP-FM's long time morning man Angelo Cataldi. He celebrated his 30th Anniversary with the station by earning the Bill Campbell Broadcast Award for excellence in broadcasting.
CLEVELAND: Congrats to Matt Fishman on being named Director of Content at WKNR ESPN. Fishman has served as Sports Director at WSCR The Score in Chicago and Program Director at KCSP Kansas City.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Saturday, January 18, 2020
A "Sign" Of Radio Things To Come
The past week might be best remembered for the number of major shocking stories and how the sports media was a part of them.
Several major sports radio shows were lost (with at least one brought back as of press time) due to corporate decisions instead of ratings or on-air controversy. The major cutbacks by iHeart Radio will negatively impact a lot for the over the air radio audience, which could prove devastating in the long run. Their stations in many key markets were forced to cut back, hurting their chances to try to regain audiences who have already taken to alternative sources as it is.
Sports fans in Louisville were hit hard with the sudden and immediate cancellation of Paul Rogers from the WHAS 820 morning show. Rogers had been a part of the morning show for most of his 47 years with the station. He does, however, continue as play-by-play voice for the University of Louisville. In fact, Rogers was out of town to call a game when he got the news. Also hard it in Louisville was WKRD 790, which airs the U. of Louisville games along with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Des Moines listeners raised enough of a protest after the announced firing of The Sports Fanatics with Ross Peterson and Chris Williams that the station brought them back within the week. The pair will return on Tuesday (1/21) to KXNO. This was based on what management termed "thousands of listeners expressing their support". In addition, although it is really to cut back programming costs for a sister station, KXNO-AM will now be simulcast on the more powerful 106.3 FM.
With these major cutbacks, much more than sports programming was effected around the country. Thus, even more FM and AM stations continue to provide listeners with even more reasons to listen less and less to conventional radio stations as we knew them.
Meanwhile, the aftermath of the Astros and the sign stealing penalties also took their toll in the media. Few fans knew before this past week that ESPN's Jessica Mendoza also worked for the N.Y. Mets. It became quite obvious when Mendoza appeared on three different ESPN TV and radio shows on the same day to try and defend Carlos Beltran before he and the Mets parted ways.
Mendoza is, understandably, receiving heavy criticism for her stand, leading to speculation that ESPN could or should remove her from her Sunday Night Baseball role. Perhaps ESPN deserves the criticism instead, for having her make the same comments on three different shows. Obviously trying to stir the pot, which may have backfired for all concerned.
Rich Eisen of the NFL Network may be changing affiliation for his separate weekday radio show. This is due to The Audience Network on DirecTV being removed (in favor of a different channel), which would also end the current simulcast on Fox Sports Radio Network. At the same time of this announcement, Eisen claims that he is lining up a different broadcast partner with plans to continue his weekday show.
BOSTON: The Red Sox radio broadcast team on WEEI-FM will continue its rotation of broadcasters for the coming season like it did last season. Joe Castiglione returns as the primary play-by-play voice for his 38th season. In addition, Will Fleming, the play-by-play voice of the Pawtucket Red Sox, will call some games again in 2020.
In addition, Sean McDonough will call some games for the 2nd season, while Lou Merloni, co-host of WEEI-FM's afternoon drive talk show, will also be in the booth on occasion. Just to add more to the mix, Jon "Boog" Sciambi and Dave O'Brien will also take the call for what is termed "select" games.
Several major sports radio shows were lost (with at least one brought back as of press time) due to corporate decisions instead of ratings or on-air controversy. The major cutbacks by iHeart Radio will negatively impact a lot for the over the air radio audience, which could prove devastating in the long run. Their stations in many key markets were forced to cut back, hurting their chances to try to regain audiences who have already taken to alternative sources as it is.
Sports fans in Louisville were hit hard with the sudden and immediate cancellation of Paul Rogers from the WHAS 820 morning show. Rogers had been a part of the morning show for most of his 47 years with the station. He does, however, continue as play-by-play voice for the University of Louisville. In fact, Rogers was out of town to call a game when he got the news. Also hard it in Louisville was WKRD 790, which airs the U. of Louisville games along with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Des Moines listeners raised enough of a protest after the announced firing of The Sports Fanatics with Ross Peterson and Chris Williams that the station brought them back within the week. The pair will return on Tuesday (1/21) to KXNO. This was based on what management termed "thousands of listeners expressing their support". In addition, although it is really to cut back programming costs for a sister station, KXNO-AM will now be simulcast on the more powerful 106.3 FM.
With these major cutbacks, much more than sports programming was effected around the country. Thus, even more FM and AM stations continue to provide listeners with even more reasons to listen less and less to conventional radio stations as we knew them.
Meanwhile, the aftermath of the Astros and the sign stealing penalties also took their toll in the media. Few fans knew before this past week that ESPN's Jessica Mendoza also worked for the N.Y. Mets. It became quite obvious when Mendoza appeared on three different ESPN TV and radio shows on the same day to try and defend Carlos Beltran before he and the Mets parted ways.
Mendoza is, understandably, receiving heavy criticism for her stand, leading to speculation that ESPN could or should remove her from her Sunday Night Baseball role. Perhaps ESPN deserves the criticism instead, for having her make the same comments on three different shows. Obviously trying to stir the pot, which may have backfired for all concerned.
Rich Eisen of the NFL Network may be changing affiliation for his separate weekday radio show. This is due to The Audience Network on DirecTV being removed (in favor of a different channel), which would also end the current simulcast on Fox Sports Radio Network. At the same time of this announcement, Eisen claims that he is lining up a different broadcast partner with plans to continue his weekday show.
BOSTON: The Red Sox radio broadcast team on WEEI-FM will continue its rotation of broadcasters for the coming season like it did last season. Joe Castiglione returns as the primary play-by-play voice for his 38th season. In addition, Will Fleming, the play-by-play voice of the Pawtucket Red Sox, will call some games again in 2020.
In addition, Sean McDonough will call some games for the 2nd season, while Lou Merloni, co-host of WEEI-FM's afternoon drive talk show, will also be in the booth on occasion. Just to add more to the mix, Jon "Boog" Sciambi and Dave O'Brien will also take the call for what is termed "select" games.
Monday, January 6, 2020
NFL Playoffs Benefit From Social Media
The amazing NFL Playoff game on Saturday (1/4) between Houston and Buffalo finished with strong ratings as a larger than expected audience watched the exciting conclusion. This telecast proved to be the highest rated Wild Card game ever on ESPN/ABC, and was up 14% over last year when the Texans played Indianapolis, another small market team.
As impressive as this is, the feeling is that these ratings would not have happened if the same game was 20 years ago. This all shows the power of social media. It was the ratings during the late 4th quarter and overtime which were the strongest during the time period. That shows that more fans tuned in for the outcome.
How did they know? Without social media, as well as group texts, many of the fans who tuned in would not have been alerted 20 years ago. Those watching would not have been able to individually call numerous friends and family members to ask them to tune in. Now, with social media posts and group texts, the opportunity is there to instantly increase an audience.
One other interesting find from these ratings. On the individual markets list, the highest market rating for this game for a market without a local NFL team was Norfolk. While we can understand this Virginia market scoring high ratings for the Redskins (and division rival Cowboys) telecasts, two distant AFC teams would not figure to attract major interest.
Afternoon drive competition is heating up the winter for the major east coast market sports stations as we begin the new year.
In Philadelphia, WPEN 97.5 Sports Fanatic's afternoon show, led by Mike Missanelli (along with Tyrone Johnson and Natalie Egenolf) has just taken the lead over WIP-FM's Marks & Reese. The significance is that WIP-FM is ahead of Sports Fanatic during the other times of the day and night. This December ratings boost comes after WIP-FM led in this time slot for the earlier three quarters of 2019.
Both afternoon shows actually increased their overall ratings by at least 20% over 2018. Missanelli and crew have another advantage, since their show is simulcast over NBC Sports Philadelphia. Those viewership ratings do not count toward the Sports Fanatic audience.
Mornings are a different story in Philly. WIP-FM's Angelo Cataldi, Rhea Hughes, and Al Morganti remain solidly ahead of Marc Farzetta and Tra Thomas on WPEN.
The NYC afternoon battle will be more interesting for the first part of 2020. We begin the year with WEPN's Michael Kay Show leading the way in afternoons, while WFAN begins its revised weekday lineup. Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts officially begin this week as the afternoon team (2 to 6 PM), moving from the midday slot.
They replace Mike Francesa, who remains with WFAN only for his new 6:00 to 6:30 PM show. The first quarter of 2020 will be critical to the afternoon drive battle going into baseball season. While WFAN is the flagship for the Yankees games, Michael Kay, as the play-by-play voice for most Yankees telecasts, has significant access to Yankees content for his show as well.
By the way, WFAN has confirmed that John Sterling will return for Yankees radio play-by-play this year at the age of 81. For the 16th season, he will be joined by Suzyn Waldman on the broadcasts.
In Boston, both WBZ-FM Sports Hub and WEEI-FM dropped overall during the final ratings period of 2019, with Sports Hub holding a one-half ratings point overall lead. Both stations showed higher audiences since September, yet both dropped from the previous ratings period.
With the Patriots losing on Saturday (1/4), and opinions across the board on the future of Tom Brady, look for an increase in audience for both stations. It will be interesting to see if the Sports Hub gains more as the flagship station of the Patriots and its expanded coverage.
CHICAGO: Normally being just over six weeks from the start of MLB Spring Training games is not big news, but the new year continues a most curious scenario for Chicago area baseball viewers. The Cubs are scheduled to begin their new RSN, Marquee "sometime" during February. As of press time, only AT&T and its subsidiaries are the only providers to be signed up to air Marquee. Yet, there has been no indication as to cost to viewers, or if this channel will be "forced" to all appropriate subscribers or become an additional fee option.
Comcast is the largest provider serving the Chicago area, and has not signed up to carry this network. NBC Sports Chicago, which aired the majority of Cubs telecasts through last season, and is now planning to air every available White Sox telecast, is owned in part by Comcast, while the White Sox maintain a partial ownership interest.
It is no coincidence that NBC Sports Chicago programming has been flooded with Comcast's "anti-AT&T" commercials over the past few weeks. Across town, the White Sox have made several major personnel moves to improve the team, while the Cubs have done little with their roster in comparison.
One crucial difference from the Dodgers' TV situation in Los Angeles is that AT&T's service does not have geographic restrictions. In L.A., only about 30% of area residents can get Dodgers telecasts on their channel. If things stay as they are in the Chicago area, the majority of residents would be able to switch or add AT&T (or a subsidiary) to be able to watch the Cubs.
Of course, if the White Sox show improvement, and their telecasts are far more easily accessed, NBC Sports Chicago would do well with advertisers and possibly be lax to add Marquee. The battle for subscribers early in the season could go a long way toward determining an outcome of the upstart network.
Finally, we go back to December 29th when Kevin Harlan was calling the conclusion of the Chiefs' win during Week 17 with the #2 seed in the AFC playoff race at stake. With New England losing during their game's final few minutes, fans watching the Chiefs telecast were more interested in the Patriots result than their own (at the time, since the Chiefs were well ahead).
To his credit, Harlan had the Patriots game on his monitor and was literally calling the play-by-play of the "other" game to viewers while the Chiefs game remained on the screen. Some people were critical of Harlan, thinking he should "stick to the game he is there to call". The Broadcast Booth could not disagree more. What Harlan did was nothing short of brilliant broadcasting.
Harlan was, as a play-by-play professional is supposed to do, telling the fans exactly what they wanted to know at the time. Thanks to him, fans were able to stay up to the second on the Patriots game, while being able to see the Chiefs game at the same time. The crew didn't have to wait and do the "Let's go back to New York" bit after the facts.
Handling two games at the same time is a difficult task. Harlan handled it with ease and did the viewers a great service. We need more like him.
As impressive as this is, the feeling is that these ratings would not have happened if the same game was 20 years ago. This all shows the power of social media. It was the ratings during the late 4th quarter and overtime which were the strongest during the time period. That shows that more fans tuned in for the outcome.
How did they know? Without social media, as well as group texts, many of the fans who tuned in would not have been alerted 20 years ago. Those watching would not have been able to individually call numerous friends and family members to ask them to tune in. Now, with social media posts and group texts, the opportunity is there to instantly increase an audience.
One other interesting find from these ratings. On the individual markets list, the highest market rating for this game for a market without a local NFL team was Norfolk. While we can understand this Virginia market scoring high ratings for the Redskins (and division rival Cowboys) telecasts, two distant AFC teams would not figure to attract major interest.
Afternoon drive competition is heating up the winter for the major east coast market sports stations as we begin the new year.
In Philadelphia, WPEN 97.5 Sports Fanatic's afternoon show, led by Mike Missanelli (along with Tyrone Johnson and Natalie Egenolf) has just taken the lead over WIP-FM's Marks & Reese. The significance is that WIP-FM is ahead of Sports Fanatic during the other times of the day and night. This December ratings boost comes after WIP-FM led in this time slot for the earlier three quarters of 2019.
Both afternoon shows actually increased their overall ratings by at least 20% over 2018. Missanelli and crew have another advantage, since their show is simulcast over NBC Sports Philadelphia. Those viewership ratings do not count toward the Sports Fanatic audience.
Mornings are a different story in Philly. WIP-FM's Angelo Cataldi, Rhea Hughes, and Al Morganti remain solidly ahead of Marc Farzetta and Tra Thomas on WPEN.
The NYC afternoon battle will be more interesting for the first part of 2020. We begin the year with WEPN's Michael Kay Show leading the way in afternoons, while WFAN begins its revised weekday lineup. Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts officially begin this week as the afternoon team (2 to 6 PM), moving from the midday slot.
They replace Mike Francesa, who remains with WFAN only for his new 6:00 to 6:30 PM show. The first quarter of 2020 will be critical to the afternoon drive battle going into baseball season. While WFAN is the flagship for the Yankees games, Michael Kay, as the play-by-play voice for most Yankees telecasts, has significant access to Yankees content for his show as well.
By the way, WFAN has confirmed that John Sterling will return for Yankees radio play-by-play this year at the age of 81. For the 16th season, he will be joined by Suzyn Waldman on the broadcasts.
In Boston, both WBZ-FM Sports Hub and WEEI-FM dropped overall during the final ratings period of 2019, with Sports Hub holding a one-half ratings point overall lead. Both stations showed higher audiences since September, yet both dropped from the previous ratings period.
With the Patriots losing on Saturday (1/4), and opinions across the board on the future of Tom Brady, look for an increase in audience for both stations. It will be interesting to see if the Sports Hub gains more as the flagship station of the Patriots and its expanded coverage.
CHICAGO: Normally being just over six weeks from the start of MLB Spring Training games is not big news, but the new year continues a most curious scenario for Chicago area baseball viewers. The Cubs are scheduled to begin their new RSN, Marquee "sometime" during February. As of press time, only AT&T and its subsidiaries are the only providers to be signed up to air Marquee. Yet, there has been no indication as to cost to viewers, or if this channel will be "forced" to all appropriate subscribers or become an additional fee option.
Comcast is the largest provider serving the Chicago area, and has not signed up to carry this network. NBC Sports Chicago, which aired the majority of Cubs telecasts through last season, and is now planning to air every available White Sox telecast, is owned in part by Comcast, while the White Sox maintain a partial ownership interest.
It is no coincidence that NBC Sports Chicago programming has been flooded with Comcast's "anti-AT&T" commercials over the past few weeks. Across town, the White Sox have made several major personnel moves to improve the team, while the Cubs have done little with their roster in comparison.
One crucial difference from the Dodgers' TV situation in Los Angeles is that AT&T's service does not have geographic restrictions. In L.A., only about 30% of area residents can get Dodgers telecasts on their channel. If things stay as they are in the Chicago area, the majority of residents would be able to switch or add AT&T (or a subsidiary) to be able to watch the Cubs.
Of course, if the White Sox show improvement, and their telecasts are far more easily accessed, NBC Sports Chicago would do well with advertisers and possibly be lax to add Marquee. The battle for subscribers early in the season could go a long way toward determining an outcome of the upstart network.
Finally, we go back to December 29th when Kevin Harlan was calling the conclusion of the Chiefs' win during Week 17 with the #2 seed in the AFC playoff race at stake. With New England losing during their game's final few minutes, fans watching the Chiefs telecast were more interested in the Patriots result than their own (at the time, since the Chiefs were well ahead).
To his credit, Harlan had the Patriots game on his monitor and was literally calling the play-by-play of the "other" game to viewers while the Chiefs game remained on the screen. Some people were critical of Harlan, thinking he should "stick to the game he is there to call". The Broadcast Booth could not disagree more. What Harlan did was nothing short of brilliant broadcasting.
Harlan was, as a play-by-play professional is supposed to do, telling the fans exactly what they wanted to know at the time. Thanks to him, fans were able to stay up to the second on the Patriots game, while being able to see the Chiefs game at the same time. The crew didn't have to wait and do the "Let's go back to New York" bit after the facts.
Handling two games at the same time is a difficult task. Harlan handled it with ease and did the viewers a great service. We need more like him.
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