Sports talk radio stations are finally on the rise in some of the larger markets based on the just released January ratings. Some of this, such as New York and Boston, were due to the Giants and Patriots reaching the Super Bowl during the ratings period.
Perhaps the biggest news is that Houston sports stations are trending up again, now registering more than the blip on the radar they have been for the past couple of years. Although KILT has only risen to #19 overall, KBME-AM and KFNC-FM also went up. This is significant for a number of reasons. The total sports audience rise means that one station's rise was not due to another station losing some of its audience, since they each gained.
In addition, this is not exactly a sports bonanza time for Houston's pro teams. The Texans' season ended in early in January even though it included a playoff appearance. The Rockets are not among the NBA's contenders this season, while the Astros' upcoming season does not look promising. This market bears watching over the next few months. Maybe I did write it off too soon.
San Francisco also showed growth, but it remains to be seen how much of that was due to the 49ers playoff run. KNBR went up to #7 overall, while The Game WGMZ-FM also went up, even if only to #26 overall in the market.
Chicago also saw its rival sports stations both on the rise for the January ratings period, with The Score WSCR finishing at #16 overall while WMVP ESPN showed an even larger audience increase despite finishing only 21st overall.
Dallas and Philadelphia, two of the traditionally strong sports radio markets over the years, each showed alarming decreases again, however. In Dallas, the 3 sports stations are now grouped together. KTCK-AM The Ticket is only #22 overall, with KRLD-FM now just .1 behind at #23. KESN-FM ESPN has now lost half of the overall audience it had as recently as the November ratings, and has sunk to #26 overall. Since I was unable to find out for sure prior to press time, I'll only speculate that it is the first time in many ratings periods that Dallas didn't have at least one of its sports stations in the Top 20.
In Philly, WPEN-FM held steady but came in at #18 overall, while the WIP 610 continues its downward spiral, now at a .7 for a #28 market rank. The FM partial simulcast has yet to make a dent either. The argument that the Phillies' broadcasts will be simulcast on WIP-FM may or may not make a difference. What happens in other cities does not always carry over, but Chicago's WBBM Newsradio had actually dropped a full ratings point since November, even with having added a full FM simulcast in the fall.
Los Angeles continues to be a sports talk disaster. KSPN 710 had dropped again and now ranks #28 overall in the market. KLAC has dipped to #34 overall. Combined, these stations don't make the top 20. We shall see whether or not baseball fans discover these stations over the next couple of ratings periods. The Dodgers enter the season with ownership uncertainty while fans have little to no idea about the station now airing their games (in English). The Angels begin their season with Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson being added, and with a lot of promise to contend.
Boston and New York will likely ride the Super Bowl train for at least another ratings book, as baseball season should keep their stations buzzing as well. For the January ratings, WFAN went up to #9 overall while WEPN (even at #23) also went up. In Boston, both The Sports Hub WBZ-FM and WEEI went through the roof, with both stations up and finishing in the top 8 overall.
Meanwhile, back to Houston and the likely disaster of a season ahead for the Astros. One reason to listen to the broadcasts will be because it will be the final season for Milo Hamilton to call the games on radio. That makes it worthwhile right there. Let's hope that Milo is also saluted as he makes his final trips to the road ballparks this season.
We won't know for sure whether or not ESPN removing Ron Jaworski from Monday Night Football was really for the intent of getting him off those telecasts or if it is to reduce to a 2-man booth. My feeling is that it is a combination of both. On the surface, ESPN seems to really want Jaworski since they gave him a 5-year contract and will include him in much more of their NFL related programming.
While I grant you that not everyone likes Jon Gruden, I find it more significant that Monday Night Football will have 2 men in the booth for the first time ever. It's about time. ESPN has been making the gradual transition to turning MNF into a true football telecast instead of the booth circus that ABC used all those years. With NFL telecast ratings on the rise over the past couple of years, ESPN recognizes that fans are tuning in for the games and not to see what the announcers will do next. It is finally play-by-play and real analysis, compared with Frank Gifford's endless conversations about everything but for all those years on ABC, some of which lacked defined roles over who called the plays and who analyzed them. My hope is that this will become a trend.
For all sports, we are becoming saddled with so many analysts in the studio and at the game that there is not enough time for the "good" ones to expand on their thoughts. Getting back to the basics and focusing on the game itself is a great start.
Although it's not polite to highlight an embarassing story, the way the situation was handled by James Bates of CBS Sports Network deserves mention. Bates and Steve Wolf were on camera for the Network doing the opening of the Dayton at Xavier telecast on Saturday (2/18). During the opening, with both announcers seated on the court, the stool that Bates was sitting on broke and collapsed and Bates tumbled to the floor, all live on camera. Bates was shown getting up from the floor while Wolf stood up, but Bates kept talking, kept his cool, and began to joke about the fall. That was extremely professional and he made it seem like fun. If you haven't seen it yet, I'll bet you can still find the video of it.
Do NFL fans truly want to see prospects working out? The NFL Network thinks so. This week (Thursday through Saturday) the Network plans about 50 hours of coverage from the NFL Scouting Combine from Indianapolis. Complete with Rich Eisen anchoring the coverage and primary analysts including Mike Mayock, Michael Irvin, Deion Sanders, and Kurt Warner. This is not for any game action. This for guys working out and demonstrating skills individually for consideration among NFL teams. Unless I missed something, such as Vegas having a line on which guys will work out the best or some sort of rookie projection fantasy league, I'm not sure this "event' warrants such extensive coverage. Granted, there's not much else to talk about for NFL Network until much closer to draft time, and I'm all for live "original" programming, but this seems extreme.
The TV networks covering baseball are putting out their initial telecast schedules for the coming season. While we have already mentioned several of the early season ESPN telecasts, and MLB Network waits until other schedules are finalized before announcing which games they will carry, Fox and TBS have unveiled some or most of their planned telecasts.
Fox Sports is finally back to doing telecasts every Saturday (instead of waiting a couple of weeks into the season), and is expanding to eight Saturday night telecasts for this season. However, there will be a couple of Saturdays when Fox will move ahead of their "traditional" 4 PM ET spot and televise at 1 PM ET instead. This will be when Fox has a NASCAR telecast scheduled for prime time, and to make certain that their baseball telecasts are concluded. While that is admirable, this, combined with the added prime telecasts, means that more than 1/3 of their Saturday telecasts will not be airing at their "traditional" time.
Of course, Fox already has the Yankees and Red Sox scheduled for the maximum of 9 appearances, with the Mets, Braves, and Angels scheduled for 8 times. (The Mets???)
TBS has announced its Sunday afternoon telecast schedule for all of April and May. Guess what. Of their first 8 telecasts, 6 of those include either New York or Boston. However, TBS continues to have varied times for the start of its games, although no west coast or mountain time telecasts are scheduled yet. With varied starting times between 1 and 2 PM ET, at least fans know they can tune in at 2 PM ET and see a game start or in the early innings.
Here are those TV schedules:
FOX Saturday Baseball:
April 7 (3:30 PM ET) Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers, San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals at Anaheim Angels
April 14 (12:30 PM ET) Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals, Anaheim Angels at New York Yankees, Texas Rangers at Minnesota Twins
April 21 (3:30 PM ET) New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox at Seattle Mariners
April 28 (12:30 PM ET) Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals, Anaheim Angels at Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals at Minnesota Twins
May 5 (3:30 PM ET) Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers Arizona Diamondbacks at New York Mets Milwaukee Brewers at San Francisco Giants
May 12 (12:30 PM ET) Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers Anaheim Angels at Texas Rangers New York Mets at Miami Marlins
May 19 (7:00 PM ET) Boston Red Sox at Philadelphia Phillies Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs Texas Rangers at Houston Astros Baltimore Orioles at Washington Nationals Arizona Diamondbacks at Kansas City Royals
May 26 (7:00 PM ET) Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals Tampa Bay Rays at Boston Red Sox Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh Pirates Colorado Rockies at Cincinnati Reds Anaheim Angels at Seattle Mariners
June 2 (7:00 PM ET) New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers Chicago Cubs at San Francisco Giants Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians Arizona Diamondbacks at San Diego Padres Cincinnati Reds at Houston Astros
June 9 (7:00 PM ET) New York Mets at New York Yankees Cleveland Indians at St. Louis Cardinals Los Angeles Dodgers at Seattle Mariners Tampa Bay Rays at Miami Marlins Kansas City Royals at Pittsburgh Pirates
June 16 (7:00 PM ET) Boston Red Sox at Chicago Cubs Cincinnati Reds at New York Mets Miami Marlins at Tampa Bay Rays Baltimore Orioles at Atlanta Braves Houston Astros at Texas Rangers
June 23 (7:00 PM ET) New York Yankees at New York Mets Atlanta Braves at Boston Red Sox Washington Nationals at Baltimore Orioles Los Angeles Dodgers at Anaheim Angels San Francisco Giants at Oakland Athletics Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago White Sox
June 30 (7:00 PM ET) New York Mets at Los Angeles Dodgers Arizona Diamondbacks at Milwaukee Brewers Detroit Tigers at Tampa Bay Rays Oakland Athletics at Texas Rangers San Diego Padres at Colorado Rockies Kansas City Royals at Minnesota Twins
July 7 (7:00 PM ET) New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox Atlanta Braves at Philadelphia Phillies Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers
July 14 (3:30 PM ET) New York Mets at Atlanta Braves Arizona Diamondbacks at Chicago Cubs Philadelphia Phillies at Colorado Rockies
July 21 (3:30 PM ET) San Francisco Giants at Philadelphia Phillies Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals Texas Rangers at Anaheim Angels
July 28 (3:30 PM ET) Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves
August 18 (3:30 PM ET) Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees San Francisco Giants at San Diego Padres
August 25 (3:30 PM ET) St. Louis Cardinals at Cincinnati Reds Atlanta Braves at San Francisco Giants Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers
September 1 (3:30 PM ET) Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves San Francisco Giants at Chicago Cubs Anaheim Angels at Seattle Mariners
September 8 (3:30 PM ET) Atlanta Braves at New York Mets Los Angeles Dodgers at San Francisco Giants Kansas City Royals at Chicago White Sox
September 15 (3:30 PM ET) Tampa Bay Rays at New York Yankees Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians Colorado Rockies at San Diego Padres
September 22 + Sept. 29 - To be determined
SUNDAY TBS SCHEDULE
April 8 1:30 p.m. New York Yankees at Tampa Bay
April 15 1:30 p.m. Tampa Bay Rays at Boston
April 22 1 p.m. Texas Rangers at Detroit
April 29 1 p.m. Detroit Tigers at New York Yankees
May 6- 2 p.m. New York Yankees at Kansas City
May 13 2 p.m. Atlanta Braves at St. Louis
May 20 1:30 p.m. Boston Red Sox at Philadelphia
May 27 1:30 p.m. Tampa Bay Rays at Boston
Showing posts with label houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label houston. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
NBC Sports Takes Off In New Year
Even though all of the NFL playoff games this coming weekend count the same, I'm expecting higher ratings for the Sunday telecasts than for the Saturday games, and it is not a reflection on the networks handling the coverage.
The Sunday (1/8) matchups are bigger draws. The N.Y. Giants host Atlanta in the early game on Fox (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman) which will draw from the New York markets, while the CBS (Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) game with Pittsburgh at Denver will run into prime time in the east and feature Tim Tebow in post-season action. That should translate to big numbers, whether or not it means a "miracle" finish from Tebow.
On Saturday, NBC-TV handles both games, with the earlier matchup of Cincinnati at Houston. The network has Tom Hammond and Mike Mayock, its Notre Dame football announcing team, handling the call. Although Mayock does a solid job as an analyst, this is a post-season game and should mean NBC stepping up their presentation to have a more "hands on" NFL presence in the booth. It's the same issue I have with ESPN using Doris Burke as analyst on NBA telecasts. While Mayock and Burke are each deserving of high profile roles, it's not as if there isn't anyone else available. We as fans get studio pre-game and half-time shows with seemingly hundreds of former players and coaches practically in a battle for air time to give their insight.
For an NFL post-season game, NBC should have, say, Tony Dungy in the booth, or maybe bring in a current NFL coach whose team did not make the post-season but faced one or both of these teams into the booth. There will be some fans viewing this game who have seen much more of the Texans or Bengals than Mayock did. The prime-time telecast (8 PM ET) of the Detroit at New Orleans rematch (these 2 teams met on Sunday Night Football just a few weeks back) will feature the main team of Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth.
On the following Saturday, Jan. 14, Fox will have the afternoon NFC game from San Francisco with Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston, with CBS following with a prime time telecast from New England with Nantz and Simms. Sunday the 15th has CBS with the early game from Baltimore called by Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf and Fox with the late afternoon game from Green Bay with Buck and Aikman.
NBC comes off major ratings from its regular season finally on Sunday Jan. 1 with record ratings from its Cowboys-Giants telecast, with finished as the highest rated prime time NFL telecast since 1998.
The new year 2012 was barely a few hours in progress when we were saddened another loss from the sports media. We learned of the passing of Jim Huber of Turner Sports for the past 27 years. Huber was a sports anchor on Atlanta TV and seemingly lucked into a role on CNN to save them moving costs to increase their sports team. Huber handled weekend and fill-in work when CNN aired "Sports Tonight" with the likes of the late Nick Charles, Fred Hickman, Vince Cellini, Hannah Storm, and others. He also was able to do what he did best, which was sports feature reporting.
With the former Versus Network into its first week as NBC Sports Network, the network has begun regular national coverage of NCAA hockey. Its first telecast was last Saturday (12/31) when the network has NHL analyst Ed Olczyk work the Boston U. vs. Notre Dame match along with Steve Schlanger. Most of the remaining telecasts will be on Friday nights when there is not an NHL game scheduled and will include the "final four" of the Hockey East tournament. Note the irony that NBC Sports brought in an NHL analyst for its debut telecast of a college game, but is using a college football analyst for a post-season NFL game on NBC.
As ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio begin to become more competitive, each network is making adjustments in their weeknight sports talk lineups. ESPN Radio starts the Hill & Schlereth Show in the 7 to 10 PM ET time slot next week, starting on Tuesday Jan. 10th due to football on Monday. Mike Hill, known from SportsCenter is teamed with former NFL standout Mark Schlereth. This is likely a temporary assignment for Schlereth until just after the Super Bowl. Fox Sports Radio has named Rob Tepper as regular host on their 10 PM to 1 AM ET "Fox Sports Tonight" along with co-host baseball analyst Rob Dibble. Tepper, a former morning show on a music station in Seattle, has been guest-hosting with Dibble in recent weeks. In addition, Fox Sports plans to use Chicago based host Mike North for fill-in work during the week, in addition to North's Sunday night show.
On the TV side, Fox Sports Southwest and FS Oklahoma regional sports networks are reported in the final stages (at press time) of a deal to carry University of Oklahoma sports, including at least one live football and several basketball games not picked up by ESPN, Fox (national), or other regional or national networks. Ironically, these games could also be shown on cable systems in and around Austin TX, home of the University of Texas, while some of the same cable systems in north Texas may not be carrying the U. of Texas sports network. Oops.
HOUSTON: Rome has burned out. After more than 13 years, KILT 610 has dropped Jim Rome's radio show, but it is to add more local sports talk programming. Mike Miltser and Brad Davies will host "Mad Radio" from 10 AM to 2 PM, in between Marc Vandermeer and John Lopez' morning show and leading into Rich Lord and Josh Innes who will air from 2 until 6 PM. The first three to six months of this year figure to be critical for Houston's sports stations. The success of the Texans this season has brought sports radio a little bit of hope over the past couple of months' ratings. However, with the Rockets not expected to be serious contenders and the Astros fading into oblivion with a "lame duck National League" season coming up, it will be interesting to see if the Houston sports stations actually can make a dent in the overall audience ratings. KILT has shown an increase, no doubt helped by it being the Texans flagship station.
PHILADELPHIA: Sports fans who pay attention to the digital TV channels from the local stations will notice some ACC basketball games starting this Saturday (1/7). Philadelphia Nonstop Channel 10.2, a digital channel operated by the local NBC Channel 10, will air Wake Forest at VA Tech and show a couple of conference games each week. The channel also aired some ACC football games in the fall. The city's two largest cable systems do carry this channel.
BUFFALO: Bills radio broadcasts were "shuffled off" WGRF or WEDG this week. Starting next season, the Bills will air on WROC Sports 950, which will also air a coaches show and separate (Bills) General Manager show as well as scheduled on-air player appearances. Sister station WCMF 96.5 will also air the game broadcasts, which will continue to feature John Murphy and Mark Kelso.
BIRMINGHAM: WJOX 690 is now known as "The Fan" although it will continue to carry ESPN Radio and other syndicated programming. However, WJOX-FM 94.5 continues as local sports talk, providing listeners with a nice balance of local and national coverage.
PAWTUCKET: The Pawtucket Red Sox have named Aaron Goldsmith as their new play-by-play voice on WHJJ 920 to work with Steve Hyder. Goldsmith replaces Dan Hoard, who is now in Cincinnati as the voice of the Bengals.
The Sunday (1/8) matchups are bigger draws. The N.Y. Giants host Atlanta in the early game on Fox (with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman) which will draw from the New York markets, while the CBS (Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) game with Pittsburgh at Denver will run into prime time in the east and feature Tim Tebow in post-season action. That should translate to big numbers, whether or not it means a "miracle" finish from Tebow.
On Saturday, NBC-TV handles both games, with the earlier matchup of Cincinnati at Houston. The network has Tom Hammond and Mike Mayock, its Notre Dame football announcing team, handling the call. Although Mayock does a solid job as an analyst, this is a post-season game and should mean NBC stepping up their presentation to have a more "hands on" NFL presence in the booth. It's the same issue I have with ESPN using Doris Burke as analyst on NBA telecasts. While Mayock and Burke are each deserving of high profile roles, it's not as if there isn't anyone else available. We as fans get studio pre-game and half-time shows with seemingly hundreds of former players and coaches practically in a battle for air time to give their insight.
For an NFL post-season game, NBC should have, say, Tony Dungy in the booth, or maybe bring in a current NFL coach whose team did not make the post-season but faced one or both of these teams into the booth. There will be some fans viewing this game who have seen much more of the Texans or Bengals than Mayock did. The prime-time telecast (8 PM ET) of the Detroit at New Orleans rematch (these 2 teams met on Sunday Night Football just a few weeks back) will feature the main team of Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth.
On the following Saturday, Jan. 14, Fox will have the afternoon NFC game from San Francisco with Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston, with CBS following with a prime time telecast from New England with Nantz and Simms. Sunday the 15th has CBS with the early game from Baltimore called by Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf and Fox with the late afternoon game from Green Bay with Buck and Aikman.
NBC comes off major ratings from its regular season finally on Sunday Jan. 1 with record ratings from its Cowboys-Giants telecast, with finished as the highest rated prime time NFL telecast since 1998.
The new year 2012 was barely a few hours in progress when we were saddened another loss from the sports media. We learned of the passing of Jim Huber of Turner Sports for the past 27 years. Huber was a sports anchor on Atlanta TV and seemingly lucked into a role on CNN to save them moving costs to increase their sports team. Huber handled weekend and fill-in work when CNN aired "Sports Tonight" with the likes of the late Nick Charles, Fred Hickman, Vince Cellini, Hannah Storm, and others. He also was able to do what he did best, which was sports feature reporting.
With the former Versus Network into its first week as NBC Sports Network, the network has begun regular national coverage of NCAA hockey. Its first telecast was last Saturday (12/31) when the network has NHL analyst Ed Olczyk work the Boston U. vs. Notre Dame match along with Steve Schlanger. Most of the remaining telecasts will be on Friday nights when there is not an NHL game scheduled and will include the "final four" of the Hockey East tournament. Note the irony that NBC Sports brought in an NHL analyst for its debut telecast of a college game, but is using a college football analyst for a post-season NFL game on NBC.
As ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio begin to become more competitive, each network is making adjustments in their weeknight sports talk lineups. ESPN Radio starts the Hill & Schlereth Show in the 7 to 10 PM ET time slot next week, starting on Tuesday Jan. 10th due to football on Monday. Mike Hill, known from SportsCenter is teamed with former NFL standout Mark Schlereth. This is likely a temporary assignment for Schlereth until just after the Super Bowl. Fox Sports Radio has named Rob Tepper as regular host on their 10 PM to 1 AM ET "Fox Sports Tonight" along with co-host baseball analyst Rob Dibble. Tepper, a former morning show on a music station in Seattle, has been guest-hosting with Dibble in recent weeks. In addition, Fox Sports plans to use Chicago based host Mike North for fill-in work during the week, in addition to North's Sunday night show.
On the TV side, Fox Sports Southwest and FS Oklahoma regional sports networks are reported in the final stages (at press time) of a deal to carry University of Oklahoma sports, including at least one live football and several basketball games not picked up by ESPN, Fox (national), or other regional or national networks. Ironically, these games could also be shown on cable systems in and around Austin TX, home of the University of Texas, while some of the same cable systems in north Texas may not be carrying the U. of Texas sports network. Oops.
HOUSTON: Rome has burned out. After more than 13 years, KILT 610 has dropped Jim Rome's radio show, but it is to add more local sports talk programming. Mike Miltser and Brad Davies will host "Mad Radio" from 10 AM to 2 PM, in between Marc Vandermeer and John Lopez' morning show and leading into Rich Lord and Josh Innes who will air from 2 until 6 PM. The first three to six months of this year figure to be critical for Houston's sports stations. The success of the Texans this season has brought sports radio a little bit of hope over the past couple of months' ratings. However, with the Rockets not expected to be serious contenders and the Astros fading into oblivion with a "lame duck National League" season coming up, it will be interesting to see if the Houston sports stations actually can make a dent in the overall audience ratings. KILT has shown an increase, no doubt helped by it being the Texans flagship station.
PHILADELPHIA: Sports fans who pay attention to the digital TV channels from the local stations will notice some ACC basketball games starting this Saturday (1/7). Philadelphia Nonstop Channel 10.2, a digital channel operated by the local NBC Channel 10, will air Wake Forest at VA Tech and show a couple of conference games each week. The channel also aired some ACC football games in the fall. The city's two largest cable systems do carry this channel.
BUFFALO: Bills radio broadcasts were "shuffled off" WGRF or WEDG this week. Starting next season, the Bills will air on WROC Sports 950, which will also air a coaches show and separate (Bills) General Manager show as well as scheduled on-air player appearances. Sister station WCMF 96.5 will also air the game broadcasts, which will continue to feature John Murphy and Mark Kelso.
BIRMINGHAM: WJOX 690 is now known as "The Fan" although it will continue to carry ESPN Radio and other syndicated programming. However, WJOX-FM 94.5 continues as local sports talk, providing listeners with a nice balance of local and national coverage.
PAWTUCKET: The Pawtucket Red Sox have named Aaron Goldsmith as their new play-by-play voice on WHJJ 920 to work with Steve Hyder. Goldsmith replaces Dan Hoard, who is now in Cincinnati as the voice of the Bengals.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
The Broadcast Booth - June 8th Update.....
Washington D.C.'s ESPN 980 has begun a 24-hour delay for show podcasts, rather than stream them live. From a radio standpoint, I personally think this is a positive move. I love the internet as much as anyone, especially as a sports fan, but in general radio stations have not handled this technology as well as they could. It's good to see this station acknowledge that the over-the-air station is the priority and that other forms of media should spin off from there.
Thus, if you want to hear what the station is doing, you need your radio. That's the way it was originally designed. I do understand that the station is streamed live over cell phones, which can be measured in terms of the audience ratings.
By doing this, the online site becomes a supplement to the station itself. Now, only if you miss a particular show or segment you wanted to hear, you can go back to it the next day or for a few days after for only those parts you missed. Until now, when "listeners" would instantly download the podcast of a just completed show, it took away from actually listening to the station and therefore being "measured" as part of the audience. In addition, same day listeners would then get scores and comments which were hours old and might have already been outdated, which could somewhat impact the credibility of the station in the listener's mind.
Whereas, going back a day or two later, you are going for something specific and understand the other information is outdated. This also frees you up to listen to what is live and current. It's the same thing as the amazingly large number of music stations which sell downloads of the songs they play. Once listeners download the songs they really like and can carry them around, they no longer need to listen to that station.
They are and plan to be a live radio station, and the priority should be placed on giving listeners as many reasons as possible to tune in and listen live.
KSL Radio Salt Lake City has unveiled a creative innovation, albeit geared slightly more toward current and potential advertisers than listeners. The station has taken to the web and its partnership with BYU to air its football and basketball games to boast about its listening audience. A new web page details the specifics about the popularity of its BYU broadcasts compared with University of Utah games on another station.
This story comes after the ESPN 980 story for a reason. These are both examples of radio stations using the internet to boost listening to the station instead of taking away from it. Looking at the KSL information leaves one with a more powerful impression of KSL and its BYU broadcasts for the future.
That link is: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=498&sid=15841829
Meanwhile, NFL fans could have a choice among father and son play-by-play voices next season (whenver that may be). Marv Albert has indeed joined the CBS-TV roster of NFL play-by-play voices, likely handling early Sunday games. He will have the same duties as son Kenny Albert, who calls regional NFL games for Fox TV. Depending on which games go to which markets, there figures to be Sunday afternoons when viewers will choose between Alberts in the same markets. Marv will continue his NBA duties with TNT next season. However, he will no longer call the New Jersey Nets games locally for YES. Ironically, when the Nets move to their new NYC arena next year, we can say that Albert won't be calling the games "from down..........town".
Of course, Marv is no stranger to calling NFL games, having done AFC telecasts for NBC-TV for 19 years and several seasons calling Monday Night Football on Westwood One Radio.
Speaking of NBA on TNT play-by-play voices who also call NFL games, Verne Lundquist has also picked up another assignment. Verne will handle up to three exhibition games for Denver Broncos TV in August, if there is a pre-season. Lundquist will call some football for certain, as he will be calling SEC Football telecasts starting in September.
Sporting News Radio is closer to changing its weekday afternoon offering. It appears that the network has decided to drop Two Live Stews (brothers Ryan & Doug Stewart) at the end of this month of June. The show continues as usual in Atlanta on WQXI, presumably with an even more local Atlanta focus, which is a positive for the WQXI listeners. No replacement show has been announced by SNR, with speculation leaning toward them picking up the KGOW Houston afternoon show, since the network is now based from Houston.
ESPN/ABC are thinking more and more about beefing up college football programming for lack of NFL games in September. Whether appearing on ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2 (which may vary due to individual market location), the network has added more regional non-conference games for the first three weeks of the season:
Saturday, Sept 3 (noon): Akron at Ohio State
(3:30 p.m.): Western Michigan at Michigan
Saturday, Sept. 10 (noon): Florida Atlantic at Michigan State
(noon): Oregon State at Wisconsin
(3:30 p.m.): Alabama at Penn State
Saturday, Sept. 17 (noon): Pittsburgh at Iowa
(3:30 p.m.) Washington at Nebraska
This announcement 'just happens' to go through three weeks and be made when the NFL exhibition games are now being threatened by the current (at press time) NFL lockout.
HOUSTON: KILT 610 will carry the Rockets broadcasts with Craig Ackerman for a 10th consecutive season, with Joel Blank continuing as studio host for the 2011-12 season.
PHOENIX: Bruce Jacobs has returned to sports talk. After nearly seven years as a conservative talk show host (on KFYI), Jacobs has joined KDUS 1060 The Fan as of this week (6/6), replacing Kevin McCabe. He was popular as an afternoon sports talk host on XTRA 910 for several years prior. Mike Muraco and Dan Manucci continue with "Calling All Sports" from 3 to 6 PM on KDUS.
SEATTLE: Sister stations KTTH-AM and KIRO ESPN 710 have teamed up for a new three-year deal in support of Washington State University Cougars football and basketball. KTTH-AM will air play-by-play of both sports, while KIRO will feature regular segments with the coaches and related game information.
ANCHORAGE: KUDO 1080 has returned to the airwaves, and it is now Sports 1080 The Ticket. The signal had literally been off the air from December until this week (6/6). They will air Anchorage Bucs baseball, and are expected to carry college football and Dallas Cowboys football if and when there is a NFL season. At this point, the majority of the programming will be from Fox Sports Radio.
MUNCIE IN: Still another sports station got fed up with the demands of ESPN Radio at contract time, and WXFN 1340 dropped ESPN in favor of Fox Sports. With practically zero warning, listeners on Monday (6/6) heard Fox's Zakk & Jack Show instead of Mike & Mike. I'm told the change came literally at 12:01 AM.
WXFN will continue to carry Ball State football and basketball, as well as (non-conflicting) Pacers basketball and Cincinnati Reds baseball broadcasts.
SPRINGFIELD IL: The Central IL market lost a pioneer on Sunday (6/5) with the passing of 84 year-old Coley Cowan. After a stint in Huntington WV in the 50's calling Marshall University football, Cowan was hired in Springfield in 1960, eventually shifting to sports including play-by-play. Fans also know Cowan from his fill-in roles as P.A. announcer at U. of Illinois, Bradley, Illinois State, and Southern Illinois basketball games over the years. He also called minor league baseball when the Springfield Redbirds were a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate.
Thus, if you want to hear what the station is doing, you need your radio. That's the way it was originally designed. I do understand that the station is streamed live over cell phones, which can be measured in terms of the audience ratings.
By doing this, the online site becomes a supplement to the station itself. Now, only if you miss a particular show or segment you wanted to hear, you can go back to it the next day or for a few days after for only those parts you missed. Until now, when "listeners" would instantly download the podcast of a just completed show, it took away from actually listening to the station and therefore being "measured" as part of the audience. In addition, same day listeners would then get scores and comments which were hours old and might have already been outdated, which could somewhat impact the credibility of the station in the listener's mind.
Whereas, going back a day or two later, you are going for something specific and understand the other information is outdated. This also frees you up to listen to what is live and current. It's the same thing as the amazingly large number of music stations which sell downloads of the songs they play. Once listeners download the songs they really like and can carry them around, they no longer need to listen to that station.
They are and plan to be a live radio station, and the priority should be placed on giving listeners as many reasons as possible to tune in and listen live.
KSL Radio Salt Lake City has unveiled a creative innovation, albeit geared slightly more toward current and potential advertisers than listeners. The station has taken to the web and its partnership with BYU to air its football and basketball games to boast about its listening audience. A new web page details the specifics about the popularity of its BYU broadcasts compared with University of Utah games on another station.
This story comes after the ESPN 980 story for a reason. These are both examples of radio stations using the internet to boost listening to the station instead of taking away from it. Looking at the KSL information leaves one with a more powerful impression of KSL and its BYU broadcasts for the future.
That link is: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=498&sid=15841829
Meanwhile, NFL fans could have a choice among father and son play-by-play voices next season (whenver that may be). Marv Albert has indeed joined the CBS-TV roster of NFL play-by-play voices, likely handling early Sunday games. He will have the same duties as son Kenny Albert, who calls regional NFL games for Fox TV. Depending on which games go to which markets, there figures to be Sunday afternoons when viewers will choose between Alberts in the same markets. Marv will continue his NBA duties with TNT next season. However, he will no longer call the New Jersey Nets games locally for YES. Ironically, when the Nets move to their new NYC arena next year, we can say that Albert won't be calling the games "from down..........town".
Of course, Marv is no stranger to calling NFL games, having done AFC telecasts for NBC-TV for 19 years and several seasons calling Monday Night Football on Westwood One Radio.
Speaking of NBA on TNT play-by-play voices who also call NFL games, Verne Lundquist has also picked up another assignment. Verne will handle up to three exhibition games for Denver Broncos TV in August, if there is a pre-season. Lundquist will call some football for certain, as he will be calling SEC Football telecasts starting in September.
Sporting News Radio is closer to changing its weekday afternoon offering. It appears that the network has decided to drop Two Live Stews (brothers Ryan & Doug Stewart) at the end of this month of June. The show continues as usual in Atlanta on WQXI, presumably with an even more local Atlanta focus, which is a positive for the WQXI listeners. No replacement show has been announced by SNR, with speculation leaning toward them picking up the KGOW Houston afternoon show, since the network is now based from Houston.
ESPN/ABC are thinking more and more about beefing up college football programming for lack of NFL games in September. Whether appearing on ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2 (which may vary due to individual market location), the network has added more regional non-conference games for the first three weeks of the season:
Saturday, Sept 3 (noon): Akron at Ohio State
(3:30 p.m.): Western Michigan at Michigan
Saturday, Sept. 10 (noon): Florida Atlantic at Michigan State
(noon): Oregon State at Wisconsin
(3:30 p.m.): Alabama at Penn State
Saturday, Sept. 17 (noon): Pittsburgh at Iowa
(3:30 p.m.) Washington at Nebraska
This announcement 'just happens' to go through three weeks and be made when the NFL exhibition games are now being threatened by the current (at press time) NFL lockout.
HOUSTON: KILT 610 will carry the Rockets broadcasts with Craig Ackerman for a 10th consecutive season, with Joel Blank continuing as studio host for the 2011-12 season.
PHOENIX: Bruce Jacobs has returned to sports talk. After nearly seven years as a conservative talk show host (on KFYI), Jacobs has joined KDUS 1060 The Fan as of this week (6/6), replacing Kevin McCabe. He was popular as an afternoon sports talk host on XTRA 910 for several years prior. Mike Muraco and Dan Manucci continue with "Calling All Sports" from 3 to 6 PM on KDUS.
SEATTLE: Sister stations KTTH-AM and KIRO ESPN 710 have teamed up for a new three-year deal in support of Washington State University Cougars football and basketball. KTTH-AM will air play-by-play of both sports, while KIRO will feature regular segments with the coaches and related game information.
ANCHORAGE: KUDO 1080 has returned to the airwaves, and it is now Sports 1080 The Ticket. The signal had literally been off the air from December until this week (6/6). They will air Anchorage Bucs baseball, and are expected to carry college football and Dallas Cowboys football if and when there is a NFL season. At this point, the majority of the programming will be from Fox Sports Radio.
MUNCIE IN: Still another sports station got fed up with the demands of ESPN Radio at contract time, and WXFN 1340 dropped ESPN in favor of Fox Sports. With practically zero warning, listeners on Monday (6/6) heard Fox's Zakk & Jack Show instead of Mike & Mike. I'm told the change came literally at 12:01 AM.
WXFN will continue to carry Ball State football and basketball, as well as (non-conflicting) Pacers basketball and Cincinnati Reds baseball broadcasts.
SPRINGFIELD IL: The Central IL market lost a pioneer on Sunday (6/5) with the passing of 84 year-old Coley Cowan. After a stint in Huntington WV in the 50's calling Marshall University football, Cowan was hired in Springfield in 1960, eventually shifting to sports including play-by-play. Fans also know Cowan from his fill-in roles as P.A. announcer at U. of Illinois, Bradley, Illinois State, and Southern Illinois basketball games over the years. He also called minor league baseball when the Springfield Redbirds were a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Broadcast Booth - May 26th update
ESPN had a situation just made for the fine print department, if there was such a thing. This past Saturday (May 22) night, ESPN was showing a NCAA softball tournament game as scheduled. However, the game between Auburn and Georgia Tech was running into ESPN's pre-game show for the Boston vs. Orlando NBA Playoff Game.
My feeling is that an NBA Playoff Game is an obvious priority over NCAA Softball, given that ESPN shows a lot of NCAA events primarily for the purpose of maintaining their football and basketball relationships.
Yet, I'll admit I have mixed feelings about the way ESPN handled this instance. At about 7:59 PM ET, there was only one out go to in the game for Georgia Tech to win it. At the same time, the game telecast was cutting in to the NBA pre-game show's time. Softball play-by-play announcer Beth Mowins suddenly sent it back to the studio, even with one more out needed to finish the game. Somehow, the studio hosts stayed on until about 8:02, mentioning that indeed GA Tech had won the game.
That is the part which makes no sense, and that is cause for concern. The game site announcer sent the telecast back to the studio, so this obviously was not a technical mishap. It remained a NCAA Softball telecast, rather than going directly to the NBA pre-game show.
My concern is the need to clarify whether or not ESPN is truly a sports "news" organization or primarily a contractor for programming. Even though I could understand leaving a NCAA event for a more important telecast, I still realize the Network had the responsibility to televise the entire live event. The one more out needed in the softball game was not guaranteed to happen within two minutes. It's not like football, basketball, or hockey where you know the clock will expire if there is no chance of overtime. Thus, an arrangement should have been in place to move any remaining part of the live softball telecast to ESPN Classic or ESPN News for those viewers. Or, at the very least, ESPN should have stuck with the softball game to capture the final out.
That I didn't care about the softball game is not important to this thought. After all, when a MLB telecast runs into SportsCenter time, ESPN constantly flashes across the bottom that "Sportscenter is next" (or words to that effect) as if the world would come to an end if they don't tell you that and they are sincerely sorry that the baseball game is taking away their precious time.
Why did it happen this way? I'm guessing it has to do with contracts, and not the viewers. My hunch is that ESPN chose not to show any other live sports event as of the top of the hour, which was NBA time. Showing the studio hosts fit that category, so they were able to report the final score and not let any softball game fans out to dry about the game's outcome.
However, ESPN is aware that Comcast now owns a chunk of NBC-TV, and might become a player for the next NBA television negotiations. They want to do good by the NBA, and saw the situation on Saturday in that light.
Again, on one hand, I understand their position from a viewership point of view. But as a sports fan, I find it frustrating that they would cut away from any live game just prior to conclusion in that manner.
Speaking of odd situations for networks, there was the battle for ice position (also on Saturday) between NBC and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Co.) - instead of between the Flyers and Canadiens.
It seems that Quebec's RDS (sports network) allowed NBC to take over its spot between the benches for its Game 4 telecast as a result of a private deal made between the two entities. However, the NHL's television contracts only allow for priorities to be established in each NHL arena for networks televising the various games.
For Saturday, RDS originally had priority (the position between the team benches), with CBC 2nd and NBC 3rd. CBC stepped in and objected to the "deal" to help NBC, causing NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to have to rule on which network would have the coveted spot. Bettman upheld the original decision, and RDS kept its originally scheduled priority.
Thus, Glenn Healy of CBC went on camera from the zamboni entrance, while NBC's Pierre McGuire had to cross the ice during breaks to conduct his in-game interviews. This happened after CBC objected to Bettman allowing NBC to move the game to the afternoon for NBC, taking away ratings points and revenue from CBC which would have benefitted far more with a night game.
And to think, there was only the one playoff game in both the NBA and NHL on Saturday.......
The "big-timing" of high school sports, as I call it, continues to grow slowly but surely. ESPN has announced it will televise "several" high school football games during the final weekend in August. Local coverage of high school games is one thing, but taking more and more of them regional and national is another. Friends may no longer think I'm joking when I speculate that "pretty soon kids will start going from 7th grade right into high school, foregoing the 8th grade to play football/basketball".
NEW YORK: In the NYC area, it is not only sports on TV seeing a ratings surge of late. Radio listeners got caught up in the start of the baseball season just the same. The latest ratings show that WCBS 880 moved up to 4th place overall from March to April, coinciding with the start of the Yankees regular season broadcasts. Listeners also stayed around for the news, as WINS 1010 dropped out of its perennial position in the top 10.
It wasn't just the Yankees making a NYC ratings dent. WFAN showed an overall audience increase of nearly 50% from March to April, also finishing first in 25-54 males during the first month of the Mets regular season. The Fan now averages about four times the audience share of WEPN 1050.
On the TV side, MSG Network will be producing new versions of some of their feature and interview shows for this summer, along with adding some classic Knicks games, including the 1970 Willis Reed championship run. In addition, MSG will break away from sports content with some Friday night concert videos in the works.
INDIANAPOLIS: John JMV Michael is back for "The Ride" on The Fan WFNI 1070. His new show, called "The Ride" airs from 3 to 7 PM, and now competes against Mark Patrick's show on rival WNDE 1260. Michael worked with Patrick on WNDE prior to Patrick going to XM's MLB Channel in 2005, and in 2008 and some of 2009 Michael had a bigger audience than The Fan's "Kravitz and Eddie Show".
Kravitz, a local columnist, had left the show in March, while Eddie White remains with The Fan but now in a part-time capacity. The ratings for the first quarter of 2010 show The Fan with roughly a 40% larger audience than WNDE.
HOUSTON: Having 4 sports radio stations is tough enough, especially with the Astros off to a lackluster start, while the Rockets and Texans hang in with slow off seasons. Without much doing locally, the latest ratings show that ESPN's Mike & Mike on KFNC 97.5 now leads the other 3 sports stations in audience share during morning drive. (It should be noted that KILT leads mornings in weekly cume.) KFNC also leads middays, while KILT leads KMBE during afternoons.
On the TV side, Sports Business Journal reports that Comcast is looking to launch a local or regional network in partnership with the Astros and Rockets which could begin for the 2012-13 NBA season and the 2013 baseball season. The teams could opt out of their current deal with Fox Sports Houston.
This seems a realistic possibility, given Comcast's success at doing this in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to date. In NYC, the Mets reportedly own an 80% interest in SNY, while in Chicago the Blackhawks, Bulls, White Sox, and Cubs share a 70% interest.
One difference is that losing the Rockets and Astros might not spell the end for Fox Sports Houston, even though it did for the former Fox Sports Chicago. FS Houston's strong lineup of Big 12 Conference football and basketball, along with established high school coverage (far more significant in Texas than Chicago, New York, and other large cities) could keep demand high enough to stay around.
BOSTON: Another former Red Sox player joins the NESN broadcast crew, as Kevin Millar will be a studio analyst for some of the upcoming games this season. Millar will start this Thursday (May 27) on the pre-game show leading into the Red Sox vs. Royals telecast.
SAN DIEGO: Even though the Padres are off to a suprisingly good start and are getting decent TV ratings this season, the city of "sports transplants" are not always focused on the local team. Thus far, at least 2 of the NBA Conference Semi-finals national telecasts have generated higher ratings (for TNT and ABC/ESPN) than local Padres telecasts during roughly the same time periods. Considering that the Padres TV ratings increased by around 30% during May from what they were in April, you can interpret this in a number of different ways.
My take is that the local Padres fans are coming back to follow their team, but the large number of sports "transplants" in the San Diego market are following the national NBA playoff telecasts in big numbers, like much of the country is.
SHREVEPORT: Local radio continues without any sports talk in afternoon drive, but John James Marshall will bring sports talk to his "Unscripted" show to air on KSHV-TV starting July 26th at 9:00 PM. The show is expected to be a TV version of his years of hosting local radio sports talk.
SCHEDULES:
Wishing everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend, and MLB Network adds to our baseball enjoyment:
MLB Network telecasts:
Thursday, May 27
2:00: L.A. Dodgers at Chicago Cubs
7:00: Philadelphia at N.Y. Mets
Friday, May 28
2:00: St. Louis at Chicago Cubs
Saturday, May 29
8:00: L.A. Dodgers at Colorado
Monday, May 31
4:00: Colorado at San Francisco
9:00: Arizona at L.A. Dodgers
My feeling is that an NBA Playoff Game is an obvious priority over NCAA Softball, given that ESPN shows a lot of NCAA events primarily for the purpose of maintaining their football and basketball relationships.
Yet, I'll admit I have mixed feelings about the way ESPN handled this instance. At about 7:59 PM ET, there was only one out go to in the game for Georgia Tech to win it. At the same time, the game telecast was cutting in to the NBA pre-game show's time. Softball play-by-play announcer Beth Mowins suddenly sent it back to the studio, even with one more out needed to finish the game. Somehow, the studio hosts stayed on until about 8:02, mentioning that indeed GA Tech had won the game.
That is the part which makes no sense, and that is cause for concern. The game site announcer sent the telecast back to the studio, so this obviously was not a technical mishap. It remained a NCAA Softball telecast, rather than going directly to the NBA pre-game show.
My concern is the need to clarify whether or not ESPN is truly a sports "news" organization or primarily a contractor for programming. Even though I could understand leaving a NCAA event for a more important telecast, I still realize the Network had the responsibility to televise the entire live event. The one more out needed in the softball game was not guaranteed to happen within two minutes. It's not like football, basketball, or hockey where you know the clock will expire if there is no chance of overtime. Thus, an arrangement should have been in place to move any remaining part of the live softball telecast to ESPN Classic or ESPN News for those viewers. Or, at the very least, ESPN should have stuck with the softball game to capture the final out.
That I didn't care about the softball game is not important to this thought. After all, when a MLB telecast runs into SportsCenter time, ESPN constantly flashes across the bottom that "Sportscenter is next" (or words to that effect) as if the world would come to an end if they don't tell you that and they are sincerely sorry that the baseball game is taking away their precious time.
Why did it happen this way? I'm guessing it has to do with contracts, and not the viewers. My hunch is that ESPN chose not to show any other live sports event as of the top of the hour, which was NBA time. Showing the studio hosts fit that category, so they were able to report the final score and not let any softball game fans out to dry about the game's outcome.
However, ESPN is aware that Comcast now owns a chunk of NBC-TV, and might become a player for the next NBA television negotiations. They want to do good by the NBA, and saw the situation on Saturday in that light.
Again, on one hand, I understand their position from a viewership point of view. But as a sports fan, I find it frustrating that they would cut away from any live game just prior to conclusion in that manner.
Speaking of odd situations for networks, there was the battle for ice position (also on Saturday) between NBC and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Co.) - instead of between the Flyers and Canadiens.
It seems that Quebec's RDS (sports network) allowed NBC to take over its spot between the benches for its Game 4 telecast as a result of a private deal made between the two entities. However, the NHL's television contracts only allow for priorities to be established in each NHL arena for networks televising the various games.
For Saturday, RDS originally had priority (the position between the team benches), with CBC 2nd and NBC 3rd. CBC stepped in and objected to the "deal" to help NBC, causing NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to have to rule on which network would have the coveted spot. Bettman upheld the original decision, and RDS kept its originally scheduled priority.
Thus, Glenn Healy of CBC went on camera from the zamboni entrance, while NBC's Pierre McGuire had to cross the ice during breaks to conduct his in-game interviews. This happened after CBC objected to Bettman allowing NBC to move the game to the afternoon for NBC, taking away ratings points and revenue from CBC which would have benefitted far more with a night game.
And to think, there was only the one playoff game in both the NBA and NHL on Saturday.......
The "big-timing" of high school sports, as I call it, continues to grow slowly but surely. ESPN has announced it will televise "several" high school football games during the final weekend in August. Local coverage of high school games is one thing, but taking more and more of them regional and national is another. Friends may no longer think I'm joking when I speculate that "pretty soon kids will start going from 7th grade right into high school, foregoing the 8th grade to play football/basketball".
NEW YORK: In the NYC area, it is not only sports on TV seeing a ratings surge of late. Radio listeners got caught up in the start of the baseball season just the same. The latest ratings show that WCBS 880 moved up to 4th place overall from March to April, coinciding with the start of the Yankees regular season broadcasts. Listeners also stayed around for the news, as WINS 1010 dropped out of its perennial position in the top 10.
It wasn't just the Yankees making a NYC ratings dent. WFAN showed an overall audience increase of nearly 50% from March to April, also finishing first in 25-54 males during the first month of the Mets regular season. The Fan now averages about four times the audience share of WEPN 1050.
On the TV side, MSG Network will be producing new versions of some of their feature and interview shows for this summer, along with adding some classic Knicks games, including the 1970 Willis Reed championship run. In addition, MSG will break away from sports content with some Friday night concert videos in the works.
INDIANAPOLIS: John JMV Michael is back for "The Ride" on The Fan WFNI 1070. His new show, called "The Ride" airs from 3 to 7 PM, and now competes against Mark Patrick's show on rival WNDE 1260. Michael worked with Patrick on WNDE prior to Patrick going to XM's MLB Channel in 2005, and in 2008 and some of 2009 Michael had a bigger audience than The Fan's "Kravitz and Eddie Show".
Kravitz, a local columnist, had left the show in March, while Eddie White remains with The Fan but now in a part-time capacity. The ratings for the first quarter of 2010 show The Fan with roughly a 40% larger audience than WNDE.
HOUSTON: Having 4 sports radio stations is tough enough, especially with the Astros off to a lackluster start, while the Rockets and Texans hang in with slow off seasons. Without much doing locally, the latest ratings show that ESPN's Mike & Mike on KFNC 97.5 now leads the other 3 sports stations in audience share during morning drive. (It should be noted that KILT leads mornings in weekly cume.) KFNC also leads middays, while KILT leads KMBE during afternoons.
On the TV side, Sports Business Journal reports that Comcast is looking to launch a local or regional network in partnership with the Astros and Rockets which could begin for the 2012-13 NBA season and the 2013 baseball season. The teams could opt out of their current deal with Fox Sports Houston.
This seems a realistic possibility, given Comcast's success at doing this in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to date. In NYC, the Mets reportedly own an 80% interest in SNY, while in Chicago the Blackhawks, Bulls, White Sox, and Cubs share a 70% interest.
One difference is that losing the Rockets and Astros might not spell the end for Fox Sports Houston, even though it did for the former Fox Sports Chicago. FS Houston's strong lineup of Big 12 Conference football and basketball, along with established high school coverage (far more significant in Texas than Chicago, New York, and other large cities) could keep demand high enough to stay around.
BOSTON: Another former Red Sox player joins the NESN broadcast crew, as Kevin Millar will be a studio analyst for some of the upcoming games this season. Millar will start this Thursday (May 27) on the pre-game show leading into the Red Sox vs. Royals telecast.
SAN DIEGO: Even though the Padres are off to a suprisingly good start and are getting decent TV ratings this season, the city of "sports transplants" are not always focused on the local team. Thus far, at least 2 of the NBA Conference Semi-finals national telecasts have generated higher ratings (for TNT and ABC/ESPN) than local Padres telecasts during roughly the same time periods. Considering that the Padres TV ratings increased by around 30% during May from what they were in April, you can interpret this in a number of different ways.
My take is that the local Padres fans are coming back to follow their team, but the large number of sports "transplants" in the San Diego market are following the national NBA playoff telecasts in big numbers, like much of the country is.
SHREVEPORT: Local radio continues without any sports talk in afternoon drive, but John James Marshall will bring sports talk to his "Unscripted" show to air on KSHV-TV starting July 26th at 9:00 PM. The show is expected to be a TV version of his years of hosting local radio sports talk.
SCHEDULES:
Wishing everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend, and MLB Network adds to our baseball enjoyment:
MLB Network telecasts:
Thursday, May 27
2:00: L.A. Dodgers at Chicago Cubs
7:00: Philadelphia at N.Y. Mets
Friday, May 28
2:00: St. Louis at Chicago Cubs
Saturday, May 29
8:00: L.A. Dodgers at Colorado
Monday, May 31
4:00: Colorado at San Francisco
9:00: Arizona at L.A. Dodgers
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sports Media Report - Oct. 20th update
Let's give a ton of credit to veteran sportscaster Tom Hammond for the way he handled his call during the final seconds of the Notre Dame vs. USC telecast on NBC-TV this past Saturday (Oct. 17).
With fewer than 5 seconds remaining in regulation, a Notre Dame receiver caught a potential touchdown pass which would have put N.D. down by just 1 point with the option of kicking to tie it or going for the two-point conversion and the win. However, the catch was made right at the sidelines, possibly out of bounds. Obviously a significant play.
Unfortunately, a lot of play-by-play announcers would have been determined to describe the outcome they saw and risk an incorrect call at a crucial situation. Instead, Hammond called it right away by saying "Caught!! But was he in bounds?" and went silent for a few seconds.
This way, he was on top of the play, and let the anticipation build for all concerned. He then took us through the slow motion replays which showed the receiver was indeed out of bounds and the game would not be tied or perhaps decided. Coming in the month of Chip Caray calling plays one way to have them happen in another way, this is especially rewarding to hear a sportscaster handle the situation the best way possible.
TV ratings from the just concluded MLB regular season continue to show some interesting developments from this season. It seems that 15 teams showed a drop in their local TV ratings, including the NY Mets showing a 17.2% drop. Actually, the Mets had the 5th largest decrease, trailing Oakland, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Arizona. The A's had a struggle with placement of their telecasts at the start of the season and it showed to the point of a 52% overall decrease from the 2008 season ratings.
On the national scene, TBS showed a ratings increase of more than 16% compared with 2008 for its Sunday telecasts, while Fox and ESPN each showed a decrease. Hard as it is to believe, this was the 20th season of ESPN televising MLB games.
Speaking of TBS, its Division Series coverage didn't attract much interest in the Dallas area. Of the 56 major TV markets, Dallas and Tulsa finished (tied) with the lowest ratings of any local market.
On the NFL side, Fox-TV wisely switched the Giants to an early game on November 1, putting the Giants up against the Jets for the second time this season and for something like the 4th time in 25 years. This time with good reason, as they moved the Vikings at Packers game to its doubleheader game. Ought to be a ratings blowout. Fox figures to have Brett Favre's first time in Lambeau Field against the Packers as a lead-in to the night's World Series telecast. (Yes - on Nov. 1st)
While some people think I must have too much time on my hands, get a load of this interesting site. This fan has mapped out the national coverage map for the networks for NFL telecasts each week:
http://the506.com/nflmaps/
College hoops season is coming up soon, and schedules and announcing assignments are being finalized. ESPN has moved its team of Brent Musburger and Bob Knight to "Big Monday" Big 12 telecasts. Not a popular move in Big 12 country, as the team of Ron Franklin and Fran Fraschilla has become quite popular. They will work some Saturday games together, while Franklin is scheduled to work some Wednesday telecasts with Bill Raftery and others.
Dave O'Brien moves to the Tuesday Big Ten matchups after the first of the year along with Steve Lavin, with Musburger also handling some Big 10 games later in Conference season. The "Super Tuesday" SEC telecasts will have Brad Nessler with Jimmy Dykes. Dave Pasch and Doris Burke will call Thursday and Saturday Big East matchups.
Altitude Sports & Entertainment, the Denver area regional sports TV network televising many Nuggets and Avalanche games, is expanding its satellite reach to be available on a larger scale basis. Altitude is already seen in parts of 10 states. In my opinion, since this channel is now on a "national feed" satellite, we should be able to contact our cable or satellite carrier and have them add the channel - no matter where we are.
The NBA Portland Trailblazers continue to work toward having some of their telecasts streamed online, especially the ones shown on Comcast but not available through other cable systems. However, it appears there would be a charge to the consumer. In my opinion, a consumer being charged for a game which is not carried on their cable system should be able to deduct the amount from their cable or satellite bill.
PHILADELPHIA: WPHT 1210 will carry the Phillies broadcasts through the 2010 season, but recent negotiations seem to have ended the deal then. This could mean an opportunity for WPEN to enter the bidding, especially with their recent adding of the simulcast on 97.5 FM. Meanwhile, the Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles all have radio deals extending at least into 2011 as of now. Or, it could be more than a negotiation ploy from the Phillies. The team made news a few months ago by directly purchasing broadcast audience research information previously used only by the stations. I can't help but wonder if they are going to be watching for certain audience trends and tendencies again next year, and perhaps would decide on a station based on their own research.
Then again, WPEN carried the Phillies for three seasons earlier this decade, but lacked a thorough signal in certain areas. Now they have a strong FM simulcast to offer.
SEATTLE: Not only is Seattle University starting the coming basketball season as a Division I team, they will be starting the season with their games broadcast on 710 ESPN, with "The Groz" Dave Grosby on play-by-play. Grosby is the long time afternoon drive co-host of "Groz with Gas" with co-host Mike Gastineau, and goes back to the 1991 debut of KJR-AM as a sports talker.
PITTSBURGH: Here's hoping for a fast recovery by Stan Savran from heart surgery following chest pains after covering the Steelers vs. Chargers game on Oct. 4th. Well, after he hosted the Mike Tomlin Press Conference on FSN that Tuesday before being admitted. After more than 30 years on the air in Pittsburgh, he hopes to get back to his seat on the "Stan & Guy Show" afternoons on 1250 ESPN.
KANSAS CITY: The sports radio race is probably more exciting than the Chiefs or Royals in the "race" this year. KCSP 610 continues to rise in the ratings and is making inroads on WHB, with a 13% rise in overall share from the previous ratings book as part of a more than 50% audience increase over the past year. Morning host Roger Twibell showed his best numbers thus far with the station in the recently released ratings.
HOUSTON: Sometimes you just can't win with the fans. KRIV-TV thought it was helping when it switched around its NFL schedule this past Sunday (10/18). On paper, it looked like a good move to bump the Philadelphia vs. Oakland late game telecast to not stick fans with the Raiders if they didn't have to. Instead, they went up against the Texans game with the New Orleans vs. N.Y. Giants telecast. As it turned out, the New Orleans game wasn't close, and the Raiders played their best game in many a moon against the Eagles.
But it didn't stop there. Doing this meant that the only late game shown in Houston was the New England vs. Tennessee game. The game that resulted in one of the biggest blowouts of the entire NFL season thus far.
NFL television: I don't know why it is such a big deal that Jacksonville will likely have most of the remaining Jaguars home games blacked out locally. This past Sunday's game against St. Louis was not shown locally either. But I have to believe the 'true' NFL fans would rather see better games instead. Unless the Jags' season continues to get better, they might do better if they SHOW the home games unless they sell out.
The NFL did lift the local blackout of the Monday Night Football (10/19) in San Diego, also allowing the ESPN telecast to air on local KFMB-TV. The 75 mile radius also allowed the game to be shown "locally" in Los Angeles on KCBS-TV. This is nice in San Diego, since there was no other game going on at the same time. But no way that Los Angeles should be involved with blacking out games for San Diego. Hardly the "local" market.
St. LOUIS: The NHL Blues took some telecasts away from over-the-air TV starting this season, instead assigning 70 game telecasts to Fox Sports Midwest. (Add in Versus and NBC, and the vast majority of Blues games are televised this season.) However, Dish Network refused to pay Fox Sports Midwest the increased fees for the added Blues telecasts. As a result, Dish Network subscribers lose out on 34 telecasts. Plus, Dish Network does not carry Versus and its national package including several Blues games. Once again, cable and satellite companies make decisions instead of letting their customers do so. The result is subscribers forced to pay what I consider to be extra dollars for religious and foreign language channels they would never watch - but can't watch certain sports channels or events because the cable or satellite company doesn't want to increase prices.
Yet, St. Louis isn't the only NHL city going through this. Fox Sports Southwest added 20 more Dallas Stars telecasts to its schedule for this season, but Dish Network is not airing any of the added 20 games. I couldn't make this up if I tried. One of these "lost" telecasts is March 4th against St. Louis.
MILWAUKEE: Even though Brewers TV local ratings dipped for the season, the radio ratings held steady as WTMJ finished at the top of the latest ratings, even increasing its rating since spring.
CINCINNATI: On the other side of the coin, and nice move by a cable system. Insight in the Northern Kentucky region (part of the Cincinnati market) carried some of Lexington's WKYT-TV's telecast of "Big Blue Madness" when University of Kentucky basketball began the John Calipari coaching era this past Friday (Oct. 16) from 7:00 to 9:30 PM.
INDIANAPOLIS: WNDY-TV will televise 13 Butler University Bulldogs basketball games this season, coming off their 26-6 record last year. These will be in addition to a minimum of 8 appearances on the ESPN Networks. Anthony Calhoun will call the games with radio analyst Ralph Reiff moving over to TV for those games.
KNOXVILLE: WPFT 106.3 has become "The Zone" and changed from classic hits to ESPN Radio.
YOUNGSTOWN: Congrats to John Caparanis, Sports Director of WBBW 1240 "The Fan" on being inducted into the Trumbull County Sports Hall of Fame.
REDDING: Fox Sports 1670 adds a 2:00 PM commentary from local sports columnist Aaron Williams which started this week.
With fewer than 5 seconds remaining in regulation, a Notre Dame receiver caught a potential touchdown pass which would have put N.D. down by just 1 point with the option of kicking to tie it or going for the two-point conversion and the win. However, the catch was made right at the sidelines, possibly out of bounds. Obviously a significant play.
Unfortunately, a lot of play-by-play announcers would have been determined to describe the outcome they saw and risk an incorrect call at a crucial situation. Instead, Hammond called it right away by saying "Caught!! But was he in bounds?" and went silent for a few seconds.
This way, he was on top of the play, and let the anticipation build for all concerned. He then took us through the slow motion replays which showed the receiver was indeed out of bounds and the game would not be tied or perhaps decided. Coming in the month of Chip Caray calling plays one way to have them happen in another way, this is especially rewarding to hear a sportscaster handle the situation the best way possible.
TV ratings from the just concluded MLB regular season continue to show some interesting developments from this season. It seems that 15 teams showed a drop in their local TV ratings, including the NY Mets showing a 17.2% drop. Actually, the Mets had the 5th largest decrease, trailing Oakland, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Arizona. The A's had a struggle with placement of their telecasts at the start of the season and it showed to the point of a 52% overall decrease from the 2008 season ratings.
On the national scene, TBS showed a ratings increase of more than 16% compared with 2008 for its Sunday telecasts, while Fox and ESPN each showed a decrease. Hard as it is to believe, this was the 20th season of ESPN televising MLB games.
Speaking of TBS, its Division Series coverage didn't attract much interest in the Dallas area. Of the 56 major TV markets, Dallas and Tulsa finished (tied) with the lowest ratings of any local market.
On the NFL side, Fox-TV wisely switched the Giants to an early game on November 1, putting the Giants up against the Jets for the second time this season and for something like the 4th time in 25 years. This time with good reason, as they moved the Vikings at Packers game to its doubleheader game. Ought to be a ratings blowout. Fox figures to have Brett Favre's first time in Lambeau Field against the Packers as a lead-in to the night's World Series telecast. (Yes - on Nov. 1st)
While some people think I must have too much time on my hands, get a load of this interesting site. This fan has mapped out the national coverage map for the networks for NFL telecasts each week:
http://the506.com/nflmaps/
College hoops season is coming up soon, and schedules and announcing assignments are being finalized. ESPN has moved its team of Brent Musburger and Bob Knight to "Big Monday" Big 12 telecasts. Not a popular move in Big 12 country, as the team of Ron Franklin and Fran Fraschilla has become quite popular. They will work some Saturday games together, while Franklin is scheduled to work some Wednesday telecasts with Bill Raftery and others.
Dave O'Brien moves to the Tuesday Big Ten matchups after the first of the year along with Steve Lavin, with Musburger also handling some Big 10 games later in Conference season. The "Super Tuesday" SEC telecasts will have Brad Nessler with Jimmy Dykes. Dave Pasch and Doris Burke will call Thursday and Saturday Big East matchups.
Altitude Sports & Entertainment, the Denver area regional sports TV network televising many Nuggets and Avalanche games, is expanding its satellite reach to be available on a larger scale basis. Altitude is already seen in parts of 10 states. In my opinion, since this channel is now on a "national feed" satellite, we should be able to contact our cable or satellite carrier and have them add the channel - no matter where we are.
The NBA Portland Trailblazers continue to work toward having some of their telecasts streamed online, especially the ones shown on Comcast but not available through other cable systems. However, it appears there would be a charge to the consumer. In my opinion, a consumer being charged for a game which is not carried on their cable system should be able to deduct the amount from their cable or satellite bill.
PHILADELPHIA: WPHT 1210 will carry the Phillies broadcasts through the 2010 season, but recent negotiations seem to have ended the deal then. This could mean an opportunity for WPEN to enter the bidding, especially with their recent adding of the simulcast on 97.5 FM. Meanwhile, the Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles all have radio deals extending at least into 2011 as of now. Or, it could be more than a negotiation ploy from the Phillies. The team made news a few months ago by directly purchasing broadcast audience research information previously used only by the stations. I can't help but wonder if they are going to be watching for certain audience trends and tendencies again next year, and perhaps would decide on a station based on their own research.
Then again, WPEN carried the Phillies for three seasons earlier this decade, but lacked a thorough signal in certain areas. Now they have a strong FM simulcast to offer.
SEATTLE: Not only is Seattle University starting the coming basketball season as a Division I team, they will be starting the season with their games broadcast on 710 ESPN, with "The Groz" Dave Grosby on play-by-play. Grosby is the long time afternoon drive co-host of "Groz with Gas" with co-host Mike Gastineau, and goes back to the 1991 debut of KJR-AM as a sports talker.
PITTSBURGH: Here's hoping for a fast recovery by Stan Savran from heart surgery following chest pains after covering the Steelers vs. Chargers game on Oct. 4th. Well, after he hosted the Mike Tomlin Press Conference on FSN that Tuesday before being admitted. After more than 30 years on the air in Pittsburgh, he hopes to get back to his seat on the "Stan & Guy Show" afternoons on 1250 ESPN.
KANSAS CITY: The sports radio race is probably more exciting than the Chiefs or Royals in the "race" this year. KCSP 610 continues to rise in the ratings and is making inroads on WHB, with a 13% rise in overall share from the previous ratings book as part of a more than 50% audience increase over the past year. Morning host Roger Twibell showed his best numbers thus far with the station in the recently released ratings.
HOUSTON: Sometimes you just can't win with the fans. KRIV-TV thought it was helping when it switched around its NFL schedule this past Sunday (10/18). On paper, it looked like a good move to bump the Philadelphia vs. Oakland late game telecast to not stick fans with the Raiders if they didn't have to. Instead, they went up against the Texans game with the New Orleans vs. N.Y. Giants telecast. As it turned out, the New Orleans game wasn't close, and the Raiders played their best game in many a moon against the Eagles.
But it didn't stop there. Doing this meant that the only late game shown in Houston was the New England vs. Tennessee game. The game that resulted in one of the biggest blowouts of the entire NFL season thus far.
NFL television: I don't know why it is such a big deal that Jacksonville will likely have most of the remaining Jaguars home games blacked out locally. This past Sunday's game against St. Louis was not shown locally either. But I have to believe the 'true' NFL fans would rather see better games instead. Unless the Jags' season continues to get better, they might do better if they SHOW the home games unless they sell out.
The NFL did lift the local blackout of the Monday Night Football (10/19) in San Diego, also allowing the ESPN telecast to air on local KFMB-TV. The 75 mile radius also allowed the game to be shown "locally" in Los Angeles on KCBS-TV. This is nice in San Diego, since there was no other game going on at the same time. But no way that Los Angeles should be involved with blacking out games for San Diego. Hardly the "local" market.
St. LOUIS: The NHL Blues took some telecasts away from over-the-air TV starting this season, instead assigning 70 game telecasts to Fox Sports Midwest. (Add in Versus and NBC, and the vast majority of Blues games are televised this season.) However, Dish Network refused to pay Fox Sports Midwest the increased fees for the added Blues telecasts. As a result, Dish Network subscribers lose out on 34 telecasts. Plus, Dish Network does not carry Versus and its national package including several Blues games. Once again, cable and satellite companies make decisions instead of letting their customers do so. The result is subscribers forced to pay what I consider to be extra dollars for religious and foreign language channels they would never watch - but can't watch certain sports channels or events because the cable or satellite company doesn't want to increase prices.
Yet, St. Louis isn't the only NHL city going through this. Fox Sports Southwest added 20 more Dallas Stars telecasts to its schedule for this season, but Dish Network is not airing any of the added 20 games. I couldn't make this up if I tried. One of these "lost" telecasts is March 4th against St. Louis.
MILWAUKEE: Even though Brewers TV local ratings dipped for the season, the radio ratings held steady as WTMJ finished at the top of the latest ratings, even increasing its rating since spring.
CINCINNATI: On the other side of the coin, and nice move by a cable system. Insight in the Northern Kentucky region (part of the Cincinnati market) carried some of Lexington's WKYT-TV's telecast of "Big Blue Madness" when University of Kentucky basketball began the John Calipari coaching era this past Friday (Oct. 16) from 7:00 to 9:30 PM.
INDIANAPOLIS: WNDY-TV will televise 13 Butler University Bulldogs basketball games this season, coming off their 26-6 record last year. These will be in addition to a minimum of 8 appearances on the ESPN Networks. Anthony Calhoun will call the games with radio analyst Ralph Reiff moving over to TV for those games.
KNOXVILLE: WPFT 106.3 has become "The Zone" and changed from classic hits to ESPN Radio.
YOUNGSTOWN: Congrats to John Caparanis, Sports Director of WBBW 1240 "The Fan" on being inducted into the Trumbull County Sports Hall of Fame.
REDDING: Fox Sports 1670 adds a 2:00 PM commentary from local sports columnist Aaron Williams which started this week.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Earlier World Series games not totally a baseball decision............
Let's not go overboard with the announcement that the World Series and ALCS games will start about 40 minutes earlier beginning this fall. Granted, it helps the fans, especially in the Eastern time zone, to have a better chance of being able to see the conclusion of more of the games. It also gives the kids across the country a chance to see a couple more innings of each game while developing more interest and become the future spenders who watch baseball in prime time.
But this is not purely a baseball decision. There are also financial benefits for the TV and radio networks (and local radio) covering the games. By taking the 8:00 ET 7:00 CT half hour and making that time be an actual game broadcast, they no longer charge slightly less during prime time for what was pre-game show time. They will get a few thousand dollars more per spot from game time, especially since the first commercial will hit during prime time. The 7:57 PM ET start for these games means that even with a "three up three down" half inning the first commercial will air after 8:00, which is prime time. The TV pre-game show will begin at 7:30 PM ET, and be a few minutes shorter.
Elsewhere, I can understand Mike Tirico's decision to give up the ESPN Radio gig he has been doing 5 days a week and stick with his hectic but seasonal play-by-play schedule of football and basketball. Tirico will have a few weeks to prepare for the coming football season, as Ryen Russillo will join Scott Van Pelt on the ESPN Radio show (live at 2 - 4 PM ET) on July 6th. Mike Tirico will continue with ESPN Radio in a more limited role, such as hosting the weekly 2 hour college and pro football preview show on Friday nights starting in August.
Meanwhile, the death of former ABC Radio President Robert Pauley at the age of 85 earlier this month wouldn't normally make the sports pages, but it deserved to. Pauley became ABC Radio President back in 1961, and knew to use sports broadcasting as a means to grow the network. Pauley brought events such as heavyweight boxing matches and others to a national radio audience.
For example, estimates of a radio audience of more than 70,000,000 followed the ABC Radio broadcast of the 1964 Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Listion fight. In addition, it was Pauley who took a chance with an unknown but outspoken sports reporter he hired in his early days with the network. That reporter was Howard Cosell, whose "Speaking of Sports" paved the way for national sports news and comment with a then revolutionary style of controversy and opinion.
While Pauley will be missed, his influence on sports broadcasting is still as strong as ever.
SAN FRANCISCO / OAKLAND: This week brings the Bay Area's newest sports radio entry as KTRB 860 has made the switch and now competes against KNBR. The station is the flagship station for the Oakland A's games, giving them their best signal coverage in a while, even though A's television ratings have been dismal this season. KTRB also carries Stanford football and basketball.
The station looks to emphasize the A's and Raiders, while KNBR continues as the station broadcasting the Giants and 49ers games. While the newcomer KTRB plans to eventually add local programming focused on the A's and Raiders, it debuts with syndicated programming surrounding their 5 to 6 hour blocks for the A's games. The Todd & Tyler Radio Empire airs in morning drive, becoming that show's largest market by far (Omaha NE is believed to be their 2nd biggest market). Fox Sports Radio's Chris Myers and Petros & Money shows will run during the afternoon period depending upon the start time for A's programming.
DALLAS - While the crowded sports radio market continues to unfold, KZMP 1540 has picked up ESPN Deportes, the Spanish language sports format and will begin with that on June 1st.
PORTLAND - The recent sale of KXL 750 comes to Alpha Broadcasting with an 8 year deal as flagship station of the Portland Trailblazers. KXTG 95.5 will carry the Seattle Seahawks NFL broadcasts.
HOUSTON - KILT 610 continues as the market leader in the battle of sports stations, but Bill Van Rysdam is being replaced as Program Director after nearly 9 years on the job at Houston's longest sports station. The station continues its 10 year $70 million dollar contract to broadcast Houston Texans football, but the economic impact of this contract on the station could have made an impact with this decision. Recent major league radio rights deals have been done for less money and more revenue and advertising sharing with the team. Yet, with 3 other sports stations in the market, play-by-play rights become a bidding war.
PHILADELPHIA - The 76ers will have a new TV analyst to work with Marc Zumoff on Comcast SportsNet beginning next season. The team has already announced that Bob Salmi will not return after 2 seasons in that role, having taken over for former Sixers star Steve Mix.
MINNEAPOLIS - Cheers to the University of Minnesota Radio Network for a wonderful gesture this fall. U of M plays its first game at its new football stadium on September 12th against Air Force. To help celebrate, Ray Christensen will return to the broadcast booth to call a series with the Golden Gophers on offense. He called more than 500 U of M football games before retiring in 2001, including having called the first game they played at the Metrodome.
Darrell Thompson and Dave Mona will be able to work with Ray, like they did for his last 3 seasons as the play-by-play voice at the turn of the century.
This is somewhat in the same vein as the Phillies radio allowing Haray Kalas to call the ninth inning of the Phillies' World Series win over Tampa last October. Even if this is merely a Minnesota vs. Air Force game, it should prove a wonderful gesture and a special moment for the Gophers' long time fans.
COLUMBUS: As of this past Monday (5/11), Columbus now has a 2nd sports radio station, as WHAL 1460 has changed format and picked up Fox Radio and other syndicated sports programs. These include Dan Patrick, Jim Rome, and JT The Brick. The station, which was Spanish until this week, competes against WEAM 1580's ESPN Radio. In a way, this is odd timing, given that the Blue Jackets' season ended 2 weeks earlier and Ohio State football is still 3 months away.
Ft. MYERS - Similar story in Ft. Myers where new signal WNPL 1460 will simulcast and expand the reach of 1200 AM by adding Fox Sports. Actually 1200 AM has been on the air with sports only since last summer. The stronger combined signal competes against 770 AM and its ESPN Radio programming.
OKLAHOMA CITY: Even though the NBA Thunder was a disaster in the standings during its initial season in Oklahoma City, the former Seattle SuperSonics had a positive impact on WWLS 640 and 98.1 Sports Animal. The station showed up in the top 10 overall for the market in the recently released winter ratings book, while the other sports station failed to crack the top 20.
Ratings were up as much as 70% during the evening period with the Thunder broadcasts compared with one year earlier (when there was no NBA team in town).
HATTERAS NC: WYND 97.1 has become an ESPN Radio affiliate.
But this is not purely a baseball decision. There are also financial benefits for the TV and radio networks (and local radio) covering the games. By taking the 8:00 ET 7:00 CT half hour and making that time be an actual game broadcast, they no longer charge slightly less during prime time for what was pre-game show time. They will get a few thousand dollars more per spot from game time, especially since the first commercial will hit during prime time. The 7:57 PM ET start for these games means that even with a "three up three down" half inning the first commercial will air after 8:00, which is prime time. The TV pre-game show will begin at 7:30 PM ET, and be a few minutes shorter.
Elsewhere, I can understand Mike Tirico's decision to give up the ESPN Radio gig he has been doing 5 days a week and stick with his hectic but seasonal play-by-play schedule of football and basketball. Tirico will have a few weeks to prepare for the coming football season, as Ryen Russillo will join Scott Van Pelt on the ESPN Radio show (live at 2 - 4 PM ET) on July 6th. Mike Tirico will continue with ESPN Radio in a more limited role, such as hosting the weekly 2 hour college and pro football preview show on Friday nights starting in August.
Meanwhile, the death of former ABC Radio President Robert Pauley at the age of 85 earlier this month wouldn't normally make the sports pages, but it deserved to. Pauley became ABC Radio President back in 1961, and knew to use sports broadcasting as a means to grow the network. Pauley brought events such as heavyweight boxing matches and others to a national radio audience.
For example, estimates of a radio audience of more than 70,000,000 followed the ABC Radio broadcast of the 1964 Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Listion fight. In addition, it was Pauley who took a chance with an unknown but outspoken sports reporter he hired in his early days with the network. That reporter was Howard Cosell, whose "Speaking of Sports" paved the way for national sports news and comment with a then revolutionary style of controversy and opinion.
While Pauley will be missed, his influence on sports broadcasting is still as strong as ever.
SAN FRANCISCO / OAKLAND: This week brings the Bay Area's newest sports radio entry as KTRB 860 has made the switch and now competes against KNBR. The station is the flagship station for the Oakland A's games, giving them their best signal coverage in a while, even though A's television ratings have been dismal this season. KTRB also carries Stanford football and basketball.
The station looks to emphasize the A's and Raiders, while KNBR continues as the station broadcasting the Giants and 49ers games. While the newcomer KTRB plans to eventually add local programming focused on the A's and Raiders, it debuts with syndicated programming surrounding their 5 to 6 hour blocks for the A's games. The Todd & Tyler Radio Empire airs in morning drive, becoming that show's largest market by far (Omaha NE is believed to be their 2nd biggest market). Fox Sports Radio's Chris Myers and Petros & Money shows will run during the afternoon period depending upon the start time for A's programming.
DALLAS - While the crowded sports radio market continues to unfold, KZMP 1540 has picked up ESPN Deportes, the Spanish language sports format and will begin with that on June 1st.
PORTLAND - The recent sale of KXL 750 comes to Alpha Broadcasting with an 8 year deal as flagship station of the Portland Trailblazers. KXTG 95.5 will carry the Seattle Seahawks NFL broadcasts.
HOUSTON - KILT 610 continues as the market leader in the battle of sports stations, but Bill Van Rysdam is being replaced as Program Director after nearly 9 years on the job at Houston's longest sports station. The station continues its 10 year $70 million dollar contract to broadcast Houston Texans football, but the economic impact of this contract on the station could have made an impact with this decision. Recent major league radio rights deals have been done for less money and more revenue and advertising sharing with the team. Yet, with 3 other sports stations in the market, play-by-play rights become a bidding war.
PHILADELPHIA - The 76ers will have a new TV analyst to work with Marc Zumoff on Comcast SportsNet beginning next season. The team has already announced that Bob Salmi will not return after 2 seasons in that role, having taken over for former Sixers star Steve Mix.
MINNEAPOLIS - Cheers to the University of Minnesota Radio Network for a wonderful gesture this fall. U of M plays its first game at its new football stadium on September 12th against Air Force. To help celebrate, Ray Christensen will return to the broadcast booth to call a series with the Golden Gophers on offense. He called more than 500 U of M football games before retiring in 2001, including having called the first game they played at the Metrodome.
Darrell Thompson and Dave Mona will be able to work with Ray, like they did for his last 3 seasons as the play-by-play voice at the turn of the century.
This is somewhat in the same vein as the Phillies radio allowing Haray Kalas to call the ninth inning of the Phillies' World Series win over Tampa last October. Even if this is merely a Minnesota vs. Air Force game, it should prove a wonderful gesture and a special moment for the Gophers' long time fans.
COLUMBUS: As of this past Monday (5/11), Columbus now has a 2nd sports radio station, as WHAL 1460 has changed format and picked up Fox Radio and other syndicated sports programs. These include Dan Patrick, Jim Rome, and JT The Brick. The station, which was Spanish until this week, competes against WEAM 1580's ESPN Radio. In a way, this is odd timing, given that the Blue Jackets' season ended 2 weeks earlier and Ohio State football is still 3 months away.
Ft. MYERS - Similar story in Ft. Myers where new signal WNPL 1460 will simulcast and expand the reach of 1200 AM by adding Fox Sports. Actually 1200 AM has been on the air with sports only since last summer. The stronger combined signal competes against 770 AM and its ESPN Radio programming.
OKLAHOMA CITY: Even though the NBA Thunder was a disaster in the standings during its initial season in Oklahoma City, the former Seattle SuperSonics had a positive impact on WWLS 640 and 98.1 Sports Animal. The station showed up in the top 10 overall for the market in the recently released winter ratings book, while the other sports station failed to crack the top 20.
Ratings were up as much as 70% during the evening period with the Thunder broadcasts compared with one year earlier (when there was no NBA team in town).
HATTERAS NC: WYND 97.1 has become an ESPN Radio affiliate.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sports Media Update - Feb. 9th..............
MLB-TV made news in its own way on Saturday as the A-Rod story was breaking in terms of working toward establishing itself as a news organization for all things baseball.
First, I am pleasantly surprised that they would tackle the A-Rod story in full. I'm not sure anyone would have questioned it if they didn't, as they could have brushed the story aside or played it down, being a Major League Baseball source. This was not exactly the most positive of stories about the game.
On one hand, breaking in to their scheduled "classic" programming lineup for more than 3 hours seems a bit over-dramatic. But on the other hand, doing so is setting the table for viewers to tune them in when baseball news, positive or negative, is breaking.
On the other, the story coming out was over something which occurred more than 5 years ago and could have broken at any time. It's not as if something specific happened on Saturday morning to make this story any more immediate. But that is not important to this commentary.
The timing for MLB-TV was actually quite good for a major baseball story to break when it did. ESPN and ESPN2 were into their all day slates of college hoops. Same with other regional sports channels. But that made me an example of why MLB-TV did what they did.
I happened to see the scroll about A-Rod on a news channel shortly after the "story" broke. I flipped over to ESPN and saw the bottom line scroll during their college hoops game, and the same for ESPN2. Thinking I might get more details on the bottom scroll on MLB-TV, I switched over. To my amazement, there was a live studio crew with Matt Vasgersian, Harold Reynolds, and Dan Plesac among those reporters in the studio and on the air live with reactions.
They kept at it for a couple hours, and paved the way for Bob Costas to interview the Sports Illustrated reporter live.
Again, this actually was not an "immediate" story since it took 5 years to break, but it showed a lot of baseball fans that MLB-TV is the place to go for breaking baseball news. Another homerun from our newest major sports network.
Meanwhile, MLB has announced and is now promoting their live streaming package for the upcoming season, and how for $129.95 fans can see "unlimited access to live and on-demand streams of every regular season game". However, later in the description we are reminded that "blackout restrictions apply". This drives me nuts.
It has been and remains my belief that there should be much more of a public outcry about sports blackouts. There should be NO blackouts of sports telecasts in the local markets. If I want to watch the opposing team or network feed of my game of most interest, I should be able to do that. If the home team telecast suffers that badly because of a "no blackout" policy, then they need to change announcers or improve their local coverage to draw the fans back.
The teams and their covering stations seem to overlook the fact that I, as a cable (or satellite) subscriber am PAYING to watch the channels that are being blacked out. Worse yet, fans who don't care about sports are having to pay for these sports channels they don't even want. A team on a competing station or network (even for those 3 hours) should not have the right to dictate what channels I can or can't see. Thus, I'm among those "blacking out" any thought of buying the MLB package.
On top of that, there is more aggravation for some baseball fans trying to follow their favorite team through the media each day. It is bad enough that in some cities fans need to check the daily TV schedules to find what channel will have their favorite team that day. There is the "over-the-air" package, the cable package, and national games from ESPN and FOX.
In Chicago, the White Sox appeared on no less than seven - count 'em - seven TV channels again last season. (That's WGN and WCIU-TV in a shared over-the-air package, Comcast SportsNet, Comcast SportsNet Plus, ESPN, ESPN2, and the local Fox-TV station.)
But now, local radio is getting into the act, and it is a complete strikeout for Texas Rangers fans. Their radio package is being split between weekday and weekend games. The Fan 105.3 FM will carry the Monday through Friday games, while Saturday and Sunday "continue" on KRLD 1080 AM. Adding to this, the spring training broadcasts will also be split up, as The Fan carries 15 of the spring games with KRLD handling 3 of them.
Eric Nadel will be back for his 31st season in the radio booth, now joined by Dave Barnett.
So let's get this straight for the Rangers fans out there. Say there is a 4 game Thursday through Sunday series. On TV, the Thursday game could be on cable, the Friday game over-the-air, the Saturday game on FOX-TV, and a Sunday game could be a night game on ESPN. That would be 4 TV channels for each of the 4 games. (And if you have paid your $129 for MLB streaming and live too close to Dallas, you would not get the telecasts at all.) On the radio side, the first two games will be on FM, the last 2 games on AM. Got it. This could be the newest rage since fantasy leagues. Find the broadcasts. Worse yet, another way that radio adds a challenge to its listeners.
In Los Angeles, rumors persist that KFWB 980 will carry some of the Angels weeknight games, perhaps right along with KLAA 830 AM to increase the signal coverage. At least that could be on two stations with the same broadcast, but nothing is definite yet.
Wonder how many fans will have time to buy tickets to see their favorite team when they have to make an everyday effort to find where the game is being broadcast and telecast.
TAMPA - The Rays come off their first ever appearance in the World Series and what do they do? They take all of their telecasts for the coming season and put them all on cable via FSN. The only "over-the-air" games will be those shown regionally on Fox-TV. So far, Fox has scheduled 5 Rays games, with only one against a division opponent (May 9 vs. Boston), meaning no over-the-air telecasts vs. the Yankees.
Tampa was also the site of NFL broadcast meetings surrounding the Super Bowl week. But Sports Business Journal reports no progress regarding the national radio rights for the coming season. Westwood One, ESPN, and Sporting News Radio are reportedly still in the running, but each has its reasons and restrictions for not having a deal in place yet.
KANSAS CITY - Same story in Kansas City, and the Royals need all the favorable coverage they can get. Yet, it has been announed that Fox Sports Kansas City will show 140 games this season.
Ryan Lefebvre continues with play-by-play with Paul Splittorff as analyst and Frank White handling a selection of telecasts.
DETROIT - The NBA Pistons will be changing radio outlets starting in the fall. WXYT The Ticket 97.1 FM will begin a multi-year deal as flagship station on the Pistons Network, replacing WDFN.
This change is made despite the number of conflicts that will bump the Pistons broadcasts to another station. The Ticket already has Tigers baseball and Lions football. WWJ 950 AM is expected to air the conflicting Pistons broadcasts, which will continue to be handled by George Blaha and Mark Champion. It surprises me that the Pistons would agree to this, knowing their games will now be bumped. If the Tigers have a good season (normally I would include the Lions in this comment, but I'm not that hypothetical), a percentage of fans would stick with the Tigers game and not tune over to hear the Pistons.
HOUSTON - It is getting to the point where a broadcaster can't say much of anything without a total review. During last week's Rockets game vs. Chicago, Rockets TV analyst (and former NBA great) Clyde Drexler witnessed another slam dunk by Yao Ming of the Rockets over Andres Nocioni of the Bulls, and commented "That's like clubbing baby seals. There is nothing Nocioni can do."
The next day, a Rockets team official was quoted as "having spoken with Clyde regarding his statement during Tuesday night's game". Maybe Clyde's choice of words weren't the greatest, but that was his reaction. What, are the PETA people protesting to the station? Did "Save The Seals" demand air time? Who the heck was being offended? This was not anything racist or vindictive. It was a description that doesn't fit with the usual sports cliche. If this keeps up, those fans who can find the channel a game is being televised or broadcast on will hear "Yes, Ming got another dunk" for the exciting analysis.
The "Longhorn Nation" show now airs each Monday at 6:00 PM on KGOW 1560, while the station now airs its Texas A&M Aggies show on Thursdays at 6, and the University of Houston "Cougars Tonight" at that time each Friday.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL - For those NCAA Football fans who like to plan ahead, some prime games are already being lined up for the fall.
ESPN will handle the Ohio State vs. Southern Cal game at 8 PM ET on September 12th. The Colorado at West Virginia game has been moved to Thursday night Oct. 1st for ESPN. You may recall that WVU lost in overtime at Colorado on a Thursday night game this past September.
And, the Colorado vs. Oklahoma State game has been moved from its originally scheduled Nov. 21 Saturday game up two days. ESPN will have this matchup on Thursday Nov. 19th at 7:45 ET.
First, I am pleasantly surprised that they would tackle the A-Rod story in full. I'm not sure anyone would have questioned it if they didn't, as they could have brushed the story aside or played it down, being a Major League Baseball source. This was not exactly the most positive of stories about the game.
On one hand, breaking in to their scheduled "classic" programming lineup for more than 3 hours seems a bit over-dramatic. But on the other hand, doing so is setting the table for viewers to tune them in when baseball news, positive or negative, is breaking.
On the other, the story coming out was over something which occurred more than 5 years ago and could have broken at any time. It's not as if something specific happened on Saturday morning to make this story any more immediate. But that is not important to this commentary.
The timing for MLB-TV was actually quite good for a major baseball story to break when it did. ESPN and ESPN2 were into their all day slates of college hoops. Same with other regional sports channels. But that made me an example of why MLB-TV did what they did.
I happened to see the scroll about A-Rod on a news channel shortly after the "story" broke. I flipped over to ESPN and saw the bottom line scroll during their college hoops game, and the same for ESPN2. Thinking I might get more details on the bottom scroll on MLB-TV, I switched over. To my amazement, there was a live studio crew with Matt Vasgersian, Harold Reynolds, and Dan Plesac among those reporters in the studio and on the air live with reactions.
They kept at it for a couple hours, and paved the way for Bob Costas to interview the Sports Illustrated reporter live.
Again, this actually was not an "immediate" story since it took 5 years to break, but it showed a lot of baseball fans that MLB-TV is the place to go for breaking baseball news. Another homerun from our newest major sports network.
Meanwhile, MLB has announced and is now promoting their live streaming package for the upcoming season, and how for $129.95 fans can see "unlimited access to live and on-demand streams of every regular season game". However, later in the description we are reminded that "blackout restrictions apply". This drives me nuts.
It has been and remains my belief that there should be much more of a public outcry about sports blackouts. There should be NO blackouts of sports telecasts in the local markets. If I want to watch the opposing team or network feed of my game of most interest, I should be able to do that. If the home team telecast suffers that badly because of a "no blackout" policy, then they need to change announcers or improve their local coverage to draw the fans back.
The teams and their covering stations seem to overlook the fact that I, as a cable (or satellite) subscriber am PAYING to watch the channels that are being blacked out. Worse yet, fans who don't care about sports are having to pay for these sports channels they don't even want. A team on a competing station or network (even for those 3 hours) should not have the right to dictate what channels I can or can't see. Thus, I'm among those "blacking out" any thought of buying the MLB package.
On top of that, there is more aggravation for some baseball fans trying to follow their favorite team through the media each day. It is bad enough that in some cities fans need to check the daily TV schedules to find what channel will have their favorite team that day. There is the "over-the-air" package, the cable package, and national games from ESPN and FOX.
In Chicago, the White Sox appeared on no less than seven - count 'em - seven TV channels again last season. (That's WGN and WCIU-TV in a shared over-the-air package, Comcast SportsNet, Comcast SportsNet Plus, ESPN, ESPN2, and the local Fox-TV station.)
But now, local radio is getting into the act, and it is a complete strikeout for Texas Rangers fans. Their radio package is being split between weekday and weekend games. The Fan 105.3 FM will carry the Monday through Friday games, while Saturday and Sunday "continue" on KRLD 1080 AM. Adding to this, the spring training broadcasts will also be split up, as The Fan carries 15 of the spring games with KRLD handling 3 of them.
Eric Nadel will be back for his 31st season in the radio booth, now joined by Dave Barnett.
So let's get this straight for the Rangers fans out there. Say there is a 4 game Thursday through Sunday series. On TV, the Thursday game could be on cable, the Friday game over-the-air, the Saturday game on FOX-TV, and a Sunday game could be a night game on ESPN. That would be 4 TV channels for each of the 4 games. (And if you have paid your $129 for MLB streaming and live too close to Dallas, you would not get the telecasts at all.) On the radio side, the first two games will be on FM, the last 2 games on AM. Got it. This could be the newest rage since fantasy leagues. Find the broadcasts. Worse yet, another way that radio adds a challenge to its listeners.
In Los Angeles, rumors persist that KFWB 980 will carry some of the Angels weeknight games, perhaps right along with KLAA 830 AM to increase the signal coverage. At least that could be on two stations with the same broadcast, but nothing is definite yet.
Wonder how many fans will have time to buy tickets to see their favorite team when they have to make an everyday effort to find where the game is being broadcast and telecast.
TAMPA - The Rays come off their first ever appearance in the World Series and what do they do? They take all of their telecasts for the coming season and put them all on cable via FSN. The only "over-the-air" games will be those shown regionally on Fox-TV. So far, Fox has scheduled 5 Rays games, with only one against a division opponent (May 9 vs. Boston), meaning no over-the-air telecasts vs. the Yankees.
Tampa was also the site of NFL broadcast meetings surrounding the Super Bowl week. But Sports Business Journal reports no progress regarding the national radio rights for the coming season. Westwood One, ESPN, and Sporting News Radio are reportedly still in the running, but each has its reasons and restrictions for not having a deal in place yet.
KANSAS CITY - Same story in Kansas City, and the Royals need all the favorable coverage they can get. Yet, it has been announed that Fox Sports Kansas City will show 140 games this season.
Ryan Lefebvre continues with play-by-play with Paul Splittorff as analyst and Frank White handling a selection of telecasts.
DETROIT - The NBA Pistons will be changing radio outlets starting in the fall. WXYT The Ticket 97.1 FM will begin a multi-year deal as flagship station on the Pistons Network, replacing WDFN.
This change is made despite the number of conflicts that will bump the Pistons broadcasts to another station. The Ticket already has Tigers baseball and Lions football. WWJ 950 AM is expected to air the conflicting Pistons broadcasts, which will continue to be handled by George Blaha and Mark Champion. It surprises me that the Pistons would agree to this, knowing their games will now be bumped. If the Tigers have a good season (normally I would include the Lions in this comment, but I'm not that hypothetical), a percentage of fans would stick with the Tigers game and not tune over to hear the Pistons.
HOUSTON - It is getting to the point where a broadcaster can't say much of anything without a total review. During last week's Rockets game vs. Chicago, Rockets TV analyst (and former NBA great) Clyde Drexler witnessed another slam dunk by Yao Ming of the Rockets over Andres Nocioni of the Bulls, and commented "That's like clubbing baby seals. There is nothing Nocioni can do."
The next day, a Rockets team official was quoted as "having spoken with Clyde regarding his statement during Tuesday night's game". Maybe Clyde's choice of words weren't the greatest, but that was his reaction. What, are the PETA people protesting to the station? Did "Save The Seals" demand air time? Who the heck was being offended? This was not anything racist or vindictive. It was a description that doesn't fit with the usual sports cliche. If this keeps up, those fans who can find the channel a game is being televised or broadcast on will hear "Yes, Ming got another dunk" for the exciting analysis.
The "Longhorn Nation" show now airs each Monday at 6:00 PM on KGOW 1560, while the station now airs its Texas A&M Aggies show on Thursdays at 6, and the University of Houston "Cougars Tonight" at that time each Friday.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL - For those NCAA Football fans who like to plan ahead, some prime games are already being lined up for the fall.
ESPN will handle the Ohio State vs. Southern Cal game at 8 PM ET on September 12th. The Colorado at West Virginia game has been moved to Thursday night Oct. 1st for ESPN. You may recall that WVU lost in overtime at Colorado on a Thursday night game this past September.
And, the Colorado vs. Oklahoma State game has been moved from its originally scheduled Nov. 21 Saturday game up two days. ESPN will have this matchup on Thursday Nov. 19th at 7:45 ET.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sports Media Report - December 2 update
The Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame will be inducting its 2008 class on December 16th in New York. The second set of inductions includes Vin Scully and Curt Gowdy from the play-by-play side, along with executives of paramount importance to televised sports as we know them today. Chet Forte, Don Ohlmeyer, and Ted Nathanson are also going to be inducted.
While it is easy to wonder why those names were not among the very first group inducted last year, keep in mind that last year's charter group included Jim McKay and Howard Cosell from the on-air side. Others in that group included Harry Coyle, Ed Sabol (NFL Films), and former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.
The NFL will continue playing one regular season game in London next year. Although the 2009 NFL schedule is still in formation, a rare matchup between the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been scheduled for Sunday Oct. 25, 2009 at Wembley Stadium in London. The start time will again be in coordination with U.S. television schedules. CBS-TV will have this telecast at 1:00 PM ET. Next year will be the third consecutive year of a regular season game in London, with all being AFC vs. NFC matchups.
HOUSTON - The latest round of radio ratings show a victory of sorts for Mike & Mike and their syndicated ESPN Radio morning show. KFNC 97.5 came in at the top of the 25-54 men demographic. That is news enough on its own when a syndicated show tops a major market in such an important demographic. What makes the story more interesting is this happening after KFNC picked up Mike & Mike from KMBE 790 which dropped it to carry a local show.
I think this signifies still another changing trend about radio and television. It appears that listeners and viewers are making choices based on quality ahead of location. In the instance of Mike & Mike doing better than any other Houston radio sports show in the morning, it shows me that people are not making a "local vs. national" distinction. They want the best show they can find, wherever it comes from. It wasn't always that way. Stations airing syndicated shows were looked down upon and rarely made a dent.
On the TV side, look at how the combined audiences of ESPN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC have taken away from local news and sportscasts around the country. Same theory. Radio especially needs to increase their local impact. The Mike & Mike success is the result of a good show, but also the result of the positive branding that ESPN has developed. I have to believe this audience consists of a lot of men unable to watch, or to continue watching, ESPN in the morning who then follow on the radio. Some of this could be the lack of success among the Astros and Texans this year, leaving sports fans to crave more national coverage. Yet, in some cities, local sports talk does even better when one or more of the teams is not winning, as the fans have more reason to pick their favorite team apart.
It will be interesting to see how the other sports stations in Houston react with their morning shows over the next few weeks.
CONNECTICUT: Even though it begins with only telecasts of various high school games, congrats to CTSN-TV, the Connecticut Sports Network. The state's first 24 hour sports station made its official launch (Tuesday Dec. 2) from its Hartford studios. For now, CTSN is showing replays of playoff and title games in football, soccer, volleyball, and a couple of others. Plans are in the works to add some live telecasts of local college hoops, and eventually to add coaches talk shows and the like.
CHARLOTTE - Once again sports fans need a scorecard, but in this case it is to follow their local radio stations instead of the athletes. Mornings on 99.9 The Fan began carrying ESPN Radio programming this week (Monday Dec. 1). The Bull AM 620 has now officially dropped Mike & Mike and added Don Imus. (That's easy to remember - associating Imus with "Bull".) 850 AM The Buzz now airs Dan Patrick's radio show live from 10 AM to Noon. 99.9 FM goes local for one whole hour middays, as "Sports Lunch with Mike Maniscalco" is heard from Noon to 1:00 PM.
BATON ROUGE: This past Monday (Dec. 1) was the season debut of LSU Basketball Coach Trent Johnson's weekly radio show at 7:00 PM. The show airs live from a Baton Rouge restaurant on 100.7 FM The Tiger (how appropriate!) and on the LSU Sports Radio Network. However, to the best of my knowledge the show is not streamed live. The show is hosted by Jim Hawthorne and will air throughout the basketball season.
BILLINGS: The nation's newest sports station made its surprise debut on Monday morning (Dec. 1). 105.1 FM dropped music and picked up ESPN Radio.
While it is easy to wonder why those names were not among the very first group inducted last year, keep in mind that last year's charter group included Jim McKay and Howard Cosell from the on-air side. Others in that group included Harry Coyle, Ed Sabol (NFL Films), and former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.
The NFL will continue playing one regular season game in London next year. Although the 2009 NFL schedule is still in formation, a rare matchup between the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been scheduled for Sunday Oct. 25, 2009 at Wembley Stadium in London. The start time will again be in coordination with U.S. television schedules. CBS-TV will have this telecast at 1:00 PM ET. Next year will be the third consecutive year of a regular season game in London, with all being AFC vs. NFC matchups.
HOUSTON - The latest round of radio ratings show a victory of sorts for Mike & Mike and their syndicated ESPN Radio morning show. KFNC 97.5 came in at the top of the 25-54 men demographic. That is news enough on its own when a syndicated show tops a major market in such an important demographic. What makes the story more interesting is this happening after KFNC picked up Mike & Mike from KMBE 790 which dropped it to carry a local show.
I think this signifies still another changing trend about radio and television. It appears that listeners and viewers are making choices based on quality ahead of location. In the instance of Mike & Mike doing better than any other Houston radio sports show in the morning, it shows me that people are not making a "local vs. national" distinction. They want the best show they can find, wherever it comes from. It wasn't always that way. Stations airing syndicated shows were looked down upon and rarely made a dent.
On the TV side, look at how the combined audiences of ESPN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC have taken away from local news and sportscasts around the country. Same theory. Radio especially needs to increase their local impact. The Mike & Mike success is the result of a good show, but also the result of the positive branding that ESPN has developed. I have to believe this audience consists of a lot of men unable to watch, or to continue watching, ESPN in the morning who then follow on the radio. Some of this could be the lack of success among the Astros and Texans this year, leaving sports fans to crave more national coverage. Yet, in some cities, local sports talk does even better when one or more of the teams is not winning, as the fans have more reason to pick their favorite team apart.
It will be interesting to see how the other sports stations in Houston react with their morning shows over the next few weeks.
CONNECTICUT: Even though it begins with only telecasts of various high school games, congrats to CTSN-TV, the Connecticut Sports Network. The state's first 24 hour sports station made its official launch (Tuesday Dec. 2) from its Hartford studios. For now, CTSN is showing replays of playoff and title games in football, soccer, volleyball, and a couple of others. Plans are in the works to add some live telecasts of local college hoops, and eventually to add coaches talk shows and the like.
CHARLOTTE - Once again sports fans need a scorecard, but in this case it is to follow their local radio stations instead of the athletes. Mornings on 99.9 The Fan began carrying ESPN Radio programming this week (Monday Dec. 1). The Bull AM 620 has now officially dropped Mike & Mike and added Don Imus. (That's easy to remember - associating Imus with "Bull".) 850 AM The Buzz now airs Dan Patrick's radio show live from 10 AM to Noon. 99.9 FM goes local for one whole hour middays, as "Sports Lunch with Mike Maniscalco" is heard from Noon to 1:00 PM.
BATON ROUGE: This past Monday (Dec. 1) was the season debut of LSU Basketball Coach Trent Johnson's weekly radio show at 7:00 PM. The show airs live from a Baton Rouge restaurant on 100.7 FM The Tiger (how appropriate!) and on the LSU Sports Radio Network. However, to the best of my knowledge the show is not streamed live. The show is hosted by Jim Hawthorne and will air throughout the basketball season.
BILLINGS: The nation's newest sports station made its surprise debut on Monday morning (Dec. 1). 105.1 FM dropped music and picked up ESPN Radio.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sports Media Report - November 19th update
The Houston Astros, like the N.Y. Mets, are standing pat as far as their flagship radio outlet is concerned. KTRH 740 will indeed remain as the Astros station for 2009. The night time signal strength of KTRH is believed to have been an important factor in negotiations. Exact length and terms have yet to be announced. Thus, the two largest National League teams with radio rights up for 2009 have now both stayed with the same station, as the Mets already announced continuing and adding coverage through WFAN.
On the TV side, the Colorado Rockies have just announced a (get this) 12 year contract extension with FSN Rocky Mountain which runs through the 2020 season. This contract reflects the national trend of fewer games on over-the-air TV and many more on cable. To the point that KTVD-TV will no longer carry any Rockies games, effective immediately. FSN Rocky Mountain will carry approximately 150 games each season, which covers everything except for Fox and any exclusive ESPN (or other cable network) telecasts.
To put this in perspective, when FSN Rocky Mountain first televised any Rockies games in 1997, they showed a grand total of seven games. Ironically, this announcement comes on the heels of a reported 5.5% decline in Rockies ratings from the recently completed season. The expert level of coverage will continue, as FSN plans to continue with extended pre and post-game programming and the post-game manager's press conference. Some cable systems in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, and Kansas, are also expected to receive the telecasts.
Needless to say, comments abound from the big announcement that ESPN will handle the BCS telecasts from January 2011 through January of 2014 and the impact on the championship system and the game itself. Or is it a "game" anymore?
I feel like saying the 'business' of college football in every sentence. This new agreement continues the current system which supposedly determines a national champion each season but really continues the same arguments that have gone on for years. Only at a much higher cost.
Normally, I don't step away from the field and make this a business column either. But I have a different take on this ESPN BCS announcement and its true impact on the 'business' of college football.
Hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly go to the universities and colleges. Yet, tuition plus room and board continue to rise. Advertisers will be charged more money to help pay the freight, which usually means an increase in the cost of products and services which spend the big promotional dollars. The price of game tickets, even at the college level, continues to rise to the point of pricing out more people than ever before who are not current students. Yet, the players who lead their school to a conference, bowl game, or a national championship, are not paid any of this cash.
And all of this while universities and conferences are forming their own TV and marketing deals for direct profit. It may be more interesting than the games themselves to see how this shakes out within the next few months. Will the upcoming BCS Series sell all of its TV time? Word is that there are still national spots available during the upcoming Super Bowl.
Oh, and before we get to college championship time, the TV competition heats up in early December.
The Dec. 6th rivalry game between Arizona and Arizona State has been moved to a 6:00 PM start time. Of course, it has been moved for television. Believe it or not, not just for one telecast. ESPN will carry the game, but it will also be shown, via separate feed and announcers, in Arizona on Fox Sports Arizona. FSA can show the game based on its Pac 12 contract; however the non-exclusive portion of the contract allows ESPN to step in.
Thanksgiving weekend college football telecasts have also been announced. CBS will have LSU at Arkansas, with Don Criqui and Dan Fouts on the call, for Friday Nov. 28th at 2:30 ET. On Sat. Nov. 29th CBS shows Georgia vs. Georgia TEch followed by Alabama hosting Auburn.
On the NFL side, CBS has moved the N.Y. Jets game vs. Denver to a 4:00 ET start on Nov. 30th. Given that the Jets and Giants were both tentatively scheduled for 1:00 ET that day, it was inevitable that one of those games would go later. Fox keeps the Giants vs. Washington game for its early primary regional telecast.
Following up on a comment from last week, we did receive clarification about FOX-TV's decision to send Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to handle the Cowboys vs. 49ers telecast this coming Sunday (Nov. 23). Turns out it is a matter of logistics, as the Fox "#1 crew" needs to be in Dallas for the Thanksgiving game just 4 days later. Thus, Kenny Albert calling the Giants vs. Cardinals doubleheader game will be seen in more than 75% of the nation.
Getting back to baseball, Dennis Eckersley will continue as studio analyst for Red Sox telecasts on NESN under a new contract. Eck is also expected to continue in studio for TBS for next season.
No word yet from Chicago as to whether or not Darin Jackson will shift over to the White Sox radio booth or leave to pursue other opportunities. A decision had been expected within 2 weeks of the end of the World Series.
Meanwhile, word from Los Angeles is that veteran sportscaster Rory Markas continues a positive recovery from blood clot surgery on his brain. Steve Physioc continues to fill in for Rory on USC basketball broadcasts, except for a few schedule conflicts. USC football voice Pete Arbogast was originally selected to fill in for Physioc filling in for Markas.
Now the L.A. Daily News reports that sources claim Arbogast complained to USC's Athletic Director about that decision. Athletic Director Mike Garrett took action in response. Pac-10 Conference basketball play-by-play man Isaac Lowendron, who has also called games on KLAC 570, will handle the assignments originally targeted for Arbogast. Ooops.
On the TV side, the Colorado Rockies have just announced a (get this) 12 year contract extension with FSN Rocky Mountain which runs through the 2020 season. This contract reflects the national trend of fewer games on over-the-air TV and many more on cable. To the point that KTVD-TV will no longer carry any Rockies games, effective immediately. FSN Rocky Mountain will carry approximately 150 games each season, which covers everything except for Fox and any exclusive ESPN (or other cable network) telecasts.
To put this in perspective, when FSN Rocky Mountain first televised any Rockies games in 1997, they showed a grand total of seven games. Ironically, this announcement comes on the heels of a reported 5.5% decline in Rockies ratings from the recently completed season. The expert level of coverage will continue, as FSN plans to continue with extended pre and post-game programming and the post-game manager's press conference. Some cable systems in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, and Kansas, are also expected to receive the telecasts.
Needless to say, comments abound from the big announcement that ESPN will handle the BCS telecasts from January 2011 through January of 2014 and the impact on the championship system and the game itself. Or is it a "game" anymore?
I feel like saying the 'business' of college football in every sentence. This new agreement continues the current system which supposedly determines a national champion each season but really continues the same arguments that have gone on for years. Only at a much higher cost.
Normally, I don't step away from the field and make this a business column either. But I have a different take on this ESPN BCS announcement and its true impact on the 'business' of college football.
Hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly go to the universities and colleges. Yet, tuition plus room and board continue to rise. Advertisers will be charged more money to help pay the freight, which usually means an increase in the cost of products and services which spend the big promotional dollars. The price of game tickets, even at the college level, continues to rise to the point of pricing out more people than ever before who are not current students. Yet, the players who lead their school to a conference, bowl game, or a national championship, are not paid any of this cash.
And all of this while universities and conferences are forming their own TV and marketing deals for direct profit. It may be more interesting than the games themselves to see how this shakes out within the next few months. Will the upcoming BCS Series sell all of its TV time? Word is that there are still national spots available during the upcoming Super Bowl.
Oh, and before we get to college championship time, the TV competition heats up in early December.
The Dec. 6th rivalry game between Arizona and Arizona State has been moved to a 6:00 PM start time. Of course, it has been moved for television. Believe it or not, not just for one telecast. ESPN will carry the game, but it will also be shown, via separate feed and announcers, in Arizona on Fox Sports Arizona. FSA can show the game based on its Pac 12 contract; however the non-exclusive portion of the contract allows ESPN to step in.
Thanksgiving weekend college football telecasts have also been announced. CBS will have LSU at Arkansas, with Don Criqui and Dan Fouts on the call, for Friday Nov. 28th at 2:30 ET. On Sat. Nov. 29th CBS shows Georgia vs. Georgia TEch followed by Alabama hosting Auburn.
On the NFL side, CBS has moved the N.Y. Jets game vs. Denver to a 4:00 ET start on Nov. 30th. Given that the Jets and Giants were both tentatively scheduled for 1:00 ET that day, it was inevitable that one of those games would go later. Fox keeps the Giants vs. Washington game for its early primary regional telecast.
Following up on a comment from last week, we did receive clarification about FOX-TV's decision to send Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to handle the Cowboys vs. 49ers telecast this coming Sunday (Nov. 23). Turns out it is a matter of logistics, as the Fox "#1 crew" needs to be in Dallas for the Thanksgiving game just 4 days later. Thus, Kenny Albert calling the Giants vs. Cardinals doubleheader game will be seen in more than 75% of the nation.
Getting back to baseball, Dennis Eckersley will continue as studio analyst for Red Sox telecasts on NESN under a new contract. Eck is also expected to continue in studio for TBS for next season.
No word yet from Chicago as to whether or not Darin Jackson will shift over to the White Sox radio booth or leave to pursue other opportunities. A decision had been expected within 2 weeks of the end of the World Series.
Meanwhile, word from Los Angeles is that veteran sportscaster Rory Markas continues a positive recovery from blood clot surgery on his brain. Steve Physioc continues to fill in for Rory on USC basketball broadcasts, except for a few schedule conflicts. USC football voice Pete Arbogast was originally selected to fill in for Physioc filling in for Markas.
Now the L.A. Daily News reports that sources claim Arbogast complained to USC's Athletic Director about that decision. Athletic Director Mike Garrett took action in response. Pac-10 Conference basketball play-by-play man Isaac Lowendron, who has also called games on KLAC 570, will handle the assignments originally targeted for Arbogast. Ooops.
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