It's all about the TV ratings and the TV money in sports these days. But it should be more about the networks maintaining the best possible elements of their telecasts to be sure the audience is paying attention.
Even the networks cannot overlook the recent "Know The Fan Report 2014" research just released by Sporting News Media. Among the findings of the study are that about 44% of viewers, with access to a phone or internet device, are now also engaged with keeping up with other games at the same time. Another 20% are accessing highlights of other games. Again, this is among fans who are viewing a specific game at the time.
For now, the ratings are excellent for the most part. Right now, TNT has higher ratings for its NBA West Finals between San Antonio and Oklahoma City than last year's West Finals showed. NBC's hockey coverage is up across the board. The NFL had a ratings bonanza on NFL Draft opening night. And so it goes.
But if the Memorial Day weekend is an indication, the telecasts themselves could be doing more harm than good for the attention span of the audience, and the networks need to be careful. On Sunday (5/25) the ABC telecast of the Indy 500 was its usual superb effort until the end of the race when ABC decided to go with a split screen. For those not watching or not aware, it wasn't to be showing multiple drivers or even multiple angles of the final stretch.
Instead, it was a split screen to show the reaction of the key drivers' significant other. As if viewers want to see the expected facial reaction as much as the leading cars race to the finish line. Unless ABC hired the TMZ Network to direct its video, there is absolutely no excuse for making an obvious reaction such a priority. ABC executives should not be wondering why more and more people are monitoring other media sources DURING telecasts when they take away from their live coverage to that extent.
Next, on Monday (5/26), MLB again decided to have all teams wear "special" Memorial Day uniforms. Personally, I don't like it whenever a team wears anything except their usual colors and uniforms, but that's not important here. The problem with the Memorial Day plan is that the teams were mandated to wear "camoflague" uniforms which totally fade the numbers and names on the front and the back.
As a result, TV viewers (along with fans who paid their way into every game) had a difficult time seeing names and numbers of players for the teams they were watching. Several of the team uniforms were also changed to the point of making it tough to determine which team or teams you were watching when you tuned in. I'd bet the ranch that some casual fans thought they must have stumbled on to a college or minor league game and kept flipping the channels.
Somehow we as fans survived all these years knowing when it was a holiday without needing for teams to wear something different "in support".
However, this crap with the 'special', alternative, and 'throw-up' (whatever they call them) uniforms has gotten out of hand and makes it difficult for TV viewers to determine who they are watching. And now we get more evidence that fans are going more and more to "other" sources while watching these telecasts. Even the national telecasts on ESPN and MLB Networks showed teams wearing unrecognizable uniforms.
Sorry, but we fans now pay big bucks to our cable/satellite providers for these games (even if we don't want them). And the networks and stations pay big bucks to these teams for the rights to televise them. It is time for the media companies to speak up about having the teams they show wearing their easily identifiable uniforms, complete with names and numbers that are easily read.
Ironically, at the same time, more and more sources point to Disney honcho Bob Iger as a strong possibility to become the next Commissioner of Baseball. He is not a baseball man, but is a media guy at a time when several teams have significant deals starting while other teams come up for negotiation within the next five years. If it's about media rights, and keeping your audience looking at the screen instead of Twitter, you had better believe something should be done about giving the fans the best possible visual.
The current NHL ratings bring a very curious finding. It seems that the East Finals between the N.Y. Rangers and Montreal Canadiens have higher ratings on NBC and NBCSN than the West Finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and L.A. Kings have. Chicago had record ratings for its local Blackhawks telecasts this season, while this matchup is between two of the top three TV markets. NBC does not get the benefit of the Montreal audience, since Canada has separate telecasts.
Elsewhere, Fox Sports has added former N.Y. Giants offensive lineman David Diehl to its roster of NFL analysts, starting for the upcoming season. Word is that Diehl, who was with the Giants since 2003, will be a game analyst on one of the revised Fox announcing teams.
LOS ANGELES: Chris Roberts, the voice of UCLA football and basketball since 1992, has decided that the coming seasons for both sports will be his last. Roberts is already inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and has actually been calling college games in Southern California for more than 30 years.
EVANSVILLE: In perhaps the most bizarre sports media story of the month, rumor has it that WJLT 105.3 will drop its music format (which has increased by more than a full ratings point since March) and change over to ESPN Radio. It seems that there is currently not a full-time sports station in the market. And that is not even the bizarre part. The "source" of this story, which even named the current music air personalities who would be replaced, is WTVW-TV. Nothing like a TV station publishing a rumor about a local radio station. Quite the distraction for local social media followers!
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Not Enough Players In The Broadcast Rights Game
The impact of the high cost of sports media broadcast rights dominates this week. On a national level, the likely purchase of DirecTV by AT&T reportedly has one of the conditions being DirecTV's ability to retain its NFL Sunday Ticket package after the coming season. Even the possibility that an estimated $49 billion deal could hinge upon football rights shows us all where things are headed.
You have to think that there were some collective high fives in the NFL offices when that became public knowledge. Not exactly the negotiation strength that DirecTV wants. Of course, sports fans should be even more concerned about this merger/acquisition, because fewer players means less competition and that means fewer "deals" for our cable and satellite services. This is happening while Time Warner and Comcast are in a similar situation. We could be faced with having two "players" in the cable/satellite world in the next few years, which does not bode well for our monthly costs going down.
As a local story, still nothing further for Dodgers fans regarding the majority of them having the opportunity to see the games on TV, even if willing to pay the high price to do so. As mentioned last week, the ratings and audience share for KLAC 570 (the Dodgers flagship radio station) nearly doubled from March to early May coinciding with the season starting. Now comes word, as I thought, that Fox Sports West reports a 30% increase in its audience for the first few weeks of its Angels telecasts, which are more readily available to the majority of the market. You can't use the argument that the Dodgers lead the National League in attendance, since the team's run to the post-season in 2013 was a huge factor in people buying tickets early.
It may not be until late this season, if the Dodgers fall off in the race, or into next year before we see an attendance drop at Dodgers games. My thinking is that a continued attendance drop needs to happen before the Dodgers step in and do something to ease the situation so that more people can watch their games. Frankly, the Dodgers should have stepped in by now. Not only to help their fans to be able to see the games, but also because they won't have Vin Scully calling the games forever.
ATLANTA: The lack of success of sports radio stations in the market could very well be leading to having one less sports station in the market by the end of 2014. Maybe not many people have noticed, but WQXI 790 has "laid off" its morning and afternoon drive local shows. The "Locker Room" morning show is gone, as are (former Falcon) Alge Crumpler and J.P. Peterson, while the afternoon team of Mike Bell and David Archer are also gone as of this week. The station does not have any local play-by-play scheduled until football season, when it is scheduled to continue as the flagship station of the Falcons and carry SEC games on Saturdays. WQXI is airing all ESPN Radio all the time for the moment. With its play-by-play only slotted for weekends during the fall, it's not like there is a reason to stick with all sports programming. It will be interesting to see if the other two sports stations show any gains in audience over the next couple of ratings books or not.
NEW YORK: It seems like a blast from the past, but longtime sportscaster Spencer Ross is having a busy weekend. Ross will call as many as five baseball games of the Big East Conference baseball championships. Hopefully for his sake someone will be listening. Most of the games will be on BigEast.com, while the championship game will air on Sunday afternoon on Fox Sports 1.
CHICAGO: It's about securing rights this week. While WGN Radio has not locked up its Cubs radio broadcasts beyond the current season (and still may not), WGN-TV has been able to extend its agreement with the NHL Blackhawks to televise up to 20 regular season games for an additional three seasons. It now holds those rights through the 2018-19 season.
Sorry to report the passing of Bill Berg, a Chicago sports radio pioneer who passed away this week at the age of 77. Berg had one of the market's first ever radio sports shows, going back to his weeknight show on WIND Radio. He actually had opinions and didn't back down. Today, he would be just another sports talk host, but back then he was among the very first to shake it up with listeners. He also did some color for Chicago Bulls broadcasts. Mr. Berg went on to WGN Radio in the 70's, hosting afternoon drive, while also filling in on Cubs baseball broadcasts and calling DePaul and Loyola University basketball games. He went on to do play-by-play for the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors into the late 80's before retiring.
You have to think that there were some collective high fives in the NFL offices when that became public knowledge. Not exactly the negotiation strength that DirecTV wants. Of course, sports fans should be even more concerned about this merger/acquisition, because fewer players means less competition and that means fewer "deals" for our cable and satellite services. This is happening while Time Warner and Comcast are in a similar situation. We could be faced with having two "players" in the cable/satellite world in the next few years, which does not bode well for our monthly costs going down.
As a local story, still nothing further for Dodgers fans regarding the majority of them having the opportunity to see the games on TV, even if willing to pay the high price to do so. As mentioned last week, the ratings and audience share for KLAC 570 (the Dodgers flagship radio station) nearly doubled from March to early May coinciding with the season starting. Now comes word, as I thought, that Fox Sports West reports a 30% increase in its audience for the first few weeks of its Angels telecasts, which are more readily available to the majority of the market. You can't use the argument that the Dodgers lead the National League in attendance, since the team's run to the post-season in 2013 was a huge factor in people buying tickets early.
It may not be until late this season, if the Dodgers fall off in the race, or into next year before we see an attendance drop at Dodgers games. My thinking is that a continued attendance drop needs to happen before the Dodgers step in and do something to ease the situation so that more people can watch their games. Frankly, the Dodgers should have stepped in by now. Not only to help their fans to be able to see the games, but also because they won't have Vin Scully calling the games forever.
ATLANTA: The lack of success of sports radio stations in the market could very well be leading to having one less sports station in the market by the end of 2014. Maybe not many people have noticed, but WQXI 790 has "laid off" its morning and afternoon drive local shows. The "Locker Room" morning show is gone, as are (former Falcon) Alge Crumpler and J.P. Peterson, while the afternoon team of Mike Bell and David Archer are also gone as of this week. The station does not have any local play-by-play scheduled until football season, when it is scheduled to continue as the flagship station of the Falcons and carry SEC games on Saturdays. WQXI is airing all ESPN Radio all the time for the moment. With its play-by-play only slotted for weekends during the fall, it's not like there is a reason to stick with all sports programming. It will be interesting to see if the other two sports stations show any gains in audience over the next couple of ratings books or not.
NEW YORK: It seems like a blast from the past, but longtime sportscaster Spencer Ross is having a busy weekend. Ross will call as many as five baseball games of the Big East Conference baseball championships. Hopefully for his sake someone will be listening. Most of the games will be on BigEast.com, while the championship game will air on Sunday afternoon on Fox Sports 1.
CHICAGO: It's about securing rights this week. While WGN Radio has not locked up its Cubs radio broadcasts beyond the current season (and still may not), WGN-TV has been able to extend its agreement with the NHL Blackhawks to televise up to 20 regular season games for an additional three seasons. It now holds those rights through the 2018-19 season.
Sorry to report the passing of Bill Berg, a Chicago sports radio pioneer who passed away this week at the age of 77. Berg had one of the market's first ever radio sports shows, going back to his weeknight show on WIND Radio. He actually had opinions and didn't back down. Today, he would be just another sports talk host, but back then he was among the very first to shake it up with listeners. He also did some color for Chicago Bulls broadcasts. Mr. Berg went on to WGN Radio in the 70's, hosting afternoon drive, while also filling in on Cubs baseball broadcasts and calling DePaul and Loyola University basketball games. He went on to do play-by-play for the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors into the late 80's before retiring.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Baseball Drives Radio Ratings Again
The latest radio ratings continue to prove the romance between baseball and radio. Detroit's WXYT-FM The Ticket showed more than a 20% overall audience increase from the March ratings book through the just released April book with its Tigers broadcasts. San Francisco's KNBR shot up to 2nd place over all that market with the Giants off to a hot start. KMOX St. Louis rose 1.5 full ratings points with Cardinals season underway. WGN Chicago showed a large increase with the Cubs broadcasts back.
Yet, the baseball station to keep an eye on throughout the baseball season is KLAC 570 Los Angeles, the sports station which is also the flagship station for the Dodgers. KLAC technically doubled its overall audience from late March into late April, with their overall rating going from a mere 0.5 to a 1.0.
There are those that say, and rightfully so, that this is a natural increase for KLAC, given that this could again be Vin Scully's final season calling the games, with the first three innings of each game simulcast on radio, and high expectations for the Dodgers this year. What makes the ratings book worth following is to measure the impact of the Time Warner Cable standoff which has resulted in the majority of the L.A. market being unable to pay high prices to watch the Dodgers on TV. As a result, it is radio or "nothing" for thousands of Dodgers fans. The longer into the season this dispute goes, the less likely it is that either the providers or TWC will budge.
TV ratings for the Angels telecasts have been up. Whether that is due to their easy availability, Albert Pujols' hot start, or a combination, remains to be seen, so to speak. Yet, on the radio side, the Dodger station showed a bigger increase than the Angels stations did, at least for the first few weeks of the season.
In Boston, the Red Sox season has brought WEEI-FM a bit closer to rival WBZ-FM Sports Hub, even though the Sports Hub now has a full rating point lead after dropping to #7 overall in the market.
New York City showed an audience increase for both of the "new" baseball stations. As expected, WFAN as the Yankees flagship station increased by .7 overall to #11 overall, while WOR Radio gained .2 overall. This appears to be the Yankees contributing directly to WFAN's increase, since sports radio rival WEPN held steady from its March to April overall ratings.
A similar baseball success story in Philadelphia, where WIP-FM went up .6 overall with Phillies baseball, although WPEN also showed an overall increase and has two-thirds of the overall audience size of "the whip".
Sports stations in Washington D.C. were trading listeners during the March to April period. WJFK-FM went up .6 of a ratings point during the month, while WTEM-AM dropped by .5 of a ratings point at the same time. Similar jockeying for position in the three station Dallas sports radio race. WTCK The Ticket has dropped .5 overall since February, while KESN went up .5 during the same period and is closing in on The Ticket. KRLD-FM went up by .3, but remains in third place in that battle.
While Houston's sports stations continue to make the occasional changes to their lineups, it's the teams that drive those stations, or, as we should say, keep them in 'park' this time of the year. As we hit the mid-point of the Texans' off-season, KILT has dropped back to a 1.3 overall and #20 in the market, KBME, even with an increase, is only at a 1.0 rating, with KFNC at only half of that. Similar disappointment in Atlanta, despite the Braves starting a season of contending and the Hawks making their first round NBA playoff run. WZGC-FM dipped by 25% overall during the one-month period, meaning that neither WZGC-FM or WQXI 790 are in the top 20 in the market.
Getting back to Chicago, WSCR The Score 670 went up .3 overall with White Sox baseball starting during that time, with WMVP ESPN 1000 increasing by .2 during the Bulls first round playoff run. As mentioned earlier, WGN Radio showed a larger audience increase due mainly to Cubs broadcasts.
What makes this interesting is that this is the final season of WGN having the Cubs broadcasts under the current radio contract, with WGN Radio reportedly having lost its exclusive window of opportunity to negotiate an extension. There would appear to be an incentive for other Chicago radio stations (groups) to enter the negotiations. Even as a "loss leader" these other stations would see this as an opportunity to keep the WGN overall audience down going into next year and beyond.
Elsewhere, I must congratulate ESPN on hyping its way to a major ratings coup by getting its competition to, in effect, promote their coverage. Think about it. The NFL Draft is not a "game".
There is no betting line (at least not yet). Not that long ago, fans would start hearing about the NFL Draft a couple of days before with a bit of speculation about the needs of the various teams.
But the pre-draft "coverage" has swelled of late. I'm an NFL fan but I couldn't believe how every sports network had tons of analysis of college players, mock draft after mock draft, and 'experts' popping out of the woodwork for the better part of a month leading into the Draft. I can understand ESPN and NFL Network doing this constantly. It's NFL Network's role to cover and hype the draft. ESPN does it because they provide extensive and complete live coverage.
This year, for whatever reason, Fox Sports, NBC, CBS, and the regional sports networks also felt the need to devote a significant amount of "coverage" to what is really speculation leading into the Draft. Sorry, but unless there is trade or an actual pick is made, it really isn't "news" until something actually happens.
As a result of constant hype everywhere NFL fans watched and listened, the audience for ESPN's live coverage of the Draft was essentially built with the help of all of their competition. The TV ratings for the Thursday (5/8) Round One coverage on ESPN were incredible. The NFL Draft had more than double the audience for the NBA Playoffs (including Miami vs. Brooklyn), and those were televised on ESPN2, and more than TRIPLE the audience for the Boston vs. Montreal Stanley Cup playoff game on NBCSN, at the same time. Not to mention how ESPN's Draft coverage trounced the various local and regional networks' baseball telecasts that night.
ESPN's Draft coverage had more than triple the audience of the NFL Network coverage as well. If you combine those two networks, they more than tripled the NBA coverage, had over SIX times the NHL audience, and so on.
And people wonder why these other networks don't come close to out-drawing ESPN, even on the rare times they have quality content.
BOSTON: WEEI-FM is making still another schedule change, this time adjusting its midday show. "Middays with MFB", with Lou Merloni and Christian Fauria as co-hosts, and Mike Mutanski being moved to another show. The "B" in the show will be Tim Benz, who is expected to join the station next week, coming over from ESPN 970 in Pittsburgh.
ATLANTA: It's now Braves or "bust" for WYAY 106.7, which is technically no longer "all news". The station will now only have news blocks during morning and afternoon drive, instead of for the majority of its broadcast day. Word is the station is no longer staffing its newsroom on nights when the Braves are broadcast, and is already airing syndicated talk content on nights when there are no games. Another instance of radio stations holding out on quality content except for when they "think" enough people are listening, while wondering where their audience has gone.
DETROIT: For those that even notice WCAR 1090 and its attempt at sports radio, the station has again changed its syndicated sports programming. After dropping (or losing, depending on whom you believe) its ESPN affiliation in July 2013, the station went with NBC Sports Radio. Now, for those keeping score at home, the station shifts over to Yahoo Sports as of next week.
Yet, the baseball station to keep an eye on throughout the baseball season is KLAC 570 Los Angeles, the sports station which is also the flagship station for the Dodgers. KLAC technically doubled its overall audience from late March into late April, with their overall rating going from a mere 0.5 to a 1.0.
There are those that say, and rightfully so, that this is a natural increase for KLAC, given that this could again be Vin Scully's final season calling the games, with the first three innings of each game simulcast on radio, and high expectations for the Dodgers this year. What makes the ratings book worth following is to measure the impact of the Time Warner Cable standoff which has resulted in the majority of the L.A. market being unable to pay high prices to watch the Dodgers on TV. As a result, it is radio or "nothing" for thousands of Dodgers fans. The longer into the season this dispute goes, the less likely it is that either the providers or TWC will budge.
TV ratings for the Angels telecasts have been up. Whether that is due to their easy availability, Albert Pujols' hot start, or a combination, remains to be seen, so to speak. Yet, on the radio side, the Dodger station showed a bigger increase than the Angels stations did, at least for the first few weeks of the season.
In Boston, the Red Sox season has brought WEEI-FM a bit closer to rival WBZ-FM Sports Hub, even though the Sports Hub now has a full rating point lead after dropping to #7 overall in the market.
New York City showed an audience increase for both of the "new" baseball stations. As expected, WFAN as the Yankees flagship station increased by .7 overall to #11 overall, while WOR Radio gained .2 overall. This appears to be the Yankees contributing directly to WFAN's increase, since sports radio rival WEPN held steady from its March to April overall ratings.
A similar baseball success story in Philadelphia, where WIP-FM went up .6 overall with Phillies baseball, although WPEN also showed an overall increase and has two-thirds of the overall audience size of "the whip".
Sports stations in Washington D.C. were trading listeners during the March to April period. WJFK-FM went up .6 of a ratings point during the month, while WTEM-AM dropped by .5 of a ratings point at the same time. Similar jockeying for position in the three station Dallas sports radio race. WTCK The Ticket has dropped .5 overall since February, while KESN went up .5 during the same period and is closing in on The Ticket. KRLD-FM went up by .3, but remains in third place in that battle.
While Houston's sports stations continue to make the occasional changes to their lineups, it's the teams that drive those stations, or, as we should say, keep them in 'park' this time of the year. As we hit the mid-point of the Texans' off-season, KILT has dropped back to a 1.3 overall and #20 in the market, KBME, even with an increase, is only at a 1.0 rating, with KFNC at only half of that. Similar disappointment in Atlanta, despite the Braves starting a season of contending and the Hawks making their first round NBA playoff run. WZGC-FM dipped by 25% overall during the one-month period, meaning that neither WZGC-FM or WQXI 790 are in the top 20 in the market.
Getting back to Chicago, WSCR The Score 670 went up .3 overall with White Sox baseball starting during that time, with WMVP ESPN 1000 increasing by .2 during the Bulls first round playoff run. As mentioned earlier, WGN Radio showed a larger audience increase due mainly to Cubs broadcasts.
What makes this interesting is that this is the final season of WGN having the Cubs broadcasts under the current radio contract, with WGN Radio reportedly having lost its exclusive window of opportunity to negotiate an extension. There would appear to be an incentive for other Chicago radio stations (groups) to enter the negotiations. Even as a "loss leader" these other stations would see this as an opportunity to keep the WGN overall audience down going into next year and beyond.
Elsewhere, I must congratulate ESPN on hyping its way to a major ratings coup by getting its competition to, in effect, promote their coverage. Think about it. The NFL Draft is not a "game".
There is no betting line (at least not yet). Not that long ago, fans would start hearing about the NFL Draft a couple of days before with a bit of speculation about the needs of the various teams.
But the pre-draft "coverage" has swelled of late. I'm an NFL fan but I couldn't believe how every sports network had tons of analysis of college players, mock draft after mock draft, and 'experts' popping out of the woodwork for the better part of a month leading into the Draft. I can understand ESPN and NFL Network doing this constantly. It's NFL Network's role to cover and hype the draft. ESPN does it because they provide extensive and complete live coverage.
This year, for whatever reason, Fox Sports, NBC, CBS, and the regional sports networks also felt the need to devote a significant amount of "coverage" to what is really speculation leading into the Draft. Sorry, but unless there is trade or an actual pick is made, it really isn't "news" until something actually happens.
As a result of constant hype everywhere NFL fans watched and listened, the audience for ESPN's live coverage of the Draft was essentially built with the help of all of their competition. The TV ratings for the Thursday (5/8) Round One coverage on ESPN were incredible. The NFL Draft had more than double the audience for the NBA Playoffs (including Miami vs. Brooklyn), and those were televised on ESPN2, and more than TRIPLE the audience for the Boston vs. Montreal Stanley Cup playoff game on NBCSN, at the same time. Not to mention how ESPN's Draft coverage trounced the various local and regional networks' baseball telecasts that night.
ESPN's Draft coverage had more than triple the audience of the NFL Network coverage as well. If you combine those two networks, they more than tripled the NBA coverage, had over SIX times the NHL audience, and so on.
And people wonder why these other networks don't come close to out-drawing ESPN, even on the rare times they have quality content.
BOSTON: WEEI-FM is making still another schedule change, this time adjusting its midday show. "Middays with MFB", with Lou Merloni and Christian Fauria as co-hosts, and Mike Mutanski being moved to another show. The "B" in the show will be Tim Benz, who is expected to join the station next week, coming over from ESPN 970 in Pittsburgh.
ATLANTA: It's now Braves or "bust" for WYAY 106.7, which is technically no longer "all news". The station will now only have news blocks during morning and afternoon drive, instead of for the majority of its broadcast day. Word is the station is no longer staffing its newsroom on nights when the Braves are broadcast, and is already airing syndicated talk content on nights when there are no games. Another instance of radio stations holding out on quality content except for when they "think" enough people are listening, while wondering where their audience has gone.
DETROIT: For those that even notice WCAR 1090 and its attempt at sports radio, the station has again changed its syndicated sports programming. After dropping (or losing, depending on whom you believe) its ESPN affiliation in July 2013, the station went with NBC Sports Radio. Now, for those keeping score at home, the station shifts over to Yahoo Sports as of next week.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
On The Air During An Accident
A live sports interview turns into a news story? That's what happened Wednesday (5/7) morning on Washington D.C.'s 106.7 The Fan when Nationals Manager Matt Williams was live on the air with "The Junkies" on their morning show. With a home afternoon game coming up against the Dodgers, Williams was doing his regular Wednesday morning interview live from a car while being driven to the ballpark when he announced that a car just rear-ended the one he was riding in.
Incredibly, Williams stayed on the air and described the scene as police were chasing the driver of the car that was trying to escape the scene. After Williams described what had happened, the conversation actually returned to the Nationals and the usual related topics.
That was amazing for Matt Williams to do, given that no one would have questioned him ending the conversation, at least for the moment, to deal with having been in an auto accident. Good job by "The Junkies" to continue, keep the show on the air, and handle it very well. That's what we call "breaking a story"!
It was quite the day for Williams, since the start of the afternoon game was delayed about 90 minutes due to rain, followed by both teams scoring two runs in the first inning.
The run of thrilling first round playoff series in both the NBA and NHL is paying off in the ratings as well as with fan excitement levels. TNT's extensive NBA playoff coverage is especially benefiting, showing double digit percentage increases over last year's first round coverage as well as for overall network viewership during that time. ESPN doesn't want to be reminded, but nine of the top 10 NBA first round telecasts in terms of viewership were TNT telecasts. More than 5 million viewers tuned in to at least a part of the TNT coverage of the historic Saturday (5/3) of three Game 7's.
Earlier this week, TNT's NBA studio show won Sports Emmy Awards for its production. While technically excellent, I'm afraid the studio segments themselves could use improvement in terms of content. The goofing around between the endless list of analysts has been out of control all season.
All of the talking over each other, inside jokes, and laugh fests take away from actual game analysis.
Of course, congratulations are in order for Mike Emrick on winning the play-by-play Sports Emmy for his excellent work on the NHL for NBC and NBCSN all season.
Then there was Fox Sports winning the Emmy for "Outstanding Live Sports Special" for its 2013 World Series coverage. Since when is the World Series a "Sports Special"? Didn't the Emmy people know that the World Series would be played in October? Weren't the dates and start times announced weeks ahead of time? Hasn't Fox been televising the World Series for years?
Elsewhere on the TV side, how about Seattle's KIRO-TV? While the Oklahoma City Thunder, formerly the Seattle Supersonics, play into the second round of the NBA Playoffs and are a threat to contend for the championship, KIRO-TV continues to show highlights of the Thunder's games on its local news and sportscasts. What makes this unique is that KIRO identifies the team as "Former Sonics" with its on-screen graphics instead of "Oklahoma City", "OKC", or "Thunder".
BOSTON: Not that very many people noticed, but WUFC 1510 quietly bailed from Yahoo Sports Radio and went is transitioning to a talk radio format between now and June 1st.
JACKSONVILLE: The moving of the Jaguars games over to WGNE and WJXL also means a new play-by-play voice. The new stations are placing their own Frank Frangie as the team's new voice, starting with the pre-season opener on August 8th. Frangie will no longer call college football games on Saturdays due to his new role, but is expected to continue with his weekday show. Former Jaguars Jeff Lageman and Tony Boselli will return as analysts. Brian Sexton, who had been the only play-by-play voice in team history and has called every game until now, will now cover the games for Jaguars.com, and remain with WOKV 690.
ORLANDO: WRSO 810 Sports is relaxing its "all sports" format as of this week due to bringing Bubba The Love Sponge in for its morning show.
DAVENPORT IA: KJOC 1170 is returning to sports after nearly eleven years. However, the Quad Cities station will air ESPN Radio, with "no current plans" to air any local sports talk, except when it airs play-by-play of Chicago Cubs baseball and Iowa State University football and basketball.
MILTON FL: WTKE 1490 has gone to all sports, but also with no local programs to start. Randy Williams will be the local sports reporter and cover area college and high school games. The station does hope to add two-hour morning and afternoon local shows at some point, but will air Fox Sports Radio only for now.
Incredibly, Williams stayed on the air and described the scene as police were chasing the driver of the car that was trying to escape the scene. After Williams described what had happened, the conversation actually returned to the Nationals and the usual related topics.
That was amazing for Matt Williams to do, given that no one would have questioned him ending the conversation, at least for the moment, to deal with having been in an auto accident. Good job by "The Junkies" to continue, keep the show on the air, and handle it very well. That's what we call "breaking a story"!
It was quite the day for Williams, since the start of the afternoon game was delayed about 90 minutes due to rain, followed by both teams scoring two runs in the first inning.
The run of thrilling first round playoff series in both the NBA and NHL is paying off in the ratings as well as with fan excitement levels. TNT's extensive NBA playoff coverage is especially benefiting, showing double digit percentage increases over last year's first round coverage as well as for overall network viewership during that time. ESPN doesn't want to be reminded, but nine of the top 10 NBA first round telecasts in terms of viewership were TNT telecasts. More than 5 million viewers tuned in to at least a part of the TNT coverage of the historic Saturday (5/3) of three Game 7's.
Earlier this week, TNT's NBA studio show won Sports Emmy Awards for its production. While technically excellent, I'm afraid the studio segments themselves could use improvement in terms of content. The goofing around between the endless list of analysts has been out of control all season.
All of the talking over each other, inside jokes, and laugh fests take away from actual game analysis.
Of course, congratulations are in order for Mike Emrick on winning the play-by-play Sports Emmy for his excellent work on the NHL for NBC and NBCSN all season.
Then there was Fox Sports winning the Emmy for "Outstanding Live Sports Special" for its 2013 World Series coverage. Since when is the World Series a "Sports Special"? Didn't the Emmy people know that the World Series would be played in October? Weren't the dates and start times announced weeks ahead of time? Hasn't Fox been televising the World Series for years?
Elsewhere on the TV side, how about Seattle's KIRO-TV? While the Oklahoma City Thunder, formerly the Seattle Supersonics, play into the second round of the NBA Playoffs and are a threat to contend for the championship, KIRO-TV continues to show highlights of the Thunder's games on its local news and sportscasts. What makes this unique is that KIRO identifies the team as "Former Sonics" with its on-screen graphics instead of "Oklahoma City", "OKC", or "Thunder".
BOSTON: Not that very many people noticed, but WUFC 1510 quietly bailed from Yahoo Sports Radio and went is transitioning to a talk radio format between now and June 1st.
JACKSONVILLE: The moving of the Jaguars games over to WGNE and WJXL also means a new play-by-play voice. The new stations are placing their own Frank Frangie as the team's new voice, starting with the pre-season opener on August 8th. Frangie will no longer call college football games on Saturdays due to his new role, but is expected to continue with his weekday show. Former Jaguars Jeff Lageman and Tony Boselli will return as analysts. Brian Sexton, who had been the only play-by-play voice in team history and has called every game until now, will now cover the games for Jaguars.com, and remain with WOKV 690.
ORLANDO: WRSO 810 Sports is relaxing its "all sports" format as of this week due to bringing Bubba The Love Sponge in for its morning show.
DAVENPORT IA: KJOC 1170 is returning to sports after nearly eleven years. However, the Quad Cities station will air ESPN Radio, with "no current plans" to air any local sports talk, except when it airs play-by-play of Chicago Cubs baseball and Iowa State University football and basketball.
MILTON FL: WTKE 1490 has gone to all sports, but also with no local programs to start. Randy Williams will be the local sports reporter and cover area college and high school games. The station does hope to add two-hour morning and afternoon local shows at some point, but will air Fox Sports Radio only for now.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Why Bernie Wasn't Burned
While we wait to see if the Tuesday night (4/29) TV ratings increase for TNT's NBA doubleheader is the start of a trend or a reflection of curiousity over the Donald Sterling Clippers controversy, the Bernie Kosar story in Cleveland seems to have slipped under the radar, as it should.
(The TNT ratings for their NBA playoff doubleheader with Washington eliminating Chicago followed by the L.A. Clippers vs. Golden State was up more than 35% from last year.)
In Cleveland, the Browns announced that Solomon Wilcots, the former player who is now with the NFL Network and CBS Sports as an analyst, adds the role as analyst on the Browns' pre-season telecasts this August. Wilcots and his extensive network broadcasting experience replace former Browns QB Bernie Kosar in that role.
The media should be having a field day with Kosar's reaction, especially when Kosar is reportedly being considered for other employment by the Browns. Kosar was quoted as saying that his removal from the broadcasts "stems from my slurred speech impairment, which is a direct result of the many concussions I received while playing in the NFL." and that the decision to remove him from the telecasts was "unfortunate".
Somebody should have asked Kosar how, if his slurred speech is a "direct result....", he got hired for the analyst position in the first place. There is also the matter of Kosar overlooking that former Browns CEO Joe Banner issued a public apology to the St. Louis Rams due to comments Kosar made last pre-season about QB Kellen Clemens and his receivers during the Rams vs. Browns telecast.
Perhaps equally as absurd is the media battle in Southern California regarding Time Warner Cable's high fees for its Dodgers Network which are keeping more than two-thirds of the market area from seeing the Dodgers games this season. TWC's CEO Rob Marcus was quoted as saying the company had added subscribers in the L.A. market, although he did not give any specifics. At the same time, TWC and DirecTV were publicly disputing whether or not they were still talking.
What is curious to me is that the Dodgers have been silent about this, although they collect their huge fees for the telecast rights. I'm thinking that the April radio ratings for L.A., which will be released within the next two weeks, will tell us a lot by whether or not flagship radio station KLAC shows an audience gain or not. If the KLAC ratings go up (and there isn't a whole lot of room to drop), it signals that fans are fine with listening to Vin Scully without being forced to pay up to watch them, if they are even given that option. The Dodgers would be fine with that.
We should also keep an eye on ratings for the Angels telecasts, readily available on most cable/satellite packages in the area, and see how much those increase in Los Angeles. I'm thinking the Dodgers won't step in until or unless their game attendance drops. Based on advance sales and season tickets for a promising 2014 season, that might not happen soon. However, the Dodgers risk losing younger and "new" fans by not having the games available for the majority of their fans.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports 1, seemingly operating in secrecy, has pulled the plug on its "The Crowd Goes Wild" weekday show when, well, it never attracted a crowd to do much of anything. Original host Regis Philbin had been reduced to occasional appearances in February, and next week's shows will be the last. Another run of NASCAR Race Hub will replace it, even though NASCAR on Fox has drawn disappointing ratings this year. Granted, weather delays including the huge on at Daytona, have played a role, but Fox Sports is expanding its NASCAR coverage by next year.
I'll say it again. Fox Sports 1 needs to counter program ESPN and the others, instead of acting as though they can compete. Their MLB Whiparound has value, but not when it runs head-to-head most weeknights with Baseball Tonight on ESPN. If FS1 moved it to one hour (or more) later, they might bring over the audience which is focused on baseball and doesn't want to sit through ESPN's other sports coverage during the summer.
Here is a note to management at radio stations which are NFL flagship stations. The Miami Dolphins are now using their own social media directly. On Monday (4/28), the Dolphins own Twitter feed exclusively promoted individual game ticket sales via a special pre-sale code to their followers.
This is another case of the teams taking over for the reporting media, and that's not good. If "my" radio station was spending millions of dollars for the rights to broadcast the games, then my station should be the one promoting this exclusive pre-sale. This would give Dolphins fans a reason to listen to my station. Instead, as a fan wanting tickets, all I need to do is follow them on Twitter and not bother with the radio station.
DALLAS: Norm Hitzges, who turns 70 this coming July, has been extended for another three years on SportsRadio 1310, where he has been since early 2000. He had been with KLIF for 15 years before that.
MILWAUKEE: Bucks radio play-by-play voice Ted Davis, fresh off the team's horrible season, has been hired by WOKY 920 to co-host from 2 to 4 PM with Mike Heller starting next week (5/5). Davis had been a co-host on WSSP 1250, even though the Bucks remain on highly rated WTMJ 620.
The station (WOKY), which has only been around a 0.2 rating thus far, has Wisconsin Badgers play-by-play voice Matt Lepay co-hosting its morning show.
HOUSTON: The NFL Texans have added former KGOW 1560 host John Harris as a "contributor" to some team produced TV and radio shows as well as podcasts for the team web site.
VANCOUVER: Congrats to Dan Russell of CISL 650, who is voluntarily giving up his nightly sports talk show this week after almost 30 years in the market. Russell plans to continue with his blog and podcasts, and will continue on CISL's Sunday night golf show.
BUFFALO: Along the lines of stations serving their sports audience, a nice move by Howard Simon on WGR Buffalo last week on his morning show. Instead of what seems to be the norm for sports stations (having writers and analysts predict the upcoming NFL Draft), Simon had Bills General Manager Doug Whaley to specifically discuss the draft as it relates to the Bills. Whaley went as far as to specifically comment on a couple of the leading college prospects. That's more like it!
(The TNT ratings for their NBA playoff doubleheader with Washington eliminating Chicago followed by the L.A. Clippers vs. Golden State was up more than 35% from last year.)
In Cleveland, the Browns announced that Solomon Wilcots, the former player who is now with the NFL Network and CBS Sports as an analyst, adds the role as analyst on the Browns' pre-season telecasts this August. Wilcots and his extensive network broadcasting experience replace former Browns QB Bernie Kosar in that role.
The media should be having a field day with Kosar's reaction, especially when Kosar is reportedly being considered for other employment by the Browns. Kosar was quoted as saying that his removal from the broadcasts "stems from my slurred speech impairment, which is a direct result of the many concussions I received while playing in the NFL." and that the decision to remove him from the telecasts was "unfortunate".
Somebody should have asked Kosar how, if his slurred speech is a "direct result....", he got hired for the analyst position in the first place. There is also the matter of Kosar overlooking that former Browns CEO Joe Banner issued a public apology to the St. Louis Rams due to comments Kosar made last pre-season about QB Kellen Clemens and his receivers during the Rams vs. Browns telecast.
Perhaps equally as absurd is the media battle in Southern California regarding Time Warner Cable's high fees for its Dodgers Network which are keeping more than two-thirds of the market area from seeing the Dodgers games this season. TWC's CEO Rob Marcus was quoted as saying the company had added subscribers in the L.A. market, although he did not give any specifics. At the same time, TWC and DirecTV were publicly disputing whether or not they were still talking.
What is curious to me is that the Dodgers have been silent about this, although they collect their huge fees for the telecast rights. I'm thinking that the April radio ratings for L.A., which will be released within the next two weeks, will tell us a lot by whether or not flagship radio station KLAC shows an audience gain or not. If the KLAC ratings go up (and there isn't a whole lot of room to drop), it signals that fans are fine with listening to Vin Scully without being forced to pay up to watch them, if they are even given that option. The Dodgers would be fine with that.
We should also keep an eye on ratings for the Angels telecasts, readily available on most cable/satellite packages in the area, and see how much those increase in Los Angeles. I'm thinking the Dodgers won't step in until or unless their game attendance drops. Based on advance sales and season tickets for a promising 2014 season, that might not happen soon. However, the Dodgers risk losing younger and "new" fans by not having the games available for the majority of their fans.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports 1, seemingly operating in secrecy, has pulled the plug on its "The Crowd Goes Wild" weekday show when, well, it never attracted a crowd to do much of anything. Original host Regis Philbin had been reduced to occasional appearances in February, and next week's shows will be the last. Another run of NASCAR Race Hub will replace it, even though NASCAR on Fox has drawn disappointing ratings this year. Granted, weather delays including the huge on at Daytona, have played a role, but Fox Sports is expanding its NASCAR coverage by next year.
I'll say it again. Fox Sports 1 needs to counter program ESPN and the others, instead of acting as though they can compete. Their MLB Whiparound has value, but not when it runs head-to-head most weeknights with Baseball Tonight on ESPN. If FS1 moved it to one hour (or more) later, they might bring over the audience which is focused on baseball and doesn't want to sit through ESPN's other sports coverage during the summer.
Here is a note to management at radio stations which are NFL flagship stations. The Miami Dolphins are now using their own social media directly. On Monday (4/28), the Dolphins own Twitter feed exclusively promoted individual game ticket sales via a special pre-sale code to their followers.
This is another case of the teams taking over for the reporting media, and that's not good. If "my" radio station was spending millions of dollars for the rights to broadcast the games, then my station should be the one promoting this exclusive pre-sale. This would give Dolphins fans a reason to listen to my station. Instead, as a fan wanting tickets, all I need to do is follow them on Twitter and not bother with the radio station.
DALLAS: Norm Hitzges, who turns 70 this coming July, has been extended for another three years on SportsRadio 1310, where he has been since early 2000. He had been with KLIF for 15 years before that.
MILWAUKEE: Bucks radio play-by-play voice Ted Davis, fresh off the team's horrible season, has been hired by WOKY 920 to co-host from 2 to 4 PM with Mike Heller starting next week (5/5). Davis had been a co-host on WSSP 1250, even though the Bucks remain on highly rated WTMJ 620.
The station (WOKY), which has only been around a 0.2 rating thus far, has Wisconsin Badgers play-by-play voice Matt Lepay co-hosting its morning show.
HOUSTON: The NFL Texans have added former KGOW 1560 host John Harris as a "contributor" to some team produced TV and radio shows as well as podcasts for the team web site.
VANCOUVER: Congrats to Dan Russell of CISL 650, who is voluntarily giving up his nightly sports talk show this week after almost 30 years in the market. Russell plans to continue with his blog and podcasts, and will continue on CISL's Sunday night golf show.
BUFFALO: Along the lines of stations serving their sports audience, a nice move by Howard Simon on WGR Buffalo last week on his morning show. Instead of what seems to be the norm for sports stations (having writers and analysts predict the upcoming NFL Draft), Simon had Bills General Manager Doug Whaley to specifically discuss the draft as it relates to the Bills. Whaley went as far as to specifically comment on a couple of the leading college prospects. That's more like it!
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
ESPN Gets The Wild Card; Pistons No Longer The Ticket
A big sports media day with announcements and ratings:
First, the NFL media rights will enable them to print up even more money with today's (4/22) announcement that ESPN officially joins the post-season group as of the upcoming season. ESPN will air one Wild Card Playoff game, starting in January 2015 as part of an 8-year contract extension for Monday Night Football.
The significance is that it will become the first ever post-season game to be televised on cable, although ESPN promises that the participating teams will be able to air a simulcast in the local markets, as has been the case with Monday Night Football.
This change also impacts the other networks' post-season coverage. NBC now only gets to televise one Wild Card Playoff game instead of two, but picks up a Division Playoff game instead. The network, which airs the Super Bowl in February 2015, will alternate years of taking a telecast away from CBS and Fox, which lose out on some post-season coverage as a consequence of this new ESPN deal.
Meanwhile, a local radio deal may not seem significant, but there is plenty for others around the country to take note of following the Tuesday (4/22) announcement that Detroit Pistons radio is moving to Detroit Sports 105.1 starting with the coming season. Granted, Pistons fans are not exactly counting down the hours until next season begins, but that's another story.
Locally, the importance is because this rights acquisition breaks up the pro sports monopoly of WXYT-FM The Ticket, which lost the Pistons games. With having the Tigers, Red Wings, and Lions, it means that all of the local pro teams will no longer be on the same station (or sister station WWJ 950 for conflicts).
This comes on the heels of CBS stations (of which The Ticket is) losing the Flyers and Sixers broadcasts, in that case to WPEN-FM ESPN radio. In New York, WFAN (a CBS station) just began as the Yankees flagship after dropping the Mets, which were picked up by WOR-AM. And in Chicago, CBS Radio is reportedly in the running to get Chicago Cubs broadcasts away from WGN Radio for 2015 and beyond.
On the Detroit side, Detroit Sports WMGC-FM 105.1 also plans to stream its broadcasts, and open up 105.1 HD2 as "Pistons Radio" with extended coverage and game replays. The announcing team of George Blaha, Rick Mahorn, and Mark Champion, are being retained under the new multi-year agreement.
While that's fine and dandy, the Pistons are coming off another awful season, while WXYT-FM The Ticket had literraly more than five times the total audience of WMGC-FM in the most recent ratings period.
Elsewhere, fans continue to watch the post-season, whether NBA or NHL. TNT reported a 30% ratings increase compared with last season for its overtime telecast between Memphis and Oklahoma City on Monday (4/21), while the doubleheader telecast ratings were up approximately 19% over last year. What makes this even more impressive is that the opening telecast, again, was between Memphis and OK City. That's two of the league's smaller markets.
On Sunday (4/20) afternoon, ABC clearly beat out NBC's NHL coverage around the country.
Yet, the NBA has reasons to be concerned about several of its local team telecast ratings for the recently concluded regular season. In New York, both the Knicks and Nets local telecast ratings dropped at least 20% for the season, even though the Knicks were in the playoff hunt until the final week, and the Nets easily made it to the post-season. In Los Angeles, the Lakers, without Kobe Bryant and with their poorest record in years, saw their ratings drop by more than 50% for the season.
Yet, the Clippers, despite winning the Pacific Division title, saw a 19% overall ratings decline. In Chicago, the Bulls playing without star Derrick Rose, saw about an 8% decline over the previous season.
It's no surprise that Milwaukee, coming off the worst record in the NBA, saw a 65% overall audience drop. On the positive side, the Phoenix Suns "rose" most noticably, showing better than a 90% increase over the previous season. Oklahoma City and Indianapolis also showed nice audience gains, which were clearly bolstered by the great seasons each of those teams had.
On the NHL side, the majority of the first-round series are doing very well. Detroit and Boston showed double digit ratings in early games in both markets for that matchup. The Sunday national telecast on NBC from St. Louis showed its best ever ratings for a national telecast from St. Louis, up more than 30% from a N.Y. Rangers vs. Washington telecast at the comparable point last season.
Pittsburgh showed the highest "local" ratings early, while Columbus, making only its 2nd ever post-season appearance, showed ratings nearly four times as big as their regular season telecasts.
Only the Anaheim and Dallas opening round series has, as of press time, been a ratings disappointment.
While NBC has some things to be proud of, I must point out the story they put on the NBC Sports web site last week. On April 16th, NBC Sports posted a story about the upcoming release of the NFL regular season schedule. That's all good. However, the story, published on the NBC web site, also refers to "full one hour coverage" of the schedule release for both ESPN and NFL Network. ESPN, especially, is competition for the sports audience against NBC. While this release makes no mention of any such "coverage" on NBC or NBCSN, even though NBC's Sunday Night Football schedule will be a part of this.
It sure makes me wonder if anyone at NBC Sports is in charge of editing or checking stories before they are published. How does it happen that a story gets published which clearly promotes the direct competition?
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/15/source-schedule-release-planned-for-april-22/
Over at ESPN, more of its 2014 college football schedule has just been released. ESPN/ABC will show at least three live games on Saturday Aug. 30th, starting at 8:30 AM ET with Central Florida vs. Penn State from Dublin Ireland on ESPN2. Florida State takes on Oklahoma State at 8 PM ET on ABC, while ESPN has Wisconsin vs. LUS at 9 PM ET among its selections.
ESPN will also air the Saturday Aug. 23 game between Sam Houston State and Eastern Washington.
Big Ten Network has announced some of its prime-time telecasts, to include Michigan State hosting Maryland (yes - a Big Ten Conference game now) at 8 PM ET on Nov. 15th, making for the latest ever (in the calendar year) home night game in MSU history, and the network's latest outdoor telecast at night.
MLB Network has added another studio analyst. Former pitcher Ryan Dempster, who just retired prior to spring training, joins the network.
Finally, sorry to learn of the passing of Walter Hill, who for 20+ years was the voice behind "Saturday Night In Tiger Stadium" on the LSU Sports Network. Much of nation heard Hill, along with the late John Ferguson, provide play-by-play and color on WWL New Orleans from the early 60's until Hill left the booth in 1986. Hill's final appearance on the LSU broadcast actually came in 1993 when he returned for the "Centennial Game" and guested with Jim Hawthorne and Doug Moreau during the broadcast. Hill was 86.
First, the NFL media rights will enable them to print up even more money with today's (4/22) announcement that ESPN officially joins the post-season group as of the upcoming season. ESPN will air one Wild Card Playoff game, starting in January 2015 as part of an 8-year contract extension for Monday Night Football.
The significance is that it will become the first ever post-season game to be televised on cable, although ESPN promises that the participating teams will be able to air a simulcast in the local markets, as has been the case with Monday Night Football.
This change also impacts the other networks' post-season coverage. NBC now only gets to televise one Wild Card Playoff game instead of two, but picks up a Division Playoff game instead. The network, which airs the Super Bowl in February 2015, will alternate years of taking a telecast away from CBS and Fox, which lose out on some post-season coverage as a consequence of this new ESPN deal.
Meanwhile, a local radio deal may not seem significant, but there is plenty for others around the country to take note of following the Tuesday (4/22) announcement that Detroit Pistons radio is moving to Detroit Sports 105.1 starting with the coming season. Granted, Pistons fans are not exactly counting down the hours until next season begins, but that's another story.
Locally, the importance is because this rights acquisition breaks up the pro sports monopoly of WXYT-FM The Ticket, which lost the Pistons games. With having the Tigers, Red Wings, and Lions, it means that all of the local pro teams will no longer be on the same station (or sister station WWJ 950 for conflicts).
This comes on the heels of CBS stations (of which The Ticket is) losing the Flyers and Sixers broadcasts, in that case to WPEN-FM ESPN radio. In New York, WFAN (a CBS station) just began as the Yankees flagship after dropping the Mets, which were picked up by WOR-AM. And in Chicago, CBS Radio is reportedly in the running to get Chicago Cubs broadcasts away from WGN Radio for 2015 and beyond.
On the Detroit side, Detroit Sports WMGC-FM 105.1 also plans to stream its broadcasts, and open up 105.1 HD2 as "Pistons Radio" with extended coverage and game replays. The announcing team of George Blaha, Rick Mahorn, and Mark Champion, are being retained under the new multi-year agreement.
While that's fine and dandy, the Pistons are coming off another awful season, while WXYT-FM The Ticket had literraly more than five times the total audience of WMGC-FM in the most recent ratings period.
Elsewhere, fans continue to watch the post-season, whether NBA or NHL. TNT reported a 30% ratings increase compared with last season for its overtime telecast between Memphis and Oklahoma City on Monday (4/21), while the doubleheader telecast ratings were up approximately 19% over last year. What makes this even more impressive is that the opening telecast, again, was between Memphis and OK City. That's two of the league's smaller markets.
On Sunday (4/20) afternoon, ABC clearly beat out NBC's NHL coverage around the country.
Yet, the NBA has reasons to be concerned about several of its local team telecast ratings for the recently concluded regular season. In New York, both the Knicks and Nets local telecast ratings dropped at least 20% for the season, even though the Knicks were in the playoff hunt until the final week, and the Nets easily made it to the post-season. In Los Angeles, the Lakers, without Kobe Bryant and with their poorest record in years, saw their ratings drop by more than 50% for the season.
Yet, the Clippers, despite winning the Pacific Division title, saw a 19% overall ratings decline. In Chicago, the Bulls playing without star Derrick Rose, saw about an 8% decline over the previous season.
It's no surprise that Milwaukee, coming off the worst record in the NBA, saw a 65% overall audience drop. On the positive side, the Phoenix Suns "rose" most noticably, showing better than a 90% increase over the previous season. Oklahoma City and Indianapolis also showed nice audience gains, which were clearly bolstered by the great seasons each of those teams had.
On the NHL side, the majority of the first-round series are doing very well. Detroit and Boston showed double digit ratings in early games in both markets for that matchup. The Sunday national telecast on NBC from St. Louis showed its best ever ratings for a national telecast from St. Louis, up more than 30% from a N.Y. Rangers vs. Washington telecast at the comparable point last season.
Pittsburgh showed the highest "local" ratings early, while Columbus, making only its 2nd ever post-season appearance, showed ratings nearly four times as big as their regular season telecasts.
Only the Anaheim and Dallas opening round series has, as of press time, been a ratings disappointment.
While NBC has some things to be proud of, I must point out the story they put on the NBC Sports web site last week. On April 16th, NBC Sports posted a story about the upcoming release of the NFL regular season schedule. That's all good. However, the story, published on the NBC web site, also refers to "full one hour coverage" of the schedule release for both ESPN and NFL Network. ESPN, especially, is competition for the sports audience against NBC. While this release makes no mention of any such "coverage" on NBC or NBCSN, even though NBC's Sunday Night Football schedule will be a part of this.
It sure makes me wonder if anyone at NBC Sports is in charge of editing or checking stories before they are published. How does it happen that a story gets published which clearly promotes the direct competition?
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/15/source-schedule-release-planned-for-april-22/
Over at ESPN, more of its 2014 college football schedule has just been released. ESPN/ABC will show at least three live games on Saturday Aug. 30th, starting at 8:30 AM ET with Central Florida vs. Penn State from Dublin Ireland on ESPN2. Florida State takes on Oklahoma State at 8 PM ET on ABC, while ESPN has Wisconsin vs. LUS at 9 PM ET among its selections.
ESPN will also air the Saturday Aug. 23 game between Sam Houston State and Eastern Washington.
Big Ten Network has announced some of its prime-time telecasts, to include Michigan State hosting Maryland (yes - a Big Ten Conference game now) at 8 PM ET on Nov. 15th, making for the latest ever (in the calendar year) home night game in MSU history, and the network's latest outdoor telecast at night.
MLB Network has added another studio analyst. Former pitcher Ryan Dempster, who just retired prior to spring training, joins the network.
Finally, sorry to learn of the passing of Walter Hill, who for 20+ years was the voice behind "Saturday Night In Tiger Stadium" on the LSU Sports Network. Much of nation heard Hill, along with the late John Ferguson, provide play-by-play and color on WWL New Orleans from the early 60's until Hill left the booth in 1986. Hill's final appearance on the LSU broadcast actually came in 1993 when he returned for the "Centennial Game" and guested with Jim Hawthorne and Doug Moreau during the broadcast. Hill was 86.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Eye Off The Tiger
The star power of Tiger Woods was never more evident than this past weekend when he did not play in The Masters, and the CBS-TV ratings for the final round were the lowest in 10 years. And the 2004 final round was on Easter Sunday (which this year's was not). It shows that the covering networks will need to do more next year and beyond in order to build up those ratings for years to come for the sake of televised pro golf.
ESPN covered the first two rounds on weekdays, yet did not start its coverage until the afternoon even though the tournament begins during the morning hours. The fact that Tiger Woods did not play and the live coverage did not begin until hours into each round are both pertinent to the need to grow the ratings and not be as dependent on a current star player.
The future "star" golfers just might be the ones that tee off at 9 AM. Yet, ESPN's later start, when the well known players are on the course, sends a message that the up-and-coming young golfers are not important enough to be shown. Since The Masters is supposed to attract a larger audience to see the biggest names in golf all together, this is a chance for the stars of the future to be showcased to a national audience.
Sports networks now show rookie and "future star" games surrounding all-star game events for the major pro sports as part of the showcase, Part of the reason for this is to expose the casual fan to stars of the future. But pro golf telecasts continue to pass up this opportunity, now to the point of suffering in the ratings when their biggest name is not on the course.
This would be more understandable if these were still the days of one network televising and having other programming it needs to air instead. However, the partial coverage of the first two rounds of The Masters was on ESPN, which has more than one network on which to spread out continuing live coverage. For example, ESPN airs the first part of the NFL Draft each year, and the later rounds are shown on ESPN2 in order to serve the more hardcore fan. Why doesn't the PGA allow the same thing?
Earlier in the week, we had the unveiling of "team coverage" from the Final Four, when fans around the country had the option to watch game coverage on any of three separate feeds of the same telecast, depending upon whether or not they had a team loyalty. The NCAA Tournament is to college basketball what The Masters is to golf, yet fans could not watch the entire tournament even on one channel.
Especially when you consider how much all of these regional and national sports channels are starved for anything that resembles quality programming. Fans get plenty of the same shows being replayed multiple times, paid infomercials, and/or events that are a complete waste of time on most weekdays anyway.
For that matter, CBS Sports Network actually put out a Press Release to promote their telecasts of the NBA Development League playoffs this weekend. Their first round series between the Santa Cruz Warriors and Rio Grande Valley Vipers will be shown live on Thursday (4/17) and Monday, and on delayed telecast on Saturday.
Yes, CBS is promoting a delayed telecast of a Development League playoff game. While nobody can show live coverage of early rounds of The Masters?
Meanwhile, the March radio ratings generally did not show well for sports radio stations. In New York, where the April ratings will be most interesting with the Yankees and Mets having changed flagship stations, both WFAN and WEPN dropped again. WFAN has gone from a 4.1 in January to a 2.7 overall for March. Philadelphia and Dallas have seen their ratings dives continue. Philly's WIP-FM has gone from a 4.9 to a 3.6 overall this year, while WPEN has dipped by nearly 33% during the same time. Dallas' KTCK has lost 25% of its audience this year, while both KESN and KRLD-FM have dropped by at least 15% during the same time.
Houston's sports talkers are again on the down cycle, as it now appears that KILT showing some respectable numbers in late 2013 was probably due to the Texans' season. KILT has dipped by 33% from January through these new March ratings, down to a 1.4 overall. The other two stations don't even combine to add up to that. In Los Angeles, KSPN held steady at only a 1.0, while KLAC, even with Dodgers broadcasts starting, could only muster a .5. The next ratings period will be significant for KLAC, given the incredible TV situation in Los Angeles in which approximately 70% of households can not receive Dodgers telecasts even if they were willing to pay through the nose to get them.
Chicago saw a drop for WSCR, which now leads WMVP by only .3, with WMVP managing to regain what it lost during the February ratings period. Atlanta's WZGC-FM and WQXI are now both showing overall ratings of under 1.0.
(As of press time, the important Boston radio ratings for March had not been released.)
With a nice boost from technology, serious fans of a MLB team have a wonderful new way to follow the team's organization. Many minor league teams, especially AAA and AA, are now making their radio broadcasts available by stream this season via the free TuneIn app. The daily minor league schedule is available at MILB.com. This gives fans able to listen online or on the phone plenty of opportunities to hear a ton of minor league broadcasters and follow the prospects of their favorite teams. There are often some minor league games played during the day on Mondays and Tuesdays when there are no MLB games going on, with some teams starting games as early as 11 AM local time. What a welcome idea!
St. LOUIS: Mike Kelly, the University of Missouri football and basketball voice, has joined KMOX 1120 to host "Sports Open Line" on weeknights when there is no Cardinals baseball conflict. Chris Hrabe will host "Sports Hub" from 9 PM to Midnight (or after Cardinals broadcasts). Kelly replaces Kevin Wheeler in that role, with Wheeler having left to join WXOS 101.1. Kelly will continue with Missouri play-by-play when football season begins, even though those games continue to air on KTRS.
KMOX is obviously glad to have the Cardinals again, starting their 2nd year of the current contract. Even with the excitement of the Blues being contenders for the Stanley Cup, KMOX plans to farm out Blues playoff games which conflict with Cardinals broadcasts to KYKY 98.1. The Blues take on the defending Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks starting on Thursday (4/17).
JANESVILLE WI: WTJK 1380 is no longer all sports, with new management adding more general talk to the mix, while promising some local sports content. The station had been the local ESPN affiliate, although WMVP ESPN from Chicago continues to easily reach into this area with its daytime signal.
ESPN covered the first two rounds on weekdays, yet did not start its coverage until the afternoon even though the tournament begins during the morning hours. The fact that Tiger Woods did not play and the live coverage did not begin until hours into each round are both pertinent to the need to grow the ratings and not be as dependent on a current star player.
The future "star" golfers just might be the ones that tee off at 9 AM. Yet, ESPN's later start, when the well known players are on the course, sends a message that the up-and-coming young golfers are not important enough to be shown. Since The Masters is supposed to attract a larger audience to see the biggest names in golf all together, this is a chance for the stars of the future to be showcased to a national audience.
Sports networks now show rookie and "future star" games surrounding all-star game events for the major pro sports as part of the showcase, Part of the reason for this is to expose the casual fan to stars of the future. But pro golf telecasts continue to pass up this opportunity, now to the point of suffering in the ratings when their biggest name is not on the course.
This would be more understandable if these were still the days of one network televising and having other programming it needs to air instead. However, the partial coverage of the first two rounds of The Masters was on ESPN, which has more than one network on which to spread out continuing live coverage. For example, ESPN airs the first part of the NFL Draft each year, and the later rounds are shown on ESPN2 in order to serve the more hardcore fan. Why doesn't the PGA allow the same thing?
Earlier in the week, we had the unveiling of "team coverage" from the Final Four, when fans around the country had the option to watch game coverage on any of three separate feeds of the same telecast, depending upon whether or not they had a team loyalty. The NCAA Tournament is to college basketball what The Masters is to golf, yet fans could not watch the entire tournament even on one channel.
Especially when you consider how much all of these regional and national sports channels are starved for anything that resembles quality programming. Fans get plenty of the same shows being replayed multiple times, paid infomercials, and/or events that are a complete waste of time on most weekdays anyway.
For that matter, CBS Sports Network actually put out a Press Release to promote their telecasts of the NBA Development League playoffs this weekend. Their first round series between the Santa Cruz Warriors and Rio Grande Valley Vipers will be shown live on Thursday (4/17) and Monday, and on delayed telecast on Saturday.
Yes, CBS is promoting a delayed telecast of a Development League playoff game. While nobody can show live coverage of early rounds of The Masters?
Meanwhile, the March radio ratings generally did not show well for sports radio stations. In New York, where the April ratings will be most interesting with the Yankees and Mets having changed flagship stations, both WFAN and WEPN dropped again. WFAN has gone from a 4.1 in January to a 2.7 overall for March. Philadelphia and Dallas have seen their ratings dives continue. Philly's WIP-FM has gone from a 4.9 to a 3.6 overall this year, while WPEN has dipped by nearly 33% during the same time. Dallas' KTCK has lost 25% of its audience this year, while both KESN and KRLD-FM have dropped by at least 15% during the same time.
Houston's sports talkers are again on the down cycle, as it now appears that KILT showing some respectable numbers in late 2013 was probably due to the Texans' season. KILT has dipped by 33% from January through these new March ratings, down to a 1.4 overall. The other two stations don't even combine to add up to that. In Los Angeles, KSPN held steady at only a 1.0, while KLAC, even with Dodgers broadcasts starting, could only muster a .5. The next ratings period will be significant for KLAC, given the incredible TV situation in Los Angeles in which approximately 70% of households can not receive Dodgers telecasts even if they were willing to pay through the nose to get them.
Chicago saw a drop for WSCR, which now leads WMVP by only .3, with WMVP managing to regain what it lost during the February ratings period. Atlanta's WZGC-FM and WQXI are now both showing overall ratings of under 1.0.
(As of press time, the important Boston radio ratings for March had not been released.)
With a nice boost from technology, serious fans of a MLB team have a wonderful new way to follow the team's organization. Many minor league teams, especially AAA and AA, are now making their radio broadcasts available by stream this season via the free TuneIn app. The daily minor league schedule is available at MILB.com. This gives fans able to listen online or on the phone plenty of opportunities to hear a ton of minor league broadcasters and follow the prospects of their favorite teams. There are often some minor league games played during the day on Mondays and Tuesdays when there are no MLB games going on, with some teams starting games as early as 11 AM local time. What a welcome idea!
St. LOUIS: Mike Kelly, the University of Missouri football and basketball voice, has joined KMOX 1120 to host "Sports Open Line" on weeknights when there is no Cardinals baseball conflict. Chris Hrabe will host "Sports Hub" from 9 PM to Midnight (or after Cardinals broadcasts). Kelly replaces Kevin Wheeler in that role, with Wheeler having left to join WXOS 101.1. Kelly will continue with Missouri play-by-play when football season begins, even though those games continue to air on KTRS.
KMOX is obviously glad to have the Cardinals again, starting their 2nd year of the current contract. Even with the excitement of the Blues being contenders for the Stanley Cup, KMOX plans to farm out Blues playoff games which conflict with Cardinals broadcasts to KYKY 98.1. The Blues take on the defending Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks starting on Thursday (4/17).
JANESVILLE WI: WTJK 1380 is no longer all sports, with new management adding more general talk to the mix, while promising some local sports content. The station had been the local ESPN affiliate, although WMVP ESPN from Chicago continues to easily reach into this area with its daytime signal.
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