Miami sports night in the national spotlight this past Wednesday (4/4) night surprised those who pay attention to the TV ratings. ESPN had the Marlins' season opener and debut regular season game in their new stadium starting an hour before ESPN2 had the highly anticipated matchup between the Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder, also shown from Miami.
Even with the shortened season coming off of the lockout, the Heat vs. Thunder telecast came in with a 67% increase in the ratings over last year and had a higher audience than the baseball telecast. In fact, the late "doubleheader" NBA telecast between the L.A. Lakers and Clippers, which aired on ESPN after the baseball telecast, also outdrew the baseball telecast.
In the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market, the Heat telecast also outdrew the Marlins' opener by more than 2 to 1 in terms of total audience, including both the ESPN2 and Sun Network (local) telecasts. The folks at TNT and ESPN/ABC are certain to be keeping this in mind with the start of the NBA playoffs now less than 3 weeks away.
Fox Sports is looking at establishing a new prime time habit for sports fans, having scheduled the majority of Saturday nights with live prime-time sports telecasts, including baseball, NASCAR, and college football. This is in addition to the baseball telecasts almost every Saturday (all but 2 total) which will air during the afternoon prior to the prime-time sports event on those Saturdays when there is not a prime-time baseball telecast during the MLB season.
NASCAR events will air on the next two Saturday nights, with Fox airing its baseball telecast during the 1:00 PM time slot this Saturday to assure its regional telecasts are finished well in advance of the NASCAR telecast. Fox had to gain additional cooperation from Major League Baseball to gear up for eight prime-time telecasts this season, up from two last year. The prime-time baseball telecasts will also include the new and expanded pre-game show produced in conjunction with MLB Network.
College football season will have Fox Sports showing Pac-10 Conference games during the 12 week regular season, including the ability to select which game airs nationally. Fox Sports' regional networks will carry other Conference games, although these telecasts will often go head-to-head with ABC's nationally televised games in Saturday prime-time.
In addition, there will be a couple of Saturday night Ultimate Fighting Challenge telecasts. The concept of having one night out of the week to show live sports in prime-time on most Saturdays is not new, but a network (Fox) promoting it as aggressively as it appears they will is new. ABC-TV had sports in prime-time for at least half of the year back in the 1970's when they aired Monday Night Baseball during the summer weeks and then went into Monday Night Football from September into December.
NEW YORK: Baseball telecasts did prove popular in NYC, as SNY reports the Mets' season opening telecast vs. the Atlanta Braves set a ratings record which was established in 2002.
Michael Kay's afternoon show on local ESPN Radio has an interesting addition for once each week, as Red Sox Manager Bobby Valentine has been signed on to appear only for the New York audience. We can certainly understand the move from Kay's and the station's point of view to want the rival manager on its airwaves as a draw to the audience of Yankees fans. However, it is tough to understand Valentine being so open and willing to address fans of "his" team's biggest rival on a regular basis.
It is not as though Valentine has no other media outlet, as he will also appear on a weekly basis on WEEI Boston's "The Big Show", which is perfectly understandable. If Valentine wanted to continue to have this much media exposure, he should have stayed with ESPN and done additional commentary on their various local stations. I'd say Red Sox fans have a right to be upset about the fact that their new manager is taking time away from his team to talk to the play-by-play voice of and fans of "his" team's biggest rival on a regular basis to supplement his income.
LOS ANGELES: KLAA 830's Roger Lodge is now getting plenty of air time when it comes to the Angels' new season. Although Lodge continues to co-host the station's morning show, he is also hosting the additional pre-game talk show which begins about 90 minutes before each Angels home game and usually airs from Gate 5 of The Big A. Lodge actually hosted the morning show live from outside the stadium on Opening Day (this past Friday 4/6) and later returned to the same location for his pre-game talk show. Word is that he had about 100 or so fans on hand with him by the time his morning segment ended.
CHICAGO: WSCR The Score 670's Dan McNeil returned to the station's midday show on Monday (4/9) after a 6-week absence due to what he termed "depression and substance abuse". Other station hosts and reporters filled in for McNeil during his time away, during which no specific reasons were given until his return.
St. LOUIS: With the Blues in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Cardinals' season in full swing, both KMOX Radio and Fox Sports Midwest will have some conflicts regarding which game to air live. In both instances, the Cardinals' management reportedly has agreed to be flexible, unlike several situations around the country where one team clearly has priority in the event of a conflict.
On the radio side, if and when Cardinals and Blues conflicts occur, one will air as usual on KMOX 1120 while the other broadcast moves to KEZK 102.5. On the TV side, Fox Sports Midwest has indicated that conflicting telecasts, not handled by Channel 5 (the local NBC affiliate) will air on FSM Plus. FSM reports that Blues' telecast ratings were up about 14% over last season.
PHILADELPHIA: Sorry to learn of the passing of Steve Fredericks on Saturday at the age of 72. The long-time Philadelphia area sportscaster is probably best remembered for his stint on WIP-AM when he co-hosted afternoons with Mike Missanelli. Fredericks also held numerous local play-by-play assignments over his 44 years in the business, and had retired in 2004.
RAPID CITY: K-TALK 1340 has now officially become the local ESPN Radio affiliate after a 3 month abscence from the market when KRKI switched to Fox Sports Radio. In addition, K-TALK will continue to carry University of Nebraska football and select local high school broadcasts.St. GEORGE UT: Another market has gone to making sports radio into an AM-FM combo, now with 102.3 and 107.3 FM carrying the ESPN programming and extensive play-by-play. The stations will continue to carry Utah Jazz games, BYU, Dixie State College, and selected local high school games.
BLOOMINGTON/NORMAL IL: WZIM 99.5 has become "The Ticket" and is a Fox Sports Radio affiliate, dropping its music format last week in time for the opening of the baseball season. The station continues to carry Chicago Cubs baseball.
SCHEDULES: Finally, for those looking ahead to NFL Football, the networks have announced the bulk of their pre-season national TV schedules:
Sunday August 5 Hall of Fame Game: Arizona Cardinals - New Orleans Saints (NFL Network 8PM ET)
Week 1
Thursday August 9 Green Bay Packers - San Diego Chargers (ESPN 8PM)
Monday, August 13 Dallas Cowboys - Oakland Raiders (ESPN 8PM)
Week 2
Thursday August 16 Cincinnati Bengals - Atlanta Falcons (FOX 8PM)
Friday August 17 Detroit Lions - Baltimore Ravens (FOX 8PM)
Sunday August 19 Indianapolis Colts - Pittsburgh Steelers (NBC 8PM)
Monday August 20 Philadelphia Eagles - New England Patriots (ESPN 8PM)
Week 3
Thursday August 23 Arizona Cardinals - Tennessee Titans (ESPN 8PM)
Friday August 24 Chicago Bears - New York Giants (CBS 8PM)
Saturday August 25 Houston Texans - New Orleans Saints (CBS 8PM)
Sunday August 26 San Francisco 49ers - Denver Broncos (FOX 4PM)
Carolina Panthers - New York Jets (NBC 8PM)
W77WKKD794UM
Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Sports Talk Stations On The Comeback Trail
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
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
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A Not So Super Sports Week
Competition among networks is one thing, but completely different handling of a similar situation is another. In an unfortunate coincidence, both CBS and Fox Sports have been faced with a reporter putting out a premature death story within 24 hours of the actual occurence. Yet, the aftermath was the opposite for each network.
On Saturday Jan. 21, a report from CBS Sports that Joe Paterno had passed away was denied by the Paterno family. However, Paterno passed away the following morning. The reporter, Adam Jacobi, was dismissed from his position by CBS within the following week because of this. To his credit, Jacobi went on Twitter and (over the course of multiple posts) told his followers "CBS had to let me go for the Paterno story going out the way it did, and I understand completely. I had an awesome 17 months with CBSSports.com. I'm sorry to everyone, most importantly the Paterno family, for how it ended."
In this instance, not even the dismissed employee questioned the move and why CBS had do make it.
We flash back to November 7, 2011, less than 3 months ago. The sports world and especially the boxing world lost Joe Frazier who passed away that day. Yet, the night before (Nov. 6), Fox Sports Radio host Mike North went on the air on his national radio show and reported that Frazier had already passed away. North, realizing his error before the show was over, apologized for going with the then erroneous report. Since that time, North has been promoted to more on-air work on Fox Sports Network, while no word of any disciplinary action was announced, if any was even taken.
Although I have my opinion on how both networks should have handled this situation, what is noteworthy is that these two major networks each took a separate road out of this. North not only remained on the air without any publicly known consequences, while Jacobi lost his job, for the very same infraction.
My hope is that reporters and news and sports directors will learn from these incidents. The idea is not always to be "first" to report a story. Rather, it is to use your sources and check your facts. It's not as though these were local radio station guys reporters fresh out of school. As a sports fan, I would like to think that the likes of CBS and Fox would have and use their vast resources to check the facts before they report anything. Instead, we all continue to get far too many of the "ESPN is reporting that......" going out on other major networks, most of which should be using their internal resources instead of taking the lazy approach of stealing a possible story from another source.
Meanwhile, ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio are among those providing fans around the country with wall-to-wall coverage leading into Sunday's Super Bowl, whether they want it or not. Other than in the participating teams' markets, I can't believe that the casual football fan needs to hear a full-length story about an offensive lineman's personal life, hotel prices in the host city, and other such "stories" that fill up the airwaves in place of the NBA, NHL, and college basketball games and results. The vast majority of sports fans I talk with, both within and outside of the media, don't care what commercials will be shown during the telecast either. That sports specific radio stations and TV networks spend any time on this fluff amazes me (but not in a good way). Most of this material is fine for Entertainment Tonight or shows which are not targeted specifically toward sports fans.
Within the Giants and Patriots markets, the Super Bowl hype all week is a different story. Many fans can't get enough. (Except for things such as actual news reports that Chris Mad Dog Russo "said hello" to WFAN's Mike Francesa on radio row on Monday.)
On the New York side, WFAN has Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason (morning team), Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts (middays), and Mike Francesa (afternoons) all broadcasting for at least some of this week from Indianapolis. Since WFAN is also the Giants' flagship station, the broadcast team of Bob Papa, Carl Banks, and Howard Cross will also appear throughout the week, as well as beat reporters Paul Dottino and Peter Schwartz. Benigno and Roberts will host a local WFAN pre-game show from 2 to 5 PM on Sunday.
In addition, WFAN and sister station WBZ-FM The Sports Hub Boston are doing some sharing and on air "mingling" with the hosts on each station.
WEPN 1050, New York's ESPN station is also on the scene at Indy along with its national coverage from ESPN Radio. This leads up to what WEPN plans as the "world's longest post-game show" with Bill Daughtry hosting for the entire overnight.
In Boston, both WEEI and WBZ-FM will broadcast the game to top off their week of non-stop coverage.
SAN ANTONIO: KZDC 1250 plans to continue with Jason Minnix as the lone host of its afternoon drive show after dismissing Chris Duel, who had been co-host until last week. The station cited ratings as the reason over and above cost-cutting, pointing out that ESPN's Mike & Mike morning show has been drawing higher ratings than the local afternoon show. We shall see if taking off one co-host instead of both makes a difference in the ratings over the next few months.
MINNEAPOLIS: Michelle Tafoya is heading for sidelines. Not just for the Super Bowl coverage on NBC. From her afternoon drive show on WCCO Radio after nearly three years. Tafoya will do occasional fill-ins for the station but is expected to increase her duties with NBC.
HOUSTON: Another big change on the Houston sports landscape. Just before the Astros relocate to the American League at the end of this year, Bob Allen will no longer be handling sports on KTRK Channel 13, or any other station. Allen has been Sports Director since 1975 (having joined Channel 13 in 1974), but announced last week (on Jan. 24th) that he plans to retire toward the end of this year. Allen began in Houston in 1971 at KPRC-AM. He joined KTRK-TV as a weekend anchor, replacing Dan Lovett when he (Lovett) left for WABC New York.
CHICAGO: While the Bulls are off to the best start in the shortened NBA season, the TV ratings are off to just as good of a start this season. Comcast SportsNet has been setting ratings records for the Bulls telecasts this season. Although it did not exist during the Michael Jordan era, last Wednesday's (Jan. 25) against Indiana had the highest regular season ratings for any Comcast SportsNet Chicago telecast (including Blackhawks, White Sox, and Cubs) in its history. Overall, through last week, CSN's Bulls telecasts are up more than 50% over last season's.
LOS ANGELES: Local NBA telecast ratings are also soaring for one of the city's local teams. That isn't the story. That the "team" is the Clippers certainly is. After all these years, it appears people are actually watching the Clippers to see the Clippers. Now Fox Sports West has actually expanded its Clippers pre-game show to a full hour. It's news to a lot of local basketball fans that they actually had a Clippers pre-game show before this season.
NEW YORK: The near future of Kim Jones is still up in the air (but not on the air - yet) after she reportedly has left the YES Network. Although she has appeared with Mike Francesa on occasion, the word is she will go with a national source, possibly NFL Network.Still another loss for the sports media, as Channel 5's Oren Stevens, most recently a contributor on Sunday's "Sports Extra" has passed away from cancer at the age of 73. People around the country might remember Stevens from his acting role in the movie "Downhill Racer" with Robert Redford and Gene Hackman from the late 60's.
NEW ORLEANS: Just as Bob Allen is leaving Houston TV, a similar change in New Orleans where WWL-TV's Sports Director Jim Henderson is retiring this week after 34 years. The good news for Saints fans is that Henderson is not retiring. He plans to continue indefinitely as the radio voice of the Saints, which he has done since 1982. WWL-TV is presenting reflections of Henderson's career with the station on all of its nightly newscasts this week in a fitting tribute.
BOSTON: Former first baseman Matt Stairs has been added as a part-time studio analyst for its Red Sox telecasts. NESN will also add Jenny Dell as its field reporter for Red Sox games. Dell comes from ESPN where she has appeared on the X Games and events on ESPN.com, and replaces Heidi Watney who has moved to Los Angeles.
HARTFORD: WPKX-FM has officially relocated from Enfield CT to Windsor Locks, which is closer to Hartford, and now carries ESPN Radio. The station is reportedly developing a local afternoon drive show. WPOP 1410 already carries ESPN on the AM side out of Hartford.
On Saturday Jan. 21, a report from CBS Sports that Joe Paterno had passed away was denied by the Paterno family. However, Paterno passed away the following morning. The reporter, Adam Jacobi, was dismissed from his position by CBS within the following week because of this. To his credit, Jacobi went on Twitter and (over the course of multiple posts) told his followers "CBS had to let me go for the Paterno story going out the way it did, and I understand completely. I had an awesome 17 months with CBSSports.com. I'm sorry to everyone, most importantly the Paterno family, for how it ended."
In this instance, not even the dismissed employee questioned the move and why CBS had do make it.
We flash back to November 7, 2011, less than 3 months ago. The sports world and especially the boxing world lost Joe Frazier who passed away that day. Yet, the night before (Nov. 6), Fox Sports Radio host Mike North went on the air on his national radio show and reported that Frazier had already passed away. North, realizing his error before the show was over, apologized for going with the then erroneous report. Since that time, North has been promoted to more on-air work on Fox Sports Network, while no word of any disciplinary action was announced, if any was even taken.
Although I have my opinion on how both networks should have handled this situation, what is noteworthy is that these two major networks each took a separate road out of this. North not only remained on the air without any publicly known consequences, while Jacobi lost his job, for the very same infraction.
My hope is that reporters and news and sports directors will learn from these incidents. The idea is not always to be "first" to report a story. Rather, it is to use your sources and check your facts. It's not as though these were local radio station guys reporters fresh out of school. As a sports fan, I would like to think that the likes of CBS and Fox would have and use their vast resources to check the facts before they report anything. Instead, we all continue to get far too many of the "ESPN is reporting that......" going out on other major networks, most of which should be using their internal resources instead of taking the lazy approach of stealing a possible story from another source.
Meanwhile, ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio are among those providing fans around the country with wall-to-wall coverage leading into Sunday's Super Bowl, whether they want it or not. Other than in the participating teams' markets, I can't believe that the casual football fan needs to hear a full-length story about an offensive lineman's personal life, hotel prices in the host city, and other such "stories" that fill up the airwaves in place of the NBA, NHL, and college basketball games and results. The vast majority of sports fans I talk with, both within and outside of the media, don't care what commercials will be shown during the telecast either. That sports specific radio stations and TV networks spend any time on this fluff amazes me (but not in a good way). Most of this material is fine for Entertainment Tonight or shows which are not targeted specifically toward sports fans.
Within the Giants and Patriots markets, the Super Bowl hype all week is a different story. Many fans can't get enough. (Except for things such as actual news reports that Chris Mad Dog Russo "said hello" to WFAN's Mike Francesa on radio row on Monday.)
On the New York side, WFAN has Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason (morning team), Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts (middays), and Mike Francesa (afternoons) all broadcasting for at least some of this week from Indianapolis. Since WFAN is also the Giants' flagship station, the broadcast team of Bob Papa, Carl Banks, and Howard Cross will also appear throughout the week, as well as beat reporters Paul Dottino and Peter Schwartz. Benigno and Roberts will host a local WFAN pre-game show from 2 to 5 PM on Sunday.
In addition, WFAN and sister station WBZ-FM The Sports Hub Boston are doing some sharing and on air "mingling" with the hosts on each station.
WEPN 1050, New York's ESPN station is also on the scene at Indy along with its national coverage from ESPN Radio. This leads up to what WEPN plans as the "world's longest post-game show" with Bill Daughtry hosting for the entire overnight.
In Boston, both WEEI and WBZ-FM will broadcast the game to top off their week of non-stop coverage.
SAN ANTONIO: KZDC 1250 plans to continue with Jason Minnix as the lone host of its afternoon drive show after dismissing Chris Duel, who had been co-host until last week. The station cited ratings as the reason over and above cost-cutting, pointing out that ESPN's Mike & Mike morning show has been drawing higher ratings than the local afternoon show. We shall see if taking off one co-host instead of both makes a difference in the ratings over the next few months.
MINNEAPOLIS: Michelle Tafoya is heading for sidelines. Not just for the Super Bowl coverage on NBC. From her afternoon drive show on WCCO Radio after nearly three years. Tafoya will do occasional fill-ins for the station but is expected to increase her duties with NBC.
HOUSTON: Another big change on the Houston sports landscape. Just before the Astros relocate to the American League at the end of this year, Bob Allen will no longer be handling sports on KTRK Channel 13, or any other station. Allen has been Sports Director since 1975 (having joined Channel 13 in 1974), but announced last week (on Jan. 24th) that he plans to retire toward the end of this year. Allen began in Houston in 1971 at KPRC-AM. He joined KTRK-TV as a weekend anchor, replacing Dan Lovett when he (Lovett) left for WABC New York.
CHICAGO: While the Bulls are off to the best start in the shortened NBA season, the TV ratings are off to just as good of a start this season. Comcast SportsNet has been setting ratings records for the Bulls telecasts this season. Although it did not exist during the Michael Jordan era, last Wednesday's (Jan. 25) against Indiana had the highest regular season ratings for any Comcast SportsNet Chicago telecast (including Blackhawks, White Sox, and Cubs) in its history. Overall, through last week, CSN's Bulls telecasts are up more than 50% over last season's.
LOS ANGELES: Local NBA telecast ratings are also soaring for one of the city's local teams. That isn't the story. That the "team" is the Clippers certainly is. After all these years, it appears people are actually watching the Clippers to see the Clippers. Now Fox Sports West has actually expanded its Clippers pre-game show to a full hour. It's news to a lot of local basketball fans that they actually had a Clippers pre-game show before this season.
NEW YORK: The near future of Kim Jones is still up in the air (but not on the air - yet) after she reportedly has left the YES Network. Although she has appeared with Mike Francesa on occasion, the word is she will go with a national source, possibly NFL Network.Still another loss for the sports media, as Channel 5's Oren Stevens, most recently a contributor on Sunday's "Sports Extra" has passed away from cancer at the age of 73. People around the country might remember Stevens from his acting role in the movie "Downhill Racer" with Robert Redford and Gene Hackman from the late 60's.
NEW ORLEANS: Just as Bob Allen is leaving Houston TV, a similar change in New Orleans where WWL-TV's Sports Director Jim Henderson is retiring this week after 34 years. The good news for Saints fans is that Henderson is not retiring. He plans to continue indefinitely as the radio voice of the Saints, which he has done since 1982. WWL-TV is presenting reflections of Henderson's career with the station on all of its nightly newscasts this week in a fitting tribute.
BOSTON: Former first baseman Matt Stairs has been added as a part-time studio analyst for its Red Sox telecasts. NESN will also add Jenny Dell as its field reporter for Red Sox games. Dell comes from ESPN where she has appeared on the X Games and events on ESPN.com, and replaces Heidi Watney who has moved to Los Angeles.
HARTFORD: WPKX-FM has officially relocated from Enfield CT to Windsor Locks, which is closer to Hartford, and now carries ESPN Radio. The station is reportedly developing a local afternoon drive show. WPOP 1410 already carries ESPN on the AM side out of Hartford.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
A Lot To Talk About This Week
This very week appears to be one of the most interesting times for sports talk. The annual controversy over the choices for the college football championship game. NFL playoff races heating up. Some fans anticipating NBA free agent signings and training camps opening. Baseball's winter meetings. All this along with a full slate of NHL and early season college hoops.
Hopefully this will be a time for sports talk stations to step up their game as well. There is plenty of opportunity for players, coaches, and team executives to be guests and provide listeners with solid opinions, facts, and good information. The stations can make it interesting for a variety of topics. Let's hope for something better than "Steve from the north side wants to talk playoffs....".
The radio ratings for late October to mid-November are out for the larger markets. Philadelphia and Minneapolis show the most significant developments. The move of WIP to an AM-FM combo has had very little impact thus far. WIP AM and FM, with the FM adding more hours of separate programming, merely combined for roughly half of the audience of WPEN, and WPEN finished at #18 in overall audience. Sure looks like Howard Eskin leaving afternoon drive at the end of August was a severe blow to WIP that even the addition of the FM signal isn't about to fix any time soon.
The recent move of several big market sports stations to FM is already paying dividends in certain cities. In the Twin Cities, KFXN-FM The Fan has been on the upward trend since coming over from the AM side. The Fan came in at #7 in overall audience at 4.8, up a full ratings point from its September showing. What underscores this increase is when you realize it is not the local teams. The Vikings are headed toward last place, the Twins just finished a last place finish, and the University of Minnesota football team didn't exactly light up the Big 10. KFXN-FM is successful by taking away the audience from rival KSTP-AM, which dropped from 3.6 to 2.7 during the same time period. It is virtually the same number of people listening to sports talk.
Several of the largest markets saw little (if any) change in the number of sports talk listeners during this ratings period. In New York, WFAN and WEPN both held steady, with The Fan coming in #13 overall. In Chicago, WSCR The Score moved up to a 2.6 rating and #16 in the market, while rival WMVP ESPN 1000 was steady and finished #21.
In San Francisco, KNBR continues its huge lead in the sports station race, while finishing #9 overall. KTCK-AM The Ticket finished at #26 while KGMZ came in #27 in that market. In Dallas, sports radio continues to be popular as the Cowboys season unfolds (and the Rangers were in the World Series during much of this ratings period). KESN ESPN came in #12 overall, just ahead of KTCK The Ticket at #14, while KRLD-FM came in #22.
In Boston, the competition between The Sports Hub and WEEI continues to be interesting, as WEEI and The Sports Hub both lost overall audience. WBZ-FM Sports Hub leads WEEI by .3 after WEEI lost most of the audience it had gained a month earlier.
The success of the Detroit Lions during the ratings period helped WXYT-FM The Ticket remain #1 overall in the market even with a loss of well over a full ratings point. With the Lions on a losing streak since, it will be interesting to see whether or not The Ticket holds on to the top spot next month.
St. Louis remains a sports radio hot bed, as WXOS-FM gained more than one full ratings point over the month. The station is the flagship station for Rams football, although its audience increased overall despite a poor season by the team. KMOX, which has some sports talk programming in addition to play-by-play, remains a solid #1 in the market and continues to enjoy the success of the Cardinals' World Series victory.
In Houston, KILT is starting to make sports talk viable, moving up to #19 overall, reflecting an overall 2.6 rating from only a 1.4 in August. KBME is at #25 overall, reflecting an increase for both of those stations.
Even Los Angeles sports stations show a slight audience increase although it's nothing to get excited about. KSPN ESPN jumps up to #25, while KLAC moved up very slightly but is still #34 overall. It shows you where that market has gone when it's a positive that one sports station barely cracks the top 25.
One other ratings oddity of sorts. In Winnipeg, where the city is enjoying its own NHL team for the first time in years, Sports Radio 1290 actually dropped .1 in October, the first month it was carrying the team's games.
DENVER: As The Ticket becomes ESPN Radio, instead of 1600 AM, on Jan. 1st, morning hosts Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller have been given their ticket "out". Management decided to continue Mike & Mike on FM and end the 7 - 9 AM local show hosted by the KCNC-TV sportscasters. As of now, plans remain in place for The Ticket on FM to be local from Noon to 3 with Les Shapiro and JoJo and from 3 to 7 PM with Charles Johnson and Nate Kreckman.
HOUSTON: Whether or not anyone will notice, WGOW 1560 has moved Sean Pendergast from middays to morning drive and is now co-hosting with John Granato, as of this week, from 6 to 11 AM. Travis Rodgers will air from 2 to 6 PM with Yahoo Sports Radio taking up most of the rest of the time.
CHICAGO: WGN Radio, which airs Blackhawks hockey, debuted an "occasional" weekend 1-hour show hosted by winger Daniel Carcillo, this past Friday (12/2) night following the Blackhawks vs. Islanders broadcast. The recorded program is more of a music and "personal experience" show, and will air several more times during the season on weekend nights following the Hawks' broadcasts.
WVON 1690 will air about 10 Illinois State University basketball games this season, marking the first time in years that a Chicago station has aired the Redbirds games. The station did not and does not air any other play-by-play at this time.
CINCINNATI: WLW Radio has begun its "Reds Hot Stove League" broadcasts each Tuesday night at 6 PM ET during the baseball off season. This past Tuesday (11/29), the show aired live from a restaurant near the stadium and prompted Reds voice Marty Brennaman to comment that he wishes the show was broadcast "among the fans" every week instead of mostly from the station studios. However, the next remotes won't be until Dec. 20th and Jan. 17th.
MEMPHIS: Verno Radio 730 has stopped its numerous rebroadcasts of its afternoon drive "The Chris Vernon Show" and now airs Yahoo Sports Radio for the majority of its broadcast day. Although the move is technically from local to national, in this instance it is more importantly from recorded to live.
DES MOINES: Sorry to learn of the passing of Mike Newell from a heart attack at the age of 66 last week. Newell has done play-by-play for Drake University basketball, Iowa Oaks (minor league) baseball, and years of hosting WHO Radio's University of Iowa post-game "Sound Off" show.
And, finally, I will acknowledge that I left out a very important fact in one of my comments last week. There I was writing about how ESPN actually went "news" rather than just sports with its reporting of the Bernie Fine story and recordings it had to support the unfortunate incidents which led to his (Fine's) firing. However, the portion of the story I saw and heard on ESPN did not include the part where it was revealed that ESPN had those recordings for several years and failed to release them or report on their contents. Therefore, ESPN was actually NOT doing an efficient job of presenting news because of that.
Hopefully this will be a time for sports talk stations to step up their game as well. There is plenty of opportunity for players, coaches, and team executives to be guests and provide listeners with solid opinions, facts, and good information. The stations can make it interesting for a variety of topics. Let's hope for something better than "Steve from the north side wants to talk playoffs....".
The radio ratings for late October to mid-November are out for the larger markets. Philadelphia and Minneapolis show the most significant developments. The move of WIP to an AM-FM combo has had very little impact thus far. WIP AM and FM, with the FM adding more hours of separate programming, merely combined for roughly half of the audience of WPEN, and WPEN finished at #18 in overall audience. Sure looks like Howard Eskin leaving afternoon drive at the end of August was a severe blow to WIP that even the addition of the FM signal isn't about to fix any time soon.
The recent move of several big market sports stations to FM is already paying dividends in certain cities. In the Twin Cities, KFXN-FM The Fan has been on the upward trend since coming over from the AM side. The Fan came in at #7 in overall audience at 4.8, up a full ratings point from its September showing. What underscores this increase is when you realize it is not the local teams. The Vikings are headed toward last place, the Twins just finished a last place finish, and the University of Minnesota football team didn't exactly light up the Big 10. KFXN-FM is successful by taking away the audience from rival KSTP-AM, which dropped from 3.6 to 2.7 during the same time period. It is virtually the same number of people listening to sports talk.
Several of the largest markets saw little (if any) change in the number of sports talk listeners during this ratings period. In New York, WFAN and WEPN both held steady, with The Fan coming in #13 overall. In Chicago, WSCR The Score moved up to a 2.6 rating and #16 in the market, while rival WMVP ESPN 1000 was steady and finished #21.
In San Francisco, KNBR continues its huge lead in the sports station race, while finishing #9 overall. KTCK-AM The Ticket finished at #26 while KGMZ came in #27 in that market. In Dallas, sports radio continues to be popular as the Cowboys season unfolds (and the Rangers were in the World Series during much of this ratings period). KESN ESPN came in #12 overall, just ahead of KTCK The Ticket at #14, while KRLD-FM came in #22.
In Boston, the competition between The Sports Hub and WEEI continues to be interesting, as WEEI and The Sports Hub both lost overall audience. WBZ-FM Sports Hub leads WEEI by .3 after WEEI lost most of the audience it had gained a month earlier.
The success of the Detroit Lions during the ratings period helped WXYT-FM The Ticket remain #1 overall in the market even with a loss of well over a full ratings point. With the Lions on a losing streak since, it will be interesting to see whether or not The Ticket holds on to the top spot next month.
St. Louis remains a sports radio hot bed, as WXOS-FM gained more than one full ratings point over the month. The station is the flagship station for Rams football, although its audience increased overall despite a poor season by the team. KMOX, which has some sports talk programming in addition to play-by-play, remains a solid #1 in the market and continues to enjoy the success of the Cardinals' World Series victory.
In Houston, KILT is starting to make sports talk viable, moving up to #19 overall, reflecting an overall 2.6 rating from only a 1.4 in August. KBME is at #25 overall, reflecting an increase for both of those stations.
Even Los Angeles sports stations show a slight audience increase although it's nothing to get excited about. KSPN ESPN jumps up to #25, while KLAC moved up very slightly but is still #34 overall. It shows you where that market has gone when it's a positive that one sports station barely cracks the top 25.
One other ratings oddity of sorts. In Winnipeg, where the city is enjoying its own NHL team for the first time in years, Sports Radio 1290 actually dropped .1 in October, the first month it was carrying the team's games.
DENVER: As The Ticket becomes ESPN Radio, instead of 1600 AM, on Jan. 1st, morning hosts Vic Lombardi and Gary Miller have been given their ticket "out". Management decided to continue Mike & Mike on FM and end the 7 - 9 AM local show hosted by the KCNC-TV sportscasters. As of now, plans remain in place for The Ticket on FM to be local from Noon to 3 with Les Shapiro and JoJo and from 3 to 7 PM with Charles Johnson and Nate Kreckman.
HOUSTON: Whether or not anyone will notice, WGOW 1560 has moved Sean Pendergast from middays to morning drive and is now co-hosting with John Granato, as of this week, from 6 to 11 AM. Travis Rodgers will air from 2 to 6 PM with Yahoo Sports Radio taking up most of the rest of the time.
CHICAGO: WGN Radio, which airs Blackhawks hockey, debuted an "occasional" weekend 1-hour show hosted by winger Daniel Carcillo, this past Friday (12/2) night following the Blackhawks vs. Islanders broadcast. The recorded program is more of a music and "personal experience" show, and will air several more times during the season on weekend nights following the Hawks' broadcasts.
WVON 1690 will air about 10 Illinois State University basketball games this season, marking the first time in years that a Chicago station has aired the Redbirds games. The station did not and does not air any other play-by-play at this time.
CINCINNATI: WLW Radio has begun its "Reds Hot Stove League" broadcasts each Tuesday night at 6 PM ET during the baseball off season. This past Tuesday (11/29), the show aired live from a restaurant near the stadium and prompted Reds voice Marty Brennaman to comment that he wishes the show was broadcast "among the fans" every week instead of mostly from the station studios. However, the next remotes won't be until Dec. 20th and Jan. 17th.
MEMPHIS: Verno Radio 730 has stopped its numerous rebroadcasts of its afternoon drive "The Chris Vernon Show" and now airs Yahoo Sports Radio for the majority of its broadcast day. Although the move is technically from local to national, in this instance it is more importantly from recorded to live.
DES MOINES: Sorry to learn of the passing of Mike Newell from a heart attack at the age of 66 last week. Newell has done play-by-play for Drake University basketball, Iowa Oaks (minor league) baseball, and years of hosting WHO Radio's University of Iowa post-game "Sound Off" show.
And, finally, I will acknowledge that I left out a very important fact in one of my comments last week. There I was writing about how ESPN actually went "news" rather than just sports with its reporting of the Bernie Fine story and recordings it had to support the unfortunate incidents which led to his (Fine's) firing. However, the portion of the story I saw and heard on ESPN did not include the part where it was revealed that ESPN had those recordings for several years and failed to release them or report on their contents. Therefore, ESPN was actually NOT doing an efficient job of presenting news because of that.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
It's The Game - Not The Sports Station
The release of radio ratings for the mid-September to mid-October period provide reasons to re-visit the impact of sports radio stations around the country. These ratings come during the busiest time of the year in sports, with football, baseball, hockey, and (not quite) basketball all keeping the sports pages busy.
Several of the large market sports stations have recently done some lineup shuffling, whether to fend off competing sportstalk stations, add a fresh approach, or both. Over the past year, I have taken the point of view that sports station ratings are driven too much by the local teams or major sports happenings moreso than the personalities hosting the shows day after day.
With so much time spent talking about rumors, speculation, and predictions by the various hosts instead of increasing "hard sports news" reporting and having more quality guests, many of the sports stations continue to not make a significant impact with the local radio audience, local programming or not. For the most part, when local teams are making significant news or changes, it reflects positively on the local sports stations.
This is not good for the industry. It tells me that sports fans know these sportstalk stations are there, but choose to listen for a hot topic, and not the personalities.
Not everyone who reads and responds to me on this topic agrees, and that's fine. However, I'm seeing even less to support their arguments on this. Let's look at the latest radio ratings for a group of larger markets.
In New York City, WFAN is now #12 in the market in overall audience, and did increase .4 from the previous month. WEPN showed a 50% overall audience increase over the September ratings and has more than doubled its total audience since July, which is impressive. Yet, there were no significant program lineup changes during this time. Fans are not listening more to these stations because "such-and-such is now on in the afternoon". The audience increases for both stations came during the Yankees' run to the post-season with higher expectations and the start of the Giants' and Jets' seasons.
In Chicago, WSCR The Score 670 came in at #18 overall with another slight increase. Yet, rival WMVP ESPN 1000, while tied for #20 showed its strongest overall rating this year. This coincides with the Bears' season starting, as evidenced by WBBM 780 and 105.9, which airs the play-by-play, rising from a 5.4 to a 6.6 overall in just one month to finish #1 in the market.
I'm going to comment more (and separately) on Los Angeles sports radio later this month, since that market again failed to place either of its sports stations in the top 25 in overall audience.
San Francisco also brings the point home. As the Giants were fading from their chance to repeat a World Series championship and the 49ers brought low expectations (at the time), KNBR 680 lost about 20% of its overall audience from one month earlier and fell to #9 in the market. KTCT The Ticket did show a large increase in listeners, but shows a total audience less than 1/3 of KNBR.
In Dallas, KESN showed a 25% audience increase and finished #9 in the market, while KRLD-FM showed a similar increase while rising to #18 overall. KTCK The Ticket held steady. This while the Rangers were on their way to another World Series (decided after this ratings period) and the Cowboys' season was now in full swing.
Houston is another significant example of why it is the sports climate and not the stations themselves. The 3 "leading" sports radio stations showed increases for the October ratings just as Texans began a season with higher than usual expectations. Heck, KILT's audience increased enough to put a Houston sports station into the top 20 stations overall, even though they are at #19. (Other than Los Angeles, Houston's sports stations have shown perhaps the lowest major league market sports radio ratings over the past couple of years.)
Boston was a sports 'hot bed' during this time, with the severe Red Sox collapse at the same time as the start of the Patriots' season. WEEI/WMKK moved up over a full ratings point over the one month. Before I get the argument that the WMKK simulcast recently began and this would account for the increase, consider that WBZ-FM The Sports Hub ALSO rose more than one full rating point during the same time. Sports talk had been on FM in the Boston area. The late September local sports scene is what brought the fans to want to talk about it.
In Detroit, the Tigers' run to the post-season, the Lions best start in more than 40 years, the opening of the Red Wings season, and early success of Michigan and Michigan State football created a sports frenzy. WXYT-FM 97.1 The Ticket had a second straight record-setting ratings month, rose by .6 overall, and finished #1 in the market.
In Phoenix, the success of the Diamondbacks into the post-season brought KTAR-AM up to more than double the audience ratings it had for August.
In Columbus, WBNS-FM's overall ratings rose from a 5.5 a month earlier to a 6.7, an impressive increase, raising the station to #4 in the market. Why? You guessed it. The sportstalk station carries Ohio State football play-by-play.
One more large market to comment on. I'm sure I'll hear from a few of you who will argue that the WEEI to FM simulcast was a factor in the Boston sports radio increase. Perhaps you should also research the Philadelphia market. WIP killed off WYSP-FM's music format to simulcast sports radio, giving this long time sports leader an AM-FM presence for the first time. For October, WIP-AM dropped to #23 overall in the market, and has lost more than half of its audience since July. Yet, WPEN rose to #18 in the market, but showed nearly a full ratings point increase. This looks like the impact of Howard Eskin leaving WIP and many of his listeners trying out the competition - during the Phillies' post-season run and with the Eagles' season in full swing.
Here's hoping that sportstalk stations will strive for more than "Let's go to Joe on the north side who thinks that (name of team) needs a new linebacker" to try and attract more listeners.
Elsewhere, I'm glad that ESPN thought to televise the announcements of MLB's Gold Glove Award winners on Tuesday (11/1) night. With all of the time on the national, regional, and league/conference networks, there is room for shows surrounding award announcements, since many fans want to know exactly when these awards will be announced.
However, if ESPN or MLB Network is going to televise these awards (such as Silver Slugger, MVP, Cy Young, etc.), they need to do a better job of making it interesting or there won't be enough of an audience to make it worthwhile in the future.
"All" ESPN did for each position in both leagues was give the list of nominees, have a former player announce the winner, and THEN show highlights of that player's performance. Sorry, but that wasn't enough of a buildup to make it worth watching again.
Show us clips and information about each nominee, like the major movie and TV awards shows air a clip of each show or film in consideration. Instead, ESPN made it seem easier to go to another news source later that night or the next morning and see the list all at once.
Even an MVP or Cy Young Award telecast could be made interesting. They could include some clips and statistical comparisons of some players not even in the "top 10" in the voting to raise the "How could this guy not have been voted higher?" discussion. In this context, it enhances the winning of the award while adding more suspense. That would be a thousand times better than what seemed like it could have been a pre-recorded presentation.
Next Thursday (11/10) begins Thursday Night Football on NFL Network when the Raiders take on the Chargers. Once again, a new season means a new announcing team. This year Brad Nessler, known for his college football play-by-play over the years, will handle it for NFL Network, along with Notre Dame on NBC analyst Mike Mayock.
Although Nessler and Mayock each do a very good job and figure to be a good team, it seems odd that the NFL's own network would not go with an announcing team strongly associated with the NFL instead of college games.
NEW YORK: It wasn't announced until after our press time last week, but the Yankees broadcasts will indeed return to WCBS-AM for the 2012 season. The significance is that this is a one-year extension and not a multi-year deal. Sister station WFAN has the Mets broadcasts, and that contract is also up at the end of next season. One of the aspects the bears watching is how CBS Radio stations approach retaining or bidding for local play-by-play rights over the next few months. If CBS is looking at a lesser role for sports broadcasts, it could create a wild scene in NYC with both teams coming up. Or, CBS could be bidding against itself and others for both teams next summer.
The Yankees' radio team of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman will return. How much or how little those two will actually talk to each other directly on the air remains to be seen - or heard.
While WEPN 1050 lacks for programming since there are no Knicks broadcasts during the NBA lockout, the station will carry Seton Hall basketball starting on Nov. 12th vs. St. Francis. The contract allows for the Seton Hall broadcasts to move to WABC 770 if and when there are Knicks conflicts during the coming season, as well as when there will be Rangers conflicts. (WEPN airs the Rangers games as well.)
WASHINGTON D.C.: Although the college basketball season is about to start, it took until the last minute for Georgetown University basketball to get a deal with WTEM 980. The ESPN station or WSPZ-AM 570 will air the Hoyas games again this season, with Rich Chvotkin going in to his 39th season as play-by-play voice.
DENVER: Nate Kreckman has moved into a co-host role from Noon to 3 PM on 102.3 The Ticket, teaming with Charles Johnson. Former Colorado QB Joel Klatt has left the station, with details sketchy as to what happened there.
ALLENTOWN PA: A Saturday morning mystery, radio style. This past Saturday (10/30), The Fox AM 1470 did not air the "Calling All Sports" Show with Keith Groller, although there was no official announcement. Later, Groller stated in his local newspaper column that the show was taken off the schedule "due to some transitions". The station is owned by a large national radio group which has been eliminating jobs around the country over the past two weeks, and this was a weekly locally produced show. So now the guess is it's no longer a mystery and the show won't be back.
Several of the large market sports stations have recently done some lineup shuffling, whether to fend off competing sportstalk stations, add a fresh approach, or both. Over the past year, I have taken the point of view that sports station ratings are driven too much by the local teams or major sports happenings moreso than the personalities hosting the shows day after day.
With so much time spent talking about rumors, speculation, and predictions by the various hosts instead of increasing "hard sports news" reporting and having more quality guests, many of the sports stations continue to not make a significant impact with the local radio audience, local programming or not. For the most part, when local teams are making significant news or changes, it reflects positively on the local sports stations.
This is not good for the industry. It tells me that sports fans know these sportstalk stations are there, but choose to listen for a hot topic, and not the personalities.
Not everyone who reads and responds to me on this topic agrees, and that's fine. However, I'm seeing even less to support their arguments on this. Let's look at the latest radio ratings for a group of larger markets.
In New York City, WFAN is now #12 in the market in overall audience, and did increase .4 from the previous month. WEPN showed a 50% overall audience increase over the September ratings and has more than doubled its total audience since July, which is impressive. Yet, there were no significant program lineup changes during this time. Fans are not listening more to these stations because "such-and-such is now on in the afternoon". The audience increases for both stations came during the Yankees' run to the post-season with higher expectations and the start of the Giants' and Jets' seasons.
In Chicago, WSCR The Score 670 came in at #18 overall with another slight increase. Yet, rival WMVP ESPN 1000, while tied for #20 showed its strongest overall rating this year. This coincides with the Bears' season starting, as evidenced by WBBM 780 and 105.9, which airs the play-by-play, rising from a 5.4 to a 6.6 overall in just one month to finish #1 in the market.
I'm going to comment more (and separately) on Los Angeles sports radio later this month, since that market again failed to place either of its sports stations in the top 25 in overall audience.
San Francisco also brings the point home. As the Giants were fading from their chance to repeat a World Series championship and the 49ers brought low expectations (at the time), KNBR 680 lost about 20% of its overall audience from one month earlier and fell to #9 in the market. KTCT The Ticket did show a large increase in listeners, but shows a total audience less than 1/3 of KNBR.
In Dallas, KESN showed a 25% audience increase and finished #9 in the market, while KRLD-FM showed a similar increase while rising to #18 overall. KTCK The Ticket held steady. This while the Rangers were on their way to another World Series (decided after this ratings period) and the Cowboys' season was now in full swing.
Houston is another significant example of why it is the sports climate and not the stations themselves. The 3 "leading" sports radio stations showed increases for the October ratings just as Texans began a season with higher than usual expectations. Heck, KILT's audience increased enough to put a Houston sports station into the top 20 stations overall, even though they are at #19. (Other than Los Angeles, Houston's sports stations have shown perhaps the lowest major league market sports radio ratings over the past couple of years.)
Boston was a sports 'hot bed' during this time, with the severe Red Sox collapse at the same time as the start of the Patriots' season. WEEI/WMKK moved up over a full ratings point over the one month. Before I get the argument that the WMKK simulcast recently began and this would account for the increase, consider that WBZ-FM The Sports Hub ALSO rose more than one full rating point during the same time. Sports talk had been on FM in the Boston area. The late September local sports scene is what brought the fans to want to talk about it.
In Detroit, the Tigers' run to the post-season, the Lions best start in more than 40 years, the opening of the Red Wings season, and early success of Michigan and Michigan State football created a sports frenzy. WXYT-FM 97.1 The Ticket had a second straight record-setting ratings month, rose by .6 overall, and finished #1 in the market.
In Phoenix, the success of the Diamondbacks into the post-season brought KTAR-AM up to more than double the audience ratings it had for August.
In Columbus, WBNS-FM's overall ratings rose from a 5.5 a month earlier to a 6.7, an impressive increase, raising the station to #4 in the market. Why? You guessed it. The sportstalk station carries Ohio State football play-by-play.
One more large market to comment on. I'm sure I'll hear from a few of you who will argue that the WEEI to FM simulcast was a factor in the Boston sports radio increase. Perhaps you should also research the Philadelphia market. WIP killed off WYSP-FM's music format to simulcast sports radio, giving this long time sports leader an AM-FM presence for the first time. For October, WIP-AM dropped to #23 overall in the market, and has lost more than half of its audience since July. Yet, WPEN rose to #18 in the market, but showed nearly a full ratings point increase. This looks like the impact of Howard Eskin leaving WIP and many of his listeners trying out the competition - during the Phillies' post-season run and with the Eagles' season in full swing.
Here's hoping that sportstalk stations will strive for more than "Let's go to Joe on the north side who thinks that (name of team) needs a new linebacker" to try and attract more listeners.
Elsewhere, I'm glad that ESPN thought to televise the announcements of MLB's Gold Glove Award winners on Tuesday (11/1) night. With all of the time on the national, regional, and league/conference networks, there is room for shows surrounding award announcements, since many fans want to know exactly when these awards will be announced.
However, if ESPN or MLB Network is going to televise these awards (such as Silver Slugger, MVP, Cy Young, etc.), they need to do a better job of making it interesting or there won't be enough of an audience to make it worthwhile in the future.
"All" ESPN did for each position in both leagues was give the list of nominees, have a former player announce the winner, and THEN show highlights of that player's performance. Sorry, but that wasn't enough of a buildup to make it worth watching again.
Show us clips and information about each nominee, like the major movie and TV awards shows air a clip of each show or film in consideration. Instead, ESPN made it seem easier to go to another news source later that night or the next morning and see the list all at once.
Even an MVP or Cy Young Award telecast could be made interesting. They could include some clips and statistical comparisons of some players not even in the "top 10" in the voting to raise the "How could this guy not have been voted higher?" discussion. In this context, it enhances the winning of the award while adding more suspense. That would be a thousand times better than what seemed like it could have been a pre-recorded presentation.
Next Thursday (11/10) begins Thursday Night Football on NFL Network when the Raiders take on the Chargers. Once again, a new season means a new announcing team. This year Brad Nessler, known for his college football play-by-play over the years, will handle it for NFL Network, along with Notre Dame on NBC analyst Mike Mayock.
Although Nessler and Mayock each do a very good job and figure to be a good team, it seems odd that the NFL's own network would not go with an announcing team strongly associated with the NFL instead of college games.
NEW YORK: It wasn't announced until after our press time last week, but the Yankees broadcasts will indeed return to WCBS-AM for the 2012 season. The significance is that this is a one-year extension and not a multi-year deal. Sister station WFAN has the Mets broadcasts, and that contract is also up at the end of next season. One of the aspects the bears watching is how CBS Radio stations approach retaining or bidding for local play-by-play rights over the next few months. If CBS is looking at a lesser role for sports broadcasts, it could create a wild scene in NYC with both teams coming up. Or, CBS could be bidding against itself and others for both teams next summer.
The Yankees' radio team of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman will return. How much or how little those two will actually talk to each other directly on the air remains to be seen - or heard.
While WEPN 1050 lacks for programming since there are no Knicks broadcasts during the NBA lockout, the station will carry Seton Hall basketball starting on Nov. 12th vs. St. Francis. The contract allows for the Seton Hall broadcasts to move to WABC 770 if and when there are Knicks conflicts during the coming season, as well as when there will be Rangers conflicts. (WEPN airs the Rangers games as well.)
WASHINGTON D.C.: Although the college basketball season is about to start, it took until the last minute for Georgetown University basketball to get a deal with WTEM 980. The ESPN station or WSPZ-AM 570 will air the Hoyas games again this season, with Rich Chvotkin going in to his 39th season as play-by-play voice.
DENVER: Nate Kreckman has moved into a co-host role from Noon to 3 PM on 102.3 The Ticket, teaming with Charles Johnson. Former Colorado QB Joel Klatt has left the station, with details sketchy as to what happened there.
ALLENTOWN PA: A Saturday morning mystery, radio style. This past Saturday (10/30), The Fox AM 1470 did not air the "Calling All Sports" Show with Keith Groller, although there was no official announcement. Later, Groller stated in his local newspaper column that the show was taken off the schedule "due to some transitions". The station is owned by a large national radio group which has been eliminating jobs around the country over the past two weeks, and this was a weekly locally produced show. So now the guess is it's no longer a mystery and the show won't be back.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
ESPN Reporters Making News
NFL fans want their football once again this season. The Sunday Night Football opener finished with extremely high ratings, even higher than expected since Dallas and a New York team were included. But I have to wonder if some viewers were burned out by Monday night. Just maybe the Monday Night Football doubleheader was too much for some folks, as the early ratings report for the night was down a bit, although still fairly strong. Not as many viewers as expected were watching when Ron Jaworski used the s-word on ESPN following a play.
At least Jaworski issued his own apology. That's better than ESPN's Bobby Knight who did the same type of slip last college hoops season and then did not apologize, instead leaving that to the play-by-play voice. Since Knight was not knowingly disciplined, I wouldn't expect Jaworski to be either.
Speaking of ESPN, it's interesting that they allow Erin Andrews to be hired as a commercial spokesperson for any entity, let alone a ticket reseller. It seems that a large national ticket reseller has signed Andrews for a sales program targeted toward women. I'm not sure what happened that makes it so acceptable for a reporter to be a 'pitch person' at the same time.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to note how the initial news of the Peyton Manning injury which kept him out of the Colts' opener (and then some) was announced on a national level even before the media which regularly covers the Colts did.
It seems that Colts Vice Chairman Bill Polian, who has not been known as being gracious toward the local media over the years, went on ESPN 1050 in New York before any other media to comment about Manning being out for at least the then upcoming opening game. Hours later, Chris Mortensen of ESPN (nationally) was the one who broke the news about Manning's surgery. While I give major kudos to ESPN 1050 in NYC for breaking this story (as opposed to going with speculation or rumors), this raises the question of why The Fan 1070 in Indianapolis was not the first with this story.
Not only is 1070 The Fan the station which broadcasts the Colts games, but it also happens to be the ESPN Radio affiliate for Indianapolis.
To me, this is an instance where someone should get the blame. However, it's tough to say who. It might not be right to flat out blame The Fan 1070 for not having this story when a member of the team's upper management volunteers to unveil the initial information to a New York station. It's understandable that Mortensen would then get access to the follow up information. After all, ESPN is paying millions and millions of dollars currently, with it getting into the billions, for NFL telecasts and related programming for years to come.
If anything, some degree of blame should go to ESPN in New York because it scooped Indy's 1070 The Fan. If 1070 The Fan was not an ESPN affiliate, I could understand this to some extent. But they are. You would think the ESPN "family" would stick together on what was a huge local and national story. If ESPN's higher ups truly went along with Colts upper management and kept this as a national story, as a few media folks have speculated, then The Fan and other local station management should keep this in mind when the next local rights bidding comes up.
While on one hand, I'm wondering why 1070 The Fan wasn't more on top of the story, on the other I'm thinking about how much NFL fans (and even consumers who don't care about football) actually spend on NFL coverage, and thinking that the local Colts fans were cheated out of coverage.
Yet, we go back to radio station strategies. With the recent trend of moving news and sports AM stations onto FM simulcasts in Philadelphia (WIP) and Chicago (news WBBM added to FM including Bears broadcasts), WEEI in Boston has hopped aboard that bandwagon. Mike-FM turned off the mic, so to speak, and made room for WMKK-FM to simulcast WEEI-AM. This is to compete with WBZ 98.5 the Sports Hub.
While these moves could well increase the ratings of these stations due to combining, I continue to see this as having long term consequences. If and as the AM and FM dials wind up being the same stations with fewer local choices, it will result in even fewer reasons for consumers to keep from jumping to satellite or internet radio. Or, from continuing to listen to streams on phones and other portable devices which totally bypass radio as we knew it.
Yes, this is similar to the music stations selling listeners downloads of the songs they play. While the stations figure they have another revenue stream, encouraging listeners to download the songs they like best gives them reasons to use a device other than radio, have a playlist they really like, and not have to wait through clusters of commercials, contests, voice tracked shows, and the rest.
If it were up to me, these AM/FM combos would not be true simulcasts. What about one station airing the game broadcast as usual, and the other taking phone calls from outside analysts and even a few from fans about the game and the plays as it progresses? Or the "second" station could provide fantasy updates, details about out of town games, highlights from earlier in the game. If radio stations continue to take away and stop innovation, they won't survive against the competition they have allowed to take over.
WEEI did show an increase for the August ratings period, going up .8 in overall audience compared with July. But if the Red Sox September slump continues, it could be an interesting September ratings period even with the FM simulcast.
Still another example of radio giving up some of its uniqueness, and this courtesy of ESPN. As of this week (9/12), ESPNews now carries the video of The Herd with Colin Cowherd and the first two hours of the Scott Van Pelt Show between 10 AM and 3 PM on weekdays.
While I know the "argument" from ESPN is that they air SportsCenter and variations on ESPN and ESPN2 during that time and considered ESPNews as duplicate programming during that time. That's valid. But whether or not you like TV simulcasts of radio shows, these shows should not be carried on ESPNews.
This is the start of another example of how cable TV channels/networks stop doing what they did to gain placement on the various cable and satellite systems. (This is the how MTV rarely shows music programming, TVLand is not "classic TV" that often anymore, argument translating to sports.) ESPNews has had the sole purpose of always having SportsCenter available for fans wanting to get caught up on the latest. Yet, ESPNews has been afraid of "competing" with ESPN, ESPN2, and sometimes ESPNU, rather than compliment these and other channels.
These new TV simulcasts of radio shows mean that for at least 5 hours every weekday ESPNews is no longer doing what they set out to do. Just like ESPN Classic rarely shows the "big 4" sports games of the past like they did when that channel first started. We deserve better than poker and Bulgarian tiddly winks or whatever they put on in prime time these days. Again, whether consumers care about sports or not, millions of people are paying significantly more for our monthly cable or satellite bills, and ESPN is the single biggest factor in that taking place. We should expect each channel to fulfill the role they were created for.
TBS has a rainout to make up for, and has decided to do an MLB doubleheader on Sunday Sept. 25th. After the shock set in that ESPN is actually not going to televise a Yankees-Red Sox game, TBS has indeed scheduled the Boston vs. New York game for 1 PM ET on the 25th. Then, they will televise the San Francisco at Arizona possible showdown at 4 PM ET.
I'm afraid the TBS doubleheader will not go over well, yet is an idea they should seriously look at for next season and beyond. The NFL rules the TV roost, and the AZ vs. S.F. telecast will be going head to head with the Packers vs. the Bears (NFC Championship Game rematch) as the doubleheader game on Fox.
What TBS should look at is the 4 PM ET start time for next season. The TBS Sunday ratings have not set the world on fire. The TBS "argument" is that they go up against local telecasts. My argument to that is how TBS staggers its start times for the telecasts from week to week. I'd bet that many casual fans flip by at 1:30 ET some Sundays and they find a game going on one week and then not for the next 2 weeks. You never know. By always showcasing a west coast game, they would have three American League and three National League stadiums to show games from with multiple choices every week. Fans in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones would know they could always tune in after their earlier local telecasts on Sundays and catch the action on TBS. It would provide them a consistent window.
On the college football scene, CBS has selected the Arkansas at Alabama game as its 3:30 ET featured game on Saturday Sept. 24th.
Fox Sports Radio has moved to replace Tony Bruno on its FSR Evenings show as of this week. Mike North, formerly of Chicago's The Score 670 morning show has been teamed with Rob Dibble for the 3-hour weeknight spot after the two have done some fill-in work on the network. Tony Bruno left his Fox Sports gig to return to Philadelphia and host middays on The Fanatic WPEN 950 and 97.5 starting October 3rd. His simulcast show will be going up against the simulcast of WIP. Both sports stations are gearing up for a busy October as the Phillies begin their post-season run while the Eagles season will be in full swing.
CLEVELAND: Great to have Jim Donovan back in the radio booth calling the Browns games on radio after missing several weeks due to having undergone a bone marrow transplant. Donovan, joined by analyst Doug Dieken, came back for the opener to begin his 13th season of calling the Browns game. In addition, Donovan returns to handle the sportscasts once again on WKYC-TV for the 6 PM and 7 PM newscasts. The 55 year old Donovan has been with Channel 3 since 1985.
VANCOUVER: David Pratt is out from CHUM The Team 1040 after years of co-hosting afternoons. No details given by either Pratt or the station, but it will be interesting to see how this impacts the audience without his "love him or dislike him" style.
TYLER TX: ESPN Radio continues to add affiliates after losing several to Fox Sports Radio earlier this year. KTBB-FM is dropping their talk format to become ESPN 92.1, while sister station KYZS 1490 has changed to ESPN Deportes.
At least Jaworski issued his own apology. That's better than ESPN's Bobby Knight who did the same type of slip last college hoops season and then did not apologize, instead leaving that to the play-by-play voice. Since Knight was not knowingly disciplined, I wouldn't expect Jaworski to be either.
Speaking of ESPN, it's interesting that they allow Erin Andrews to be hired as a commercial spokesperson for any entity, let alone a ticket reseller. It seems that a large national ticket reseller has signed Andrews for a sales program targeted toward women. I'm not sure what happened that makes it so acceptable for a reporter to be a 'pitch person' at the same time.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to note how the initial news of the Peyton Manning injury which kept him out of the Colts' opener (and then some) was announced on a national level even before the media which regularly covers the Colts did.
It seems that Colts Vice Chairman Bill Polian, who has not been known as being gracious toward the local media over the years, went on ESPN 1050 in New York before any other media to comment about Manning being out for at least the then upcoming opening game. Hours later, Chris Mortensen of ESPN (nationally) was the one who broke the news about Manning's surgery. While I give major kudos to ESPN 1050 in NYC for breaking this story (as opposed to going with speculation or rumors), this raises the question of why The Fan 1070 in Indianapolis was not the first with this story.
Not only is 1070 The Fan the station which broadcasts the Colts games, but it also happens to be the ESPN Radio affiliate for Indianapolis.
To me, this is an instance where someone should get the blame. However, it's tough to say who. It might not be right to flat out blame The Fan 1070 for not having this story when a member of the team's upper management volunteers to unveil the initial information to a New York station. It's understandable that Mortensen would then get access to the follow up information. After all, ESPN is paying millions and millions of dollars currently, with it getting into the billions, for NFL telecasts and related programming for years to come.
If anything, some degree of blame should go to ESPN in New York because it scooped Indy's 1070 The Fan. If 1070 The Fan was not an ESPN affiliate, I could understand this to some extent. But they are. You would think the ESPN "family" would stick together on what was a huge local and national story. If ESPN's higher ups truly went along with Colts upper management and kept this as a national story, as a few media folks have speculated, then The Fan and other local station management should keep this in mind when the next local rights bidding comes up.
While on one hand, I'm wondering why 1070 The Fan wasn't more on top of the story, on the other I'm thinking about how much NFL fans (and even consumers who don't care about football) actually spend on NFL coverage, and thinking that the local Colts fans were cheated out of coverage.
Yet, we go back to radio station strategies. With the recent trend of moving news and sports AM stations onto FM simulcasts in Philadelphia (WIP) and Chicago (news WBBM added to FM including Bears broadcasts), WEEI in Boston has hopped aboard that bandwagon. Mike-FM turned off the mic, so to speak, and made room for WMKK-FM to simulcast WEEI-AM. This is to compete with WBZ 98.5 the Sports Hub.
While these moves could well increase the ratings of these stations due to combining, I continue to see this as having long term consequences. If and as the AM and FM dials wind up being the same stations with fewer local choices, it will result in even fewer reasons for consumers to keep from jumping to satellite or internet radio. Or, from continuing to listen to streams on phones and other portable devices which totally bypass radio as we knew it.
Yes, this is similar to the music stations selling listeners downloads of the songs they play. While the stations figure they have another revenue stream, encouraging listeners to download the songs they like best gives them reasons to use a device other than radio, have a playlist they really like, and not have to wait through clusters of commercials, contests, voice tracked shows, and the rest.
If it were up to me, these AM/FM combos would not be true simulcasts. What about one station airing the game broadcast as usual, and the other taking phone calls from outside analysts and even a few from fans about the game and the plays as it progresses? Or the "second" station could provide fantasy updates, details about out of town games, highlights from earlier in the game. If radio stations continue to take away and stop innovation, they won't survive against the competition they have allowed to take over.
WEEI did show an increase for the August ratings period, going up .8 in overall audience compared with July. But if the Red Sox September slump continues, it could be an interesting September ratings period even with the FM simulcast.
Still another example of radio giving up some of its uniqueness, and this courtesy of ESPN. As of this week (9/12), ESPNews now carries the video of The Herd with Colin Cowherd and the first two hours of the Scott Van Pelt Show between 10 AM and 3 PM on weekdays.
While I know the "argument" from ESPN is that they air SportsCenter and variations on ESPN and ESPN2 during that time and considered ESPNews as duplicate programming during that time. That's valid. But whether or not you like TV simulcasts of radio shows, these shows should not be carried on ESPNews.
This is the start of another example of how cable TV channels/networks stop doing what they did to gain placement on the various cable and satellite systems. (This is the how MTV rarely shows music programming, TVLand is not "classic TV" that often anymore, argument translating to sports.) ESPNews has had the sole purpose of always having SportsCenter available for fans wanting to get caught up on the latest. Yet, ESPNews has been afraid of "competing" with ESPN, ESPN2, and sometimes ESPNU, rather than compliment these and other channels.
These new TV simulcasts of radio shows mean that for at least 5 hours every weekday ESPNews is no longer doing what they set out to do. Just like ESPN Classic rarely shows the "big 4" sports games of the past like they did when that channel first started. We deserve better than poker and Bulgarian tiddly winks or whatever they put on in prime time these days. Again, whether consumers care about sports or not, millions of people are paying significantly more for our monthly cable or satellite bills, and ESPN is the single biggest factor in that taking place. We should expect each channel to fulfill the role they were created for.
TBS has a rainout to make up for, and has decided to do an MLB doubleheader on Sunday Sept. 25th. After the shock set in that ESPN is actually not going to televise a Yankees-Red Sox game, TBS has indeed scheduled the Boston vs. New York game for 1 PM ET on the 25th. Then, they will televise the San Francisco at Arizona possible showdown at 4 PM ET.
I'm afraid the TBS doubleheader will not go over well, yet is an idea they should seriously look at for next season and beyond. The NFL rules the TV roost, and the AZ vs. S.F. telecast will be going head to head with the Packers vs. the Bears (NFC Championship Game rematch) as the doubleheader game on Fox.
What TBS should look at is the 4 PM ET start time for next season. The TBS Sunday ratings have not set the world on fire. The TBS "argument" is that they go up against local telecasts. My argument to that is how TBS staggers its start times for the telecasts from week to week. I'd bet that many casual fans flip by at 1:30 ET some Sundays and they find a game going on one week and then not for the next 2 weeks. You never know. By always showcasing a west coast game, they would have three American League and three National League stadiums to show games from with multiple choices every week. Fans in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones would know they could always tune in after their earlier local telecasts on Sundays and catch the action on TBS. It would provide them a consistent window.
On the college football scene, CBS has selected the Arkansas at Alabama game as its 3:30 ET featured game on Saturday Sept. 24th.
Fox Sports Radio has moved to replace Tony Bruno on its FSR Evenings show as of this week. Mike North, formerly of Chicago's The Score 670 morning show has been teamed with Rob Dibble for the 3-hour weeknight spot after the two have done some fill-in work on the network. Tony Bruno left his Fox Sports gig to return to Philadelphia and host middays on The Fanatic WPEN 950 and 97.5 starting October 3rd. His simulcast show will be going up against the simulcast of WIP. Both sports stations are gearing up for a busy October as the Phillies begin their post-season run while the Eagles season will be in full swing.
CLEVELAND: Great to have Jim Donovan back in the radio booth calling the Browns games on radio after missing several weeks due to having undergone a bone marrow transplant. Donovan, joined by analyst Doug Dieken, came back for the opener to begin his 13th season of calling the Browns game. In addition, Donovan returns to handle the sportscasts once again on WKYC-TV for the 6 PM and 7 PM newscasts. The 55 year old Donovan has been with Channel 3 since 1985.
VANCOUVER: David Pratt is out from CHUM The Team 1040 after years of co-hosting afternoons. No details given by either Pratt or the station, but it will be interesting to see how this impacts the audience without his "love him or dislike him" style.
TYLER TX: ESPN Radio continues to add affiliates after losing several to Fox Sports Radio earlier this year. KTBB-FM is dropping their talk format to become ESPN 92.1, while sister station KYZS 1490 has changed to ESPN Deportes.
Monday, August 8, 2011
August 8th Update.......
The July radio ratings are starting to come out, and based on the top 3 markets (released as of press time), it means that we'll see what impact the return of the NFL will have on the sports radio audience.
In New York, WFAN held steady while WEPN dropped .2 overall. The result is that The Fan now has literally 4 times the overall audience (all ages) that WEPN has. In Chicago, WSCR is only 19th overall, but did rise .2 compared with the June numbers. That's impressive given the lackluster season the White Sox are having, and WSCR is the team's flagship station. However, WMVP ESPN 1000 dropped .3 overall. The two stations had been close together in the ratings for the past couple of years but now WSCR has opened a gap.
In Los Angeles, where is no NFL team, it's tough to be polite in reporting. KSPN dropped again and has now lost half of its overall audience since the May numbers. And while KLAC held steady, neither station made the top 30 ranked stations in overall audience for the July ratings. Yikes!
While fans await the start of the NFL exhibition season within the week, the sports media around the country begins to benefit from the financial frenzy the NFL costs us all along getting their share of the audiences of football fans.
After all, the end of the lockout enables millions of people who are not even NFL fans to help subsidize the league and its thorough media coverage along with the millions who are fans. A big part of the reason that cable/satellite TV bills continue to rise across the country is due to ESPN/ABC being the most expensive programming package for most cable and satellite companies to carry. The cable and satellite companies "must" carry ESPN due to consumer demand. However, the high cost of this programming is, of course, passed along to customers, whether they are NFL fans or not.
Then, Comcast has filed a lawsuit against DirecTV regarding the market of its Sunday Ticket package, specifically regarding the methods that DirecTV uses to make the package an incentive for new subscribers. This is because Comcast also competes for sports fans to subscribe. No matter how this lawsuit turns out, it shows how much money is at stake just so that fans can watch the NFL games on TV. The number of TV viewers and subscribers is more important to NFL revenue than tickets sold, since millions of fans are paying more because of these telecasts.
Meanwhile, some of the sports radio stations are finding ways to provide information beneficial for NFL fans. ESPN Radio Chicago, WMVP 1000, is involved in a Fantasy Football Convention to be held in the Chicago area on August 27th. Two of the stations' hosts will lead the convention, which features a panel including Mike Ditka and others providing information and analysis for putting together an NFL fantasy team. As part of the day's convention, attendees will be able to break out into 10 team fantasy leagues and draft their players on location for a 13-week competition for prizes. Although this will be a paid ticket event, I like the idea of a radio station being involved with fantasy leagues to this extent, and providing football fans with information and presumably more reasons to listen to the station.
My point here is to bring across the idea of how many millions of dollars change hands because of fans' interesting in following NFL games, without factoring in ticket prices and betting, and why so much media competition for the audience exists. If only it wasn't so expensive whether consumers are interested or not.
Westwood One Radio has determined its announcing teams for the coming season, including Kevin Harlan calling its Monday Night Football broadcasts while Howard David will continue to call one of the network's Sunday afternoon games. Harlan will have either Boomer Esiason or Dan Fouts as analyst on Monday nights. Dave Sims and James Lofton will call the radio broadcasts of Sunday Night Football, while Kevin Kugler will call the Sunday afternoon game which Howard David does not. Westwood One will also air the Thursday Night Football games, assigning Ian Eagle and Trent Green to those.
On the baseball side, ESPN is taking an interest in Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals during August. The network has announced that the Cardinals will appear on 2 more Sunday Night Baseball telecasts, making it 3 times within 5 weeks. Just after Fox announced that it was dropping the Cardinals vs. Colorado game from its Saturday Aug. 13th regional game (in favor of picking up the Pirates game despite their recent losing streak) comes word that ESPN will show St. Louis vs. Colorado on Sunday night August 14. Then for Sunday August 21st, ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball again shows the Cardinals hosting the Cubs, the same matchup it featured on July 31st (but from St. Louis this time).
NEW YORK: Now that the recent DWI incident has passed, the N.Y. Knicks went ahead with the hiring of former L.A. Lakers voice Spero Dedes as their radio play-by-play voice beginning with the coming season (whenever that may be). Dedes will handle selected Knicks TV games when Mike Breen has conflicts with his ESPN/ABC responsibilities.
CLEVELAND: WKNR 850 will have competition by the end of this month. CBS Radio will enter the sports radio scene in Cleveland by starting "The Fan" on 92.3, replacing modern rock WKRK. The new station has already teamed Chuck Booms and Kevin Kiley for "Kiley & Booms" for the 6 to 10 AM weekday spot starting August 29th.. The station will shoot The Bull in afternoon drive, as "Adam The Bull", formerly of WFAN in New York, will host the 3 to 7 PM slot. In addition, the station plans to go football heavy by carrying Big Ten football and Westwood One's NFL lineup on weekends.
The Cavaliers have not announced who their new radio play-by-play voice will be (after Joe Tait), although it is probably due to the NBA lockout. If and when the lockout ends, most observers expect that WTAM 1100 Sports Director Mike Snyder, who filled in for Tait most of last season, to be named to the position.
MINNEAPOLIS: ESPN 1500 is reportedly planning to go local with its late morning weekday slot as the station tries to make inroads against Paul Allen on rival KFAN. The station wants to increase its Vikings talk instead of continuing with Colin Cowherd, whose show has a considerable audience drop following Mike & Mike's morning show.
MILWAUKEE: While it's a problem the local sports fans enjoy having, WTMJ 620 appears to be flexible when it comes to scheduling for its play-by-play conflicts. The Brewers' success in leading the National League Central puts more importance into their games over the next few weeks, which includes games scheduled at the same time as the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers exhibition and regular season games. Usually, WTMJ gives priority to the Packers broadcasts, but the Brewers aren't usually in serious contention.
Word is that WTMJ will go with the "most important" game during conflicts, and will move the other broadcast over to WLWK 94.5 FM. It is likely that 94.5 will carry University of Wisconsin football broadcasts until the Brewers season is over when Saturday conflicts occur.
It's good to see that this will be a week-to-week decision, since WTMJ's signal covers a wider area and the station is the #1 rated station in the market.
CINCINNATI: The Bengals continue to expand their radio coverage, while WLW also increases its team related program on Sundays for the coming season. Alan Cuter, also the Sports Director of WLEX-TV Lexington KY, has been brought back to handle the "Countdown to Kickoff" show starting 90 minutes before kickoff, as well as halftime and the "Locker Room Report" for approximately 90 minutes after each game. Cutler was studio host for Bengals broadcasts until 2009. Ken Broo, who hosted the radio post-game for the past two seasons, will host "Sunday Sports Talk" on WLW starting at 9 AM and then return for "Bengals Feedback" following the post-game show and continue until 8 PM.
WLW will again broadcast those Bengals games which do not conflict with its Reds baseball broadcasts, while all Bengals games will air on WCKY 1510 and WEBN 102.7. The new radio broadcast team of Dan Hoard with Dave Lapham begins on Friday (8/14) with the exhibition opener vs. Detroit, while Brad Johansen and Anthony Munoz call the game on Channel 12.
INDIANAPOLIS: WNDE 1260 is changing its afternoon drive show in an effort to gain on WFNI 1070. Mark Patrick is out and former WXLW host Derek Schultz and IMS Radio Network's Jake Query will team up from 3 to 7 PM starting on August 15th.
OKLAHOMA CITY / TULSA: Cox Communications will be providing extensive high school football coverage this season, announcing a total of 17 telecasts on Friday nights, not to mention replays on Satudays, serving both the Oklahoma City and Tulsa regions. Steve Marshall will call the games shown in the OK City area, while Mike Wolfe will handle the games shown in Tulsa. Plans include one game from both region to be shown on Sept. 16 and 30th.
In New York, WFAN held steady while WEPN dropped .2 overall. The result is that The Fan now has literally 4 times the overall audience (all ages) that WEPN has. In Chicago, WSCR is only 19th overall, but did rise .2 compared with the June numbers. That's impressive given the lackluster season the White Sox are having, and WSCR is the team's flagship station. However, WMVP ESPN 1000 dropped .3 overall. The two stations had been close together in the ratings for the past couple of years but now WSCR has opened a gap.
In Los Angeles, where is no NFL team, it's tough to be polite in reporting. KSPN dropped again and has now lost half of its overall audience since the May numbers. And while KLAC held steady, neither station made the top 30 ranked stations in overall audience for the July ratings. Yikes!
While fans await the start of the NFL exhibition season within the week, the sports media around the country begins to benefit from the financial frenzy the NFL costs us all along getting their share of the audiences of football fans.
After all, the end of the lockout enables millions of people who are not even NFL fans to help subsidize the league and its thorough media coverage along with the millions who are fans. A big part of the reason that cable/satellite TV bills continue to rise across the country is due to ESPN/ABC being the most expensive programming package for most cable and satellite companies to carry. The cable and satellite companies "must" carry ESPN due to consumer demand. However, the high cost of this programming is, of course, passed along to customers, whether they are NFL fans or not.
Then, Comcast has filed a lawsuit against DirecTV regarding the market of its Sunday Ticket package, specifically regarding the methods that DirecTV uses to make the package an incentive for new subscribers. This is because Comcast also competes for sports fans to subscribe. No matter how this lawsuit turns out, it shows how much money is at stake just so that fans can watch the NFL games on TV. The number of TV viewers and subscribers is more important to NFL revenue than tickets sold, since millions of fans are paying more because of these telecasts.
Meanwhile, some of the sports radio stations are finding ways to provide information beneficial for NFL fans. ESPN Radio Chicago, WMVP 1000, is involved in a Fantasy Football Convention to be held in the Chicago area on August 27th. Two of the stations' hosts will lead the convention, which features a panel including Mike Ditka and others providing information and analysis for putting together an NFL fantasy team. As part of the day's convention, attendees will be able to break out into 10 team fantasy leagues and draft their players on location for a 13-week competition for prizes. Although this will be a paid ticket event, I like the idea of a radio station being involved with fantasy leagues to this extent, and providing football fans with information and presumably more reasons to listen to the station.
My point here is to bring across the idea of how many millions of dollars change hands because of fans' interesting in following NFL games, without factoring in ticket prices and betting, and why so much media competition for the audience exists. If only it wasn't so expensive whether consumers are interested or not.
Westwood One Radio has determined its announcing teams for the coming season, including Kevin Harlan calling its Monday Night Football broadcasts while Howard David will continue to call one of the network's Sunday afternoon games. Harlan will have either Boomer Esiason or Dan Fouts as analyst on Monday nights. Dave Sims and James Lofton will call the radio broadcasts of Sunday Night Football, while Kevin Kugler will call the Sunday afternoon game which Howard David does not. Westwood One will also air the Thursday Night Football games, assigning Ian Eagle and Trent Green to those.
On the baseball side, ESPN is taking an interest in Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals during August. The network has announced that the Cardinals will appear on 2 more Sunday Night Baseball telecasts, making it 3 times within 5 weeks. Just after Fox announced that it was dropping the Cardinals vs. Colorado game from its Saturday Aug. 13th regional game (in favor of picking up the Pirates game despite their recent losing streak) comes word that ESPN will show St. Louis vs. Colorado on Sunday night August 14. Then for Sunday August 21st, ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball again shows the Cardinals hosting the Cubs, the same matchup it featured on July 31st (but from St. Louis this time).
NEW YORK: Now that the recent DWI incident has passed, the N.Y. Knicks went ahead with the hiring of former L.A. Lakers voice Spero Dedes as their radio play-by-play voice beginning with the coming season (whenever that may be). Dedes will handle selected Knicks TV games when Mike Breen has conflicts with his ESPN/ABC responsibilities.
CLEVELAND: WKNR 850 will have competition by the end of this month. CBS Radio will enter the sports radio scene in Cleveland by starting "The Fan" on 92.3, replacing modern rock WKRK. The new station has already teamed Chuck Booms and Kevin Kiley for "Kiley & Booms" for the 6 to 10 AM weekday spot starting August 29th.. The station will shoot The Bull in afternoon drive, as "Adam The Bull", formerly of WFAN in New York, will host the 3 to 7 PM slot. In addition, the station plans to go football heavy by carrying Big Ten football and Westwood One's NFL lineup on weekends.
The Cavaliers have not announced who their new radio play-by-play voice will be (after Joe Tait), although it is probably due to the NBA lockout. If and when the lockout ends, most observers expect that WTAM 1100 Sports Director Mike Snyder, who filled in for Tait most of last season, to be named to the position.
MINNEAPOLIS: ESPN 1500 is reportedly planning to go local with its late morning weekday slot as the station tries to make inroads against Paul Allen on rival KFAN. The station wants to increase its Vikings talk instead of continuing with Colin Cowherd, whose show has a considerable audience drop following Mike & Mike's morning show.
MILWAUKEE: While it's a problem the local sports fans enjoy having, WTMJ 620 appears to be flexible when it comes to scheduling for its play-by-play conflicts. The Brewers' success in leading the National League Central puts more importance into their games over the next few weeks, which includes games scheduled at the same time as the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers exhibition and regular season games. Usually, WTMJ gives priority to the Packers broadcasts, but the Brewers aren't usually in serious contention.
Word is that WTMJ will go with the "most important" game during conflicts, and will move the other broadcast over to WLWK 94.5 FM. It is likely that 94.5 will carry University of Wisconsin football broadcasts until the Brewers season is over when Saturday conflicts occur.
It's good to see that this will be a week-to-week decision, since WTMJ's signal covers a wider area and the station is the #1 rated station in the market.
CINCINNATI: The Bengals continue to expand their radio coverage, while WLW also increases its team related program on Sundays for the coming season. Alan Cuter, also the Sports Director of WLEX-TV Lexington KY, has been brought back to handle the "Countdown to Kickoff" show starting 90 minutes before kickoff, as well as halftime and the "Locker Room Report" for approximately 90 minutes after each game. Cutler was studio host for Bengals broadcasts until 2009. Ken Broo, who hosted the radio post-game for the past two seasons, will host "Sunday Sports Talk" on WLW starting at 9 AM and then return for "Bengals Feedback" following the post-game show and continue until 8 PM.
WLW will again broadcast those Bengals games which do not conflict with its Reds baseball broadcasts, while all Bengals games will air on WCKY 1510 and WEBN 102.7. The new radio broadcast team of Dan Hoard with Dave Lapham begins on Friday (8/14) with the exhibition opener vs. Detroit, while Brad Johansen and Anthony Munoz call the game on Channel 12.
INDIANAPOLIS: WNDE 1260 is changing its afternoon drive show in an effort to gain on WFNI 1070. Mark Patrick is out and former WXLW host Derek Schultz and IMS Radio Network's Jake Query will team up from 3 to 7 PM starting on August 15th.
OKLAHOMA CITY / TULSA: Cox Communications will be providing extensive high school football coverage this season, announcing a total of 17 telecasts on Friday nights, not to mention replays on Satudays, serving both the Oklahoma City and Tulsa regions. Steve Marshall will call the games shown in the OK City area, while Mike Wolfe will handle the games shown in Tulsa. Plans include one game from both region to be shown on Sept. 16 and 30th.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Broadcast Booth - July 21 Update.....
This is a very challenging week for the sports reporting media. At least, it should be. I spend a lot of time commenting and fielding questions about what I call "the separation of fact and rumor" when it comes to on air (or online) reporting.
Specifically, there is the matter of handling "reporting" on the current NFL and NBA lockouts, in effect as of press time. It is one thing for the sports talk show hosts to share the rumors about upcoming votes, settlements, and what would happen if and when regarding getting training camps open and starting the games. That part is speculation and opinion, and that's what sports talk is all about when it involves the fans.
Where I take exception is seemingly every sports media outlet having somebody "reporting" that an end to the NFL lockout is coming any minute now. If I were reporting a sportcast today on radio or TV (and I'm sure a few of my critics gleefully point out that I'm not), I would report that there is "nothing yet" regarding an end to the lockout. If I were hosting a talk show, I would then be speculating about if these meetings that are supposed to happen will happen, and what they mean. It's the difference between reporting and speculating.
Instead, too many "reporters" are predicting times and days the NFL lockout will end. They want to have been right in their prediction. It seems nobody keeps track of predictions that don't happen. That's the problem here. In a way, it is (or should be) like how a play-by-play announcer is taught never to speculate when a player is injured on the field or court during a live broadcast about the nature of the injury. You say "It appears to be the right knee", and leave it at that. And the announcers wait until they are given an official update from a team official.
A true reporter should wait until there is definite "news" about the lockout before reporting it.
The other challenge for the media this week is the NBA schedule announcements, despite a lockout also in progress of NBA players. On one hand, I can understand the NBA wanting to get their 2011-12 season schedule in place. Tickets need to be printed and sold, teams need to make their travel plans, sponsors need to plan game promotions, and on it goes.
It is "news" to local NBA team fans as to when their team's opener and a couple of other key games will be played. However, I can't help but wonder if announcing this so soon is good or bad for NBA publicity. The local headlines around the country I heard and saw were, understandably, focused on the "if there is a season" and "if the lockout settled in time.....".
In this instance, the reporters are not "reporting" rumors or predicting whether or not these games will be played in the way they seem to be this week regarding the NFL's situation. While handling the NBA schedule news with more true reporting, it looks as though the NBA put out millions of dollars worth of publicity which isn't necessarily favorable. Learning that the champion Dallas Mavericks are scheduled to open their season against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls would normally be an exciting and favorable announcement for the NBA. Having every sports outlet "reporting" that this and other such games may not even be played does nothing to increase the enthusiasm of the NBA fans.
Then it stunned me when within the same afternoon of the schedule announcement, ESPN/ABC, TNT, and NBA-TV began pumping out their planned national schedules. These telecasts, as of this writing, are not yet factual due to the lockout. Never mind that they announced games they plan to show in 2012 before many teams have come anywhere near finalizing their roster and representing a threat to contend.
Seems like wasted publicity to me. These networks would have been better off to hold back their announcements until or unless the lockout is settled. They would have done better to wait until hours after the lockout is over and then start hyping those telecasts they know for certain they'll have. A "We might be able to show you these games....." announcement is really speculation and not factual.
Meanwhile, it is factual that Versus, or hopefully a more memorable name for the network by the end of the summer, is enhancing its expanded NHL coverage for the coming season. The network has, to its credit, managed to secure the full-time services of play-by-play voices Mike "Doc" Emrick and Dave Strader to handle the vast majority of the NHL telecast workload. Emrick leaves the New Jersey Devils TV booth after 21 seasons, while Strader leaves the Phoenix Coyotes play-by-play job. Strader has also previously called Florida Panthers and Detroit Red Wings games, as well as calling NHL games on ESPN between 1996 and 2004.
If the NHL avoids a labor action and gets its season started as scheduled, we know its national telecasts will be all the better for it.
ATLANTA: The Fan 680 has decided to do an afternoon lineup swap. Buck Belue and John Kincade will have their "Buck & Kincade Show" shortened from 4 to 3 hours and move up to the Noon to 3 PM slot. The "Chuck & Chernoff Show" with Chuck Oliver and Matt Chernoff moves from the Noon spot into the 3 to 7 PM position. This move makes sense, at least for the short term. Chuck & Chernoff have done very well with their early afternoon ratings, and can also focus more on the Braves contending and the coming SEC Football season during afternoon drive, in the event the Falcons' pre-season doesn't get started.
DENVER: KOA certainly thinks there will be a full Broncos season, or they could find themselves risking a powerful position in Denver afternoon drive. KOA 850 has increased the sports presence on "The Dave Logan Show" from 3 to 7 PM. The Broncos play-by-play voice will be talking sports, with a co-host very likely to be added. Former NBA player Scott Hastings used to co-host with Logan during that time. KOA continues with newscasts and traffic reports during Logan's show. The significance is that Denver already has The Fan 104.3, ESPN 1600, The Ticket 102.3, and Mile High Sports 1510 + 93.7 with sports shows at the same time. But if the NFL lockout doesn't end soon, one has to wonder how long this will be the case on KOA.
BOSTON: Another of those "if there is an NFL season" media stories. If and when, WEEI 850 and 103.7 will again carry the Westwood One NFL package of both Sunday and Monday NFL broadcasts. One change in the Westwood One package for the coming season is that the NFC and AFC Championship Games and Super Bowl broadcasts can air in every market without home team blackout. Thus, if there is a season and if the Patriots get to the AFC Championship Game, WEEI could air the national broadcast against the Pats' local call of the game.
NEW YORK: Len Berman is reducing his schedule once again. Berman has given up his Monday and Friday morning sports anchor spot on John Gambling's WOR Radio. Ironically, replacing Berman is Bruce Beck of WNBC-TV. Beck had replaced Berman at WNBC-TV a few years back. Even if only the 2 mornings per week, Berman's segments continued to be popular among NYC sports fans.
LOUISVILLE: I guess we'd be surprised about the interest in University of Louisville basketball. U of L has a couple of exhibition games (yes, college basketball exhibition games) coming up in the Bahamas. The team will play against the likes of the "Commonwealth Giants" and the "Real Deal Shockers". Yet, plans have been unveiled for those games to be televised live back to Louisville, and for those games to be broadcast live on WHAS 840 Radio. For those who are not aware, WHAS is not one of those 500 watt stations with nothing to put on all day. It is a 50,000 watt powerhouse. I'm sure that transplanted fans of the "Real Deal Shockers" are just as delighted they'll be able to hear and see these games live. No wonder there is so much speculation about ending the NFL and NBA lockouts!
Specifically, there is the matter of handling "reporting" on the current NFL and NBA lockouts, in effect as of press time. It is one thing for the sports talk show hosts to share the rumors about upcoming votes, settlements, and what would happen if and when regarding getting training camps open and starting the games. That part is speculation and opinion, and that's what sports talk is all about when it involves the fans.
Where I take exception is seemingly every sports media outlet having somebody "reporting" that an end to the NFL lockout is coming any minute now. If I were reporting a sportcast today on radio or TV (and I'm sure a few of my critics gleefully point out that I'm not), I would report that there is "nothing yet" regarding an end to the lockout. If I were hosting a talk show, I would then be speculating about if these meetings that are supposed to happen will happen, and what they mean. It's the difference between reporting and speculating.
Instead, too many "reporters" are predicting times and days the NFL lockout will end. They want to have been right in their prediction. It seems nobody keeps track of predictions that don't happen. That's the problem here. In a way, it is (or should be) like how a play-by-play announcer is taught never to speculate when a player is injured on the field or court during a live broadcast about the nature of the injury. You say "It appears to be the right knee", and leave it at that. And the announcers wait until they are given an official update from a team official.
A true reporter should wait until there is definite "news" about the lockout before reporting it.
The other challenge for the media this week is the NBA schedule announcements, despite a lockout also in progress of NBA players. On one hand, I can understand the NBA wanting to get their 2011-12 season schedule in place. Tickets need to be printed and sold, teams need to make their travel plans, sponsors need to plan game promotions, and on it goes.
It is "news" to local NBA team fans as to when their team's opener and a couple of other key games will be played. However, I can't help but wonder if announcing this so soon is good or bad for NBA publicity. The local headlines around the country I heard and saw were, understandably, focused on the "if there is a season" and "if the lockout settled in time.....".
In this instance, the reporters are not "reporting" rumors or predicting whether or not these games will be played in the way they seem to be this week regarding the NFL's situation. While handling the NBA schedule news with more true reporting, it looks as though the NBA put out millions of dollars worth of publicity which isn't necessarily favorable. Learning that the champion Dallas Mavericks are scheduled to open their season against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls would normally be an exciting and favorable announcement for the NBA. Having every sports outlet "reporting" that this and other such games may not even be played does nothing to increase the enthusiasm of the NBA fans.
Then it stunned me when within the same afternoon of the schedule announcement, ESPN/ABC, TNT, and NBA-TV began pumping out their planned national schedules. These telecasts, as of this writing, are not yet factual due to the lockout. Never mind that they announced games they plan to show in 2012 before many teams have come anywhere near finalizing their roster and representing a threat to contend.
Seems like wasted publicity to me. These networks would have been better off to hold back their announcements until or unless the lockout is settled. They would have done better to wait until hours after the lockout is over and then start hyping those telecasts they know for certain they'll have. A "We might be able to show you these games....." announcement is really speculation and not factual.
Meanwhile, it is factual that Versus, or hopefully a more memorable name for the network by the end of the summer, is enhancing its expanded NHL coverage for the coming season. The network has, to its credit, managed to secure the full-time services of play-by-play voices Mike "Doc" Emrick and Dave Strader to handle the vast majority of the NHL telecast workload. Emrick leaves the New Jersey Devils TV booth after 21 seasons, while Strader leaves the Phoenix Coyotes play-by-play job. Strader has also previously called Florida Panthers and Detroit Red Wings games, as well as calling NHL games on ESPN between 1996 and 2004.
If the NHL avoids a labor action and gets its season started as scheduled, we know its national telecasts will be all the better for it.
ATLANTA: The Fan 680 has decided to do an afternoon lineup swap. Buck Belue and John Kincade will have their "Buck & Kincade Show" shortened from 4 to 3 hours and move up to the Noon to 3 PM slot. The "Chuck & Chernoff Show" with Chuck Oliver and Matt Chernoff moves from the Noon spot into the 3 to 7 PM position. This move makes sense, at least for the short term. Chuck & Chernoff have done very well with their early afternoon ratings, and can also focus more on the Braves contending and the coming SEC Football season during afternoon drive, in the event the Falcons' pre-season doesn't get started.
DENVER: KOA certainly thinks there will be a full Broncos season, or they could find themselves risking a powerful position in Denver afternoon drive. KOA 850 has increased the sports presence on "The Dave Logan Show" from 3 to 7 PM. The Broncos play-by-play voice will be talking sports, with a co-host very likely to be added. Former NBA player Scott Hastings used to co-host with Logan during that time. KOA continues with newscasts and traffic reports during Logan's show. The significance is that Denver already has The Fan 104.3, ESPN 1600, The Ticket 102.3, and Mile High Sports 1510 + 93.7 with sports shows at the same time. But if the NFL lockout doesn't end soon, one has to wonder how long this will be the case on KOA.
BOSTON: Another of those "if there is an NFL season" media stories. If and when, WEEI 850 and 103.7 will again carry the Westwood One NFL package of both Sunday and Monday NFL broadcasts. One change in the Westwood One package for the coming season is that the NFC and AFC Championship Games and Super Bowl broadcasts can air in every market without home team blackout. Thus, if there is a season and if the Patriots get to the AFC Championship Game, WEEI could air the national broadcast against the Pats' local call of the game.
NEW YORK: Len Berman is reducing his schedule once again. Berman has given up his Monday and Friday morning sports anchor spot on John Gambling's WOR Radio. Ironically, replacing Berman is Bruce Beck of WNBC-TV. Beck had replaced Berman at WNBC-TV a few years back. Even if only the 2 mornings per week, Berman's segments continued to be popular among NYC sports fans.
LOUISVILLE: I guess we'd be surprised about the interest in University of Louisville basketball. U of L has a couple of exhibition games (yes, college basketball exhibition games) coming up in the Bahamas. The team will play against the likes of the "Commonwealth Giants" and the "Real Deal Shockers". Yet, plans have been unveiled for those games to be televised live back to Louisville, and for those games to be broadcast live on WHAS 840 Radio. For those who are not aware, WHAS is not one of those 500 watt stations with nothing to put on all day. It is a 50,000 watt powerhouse. I'm sure that transplanted fans of the "Real Deal Shockers" are just as delighted they'll be able to hear and see these games live. No wonder there is so much speculation about ending the NFL and NBA lockouts!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Broadcast Booth - April 19th Update.....
Is this the beginning of the end for all sports radio? The radio ratings for March are gradually being released this week, and the early returns are not good for sports stations around the country.
Granted, as of press time we do not have the latest for Detroit and Boston, two of the larger markets with high performing sports stations, but even that may not be enough to stop this trend.
This late February to late March ratings period is usually friendly to sports stations. NBA and NHL teams are into playoff runs. Most major markets have at least one NCAA team ready for the NCAA Tournament, along with regional conference tournaments leading in. Spring training is underway and baseball fans begin their optimism for the coming season. There is plenty to talk about. But it appears fewer people are around to talk about it.
As I have said earlier, I look at the overall audience ratings, since sports is not limited to 25 to 54 year old males.
In New York, WFAN dropped out of the top 10 in overall (6 AM to Midnight, 12+), now having lost half of a ratings point (3.0 to 2.5) since January. During the same period, WEPN 1050 has lost about 20% of its total audience. This while the Knicks and Rangers both headed toward playoff appearances (not common over the past few years) and the Yankees and Mets were in spring training.
San Francisco's KNBR, which carries the World Champion Giants games, shows as having lost more than 100,000 listeners since January.
In Chicago, WMVP 1000 gained .4 in the ratings and passed by rival WSCR The Score for the first time in several months in overall audience. Hard to say if that is due to WMVP airing the Bulls games as they were going toward finishing the regular season with the NBA's best record, or it is due to The Score giving such poor scoreboard and information updates (as discussed last week). However, neither station finished better than 25th place overall. During this time, Chicago had the Bulls charging to the top, the Blackhawks in a rush to the playoffs to defend their Stanley Cup championship, and the White Sox and Cubs in spring training. (Maybe this audience loss will convince WSCR to forget their "interactive" White Sox exhibition broadcasts where they stop the play-by-play only to take phone calls from fans to talk with the game broadcasters about the team.)
Sports radio remains dismal in Los Angeles, although this is not much of a change from the past year. Again, neither KSPN 710 or KLAC 570 did any better than a 1.0 overall. Even worse in Houston, where KILT has no change in their audience size since January. Neither KBME or KFNC had any increase since the (previous) February ratings, and none of these 3 competing stations so much as cracked the top 20 in overall ratings.
Similar story out of Atlanta, where neither WCNN or WQXI made the top 20 overall. In fact, their combined rating would barely crack the top 20 in the market.
Philadelphia sports fans had plenty going on during March. The Sixers and Flyers in their runs for the playoffs. Local teams in the NCAA tourney. The Phillies in spring training looking to return to the World Series. Yet, WIP 610 droped from a 3.1 to a 2.4 rating in just one month, and they had a 3.5 for the January ratings period. Like most of the other cities, the audience lost by WIP did not go over to the sports talk competition. WPEN's overall rating for March was nearly a 20% decrease from just the month before!
Of those large markets with the March ratings released thus far, only Dallas has a reasonable sports talk presence when compared with news and some music formats. A combined rating of WTCK The Ticket, KESN, and KRLD-FM would be 4th overall in the market. However, this is primarily because the 3 rival stations are bunched closely in the ratings, since none of the 3 cracked the top 20 overall in the market.
This trend would not be so alarming if one sports station was losing its audience to one or more other sports stations. The sports radio audience is sinking.
I have two separate theories as to why. (I'm interested in your feedback about which one you think is the biggest factor.)
One theory is that there continues to (in general) be too much emphasis on fan opinions and not enough on information and compelling and informative guests. Sports fans now have many other choices for sports information and can get expert opinion. They can "follow" experts of their favorite teams and sports online. They can go online and get all of the scores they want instead of hoping the local sports update will "bother" to give out of town scores.
The other theory is that sports fans have a certain amount of time to devote to following sports, and now use it to watch the actual games on TV instead of to merely hear what other fans think about them. While sports radio listenership has begun its decline, TV ratings for pro and even college sports has been rising significantly over the past couple of years.
Whether it is HD telecasts, fans wanting to get their money's worth because of paying so much more for cable or satellite packages for the games, or a combination, TV ratings keep rising. And those 2 to 3 hours spent watching one or more games each day could well be replacing the listening time to sports radio.
Just take a look at the ratings increases for every network involved in opening week telecasts of both the NBA and NHL playoffs this month. After a successful NCAA Tournament showing for CBS and Turner Sports. Coming off incredible ratings for the entire NFL season.
While on the subject, hockey fans actually "win" with the new TV package between the NHL and the NBC "family" including Versus. This new 10 year deal brings a ton of NHL games to fans around the country.
At least 100 regular season games will be televised by Versus and NBC starting next season, with Versus getting an increase from 50 to about 90 games. Come playoff time, every game will be televised on one of the channels, whether NBC, Versus, or perhaps CNBC or one of their others.
No word yet on how many telecasts NHL Network will be able to pick up starting next season.
On the local NHL television scene, it seems that the Pittsburgh Penguins were the most watched local team in terms of ratings for the 4th season in a row. The Chicago Blackhawks moved up to 2nd among local audiences, followed by Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
The bigger markets also dominated the NBA local market regular season ratings. The Lakers had the biggest regular season audience, followed by Chicago (which coincidentally, came in 2nd for both of its winter sports teams), New York Knicks, and Boston.
Yet, two of those markets also had an impact at the other end of the list. New Jersey Nets telecasts on YES were the NBA's lowest local ratings, for the 2nd season in a row, with the L.A. Clippers telecasts finishing just above Jersey.
NEW YORK: WEPN 1050 is reducing The Michael Kay Show by an hour each afternoon starting next month. Mike Lupica, the columnist and also ESPN "The Sports Reporters" panelist over the years, will begin a 2 to 3 PM weekday show starting May 9th. It will be interesting to see if management is looking for Lupica to springboard to more hours on WEPN each day, or if this is targeting to replace a show on the national ESPN Radio schedule.
SAN FRANCISCO/OAKLAND: From The Wolf to The Shark for 95.7? A few days after securing the Oakland A's baseball broadcasts effective immediately, 95.7 FM dumped "The Wolf" country music format and is now SportsRadio 95.7. The station is negotiating to also bring the NHL Sharks broadcasts over from KFOX to give them year-round local play-by-play.
Word is that 95.7 is also targeting Stanford football and possibly basketball, since those have been airing on KTRB, the station which bailed on the A's broadcasts just days before the season opener and still has its ownership status in limbo.
Granted, as of press time we do not have the latest for Detroit and Boston, two of the larger markets with high performing sports stations, but even that may not be enough to stop this trend.
This late February to late March ratings period is usually friendly to sports stations. NBA and NHL teams are into playoff runs. Most major markets have at least one NCAA team ready for the NCAA Tournament, along with regional conference tournaments leading in. Spring training is underway and baseball fans begin their optimism for the coming season. There is plenty to talk about. But it appears fewer people are around to talk about it.
As I have said earlier, I look at the overall audience ratings, since sports is not limited to 25 to 54 year old males.
In New York, WFAN dropped out of the top 10 in overall (6 AM to Midnight, 12+), now having lost half of a ratings point (3.0 to 2.5) since January. During the same period, WEPN 1050 has lost about 20% of its total audience. This while the Knicks and Rangers both headed toward playoff appearances (not common over the past few years) and the Yankees and Mets were in spring training.
San Francisco's KNBR, which carries the World Champion Giants games, shows as having lost more than 100,000 listeners since January.
In Chicago, WMVP 1000 gained .4 in the ratings and passed by rival WSCR The Score for the first time in several months in overall audience. Hard to say if that is due to WMVP airing the Bulls games as they were going toward finishing the regular season with the NBA's best record, or it is due to The Score giving such poor scoreboard and information updates (as discussed last week). However, neither station finished better than 25th place overall. During this time, Chicago had the Bulls charging to the top, the Blackhawks in a rush to the playoffs to defend their Stanley Cup championship, and the White Sox and Cubs in spring training. (Maybe this audience loss will convince WSCR to forget their "interactive" White Sox exhibition broadcasts where they stop the play-by-play only to take phone calls from fans to talk with the game broadcasters about the team.)
Sports radio remains dismal in Los Angeles, although this is not much of a change from the past year. Again, neither KSPN 710 or KLAC 570 did any better than a 1.0 overall. Even worse in Houston, where KILT has no change in their audience size since January. Neither KBME or KFNC had any increase since the (previous) February ratings, and none of these 3 competing stations so much as cracked the top 20 in overall ratings.
Similar story out of Atlanta, where neither WCNN or WQXI made the top 20 overall. In fact, their combined rating would barely crack the top 20 in the market.
Philadelphia sports fans had plenty going on during March. The Sixers and Flyers in their runs for the playoffs. Local teams in the NCAA tourney. The Phillies in spring training looking to return to the World Series. Yet, WIP 610 droped from a 3.1 to a 2.4 rating in just one month, and they had a 3.5 for the January ratings period. Like most of the other cities, the audience lost by WIP did not go over to the sports talk competition. WPEN's overall rating for March was nearly a 20% decrease from just the month before!
Of those large markets with the March ratings released thus far, only Dallas has a reasonable sports talk presence when compared with news and some music formats. A combined rating of WTCK The Ticket, KESN, and KRLD-FM would be 4th overall in the market. However, this is primarily because the 3 rival stations are bunched closely in the ratings, since none of the 3 cracked the top 20 overall in the market.
This trend would not be so alarming if one sports station was losing its audience to one or more other sports stations. The sports radio audience is sinking.
I have two separate theories as to why. (I'm interested in your feedback about which one you think is the biggest factor.)
One theory is that there continues to (in general) be too much emphasis on fan opinions and not enough on information and compelling and informative guests. Sports fans now have many other choices for sports information and can get expert opinion. They can "follow" experts of their favorite teams and sports online. They can go online and get all of the scores they want instead of hoping the local sports update will "bother" to give out of town scores.
The other theory is that sports fans have a certain amount of time to devote to following sports, and now use it to watch the actual games on TV instead of to merely hear what other fans think about them. While sports radio listenership has begun its decline, TV ratings for pro and even college sports has been rising significantly over the past couple of years.
Whether it is HD telecasts, fans wanting to get their money's worth because of paying so much more for cable or satellite packages for the games, or a combination, TV ratings keep rising. And those 2 to 3 hours spent watching one or more games each day could well be replacing the listening time to sports radio.
Just take a look at the ratings increases for every network involved in opening week telecasts of both the NBA and NHL playoffs this month. After a successful NCAA Tournament showing for CBS and Turner Sports. Coming off incredible ratings for the entire NFL season.
While on the subject, hockey fans actually "win" with the new TV package between the NHL and the NBC "family" including Versus. This new 10 year deal brings a ton of NHL games to fans around the country.
At least 100 regular season games will be televised by Versus and NBC starting next season, with Versus getting an increase from 50 to about 90 games. Come playoff time, every game will be televised on one of the channels, whether NBC, Versus, or perhaps CNBC or one of their others.
No word yet on how many telecasts NHL Network will be able to pick up starting next season.
On the local NHL television scene, it seems that the Pittsburgh Penguins were the most watched local team in terms of ratings for the 4th season in a row. The Chicago Blackhawks moved up to 2nd among local audiences, followed by Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
The bigger markets also dominated the NBA local market regular season ratings. The Lakers had the biggest regular season audience, followed by Chicago (which coincidentally, came in 2nd for both of its winter sports teams), New York Knicks, and Boston.
Yet, two of those markets also had an impact at the other end of the list. New Jersey Nets telecasts on YES were the NBA's lowest local ratings, for the 2nd season in a row, with the L.A. Clippers telecasts finishing just above Jersey.
NEW YORK: WEPN 1050 is reducing The Michael Kay Show by an hour each afternoon starting next month. Mike Lupica, the columnist and also ESPN "The Sports Reporters" panelist over the years, will begin a 2 to 3 PM weekday show starting May 9th. It will be interesting to see if management is looking for Lupica to springboard to more hours on WEPN each day, or if this is targeting to replace a show on the national ESPN Radio schedule.
SAN FRANCISCO/OAKLAND: From The Wolf to The Shark for 95.7? A few days after securing the Oakland A's baseball broadcasts effective immediately, 95.7 FM dumped "The Wolf" country music format and is now SportsRadio 95.7. The station is negotiating to also bring the NHL Sharks broadcasts over from KFOX to give them year-round local play-by-play.
Word is that 95.7 is also targeting Stanford football and possibly basketball, since those have been airing on KTRB, the station which bailed on the A's broadcasts just days before the season opener and still has its ownership status in limbo.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
