It could be argued that no one made as much of an impact on sports media as we know it today than Eddie Einhorn, who just passed away at the age of 80. I have often referred to Einhorn as the "inventor" of college basketball.
It was back in 1968 when his TVS television network began airing college hoops on a regional and national basis. The prime-time telecast in 1968 in which the University of Houston defeated UCLA to end the Bruins' 47 game winning streak established college basketball as a TV attraction that has grown ever since.
Although Einhorn was not involved with the early years of ESPN, one has to wonder if ESPN would have gained any traction in the early 80's without the interest in seeing a ton of college hoops.
Einhorn moved into MLB when he became a co-owner of the Chicago White Sox following the 1980 season, initially taking the lead ahead of co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Eddie infuriated many White Sox and baseball fans by introducing "SportsVision" which charged fans a monthly fee in order to be able to see at least of the games on TV, talking about "wanting to the first since this is how it is going to be".
Following the 1989 season, Einhorn helped MLB to its first billion dollar TV deal, including ESPN televising at least three nights of national games beginning with the 1990 season.
Thus, his imprint on the TV success of college hoops, and to some extent, MLB, is impossible to dispute. Although I personally did not care for him as a White Sox owner, his accomplishments will be forever remembered for all of the televised games he brought our way as sports fans.
Coincidentally, new research from Nielsen about sports on TV and radio for 2015 reflects just how much sports programming impacts us all. The report shows that of the top 100 live programs on TV during 2015, a total of 93 of those were sports, led by NFL telecasts. Go back ten years and of the top 100 live TV events during 2005, sports telecasts consisted of only 14.
More than 31 billion (that is with a 'B') hours were spent watching live sports last year, an increase of 160% from the 2005 report.
Sports radio average quarter hour listening share showed a 12% overall increase from the 2011 report.
Meanwhile, even with the Golden State Warriors dominating the NBA this season, viewers are taking in this season across the board. ESPN's ratings are up roughly 7% through the first 50 games of the regular season. Of course, the battle for playoff spots is still a month away. ABC's ratings, including its first couple of Saturday prime-time telecasts, are also up about 7% over last season, while ESPN's streaming app is reportedly up more than 65% over the previous season.
However, ESPN needs to re-examine its attempt at Virtual Reality telecasts of a few of its college games. Last week's Ohio State vs. Michigan telecast was done entirely with its "floor seats" angle, as if to provide viewers with the feeling of sitting courtside for the entire game.
Plays in the "far" corner on both sides were tough to distinguish because of the distance from the camera and players getting in the way. While we understand the desire to enhance the telecast experience for the future, hopefully ESPN will realize that they have multiple platforms that could be used.
Here's hoping that the next time they will show the "regular" telecast on one network, and put their Virtual Reality game on another channel, and give the fans their choice of how they want to watch.
While we welcome baseball back with a solid month of spring training games starting this coming Tuesday (3/1) on MLB Network, some of the teams are taking an interesting course for their local telecasts.
Word is that the lead voice of the NHL on NBC and NBCSN, Mike Emrick, will be calling some play-by-play for the Pittsburgh Pirates on a couple of their local telecasts from Florida. Emrick has reportedly been in the Pirates' camp between hockey assignments and will work some games with long time play-by-play voice Bill Brown.
Once again this March, the Angels are going all out to capture baseball viewers who are fed up at still not being able to watch the Dodgers on TV. The Angels will televise 31 exhibition games on Fox Sports West, which is all of them except for a couple of split squad contests.
The Dodgers, for those few who can even get their TV games, the team will air 16 of their exhibition games on their SportsNet L.A., which is the third season in a row they are reducing the number of telecasts.
They are using the excuse of 'low viewership' for the weekday afternoon games as the reason. Of course, if low viewership was a true concern for the network, they would reduce their costs to other providers and get the games in front of as many fans as possible.
What makes this all even more infuriating for the fans is that this will be Vin Scully's final season calling the games. Scully, by the way, will reportedly call one spring game from Arizona, the Freeway Series games vs. the Angels, and be in San Diego to call the April 4th season opener.
RALEIGH/DURHAM: WCLY 1550 The Ticket and its extremely limited nighttime signal will drop ESPN Deportes this weekend and run a mish-mosh of syndicated programming starting on Monday (2/29). The station will pick and choose between ESPN, Fox Sports Radio, and CBS Sports Radio programming.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
The Hottest Sports Talk Markets
The release of the Nielsen ratings for radio from the January into early February period showed a lot of activity for the major market sports stations to begin 2016, much of it positive.
In Boston, the Patriots' post-season kept the surge of sports radio listeners going in the nation's most popular market for sports radio. WBZ-FM Sports Hub rose to #3 overall, up from both November and December. At the same time WEEI-FM also rose from its November and December status to finish at #6 in the market.
New York listeners helped WFAN 660 increase .6 in the overall ratings to #9 in the market, while the Long Island market ratings (which is considered a separate radio market) showed an increase of 1.6. WEPN-FM held steady and is now #22 in the market.
San Francisco listeners brought KNBR 680 back up to #3 overall with a .7 increase, while the station rose .9 and to the #1 ranking in the (separately rated) San Jose market. KGMZ-FM The Game rose slightly at the same time, but is only #18 in the market.
Chicago's two sports stations both increased, with WSCR 670 The Score increasing .6 and finishing #15 overall, now .3 ahead of WMPV ESPN 1000 which ranks #19.
The Dallas race for sports radio has become a two station race (out of three), with KRLD-FM at #13 showing its best rating since last fall, and KTCK-AM The Ticket increasing one-half point to #18 overall.
Philadelphia's WIP-FM, which had another announcement this week (see below) increased by .7 from the previous month and is #7 overall. Yet, WPEN-FM, during the same time period, increased by .9, now ranking at #14.
Baltimore's WJZ-FM showed a significant 1.4 increase and finished at #6 in the market, while Pittsburgh's KDKA-FM increased by 1.1 and also finished #6 for that market. Also a nice showing for Cleveland's WKRK-FM, increasing by .8 to #8 in the market.
On the other side of the coin, while Los Angeles is getting at least one NFL team for the coming season, that news hasn't exactly been a bonanza for sports talk radio. Not one of its four sports talk stations (soon to be three with the sale of KFWB 980) could even garner a 1.0 rating or make the top 25. The top finisher, KSPN 710 came in at #30 overall with a 20% audience drop from November. KLAC 570 is next at #31 overall, while KLAA-AM finished with a .2 for its overall rating. And that still beat out KFWB. Keep in mind this rating period was during the NFL playoffs for a big city getting its NFL team back.
In Houston, both KILT-AM and KBME-AM showed increases of .3 over the holiday period ratings, but finished only at #19 and #23 respectively in the market.
And then there is Miami. Not one of the three sports stations, WAXY-AM, WQAM-AM, or WINZ-AM could muster so much as a 1.0 rating, and none of them went up at all from the previous month's ratings.
Congrats to Verne Lundquist on being named to receive a "Lifetime Achievement Award" in May at the Sports Emmy Awards. It's a long list of accomplishments including the NFL and NCAA football and basketball, along with The Masters and other PGA events.
NEW YORK CITY: While it is not getting as much attention as the limited audience able to watch the Dodgers on TV is in Los Angeles, there is still no movement between Comcast Cable and the YES Network. This means that it is not likely that nearly 1 million subscribers will not be able to see the Yankees spring training telecasts which begin in two weeks. Comcast subscribers in parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are also without YES Network. At least viewers in those areas have the option of changing providers to see the Yankees, which those in the L.A. area do not for Dodgers games.
PHILADELPHIA: It's the end of an era for long time baseball fans, as the Phillies radio broadcasts will no longer be heard on the AM dial effective immediately. WIP-FM, which had simulcast the broadcasts from WPHT 1210 since 2012, will now air the games exclusively in Philly. The games had aired on 1210 AM for all but three seasons (2002-04) going back to 1982, and before that when the station was WCAU.
CHICAGO:
NASCAR is still pursuing a Chicago area radio audience but it continues to be only small suburban stations airing the races. The local Chicagoland Speedway has partnered with WCGO 1590 to air NASCAR events, beginning with Sunday's Daytona 500 broadcast. In addition, Daytona and various NASCAR races will continue to air on WCCQ-FM, a south suburban station whose signal generally does not overlap with WCGO.
In Boston, the Patriots' post-season kept the surge of sports radio listeners going in the nation's most popular market for sports radio. WBZ-FM Sports Hub rose to #3 overall, up from both November and December. At the same time WEEI-FM also rose from its November and December status to finish at #6 in the market.
New York listeners helped WFAN 660 increase .6 in the overall ratings to #9 in the market, while the Long Island market ratings (which is considered a separate radio market) showed an increase of 1.6. WEPN-FM held steady and is now #22 in the market.
San Francisco listeners brought KNBR 680 back up to #3 overall with a .7 increase, while the station rose .9 and to the #1 ranking in the (separately rated) San Jose market. KGMZ-FM The Game rose slightly at the same time, but is only #18 in the market.
Chicago's two sports stations both increased, with WSCR 670 The Score increasing .6 and finishing #15 overall, now .3 ahead of WMPV ESPN 1000 which ranks #19.
The Dallas race for sports radio has become a two station race (out of three), with KRLD-FM at #13 showing its best rating since last fall, and KTCK-AM The Ticket increasing one-half point to #18 overall.
Philadelphia's WIP-FM, which had another announcement this week (see below) increased by .7 from the previous month and is #7 overall. Yet, WPEN-FM, during the same time period, increased by .9, now ranking at #14.
Baltimore's WJZ-FM showed a significant 1.4 increase and finished at #6 in the market, while Pittsburgh's KDKA-FM increased by 1.1 and also finished #6 for that market. Also a nice showing for Cleveland's WKRK-FM, increasing by .8 to #8 in the market.
On the other side of the coin, while Los Angeles is getting at least one NFL team for the coming season, that news hasn't exactly been a bonanza for sports talk radio. Not one of its four sports talk stations (soon to be three with the sale of KFWB 980) could even garner a 1.0 rating or make the top 25. The top finisher, KSPN 710 came in at #30 overall with a 20% audience drop from November. KLAC 570 is next at #31 overall, while KLAA-AM finished with a .2 for its overall rating. And that still beat out KFWB. Keep in mind this rating period was during the NFL playoffs for a big city getting its NFL team back.
In Houston, both KILT-AM and KBME-AM showed increases of .3 over the holiday period ratings, but finished only at #19 and #23 respectively in the market.
And then there is Miami. Not one of the three sports stations, WAXY-AM, WQAM-AM, or WINZ-AM could muster so much as a 1.0 rating, and none of them went up at all from the previous month's ratings.
Congrats to Verne Lundquist on being named to receive a "Lifetime Achievement Award" in May at the Sports Emmy Awards. It's a long list of accomplishments including the NFL and NCAA football and basketball, along with The Masters and other PGA events.
NEW YORK CITY: While it is not getting as much attention as the limited audience able to watch the Dodgers on TV is in Los Angeles, there is still no movement between Comcast Cable and the YES Network. This means that it is not likely that nearly 1 million subscribers will not be able to see the Yankees spring training telecasts which begin in two weeks. Comcast subscribers in parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are also without YES Network. At least viewers in those areas have the option of changing providers to see the Yankees, which those in the L.A. area do not for Dodgers games.
PHILADELPHIA: It's the end of an era for long time baseball fans, as the Phillies radio broadcasts will no longer be heard on the AM dial effective immediately. WIP-FM, which had simulcast the broadcasts from WPHT 1210 since 2012, will now air the games exclusively in Philly. The games had aired on 1210 AM for all but three seasons (2002-04) going back to 1982, and before that when the station was WCAU.
CHICAGO:
NASCAR is still pursuing a Chicago area radio audience but it continues to be only small suburban stations airing the races. The local Chicagoland Speedway has partnered with WCGO 1590 to air NASCAR events, beginning with Sunday's Daytona 500 broadcast. In addition, Daytona and various NASCAR races will continue to air on WCCQ-FM, a south suburban station whose signal generally does not overlap with WCGO.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Let The Players Tell The Story
All of the wasted time on sports radio and TV shows and all of the wasted space in the print and online media about how post-game interviews are handled is nothing short of an embarrassment for the majority of sports media. So what if Cam Newton was upset after losing his first Super Bowl?
Suppose he had been cordial and cracked jokes after the game and at his 'day after' press conference. Would he have not been criticized?
Come on, reporters. Just say that Newton was too upset to talk, and move on to other players and team personnel for your quotes. That is your job. Cam Newton has generally been cooperative with the magnitude of press conferences and media requests he receives. It's not as though that is going to go away for him, either. Fans should not have to suffer through reporters complaining because they didn't get their juicy quotes.
If you must, quote Newton's one word answers and get the message across that he wasn't talking. Let the audience figure it out for themselves.
This represents a big change of media attitude over the years, and it is not necessary. For example, during the 70's and 80's the media had to put up with Bobby Knight when he was coaching at Indiana.
Knight treated the media horribly, resorting to handing out printed statements after games and not even facing the reporters live. This left many radio and TV stations without any quotes from him.
Yet, years later, after Indiana dumped him and little known Texas Tech was the only school that was willing to put up his antics and hired him as Head Coach, the media covered him like it was a big deal when they should have ignored him and the school.
Years ago, the media understood that it is their job to report on the games, players, coaches, and team officials that make news. Whether they get full cooperation or not. In the old days, when Knight would shun the media, reporters would go to the players and the opponents and give them the media time and space instead. Again, their job was (and is) to get the story.
This week, when Cam Newton wasn't talking, the reporters should have been asking his teammates whether or not he was acting different with them in the locker room at halftime and following the game. THAT would have been an interesting story. Instead, all we got was countless hours of on-air and printed reporter complaints about Newton not talking, as if he has a moral obligation to do so.
Tell the story. Don't try to be the story.
Marv Albert said "YES!!" to a multi-year contract extension with Turner Sports to continue as its lead voice for its NBA telecasts. While many fans still think of Albert from his days calling the NBA on NBC during the Michael Jordan era, this new contract assures that, health permitting, Albert will go well beyond his (current) 18th season with TNT.
In 2017, Albert will mark his 50th anniversary of calling pro sports, having started with the Knicks broadcasts in 1967. It appears that Marv is not slowing down. He is expected to continue calling regional NFL games with CBS, as well as helping Turner Sports with its NCAA Tournament coverage next month.
While the national ratings have been good for the NBA this season, and the ABC Saturday night package appears to be a strong addition, we still are not sure how the NBA will handle its network partners as the Golden State Warriors approach 70 wins later this season and then the possibility of becoming the all-time single season victory leader. The possibility for significant ratings could play a factor in lifting the restriction for the number of national telecasts per team. Or, the Association could keep it in house and put additional games on NBA-TV instead. No word yet.
A Nielsen report shows that 11 NBA teams are showing increased ratings for the first half of this regular season, with local telecast ratings up by approximately 6% over last season. Yet, the domination by the Warriors may be showing an impact the other way, as 15 teams are actually showing a decrease from last season. One of those teams is the Chicago Bulls, showing a 28% ratings decrease compared with last season as the team struggles.
CBS is getting ready to hype having a Notre Dame football telecast during the coming season. The Saturday November 5th road game in Jacksonville has been moved to an 11:30 AM ET kickoff, one-half hour earlier than the start for the remainder of the "early" college football games. Clearly it is an effort to capture the audience by being the first live game of the day. The opponent will be Navy.
CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has extended the contract of midday co-host Jason Goff for another year. The station, which begins as the flagship station for the Cubs broadcasts, also announced that it has added Cubs TV voice Len Kasper for a segment on their Cubs radio pre-game shows.
Ft. MYERS: WFWN 1240 The Fan will be adding an FM signal to the mix during 2016 when it adds a simulcast on 94.1. A specific launch date for the FM had not been announced as of press time.
CHARLOTTE: A nice job of ad-libbing by WZGV ESPN 730 a few days ago when the midday co-host had the presence of mind to send the audience to a commercial break while keeping her composure. While on the air with co-hosts Marty Hurney and Tom Sorensen, an out of control vehicle came crashing into the studio building.
OKLAHOMA CITY: Congrats to Brian Brinkley who was officially named as Sports Director of KFOR-TV 4 after more than 25 years with the station. He began as a Production Assistant in 1990 and has been reporting and anchoring sportscasts since 1992. However, we all wish the circumstances were different. Brinkley replaces Bob Barry Jr. in the role due to Barry's untimely death (traffic accident) in June of 2015.
DESTIN FL: "The Game" sports radio has changed owners and its frequency, becoming "1140 The Game" and being able to air at night, even though it has a limited signal after dark. It had been operating as a daytime only station at 1120 AM.
WHITE PLAINS NY: WFAS 1230 has dumped its music format and picked up CBS Radio Sports full time. This distant NYC suburban station currently has no plans for any local programming or play-by-play.
Suppose he had been cordial and cracked jokes after the game and at his 'day after' press conference. Would he have not been criticized?
Come on, reporters. Just say that Newton was too upset to talk, and move on to other players and team personnel for your quotes. That is your job. Cam Newton has generally been cooperative with the magnitude of press conferences and media requests he receives. It's not as though that is going to go away for him, either. Fans should not have to suffer through reporters complaining because they didn't get their juicy quotes.
If you must, quote Newton's one word answers and get the message across that he wasn't talking. Let the audience figure it out for themselves.
This represents a big change of media attitude over the years, and it is not necessary. For example, during the 70's and 80's the media had to put up with Bobby Knight when he was coaching at Indiana.
Knight treated the media horribly, resorting to handing out printed statements after games and not even facing the reporters live. This left many radio and TV stations without any quotes from him.
Yet, years later, after Indiana dumped him and little known Texas Tech was the only school that was willing to put up his antics and hired him as Head Coach, the media covered him like it was a big deal when they should have ignored him and the school.
Years ago, the media understood that it is their job to report on the games, players, coaches, and team officials that make news. Whether they get full cooperation or not. In the old days, when Knight would shun the media, reporters would go to the players and the opponents and give them the media time and space instead. Again, their job was (and is) to get the story.
This week, when Cam Newton wasn't talking, the reporters should have been asking his teammates whether or not he was acting different with them in the locker room at halftime and following the game. THAT would have been an interesting story. Instead, all we got was countless hours of on-air and printed reporter complaints about Newton not talking, as if he has a moral obligation to do so.
Tell the story. Don't try to be the story.
Marv Albert said "YES!!" to a multi-year contract extension with Turner Sports to continue as its lead voice for its NBA telecasts. While many fans still think of Albert from his days calling the NBA on NBC during the Michael Jordan era, this new contract assures that, health permitting, Albert will go well beyond his (current) 18th season with TNT.
In 2017, Albert will mark his 50th anniversary of calling pro sports, having started with the Knicks broadcasts in 1967. It appears that Marv is not slowing down. He is expected to continue calling regional NFL games with CBS, as well as helping Turner Sports with its NCAA Tournament coverage next month.
While the national ratings have been good for the NBA this season, and the ABC Saturday night package appears to be a strong addition, we still are not sure how the NBA will handle its network partners as the Golden State Warriors approach 70 wins later this season and then the possibility of becoming the all-time single season victory leader. The possibility for significant ratings could play a factor in lifting the restriction for the number of national telecasts per team. Or, the Association could keep it in house and put additional games on NBA-TV instead. No word yet.
A Nielsen report shows that 11 NBA teams are showing increased ratings for the first half of this regular season, with local telecast ratings up by approximately 6% over last season. Yet, the domination by the Warriors may be showing an impact the other way, as 15 teams are actually showing a decrease from last season. One of those teams is the Chicago Bulls, showing a 28% ratings decrease compared with last season as the team struggles.
CBS is getting ready to hype having a Notre Dame football telecast during the coming season. The Saturday November 5th road game in Jacksonville has been moved to an 11:30 AM ET kickoff, one-half hour earlier than the start for the remainder of the "early" college football games. Clearly it is an effort to capture the audience by being the first live game of the day. The opponent will be Navy.
CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has extended the contract of midday co-host Jason Goff for another year. The station, which begins as the flagship station for the Cubs broadcasts, also announced that it has added Cubs TV voice Len Kasper for a segment on their Cubs radio pre-game shows.
Ft. MYERS: WFWN 1240 The Fan will be adding an FM signal to the mix during 2016 when it adds a simulcast on 94.1. A specific launch date for the FM had not been announced as of press time.
CHARLOTTE: A nice job of ad-libbing by WZGV ESPN 730 a few days ago when the midday co-host had the presence of mind to send the audience to a commercial break while keeping her composure. While on the air with co-hosts Marty Hurney and Tom Sorensen, an out of control vehicle came crashing into the studio building.
OKLAHOMA CITY: Congrats to Brian Brinkley who was officially named as Sports Director of KFOR-TV 4 after more than 25 years with the station. He began as a Production Assistant in 1990 and has been reporting and anchoring sportscasts since 1992. However, we all wish the circumstances were different. Brinkley replaces Bob Barry Jr. in the role due to Barry's untimely death (traffic accident) in June of 2015.
DESTIN FL: "The Game" sports radio has changed owners and its frequency, becoming "1140 The Game" and being able to air at night, even though it has a limited signal after dark. It had been operating as a daytime only station at 1120 AM.
WHITE PLAINS NY: WFAS 1230 has dumped its music format and picked up CBS Radio Sports full time. This distant NYC suburban station currently has no plans for any local programming or play-by-play.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Still More Millions for the NFL
If the NFL builds it, they will come. This may never have been more evident than the moment that last week's (Jan. 25 - 31) TV ratings came out showing the most watched cable TV shows for the week.
While the majority of football fans will say they don't care about the Pro Bowl year after year, some of them obviously do, even if in secret. Incredibly, the 2016 Pro Bowl telecast on ESPN on Sunday (1/31) finished as the most-watched cable sports program for the week, with more than 5,000,000 more viewers than the second most watched show. That's nothing short of embarrassing for the NBA, NHL, and NCAA people.
At the same time came word of the NFL allowing for an expanded "over the air" presentation of Thursday Night Football for both the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The League reduced the CBS package to five Thursday night games (from eight the past two seasons), and gave NBC a separate five game package, generating an additional $150 million for the NFL in rights fees. Again, that is "additional" rights fees, since the two networks combine to pay $450 million per season, compared with the $300 million CBS paid for its eight games over the past two seasons.
The NBC package actually gives them four additional Thursday telecasts, since Thanksgiving will continue to be included. Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth will also handle their Thursday telecasts. The two networks will arrange to split the production for the eight games which will be exclusive to the NFL Network, which will also simulcast the ten Thursday games with the networks.
NFL Network will retain an exclusive national package of eight games, which will be the remaining Thursday night games, along with a pair of December Saturday night telecasts. Therefore, NFL Network can continue to charge cable/satellite carriers a higher fee because of its exclusive national games.
Incredibly, even with the additional $150 million, the NFL still isn't done with generating revenue for these Thursday night games. Word is that the League continues to negotiate the streaming rights for the all of the Thursday night games. When you consider that Yahoo paid a reported $15 million for the streaming rights for a lesser game from London this past season, and now a package of 15 or 16 games is available, the added revenue could well exceed still another $100 million for the League - per season.
Bob Uecker continues to turn out lead play-by-play voices from his Brewers broadcast partners. Now Joe Block is leaving the WTMJ Radio booth after four seasons to join the Pirates' crew as their lead play-by-play voice.
Longtime Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes is among those who worked with Uecker before leaving, as did Cory Provus of the Twins and Jim Powell of the Braves.
The Brewers have already announced that Jeff Levering will move up to the number two role on Brewers radio. He is no stranger to the broadcasts, having done play-by-play on road games (which Uecker no longer does) last season. The team says it expects to have a new play-by-play voice on the crew announced prior to the first exhibition game broadcast next month.
Sorry to learn of the passing of Barney Hall, known for many years as "The Voice of NASCAR", at the age of 83. Hall did the call of the Daytona 500 as far back as 1960, and goes back to 1970 on the Motor Racing Network. He was the first ever Public Address announcer at Bristol Motor Speedway.
As we mentioned last week, ESPN is showing an audience decline for its SportsCenter shows, especially during the day. Finally, ESPN has noticed as well and is starting to make some changes. Finally, they will make the 7 to 10 AM ET editions live instead of replaying the late night "final" edition.
More importantly, the plan is for SportsCenter to return to emphasizing more game highlights and information instead of the endless replaying of often lengthy feature stories.
There are still aspects of the show that need fixing. The constant jumping from one sport to another hurts the flow. In addition, the Bottom Line scroll should have more rotations with only the final scores from the different leagues and sports. By the next morning, the majority of fantasy players know how their players did the night before.
Maybe this is because ESPN sees the technology evolving even further which could eventually take away from its SportsCenter audience. The NHL Premium service, which is now being rolled out, is one example. Fans pay $2.99 per month for this streaming service which delivers the last five minutes of all (out of market) games and stays with it when there is overtime, and/or to receive alerts whenever a game enters the final five minutes.
Clearly, other pro leagues will be keeping an eye on this service. ESPN should as well. If an NHL fan doesn't have to sit through 2 basketball game highlights to get to a single NHL game highlight (as is often the case on SportsCenter) because they can get it on their phone or device, it makes life a lot easier.
NEW YORK: Sid Rosenberg is back on the air in New York a few weeks after his south Florida sports radio stint came to an end, joining WABC 770 for a 10 AM to Noon weekday show. Believe it or not, his show, co-hosted with Bernard McGuirk, is primarily focusing on political talk, as this duo replaces Geraldo Rivera's local show. At least for now. Have to wonder what will happen to this show starting the second week of November, after the election.
CHICAGO: It is rare to see a radio play-by-play deal extended more than three years before the current contract runs out, but WGN 720 made that happen with its Blackhawks contract. The station is now under contract to air the Blackhawks games through the 2023-24 NHL season, hoping to continue its successful run which has included three Stanley Cup champion seasons to date.
John Wiedeman and Troy Murray will continue their excellent job as the broadcast team.
MAYSVILLE KY: WFTM 1240 has dropped its music format and gone 24 hour sports which includes daily local programming such as high school coverage. Local sports historian Ron Bailey will host "The Daily Bailey", while Kentucky Sports Radio will continue to air from 10 AM to Noon.
While the majority of football fans will say they don't care about the Pro Bowl year after year, some of them obviously do, even if in secret. Incredibly, the 2016 Pro Bowl telecast on ESPN on Sunday (1/31) finished as the most-watched cable sports program for the week, with more than 5,000,000 more viewers than the second most watched show. That's nothing short of embarrassing for the NBA, NHL, and NCAA people.
At the same time came word of the NFL allowing for an expanded "over the air" presentation of Thursday Night Football for both the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The League reduced the CBS package to five Thursday night games (from eight the past two seasons), and gave NBC a separate five game package, generating an additional $150 million for the NFL in rights fees. Again, that is "additional" rights fees, since the two networks combine to pay $450 million per season, compared with the $300 million CBS paid for its eight games over the past two seasons.
The NBC package actually gives them four additional Thursday telecasts, since Thanksgiving will continue to be included. Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth will also handle their Thursday telecasts. The two networks will arrange to split the production for the eight games which will be exclusive to the NFL Network, which will also simulcast the ten Thursday games with the networks.
NFL Network will retain an exclusive national package of eight games, which will be the remaining Thursday night games, along with a pair of December Saturday night telecasts. Therefore, NFL Network can continue to charge cable/satellite carriers a higher fee because of its exclusive national games.
Incredibly, even with the additional $150 million, the NFL still isn't done with generating revenue for these Thursday night games. Word is that the League continues to negotiate the streaming rights for the all of the Thursday night games. When you consider that Yahoo paid a reported $15 million for the streaming rights for a lesser game from London this past season, and now a package of 15 or 16 games is available, the added revenue could well exceed still another $100 million for the League - per season.
Bob Uecker continues to turn out lead play-by-play voices from his Brewers broadcast partners. Now Joe Block is leaving the WTMJ Radio booth after four seasons to join the Pirates' crew as their lead play-by-play voice.
Longtime Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes is among those who worked with Uecker before leaving, as did Cory Provus of the Twins and Jim Powell of the Braves.
The Brewers have already announced that Jeff Levering will move up to the number two role on Brewers radio. He is no stranger to the broadcasts, having done play-by-play on road games (which Uecker no longer does) last season. The team says it expects to have a new play-by-play voice on the crew announced prior to the first exhibition game broadcast next month.
Sorry to learn of the passing of Barney Hall, known for many years as "The Voice of NASCAR", at the age of 83. Hall did the call of the Daytona 500 as far back as 1960, and goes back to 1970 on the Motor Racing Network. He was the first ever Public Address announcer at Bristol Motor Speedway.
As we mentioned last week, ESPN is showing an audience decline for its SportsCenter shows, especially during the day. Finally, ESPN has noticed as well and is starting to make some changes. Finally, they will make the 7 to 10 AM ET editions live instead of replaying the late night "final" edition.
More importantly, the plan is for SportsCenter to return to emphasizing more game highlights and information instead of the endless replaying of often lengthy feature stories.
There are still aspects of the show that need fixing. The constant jumping from one sport to another hurts the flow. In addition, the Bottom Line scroll should have more rotations with only the final scores from the different leagues and sports. By the next morning, the majority of fantasy players know how their players did the night before.
Maybe this is because ESPN sees the technology evolving even further which could eventually take away from its SportsCenter audience. The NHL Premium service, which is now being rolled out, is one example. Fans pay $2.99 per month for this streaming service which delivers the last five minutes of all (out of market) games and stays with it when there is overtime, and/or to receive alerts whenever a game enters the final five minutes.
Clearly, other pro leagues will be keeping an eye on this service. ESPN should as well. If an NHL fan doesn't have to sit through 2 basketball game highlights to get to a single NHL game highlight (as is often the case on SportsCenter) because they can get it on their phone or device, it makes life a lot easier.
NEW YORK: Sid Rosenberg is back on the air in New York a few weeks after his south Florida sports radio stint came to an end, joining WABC 770 for a 10 AM to Noon weekday show. Believe it or not, his show, co-hosted with Bernard McGuirk, is primarily focusing on political talk, as this duo replaces Geraldo Rivera's local show. At least for now. Have to wonder what will happen to this show starting the second week of November, after the election.
CHICAGO: It is rare to see a radio play-by-play deal extended more than three years before the current contract runs out, but WGN 720 made that happen with its Blackhawks contract. The station is now under contract to air the Blackhawks games through the 2023-24 NHL season, hoping to continue its successful run which has included three Stanley Cup champion seasons to date.
John Wiedeman and Troy Murray will continue their excellent job as the broadcast team.
MAYSVILLE KY: WFTM 1240 has dropped its music format and gone 24 hour sports which includes daily local programming such as high school coverage. Local sports historian Ron Bailey will host "The Daily Bailey", while Kentucky Sports Radio will continue to air from 10 AM to Noon.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Broncos Lead The Ratings Charges
As predicted here last week, the AFC Championship game between Denver and New England was far and away the bigger draw this past Sunday (1/24) when determining the Super Bowl participants.
The national rating of 29 and amazing 51% share of the total audience is the highest rated AFC Championship game telecast in almost 30 years, and the highest "early" Conference championship telecast (either AFC or NFC) during that time as well. Even more impressive is that this telecast finished as the highest rated TV show (including non-sports) since last year's Super Bowl.
Obviously, not a good night to have the blowout game that Fox wound up with, although having two teams which had far less national exposure than they deserved during the regular season certainly contributed.
It is rare that an app can have a severe impact on sports media, but the "Sports Stadium" app that Facebook will be marketing in the near future could do just that. This app will provide in-game statistics and analysis, which is nothing unique. However, the integration with Facebook is unique because it will encourage users to comment on live game action and share and respond to their Facebook friends.
The hunch here is that this app could soon result in a reduction in viewership, especially for games which are only available on cable. Some casual sports fan will probably enjoy interacting with their friends about the game more than watching, especially when the game is not close and/or a favorite team is not having a good season. Many other consumers, who continue paying the continually rising cost of cable/satellite service primarily to follow sports, might use this app and have more incentive to 'cut the cord' and drop their provider, preferring to let their friends keep them informed about the games.
This application will be rolled out specific to football, with the other sports expected to be added in within "the near future". Recent research shows that more than 700,000,000 Facebook users consider themselves to be sports fans, while the app is being formed to have both the official score and key stats about the "followed" game, along with friends' reactions and comments on the same screen.
Those who still don't see the potential impact might find the recent research report by Moffett Nathanson Research to be stunning. The report, focused on ESPN viewership sorted by live coverage and its other programming, showed a 5.4% drop in SportsCenter viewership over the past six years.
Although that six year "average" may not appear significant, the report shows that SportsCenter actually lost more than 12% of its audience during (fiscal year) 2015.
This was more than triple the amount of the audience decrease that ESPN showed for its live play-by-play coverage during the same period. Frankly, SportsCenter has become so difficult to watch due to far too much jumping around from sport to sport and replaying the same extended features almost every hour, when it has so many other resources.
ESPN is planning to beef up its NBA coverage, adding a daytime half-hour program starting on Feb. 18th (out of the All-Star Game break). Rachel Nichols, who joins ESPN after a stint with Turner Sports, has been chosen to host the show, which will include talks with players and analysts, along with previews of the night's games.
Nichols is also expected to act as fill-in host for Bob Ley on Outside The Lines when called upon.
It's not NBC Sports' fault that Sunday's (1/24) scheduled NHL telecast from Washington D.C. was called off due to the winter storm that wreaked havoc over the Northeast. With no alternative, NBC Sports took over the 2 1/2 hour block with sports updates, highlights, and interviews. However, extended segments on figure skating and other categories with a limited audience among hardcore sports fans (who would be most likely to watch) made the programming a near disaster. As it was, this time block was a lead in to up to seven hours of live NFL football which began at 3 PM ET, with the CBS pre-game show having started at 2 PM.
Over the Canadian border, Rogers Media is showing signs of struggle after having paid so much for NHL rights. The network paid over $5 billion back in 2013 for only a 10-year NHL package for its SportsNet (network) in its drive to smother rival TSN. However, this season has brought the network a noticeable dip in the ratings compared with last season.
Rogers Media has just laid off 200 employees, which is in addition to 90 positions eliminated from within a separate newspaper chain it owns.
NEW YORK: WFAN's Mike Francesa somehow managed to give a news story (of sorts) about his radio show on a show other than his own, which is quite a distinction. Last week, Francesa,revealed on Fox Sports 1 that he plans to leave WFAN at the end of next year (2017) when his contract is up.
Instead of making the announcement on his show to "his" audience first, Francesa instead told Katie Nolan of his decision on FS1's aptly named "Garbage Time" show. He then followed that up by being almost 20 minutes late for his show on WFAN due to the FS1 interview. As popular as Francesa and his show are and have been, it was disrespectful to his regular audience to announce his intentions on another show before doing so on his own show to all of his fans.
Next year will mark 30 years since he first joined WFAN, with 19 of those years spent teamed with Mad Dog Russo.
Francesa and Russo still plan to reunite for a "one-time" pairing on the air on March 30th at Radio City Music Hall.
Nice to see the "Legendary Coaches" show, featuring interviews and profiles of major college football coaches, preparing to expand beyond its current stations, which include WPRT 102.5 The Game in Nashville. Beginning with the Saturday Feb. 13th show, it will also be heard via Yahoo Sports Radio, in hopes of eventually adding more stations to the mix.
BOSTON: This will most certainly change for next month, but the holiday period ratings for both major sports stations showed a drop of audience. Although WBZ-FM Sports Hub finished as the #2 station in the market in overall audience, and WEEI-FM came in #6, both stations lost .8 off their overall audience from the prior ratings period. With the Patriots' January run to the AFC Championship game, the audience size figures to rise for both stations for the current ratings period.
KANSAS CITY: The Royals getting further into the offseason has proven to be a ratings disaster for the two sports stations, showing it is how the local teams are doing and the current sports content that make all the difference. During the 4th quarter of 2015 (which began with the October ratings during the Royals World Series run), KCSP-AM lost more than 75% of the total audience it had from October through December, and is now at #19 in the market.
In fact, WHB-AM, which had slightly over half of KCSP's total audience size during October, overtook KCSP by more than one-half of a ratings point in the just release December ratings period.
INDIANAPOLIS: After it started to attract some attention in the early fall, WIBC-HD2 decided to drop its local sports shows over the past few weeks. The channel went to all ESPN Radio, and its December ratings showed it having lost more than 80% of the total audience it had as recently as October.
PHILADELPHIA: As of press time, still no further action taken by WIP-FM regarding host Josh Innes, on-air tantrum last week. On the same day that the Eagles held the press conference to introduce Doug Pederson as the team's head coach, Innes was commenting about how Jason Kelce was there to greet the coach.
During this tirade, on the air, Innes referred to Kelce as "lapdog for whoever the coach is", and seconds later referred to him as "the house negro".
Innes apologized, but not until later in the day, and it is not known if he apologized naturally or had been ordered to. Either way, it appears he may be getting away with having made those comments on the air.
That he might get away with this unscathed would not be that big of a story if it weren't for the number of reporters and analysts who have lost jobs or been more severely penalized for such comments via social media - which were NOT said on the air. These are radio (and in some cases TV) stations these people work for. The responsibility for what goes out over the air on a radio station is far more significant than comments on one station representative's social media.
ROANOKE: A new sports station has begun, although it is taking Fox Sports Radio plus the syndicated Dan Patrick Show and has yet to announce any local programming. At 610 AM, the call letters having been changed (from WVBE) to WPLY. The station will also be heard on 97.3 FM and in nearby Lynchburg on 98.5.
The national rating of 29 and amazing 51% share of the total audience is the highest rated AFC Championship game telecast in almost 30 years, and the highest "early" Conference championship telecast (either AFC or NFC) during that time as well. Even more impressive is that this telecast finished as the highest rated TV show (including non-sports) since last year's Super Bowl.
Obviously, not a good night to have the blowout game that Fox wound up with, although having two teams which had far less national exposure than they deserved during the regular season certainly contributed.
It is rare that an app can have a severe impact on sports media, but the "Sports Stadium" app that Facebook will be marketing in the near future could do just that. This app will provide in-game statistics and analysis, which is nothing unique. However, the integration with Facebook is unique because it will encourage users to comment on live game action and share and respond to their Facebook friends.
The hunch here is that this app could soon result in a reduction in viewership, especially for games which are only available on cable. Some casual sports fan will probably enjoy interacting with their friends about the game more than watching, especially when the game is not close and/or a favorite team is not having a good season. Many other consumers, who continue paying the continually rising cost of cable/satellite service primarily to follow sports, might use this app and have more incentive to 'cut the cord' and drop their provider, preferring to let their friends keep them informed about the games.
This application will be rolled out specific to football, with the other sports expected to be added in within "the near future". Recent research shows that more than 700,000,000 Facebook users consider themselves to be sports fans, while the app is being formed to have both the official score and key stats about the "followed" game, along with friends' reactions and comments on the same screen.
Those who still don't see the potential impact might find the recent research report by Moffett Nathanson Research to be stunning. The report, focused on ESPN viewership sorted by live coverage and its other programming, showed a 5.4% drop in SportsCenter viewership over the past six years.
Although that six year "average" may not appear significant, the report shows that SportsCenter actually lost more than 12% of its audience during (fiscal year) 2015.
This was more than triple the amount of the audience decrease that ESPN showed for its live play-by-play coverage during the same period. Frankly, SportsCenter has become so difficult to watch due to far too much jumping around from sport to sport and replaying the same extended features almost every hour, when it has so many other resources.
ESPN is planning to beef up its NBA coverage, adding a daytime half-hour program starting on Feb. 18th (out of the All-Star Game break). Rachel Nichols, who joins ESPN after a stint with Turner Sports, has been chosen to host the show, which will include talks with players and analysts, along with previews of the night's games.
Nichols is also expected to act as fill-in host for Bob Ley on Outside The Lines when called upon.
It's not NBC Sports' fault that Sunday's (1/24) scheduled NHL telecast from Washington D.C. was called off due to the winter storm that wreaked havoc over the Northeast. With no alternative, NBC Sports took over the 2 1/2 hour block with sports updates, highlights, and interviews. However, extended segments on figure skating and other categories with a limited audience among hardcore sports fans (who would be most likely to watch) made the programming a near disaster. As it was, this time block was a lead in to up to seven hours of live NFL football which began at 3 PM ET, with the CBS pre-game show having started at 2 PM.
Over the Canadian border, Rogers Media is showing signs of struggle after having paid so much for NHL rights. The network paid over $5 billion back in 2013 for only a 10-year NHL package for its SportsNet (network) in its drive to smother rival TSN. However, this season has brought the network a noticeable dip in the ratings compared with last season.
Rogers Media has just laid off 200 employees, which is in addition to 90 positions eliminated from within a separate newspaper chain it owns.
NEW YORK: WFAN's Mike Francesa somehow managed to give a news story (of sorts) about his radio show on a show other than his own, which is quite a distinction. Last week, Francesa,revealed on Fox Sports 1 that he plans to leave WFAN at the end of next year (2017) when his contract is up.
Instead of making the announcement on his show to "his" audience first, Francesa instead told Katie Nolan of his decision on FS1's aptly named "Garbage Time" show. He then followed that up by being almost 20 minutes late for his show on WFAN due to the FS1 interview. As popular as Francesa and his show are and have been, it was disrespectful to his regular audience to announce his intentions on another show before doing so on his own show to all of his fans.
Next year will mark 30 years since he first joined WFAN, with 19 of those years spent teamed with Mad Dog Russo.
Francesa and Russo still plan to reunite for a "one-time" pairing on the air on March 30th at Radio City Music Hall.
Nice to see the "Legendary Coaches" show, featuring interviews and profiles of major college football coaches, preparing to expand beyond its current stations, which include WPRT 102.5 The Game in Nashville. Beginning with the Saturday Feb. 13th show, it will also be heard via Yahoo Sports Radio, in hopes of eventually adding more stations to the mix.
BOSTON: This will most certainly change for next month, but the holiday period ratings for both major sports stations showed a drop of audience. Although WBZ-FM Sports Hub finished as the #2 station in the market in overall audience, and WEEI-FM came in #6, both stations lost .8 off their overall audience from the prior ratings period. With the Patriots' January run to the AFC Championship game, the audience size figures to rise for both stations for the current ratings period.
KANSAS CITY: The Royals getting further into the offseason has proven to be a ratings disaster for the two sports stations, showing it is how the local teams are doing and the current sports content that make all the difference. During the 4th quarter of 2015 (which began with the October ratings during the Royals World Series run), KCSP-AM lost more than 75% of the total audience it had from October through December, and is now at #19 in the market.
In fact, WHB-AM, which had slightly over half of KCSP's total audience size during October, overtook KCSP by more than one-half of a ratings point in the just release December ratings period.
INDIANAPOLIS: After it started to attract some attention in the early fall, WIBC-HD2 decided to drop its local sports shows over the past few weeks. The channel went to all ESPN Radio, and its December ratings showed it having lost more than 80% of the total audience it had as recently as October.
PHILADELPHIA: As of press time, still no further action taken by WIP-FM regarding host Josh Innes, on-air tantrum last week. On the same day that the Eagles held the press conference to introduce Doug Pederson as the team's head coach, Innes was commenting about how Jason Kelce was there to greet the coach.
During this tirade, on the air, Innes referred to Kelce as "lapdog for whoever the coach is", and seconds later referred to him as "the house negro".
Innes apologized, but not until later in the day, and it is not known if he apologized naturally or had been ordered to. Either way, it appears he may be getting away with having made those comments on the air.
That he might get away with this unscathed would not be that big of a story if it weren't for the number of reporters and analysts who have lost jobs or been more severely penalized for such comments via social media - which were NOT said on the air. These are radio (and in some cases TV) stations these people work for. The responsibility for what goes out over the air on a radio station is far more significant than comments on one station representative's social media.
ROANOKE: A new sports station has begun, although it is taking Fox Sports Radio plus the syndicated Dan Patrick Show and has yet to announce any local programming. At 610 AM, the call letters having been changed (from WVBE) to WPLY. The station will also be heard on 97.3 FM and in nearby Lynchburg on 98.5.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Long Time Voices Leaving Chicago and St. Louis
While the legal battles continue regarding daily fantasy sports, still another company is entering the fray and could actually help the stations and networks televising the games. A company called Boom Fantasy plans to expand beyond some resorts and web sites and into several states with its offering of 'real time' fantasy sports.
The company plans to offer what can best be termed as spur of the moment fantasy contests which could last under an hour or even a few seconds. Their marketing plan includes examples such as "Will LeBron James score more than eight points this quarter?", and allow the participants to compete against each other with a series of questions in somewhat of a tournament format.
Its impact on sports media could be significant. Daily fantasy players can follow their players in a variety of ways, such as online and via mobile devices. The idea of Boom Fantasy and its games will be for fans who are actually watching, listening, or possibly following the game online at the time.
Although, as mentioned earlier, some of the owners of NFL teams have investments in the major daily fantasy companies, Boom, to this point, has raised more than one million dollars in private funding to date. Wonder how long it will be before at least one of the regional or national sports network either takes a stake or creates their own version so this concept can be used in conjunction with games they are televising.
Which theory do you have for the NFL Division Playoff ratings from last weekend (Jan. 16 / 17) being down a bit from last year? It certainly wasn't for lack of excitement considering the Arizona OT win over Green Bay and the Denver narrow escape over Pittsburgh.
The four telecasts were down an average of just over one million viewers for the weekend. Some TV experts think it is because of the absence of teams from the largest TV markets in these games. New York, Chicago, Houston, Detroit, Washington/Baltimore, and Philadelphia are among the largest markets in the nation, and none of them had a team still involved.
Others think that viewership might be on the decline instantly from St. Louis and northern California (Raiders fans) who are abandoning following the NFL because of losing their team to Los Angeles. Some think it is because the Dallas Cowboys were not in the playoffs, and they remain a strong ratings draw.
We might get an answer when we see the ratings for this coming Sunday's Conference Championship telecasts. Denver and New England both have large followings throughout their respective regions. And football fans everywhere realize this could very well be the final post-season matchup between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
Yet, as good as the NFC game appears to be, the fact is that neither Phoenix or Charlotte is a top 20 TV market. The feeling here is that the teams involved are what impact the ratings, and that the more casual fan is not used to seeing Arizona, Carolina, and Kansas City (now eliminated) in the post-season.
The prediction from here is that this coming Sunday's ratings will have Denver vs. New England as one of the highest AFC telecasts ever, and Carolina vs. Arizona as one of the lower NFC Championship telecasts in years.
Tuesday (1/19) brought possible eventual good news for fans as the cost of the MLB streaming package was reduced somewhat, and a single team package will be introduced. MLB settled a class action lawsuit regarding the availability of local team streaming packages within hours of its scheduled court date.
Although specific details were not released (as of press time), it appears that MLB.TV will be able to offer in-market streaming, allowing fans to stream the local team(s) instead of being blacked out. Sources were reporting that MLB.TV will, as part of the settlement terms, offer "single team in-market streaming" for $84.99 for the season, whether or not the subscriber also pays for cable or satellite including the televising local station and regional network.
However, according to Sports Business Journal, it is not certain whether or not roughly half of the MLB teams have reached a deal regarding local streaming. At last report, only 15 of the teams have a streaming deal in place, all of these via Fox Sports regional networks.
On the radio side, the "holiday period" radio ratings for the largest markets were released earlier this week. Although the always interesting Boston ones were not available at press time, the holiday music stations mostly took away from the other music stations in the big markets. Not much change for sports talk stations, with the one exception being Atlanta.
WZGC-FM The Game went up again, and has now increased its total audience by one-third within the past three months, rising to #14 overall in this new ratings book.
NBC Sports Radio plans to make still another change to its weekday lineup as of the week of February 8th, even though it will include a morning repeat. "Pro Football Talk with Mike Florio" is moving to mornings, airing live from 6 to 9 AM ET, and then being instantly replayed in order to serve the west coast from 6 to 9 AM PT. As if they can't pick up a live west coast originated show.
To make the double morning show happen, the network is moving Voices of the Game to Noon to 3 PM ET, and among other changes, also plans to repeat the 10 PM to 1 AM ET "Going Deep" show from 3 to 6 AM ET.
To sum up, a nationally available sports talk network is changing its schedule, and it includes six hours every weekday (1/4 of its broadcast day) of repeat programming.
Over at Fox Sports, their USGA golf coverage will continue without Greg Norman as an analyst. The announcement, at least according to Fox Sports, was a "mutual decision" by the network and by Norman. Yet, there has not been (as of press time) a "mutual" announcement from Greg Norman.
ST. LOUIS: It will seem strange after all of these years, but those who have noticed how drained Mike Shannon sounded last season on Cardinals broadcasts on KMOX will be relieved to know that Shannon will not broadcast the Cardinals' regular season road games, effective immediately. The 76 year-old Shannon will continue with spring training broadcasts, all home games, and call every post-season game if the Cardinals get there again.
It is good news for the many fans of John Rooney, who will take the lead on the road broadcasts and, deservedly call a lot more innings. Rich Horton will come over from the TV booth to help out on the road radio call, along with Mike Claiborne, whose exact role is still to be determined.
CHICAGO: WGN-TV will be adding a new sportscaster between now and June. On one hand, it is a replacement, but on the other hand, it is next to impossible to replace. The name Rich King might not ring a bell with a lot of sports fans, but everybody who watched WGN-TV in its days as a full superstation showing plenty of baseball and basketball has seen him on telecasts and on many of their newscasts.
King has just announced that, after 48 years on the air in Chicago radio and TV, he will retire mid-June of this year. The 68 year-old Chicago native has spent all of that time at either WBBM Radio/TV and WGN-TV, including a few play-by-play stints on White Sox telecasts and sideline reporting for other games.
ERIE IL: Having worked with sportscasting students, both independently and teaching at Columbia College Chicago, I have encountered my fair share of students looking to break in to the play-by-play side of things by going to a smaller market. It appears that one such opportunity is coming up in the near future in Erie.
WQUD 105.5 has been under new ownership for the past few months, and has is going from playing music via automation to some live programming this month. The new ownership is big on local sports, and is expected to look to add high school play-by-play starting this summer. I know of several broadcasters who started by selling some of the time (making themselves a source of revenue for the station) and getting to call the games on the air as an additional reward.
The company plans to offer what can best be termed as spur of the moment fantasy contests which could last under an hour or even a few seconds. Their marketing plan includes examples such as "Will LeBron James score more than eight points this quarter?", and allow the participants to compete against each other with a series of questions in somewhat of a tournament format.
Its impact on sports media could be significant. Daily fantasy players can follow their players in a variety of ways, such as online and via mobile devices. The idea of Boom Fantasy and its games will be for fans who are actually watching, listening, or possibly following the game online at the time.
Although, as mentioned earlier, some of the owners of NFL teams have investments in the major daily fantasy companies, Boom, to this point, has raised more than one million dollars in private funding to date. Wonder how long it will be before at least one of the regional or national sports network either takes a stake or creates their own version so this concept can be used in conjunction with games they are televising.
Which theory do you have for the NFL Division Playoff ratings from last weekend (Jan. 16 / 17) being down a bit from last year? It certainly wasn't for lack of excitement considering the Arizona OT win over Green Bay and the Denver narrow escape over Pittsburgh.
The four telecasts were down an average of just over one million viewers for the weekend. Some TV experts think it is because of the absence of teams from the largest TV markets in these games. New York, Chicago, Houston, Detroit, Washington/Baltimore, and Philadelphia are among the largest markets in the nation, and none of them had a team still involved.
Others think that viewership might be on the decline instantly from St. Louis and northern California (Raiders fans) who are abandoning following the NFL because of losing their team to Los Angeles. Some think it is because the Dallas Cowboys were not in the playoffs, and they remain a strong ratings draw.
We might get an answer when we see the ratings for this coming Sunday's Conference Championship telecasts. Denver and New England both have large followings throughout their respective regions. And football fans everywhere realize this could very well be the final post-season matchup between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
Yet, as good as the NFC game appears to be, the fact is that neither Phoenix or Charlotte is a top 20 TV market. The feeling here is that the teams involved are what impact the ratings, and that the more casual fan is not used to seeing Arizona, Carolina, and Kansas City (now eliminated) in the post-season.
The prediction from here is that this coming Sunday's ratings will have Denver vs. New England as one of the highest AFC telecasts ever, and Carolina vs. Arizona as one of the lower NFC Championship telecasts in years.
Tuesday (1/19) brought possible eventual good news for fans as the cost of the MLB streaming package was reduced somewhat, and a single team package will be introduced. MLB settled a class action lawsuit regarding the availability of local team streaming packages within hours of its scheduled court date.
Although specific details were not released (as of press time), it appears that MLB.TV will be able to offer in-market streaming, allowing fans to stream the local team(s) instead of being blacked out. Sources were reporting that MLB.TV will, as part of the settlement terms, offer "single team in-market streaming" for $84.99 for the season, whether or not the subscriber also pays for cable or satellite including the televising local station and regional network.
However, according to Sports Business Journal, it is not certain whether or not roughly half of the MLB teams have reached a deal regarding local streaming. At last report, only 15 of the teams have a streaming deal in place, all of these via Fox Sports regional networks.
On the radio side, the "holiday period" radio ratings for the largest markets were released earlier this week. Although the always interesting Boston ones were not available at press time, the holiday music stations mostly took away from the other music stations in the big markets. Not much change for sports talk stations, with the one exception being Atlanta.
WZGC-FM The Game went up again, and has now increased its total audience by one-third within the past three months, rising to #14 overall in this new ratings book.
NBC Sports Radio plans to make still another change to its weekday lineup as of the week of February 8th, even though it will include a morning repeat. "Pro Football Talk with Mike Florio" is moving to mornings, airing live from 6 to 9 AM ET, and then being instantly replayed in order to serve the west coast from 6 to 9 AM PT. As if they can't pick up a live west coast originated show.
To make the double morning show happen, the network is moving Voices of the Game to Noon to 3 PM ET, and among other changes, also plans to repeat the 10 PM to 1 AM ET "Going Deep" show from 3 to 6 AM ET.
To sum up, a nationally available sports talk network is changing its schedule, and it includes six hours every weekday (1/4 of its broadcast day) of repeat programming.
Over at Fox Sports, their USGA golf coverage will continue without Greg Norman as an analyst. The announcement, at least according to Fox Sports, was a "mutual decision" by the network and by Norman. Yet, there has not been (as of press time) a "mutual" announcement from Greg Norman.
ST. LOUIS: It will seem strange after all of these years, but those who have noticed how drained Mike Shannon sounded last season on Cardinals broadcasts on KMOX will be relieved to know that Shannon will not broadcast the Cardinals' regular season road games, effective immediately. The 76 year-old Shannon will continue with spring training broadcasts, all home games, and call every post-season game if the Cardinals get there again.
It is good news for the many fans of John Rooney, who will take the lead on the road broadcasts and, deservedly call a lot more innings. Rich Horton will come over from the TV booth to help out on the road radio call, along with Mike Claiborne, whose exact role is still to be determined.
CHICAGO: WGN-TV will be adding a new sportscaster between now and June. On one hand, it is a replacement, but on the other hand, it is next to impossible to replace. The name Rich King might not ring a bell with a lot of sports fans, but everybody who watched WGN-TV in its days as a full superstation showing plenty of baseball and basketball has seen him on telecasts and on many of their newscasts.
King has just announced that, after 48 years on the air in Chicago radio and TV, he will retire mid-June of this year. The 68 year-old Chicago native has spent all of that time at either WBBM Radio/TV and WGN-TV, including a few play-by-play stints on White Sox telecasts and sideline reporting for other games.
ERIE IL: Having worked with sportscasting students, both independently and teaching at Columbia College Chicago, I have encountered my fair share of students looking to break in to the play-by-play side of things by going to a smaller market. It appears that one such opportunity is coming up in the near future in Erie.
WQUD 105.5 has been under new ownership for the past few months, and has is going from playing music via automation to some live programming this month. The new ownership is big on local sports, and is expected to look to add high school play-by-play starting this summer. I know of several broadcasters who started by selling some of the time (making themselves a source of revenue for the station) and getting to call the games on the air as an additional reward.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Will NFL Talk Get "Rammed" Totally Out of St. Louis?
An important week for the NFL has become an important week for the media in three major markets, above and beyond the action on the field.
Perhaps no media outlet will be impacted by franchise moves as much as WXOS "101 Sports" in St. Louis. The station had finally begun to make a ratings impact in 2015, had was the flagship station for the St. Louis Rams since 2009, which was the year the station went to the sports format.
Now that the Rams are bolting for Los Angeles, it will be interesting to see what happens to WXOS over the next few months. The sports fans in St. Louis are, quite understandably, upset about losing the team. From what my sources in the St. Louis area tell me, the attitude on the sports talk shows and in general is to move on and let go of the NFL.
Since sports radio station ratings are driven by the local teams and what is going on in the sports world, a reduced level of interest in the NFL will show a big impact (or lack of impact) in St. Louis, especially during the Cardinals' off season and before the Blues begin their NHL playoff run.
The Cardinals and the Blues appear to be firmly in place on KMOX, which now has a monopoly on the two remaining local pro teams, and the huge ratings to go along with it. Frankly, losing the Rams, and the anticipated reduction in local interest in the NFL moving forward, could spell doom for WXOS, as well as KFNS 590, which recently returned to a sports format.
Although the Raiders are also moving to L.A., and the Chargers remain a possibility, the San Francisco/Oakland and San Diego sports radio landscapes are much different, and will not suffer nearly as much as St. Louis.
It will be interesting to see whether or not the struggling Los Angeles sports talk stations, KSPN and KLAC, show any noticeable ratings increases over the next couple of months. It remains to be seen how many fans will be excited enough about gaining local NFL teams will increase their sports radio listening. There is also the upcoming demise of KFWB 980 The Beast as a sports talker (due to its pending sale), although the audience that would need to tune elsewhere is not significant.
In Cincinnati, it will be interesting to see how its sports talkers do (or don't) in the next ratings following the Bengals' debacle in the playoff game against Pittsburgh on Jan. 9th. Of course, the ugly ending to the game and the six (at last reports) arrests made by authorities on stadium grounds have nothing to do with sports radio.
Whether or not the fans take to the airwaves to discuss the Bengals, and, shall we say, "follow" the Steelers the rest of the way in the playoffs, remains to be heard. And then there was WLW 700, which was airing a "Big Ben rape warning" during the couple of days leading into the game against the Steelers. (This was making fun of Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who was accused of rape in 2009 and in 2010, although neither case went to trial.)
We'll leave others to debate the issue as to whether or not this was in good taste, especially since a TMZ poll with nearly 50,000 respondents was close to an even split. If the locals continue to think that NFL playoffs are "more than a game" to this level, we'll find out whether or not it translates to a sports talk audience increase or not.
The NFL moves right along with its incredible TV viewership for the just concluded regular season. The national TV ratings for the Fall 2015 "season" (as in TV season - not NFL season) show that the top two overall most viewed shows were Sunday Night Football followed by Thursday Night Football. NCIS was a distant #3.
But there is an even more amazing viewership statistic. The average 22.5 million viewers that SNF received (in the top spot) was actually less than the 26.8 million viewers averaged by both CBS and Fox for the Sunday doubleheader telecasts during the Fall.
As the NBA continues its path to expand globally, the feeling here is that there was a partially missed opportunity this week. The Association had its scheduled regular season matchup in London today (1/14) between Toronto and Orlando. In a nice move, it was aired live on NBA-TV starting at 3:10 PM ET. The pre-game show also included the entire press conference in London with Commissioner Adam Silver, who addressed the plans for more international games.
While we can understand not putting the game on this weekend and trying to compete with NFL Playoffs, the publicity for the national telecast was very limited. The NFL pumped up its three London games in 2015, starting them at 9:30 AM ET and having its live stream of the third of the games, turning a less attractive matchup in to a big audience event.
Yet, the NBA did not publicize this live weekday game, other than on a couple of its other national telecasts. Got to think that east coast sports bars could have had an "early bird special" with the game airing into the 5:00 to 6:00 PM hour.
Reminded me of the MLB opener in 2014 when the games started at 5 AM ET, yet it took a fan reaction to get the subsequent international regular season games shown live on national TV. Also interesting, in this case, that the London matchup featured a Canadian team and a U.S. based team.
MLB is again expanding its international reach, announcing a three year agreement for MLB games to be streamed live to China for the first time, starting this coming season.
Fans in China, Hong Kong, and Macau will be able to view approximately 96 regular season games (roughly four per week) online, including mobile devices. In addition the All-Star Game and World Series will also be included. While announcing this agreement at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Commissioner Rob Manfred and other officials revealed that even more games could be added as soon as this year if and as the demand warrants.
Even with a ton of former MLB players acting as and seeking analyst work, ESPN has decided to keep Jessica Mendoza on its Sunday Night Baseball broadcast crew for the coming 2016 season. In still another SNB change to the booth, Aaron Boone is being moved to the lead analyst role along side play-by-play voice Dan Shulman.
Curt Schilling is back with ESPN, but is being moved to its Monday night games, while John Kruk will most likely be a studio analyst and work at scattered game telecasts.
CHICAGO: Speaking of updating broadcast teams, the White Sox have added 32 year-old play-by-play voice Jason Benetti to their TV booth for the coming season. Benetti, a native of the Chicago area, will handle roughly 81 telecasts, mostly home games, as Ken Harrelson finally reduces his workload. Many White Sox fans see this as a huge blessing, since the telecasts will finally have a professional play-by-play voice, instead of incessant babbling and opinions instead of what is happening in the game. Steve Stone will continue as analyst, getting to do his true calling with Benetti, although he will still be stymied by Harrelson for half of the games.
Across town, longtime Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes has, once again, been named Illinois Sportscaster of the Year for 2015. He has already earned is Award in 1996, 1999, 2006, 2007, and 2009. Hughes will begin his 21st season in the Cubs booth in March, with the games now airing on WSCR 670 for the first time.
TRENTON: WNJE 920 continues to move toward all sports, taking out political and syndicated news talk shows out of its daytime lineup. For now, the station has added Fox Sports Radio programming. Some of the brokered programming continues to air during the evening, at least for now. No announcement yet about adding any local sports programming.
LEHIGH VALLEY: ESPN Lehigh Valley now has a third signal in the area, as WBYN 1160, licensed to Lehighton joins WEEX 1230 Easton and WTKZ Allentown 1320. WBYN dumped a Christian format to make the switch last week.
BOISE: The success of Boise State University sports in recent years does not translate well at all to the local sports radio scene, unfortunately. The latest radio ratings for the market again have both KTIK-FM The Ticket and KNFL as the two lowest rated stations in the market. Of those stations with ratings. Technically, they both beat out another local station. KTIK-AM, also a sports station, again failed to show up in this ratings book. Ouch.
Perhaps no media outlet will be impacted by franchise moves as much as WXOS "101 Sports" in St. Louis. The station had finally begun to make a ratings impact in 2015, had was the flagship station for the St. Louis Rams since 2009, which was the year the station went to the sports format.
Now that the Rams are bolting for Los Angeles, it will be interesting to see what happens to WXOS over the next few months. The sports fans in St. Louis are, quite understandably, upset about losing the team. From what my sources in the St. Louis area tell me, the attitude on the sports talk shows and in general is to move on and let go of the NFL.
Since sports radio station ratings are driven by the local teams and what is going on in the sports world, a reduced level of interest in the NFL will show a big impact (or lack of impact) in St. Louis, especially during the Cardinals' off season and before the Blues begin their NHL playoff run.
The Cardinals and the Blues appear to be firmly in place on KMOX, which now has a monopoly on the two remaining local pro teams, and the huge ratings to go along with it. Frankly, losing the Rams, and the anticipated reduction in local interest in the NFL moving forward, could spell doom for WXOS, as well as KFNS 590, which recently returned to a sports format.
Although the Raiders are also moving to L.A., and the Chargers remain a possibility, the San Francisco/Oakland and San Diego sports radio landscapes are much different, and will not suffer nearly as much as St. Louis.
It will be interesting to see whether or not the struggling Los Angeles sports talk stations, KSPN and KLAC, show any noticeable ratings increases over the next couple of months. It remains to be seen how many fans will be excited enough about gaining local NFL teams will increase their sports radio listening. There is also the upcoming demise of KFWB 980 The Beast as a sports talker (due to its pending sale), although the audience that would need to tune elsewhere is not significant.
In Cincinnati, it will be interesting to see how its sports talkers do (or don't) in the next ratings following the Bengals' debacle in the playoff game against Pittsburgh on Jan. 9th. Of course, the ugly ending to the game and the six (at last reports) arrests made by authorities on stadium grounds have nothing to do with sports radio.
Whether or not the fans take to the airwaves to discuss the Bengals, and, shall we say, "follow" the Steelers the rest of the way in the playoffs, remains to be heard. And then there was WLW 700, which was airing a "Big Ben rape warning" during the couple of days leading into the game against the Steelers. (This was making fun of Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who was accused of rape in 2009 and in 2010, although neither case went to trial.)
We'll leave others to debate the issue as to whether or not this was in good taste, especially since a TMZ poll with nearly 50,000 respondents was close to an even split. If the locals continue to think that NFL playoffs are "more than a game" to this level, we'll find out whether or not it translates to a sports talk audience increase or not.
The NFL moves right along with its incredible TV viewership for the just concluded regular season. The national TV ratings for the Fall 2015 "season" (as in TV season - not NFL season) show that the top two overall most viewed shows were Sunday Night Football followed by Thursday Night Football. NCIS was a distant #3.
But there is an even more amazing viewership statistic. The average 22.5 million viewers that SNF received (in the top spot) was actually less than the 26.8 million viewers averaged by both CBS and Fox for the Sunday doubleheader telecasts during the Fall.
As the NBA continues its path to expand globally, the feeling here is that there was a partially missed opportunity this week. The Association had its scheduled regular season matchup in London today (1/14) between Toronto and Orlando. In a nice move, it was aired live on NBA-TV starting at 3:10 PM ET. The pre-game show also included the entire press conference in London with Commissioner Adam Silver, who addressed the plans for more international games.
While we can understand not putting the game on this weekend and trying to compete with NFL Playoffs, the publicity for the national telecast was very limited. The NFL pumped up its three London games in 2015, starting them at 9:30 AM ET and having its live stream of the third of the games, turning a less attractive matchup in to a big audience event.
Yet, the NBA did not publicize this live weekday game, other than on a couple of its other national telecasts. Got to think that east coast sports bars could have had an "early bird special" with the game airing into the 5:00 to 6:00 PM hour.
Reminded me of the MLB opener in 2014 when the games started at 5 AM ET, yet it took a fan reaction to get the subsequent international regular season games shown live on national TV. Also interesting, in this case, that the London matchup featured a Canadian team and a U.S. based team.
MLB is again expanding its international reach, announcing a three year agreement for MLB games to be streamed live to China for the first time, starting this coming season.
Fans in China, Hong Kong, and Macau will be able to view approximately 96 regular season games (roughly four per week) online, including mobile devices. In addition the All-Star Game and World Series will also be included. While announcing this agreement at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Commissioner Rob Manfred and other officials revealed that even more games could be added as soon as this year if and as the demand warrants.
Even with a ton of former MLB players acting as and seeking analyst work, ESPN has decided to keep Jessica Mendoza on its Sunday Night Baseball broadcast crew for the coming 2016 season. In still another SNB change to the booth, Aaron Boone is being moved to the lead analyst role along side play-by-play voice Dan Shulman.
Curt Schilling is back with ESPN, but is being moved to its Monday night games, while John Kruk will most likely be a studio analyst and work at scattered game telecasts.
CHICAGO: Speaking of updating broadcast teams, the White Sox have added 32 year-old play-by-play voice Jason Benetti to their TV booth for the coming season. Benetti, a native of the Chicago area, will handle roughly 81 telecasts, mostly home games, as Ken Harrelson finally reduces his workload. Many White Sox fans see this as a huge blessing, since the telecasts will finally have a professional play-by-play voice, instead of incessant babbling and opinions instead of what is happening in the game. Steve Stone will continue as analyst, getting to do his true calling with Benetti, although he will still be stymied by Harrelson for half of the games.
Across town, longtime Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes has, once again, been named Illinois Sportscaster of the Year for 2015. He has already earned is Award in 1996, 1999, 2006, 2007, and 2009. Hughes will begin his 21st season in the Cubs booth in March, with the games now airing on WSCR 670 for the first time.
TRENTON: WNJE 920 continues to move toward all sports, taking out political and syndicated news talk shows out of its daytime lineup. For now, the station has added Fox Sports Radio programming. Some of the brokered programming continues to air during the evening, at least for now. No announcement yet about adding any local sports programming.
LEHIGH VALLEY: ESPN Lehigh Valley now has a third signal in the area, as WBYN 1160, licensed to Lehighton joins WEEX 1230 Easton and WTKZ Allentown 1320. WBYN dumped a Christian format to make the switch last week.
BOISE: The success of Boise State University sports in recent years does not translate well at all to the local sports radio scene, unfortunately. The latest radio ratings for the market again have both KTIK-FM The Ticket and KNFL as the two lowest rated stations in the market. Of those stations with ratings. Technically, they both beat out another local station. KTIK-AM, also a sports station, again failed to show up in this ratings book. Ouch.
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