While I do not pretend to believe that Nielsen ratings can tell the full story of a radio brand’s reach or value in 2023, I know they still matter. Sellers hit the streets with the numbers, talent get paid bonuses off of the numbers, and corporate types use the numbers to evaluate the overall health of the format in the market.
A station’s numbers matter to all of those groups, but so do the numbers next to the names of competing stations in the market. It is the best way to recognize opportunity in the market.
There is a long list of stations and companies in Detroit that have looked at 97.1 The Ticket, seen its dominant performance in the ratings and thought “there is room for another sports station in town.” The Fan, Detroit Sports 105.1, The Roar, they are all now part of that big radio dial in the sky.
I am still not convinced that Detroit is a market capable of supporting only one sports radio station. I just don’t think there has been a competitor that has delivered a product compelling enough to get people to change habits they have been indulging for 23 years, since The Ticket launched on 1270 AM.
So what does a company and a cluster leader need to think about if they are in a situation like the one in Detroit? It isn’t the only market where a single sports radio station dominates the ratings. Ratings for 97.1 The Fan in Columbus are just as strong as are ratings for 107.5 The Fan in Indianapolis.
First, let’s define what it is I am talking about. Plenty of markets we think of as “single station markets” do have some kind of competitor. It’s easy to turn on a weak AM stick and throw network syndication on, but that isn’t really competition. Even a single local show in drive time on a station that carries the full ESPN or FOX Sports Radio lineup the rest of the day isn’t really playing the same ballgame.
To make a meaningful impact on the ratings of a dominant local sports radio brand, you need to live where the fans do and regularly host and lead conversations in which they want to participate. ESPN [insert city here] can’t really accomplish that with a single local day part. We can agree then that step one should be devote yourself to local programming in the two drive times at the very least.
It goes without saying that the biggest commitment you have to make when launching a competing sports station is finding talented people. If your goal is to take down or even cut into a ratings monster in a meaningful way, you have to be committed to bringing in the best programmer, hosts and producers to execute your vision. Half-assed investment will just result in whole-assed failure.
Next, you have to truly understand what the heritage brand does and who it is talking to. Not only does that help you understand why it succeeds, it will also help you see where there are holes.
Everything The Ticket in Detroit does, it does well. The hosts are engaging, moving between thoughtful critiques and whimsical conversations with ease. The station’s holes (at lease from my point of view) are in who the hosts are, not what they do.
In the station’s four full-time day parts, there are nine hosts. One of them is Black. One of them is a woman. One of them is a former player for a local team. Seems like there is a lot of opportunity there for a competitor to plant their flag in not being “the old white guy station.”
Whether the critique is fair or not is irrelevant. We’re in the branding business and in competition, you aren’t just thinking about how to brand yourself, but how to brand the competition as well. “Too white” and “too old” are much cooler ways of telling the competition is uncool.
The other thing I see when I look at The Ticket is that the station is home to the Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings. Having all of the games is undeniably a strength in sports radio, but it isn’t impossible to turn that strength into a weakness.
People that want to consume play-by-play on the radio are going to turn that station on, but the majority of a station’s airtime is taken up by things that aren’t play-by-play. If I were a competitor coming into Detroit, I would constantly be messaging that The Ticket is compromised by its business relationships with the teams in town. Again, it doesn’t matter if it’s fair (remember, The Ticket famously did not compromise for the Lions), it’s just messaging.
Now, I want to make this clear. I have tremendous respect for The Ticket, PD Jimmy Powers, and the talent lineup. It is one of my favorite stations in America. I am merely using that brand as my example because of their dominance and market situation.
Another brand, PD and talent collection I like a lot is in Birmingham. JOX 94.5 is the station that made me seriously consider sports radio when I was in college. Ryan Haney and Cole Cubelic are two of my favorite people in this business, but if I am launching a competitor to that station, I am constantly telling the audience that JOX is boring. Cole and his partner Greg McElroy do serious, nuanced football conversation in the morning. Paul Finebaum is Paul Finebaum. I don’t think they are boring. Most of the market doesn’t think they are boring, but there are plenty of casual fans that want to hear a host that is a message board come to life. I would make them my target.
When the numbers drop, evaluations start. No one needs to tell any of us reading this that the realities of radio are shifting. In a world where Spotify, Apple and others have made music radio more of a nuisance than a commodity, talk radio becomes a more worthwhile investment every day.
My belief in sports talk radio will never waiver. Our political divide is so deep that talk radio is less about talent and topics and more about tribalism. A local show is no more valuable than Charlie Kirk if all either of them are trying to do is prove that no one deserves a pat on the head from Donald Trump more than them. Sports is different. If you’re talking about when Max Sherzer will be available for the Rangers and you are anywhere other than Dallas or Baltimore, you are almost certainly wasting your listeners’ time. Local identity is everything in our format.
Single-station sports radio markets will become more and more of a rarity. There is room for competition. Whether or not the new kids on the block are around long enough to go from hunter to hunted will largely depend on what they have to offer, but how they start matters and nothing guarantees a stronger start than identifying and filling the holes in your competition’s product.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
