It’s sports radio ratings time again. When you see some of the results, you can’t help but look at some of the figures with some bewilderment.
“Why isn’t this station performing better?”
“That city just isn’t a sports radio town.”
“Can you believe how dominant that station is over its competitor?”
Sure, on the surface, it can look like there are some flat-out ass-kickings in our industry. And in some cases, that’s true.
But in others, you have to take some items into consideration. Not every battle is equal, and frankly, no, not every battle is winnable.
I’m not going to go market by market and opine on who has a realistic chance to either be toppled or be the one doing the toppling, but I do think it’s important to recognize the challenges some underdogs face in ratings wars.
Sports radio isn’t the NFL, where the appeal is the complete parity and “anyone can beat anyone at any given time” mantra. It’s college football, where gigantic disparities between brands reign supreme. Very rarely will you find an apples-to-apples resources battle. Whether it be revenue, signal strength, brand recognition, longevity, play-by-play rights, an established host, or whatever the case may be, I don’t know that I can think of a sports radio ratings battle that sees a true equal fight.
There are so many variables that come into play in answering the question. But even if the battle isn’t winnable, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth fighting.
Maybe this is just a hot-button topic for me, personally. I started my radio career working on a 3,000-watt country station. It’s main competitor was a 50,000-watt signal, that previously featured one of the best air-talents in America — regardless of market size — in afternoon drive. When the ratings would come out, we’d get pulverized, with the other station pulling in some of the highest shares, not just in the format, but in the country. And it sucked. Because on the surface, we were getting our clocks cleaned. Then, when you parsed through the data, you would realize that not only were we competitive inside the market, but inside the target demo, too.
But, sometimes, the juggernaut status shows some brands — and it’s especially true in sports radio — just have too many inherent advantages to overcome.
And that’s when you shift your definition of success. Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying here. Nobody that’s killing it in the Nielsen game has ever thought “we need to change how we define success”. I don’t know that I’d go as far as to call it a loser’s strategy, but when you’re pouring your heart and soul into a brand, sometimes you have to find a way to smile just a little bit and be content when your head hits the pillow at night.
Finding that silver lining can be an important difference between professional fulfillment and resentment.
How can you redefine success? Well, revenue is one easy way. And a focus that your bosses will always appreciate. I’m reminded — more often than I wish I was, frankly — how some radio hosts don’t value the idea that they need to produce revenue as much as they need to produce ratings. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and become solely focused on growing a massive audience. And it’s a logical thought process: I get a bunch of people to listen to me, and then sales makes a killing selling my huge audience. And if it were only that easy, you wouldn’t see corporate bloodbaths a few times each year. But here we sit.
Another way to redefine success is to look at innovation. The industry is constantly changing, shifting, and evolving. Keep an eye on what your competitor isn’t doing. Where can you beat them? Where are they weak? Do they lack a digital focus? Do they do a poor job of posting on-demand audio? Are they producing video simulcasts of their shows? If you spot a weakness, exploit it. Dive into beating them in that area.
I know how disheartening it can be to see a headline that features your competitor’s brand and “continues dominance” right beside it, while you sit in the shadows. But accepting that not every fight is a fair one is the first step into figuring out how you can create small victories that translate to other areas.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
