Loyalty. Not a word you hear thrown around a lot in the media business these days. The media business tends to lean more towards an ‘every man for themselves’ type of environment. So, when a story pops up like it did with Jason Puckett and Jim Moore out in Seattle, and you see some real loyalty in this industry, I feel like it needs to be highlighted.
Now, I don’t know Jason Puckett from Kirby Puckett, but there won’t be anybody I’ll be rooting harder for than him.
If you haven’t been keeping up with your sports media news through Barrett Sports Media, and shame on you if that is the case, there was a bit of a shakeup at iHeartMedia’s KJR in Seattle recently.
The quick overview is that Puckett had been hosting a show with media veteran Jim Moore. Puckett’s contract was up, and he had been in negotiations with iHeart. At some point they decided he should take time off the show, and he expected it to be a few days. It turned out to be much longer, but in the end, he got the deal he had wanted and was ready to sign the dotted line and move forward.
Then, a few hours after receiving his agreement, Puckett was told his partner, Jim Moore, had been laid off in yet another round of iHeartMedia layoffs. “A corporate decision,” it was said.
If that were the end of the story I could go on and on about how this is why people have a difficult time trusting “Big Media.” It’s one thing to have layoffs or go bankrupt, at least at some point you have to be honest about those things, because they have to actually happen publicly. But the way some things are handled with certain companies is just complete garbage sometimes.
In the end, iHeartMedia had played games with the wrong person. You see, Jason Puckett has a conscience, and he was going to have trouble sleeping at night with the thought that even one person might think he got his new deal on the back of his partner getting fired. So, he walked.
Working without a contract since January, negotiating his deal, mutually agreeing for him to step back from the show while they finish up, then getting the deal he was happy with only to get the rug pulled out from under him. It’s clearly been a difficult first few months of the year for Jason Puckett.
Now, here is why I’ll be rooting for him. Puckett launched a new website, PuckSports.com, and he made the decision he would go out on his own. Do his own thing. Reading between the lines, Jim Moore will join him for some part of it, but sounds like he might have to wait a bit.
Here is the part I absolutely love. In an introductory post on his new YouTube page, Puckett gave his side of the story of what happened and talked about what he has planned for the short and long-term. He started to thank many people who have helped him out and named off several advertisers whom he said didn’t hesitate to help support his new venture.
To all of the talent I have worked with over my career – YOU SEE!?!? This is what I was always telling you. Relationships matter more than you will ever know. Puckett said something that really hit me in his video, which was that the sponsors said their loyalty was to him, not the station.
It’s 2024, if you are talent and you are not working your rear end off to build relationships with your listeners and your sponsors, you are out of your mind. And, most likely, at some point will be out of a job.
Jason Puckett cannot walk away from his job, from supporting his family, if he doesn’t have strong connections with the business owners who have supported him. And, obviously, when you hear ‘Puck’ talk about how quickly the sponsors gave him their support, you know he did a great job building relationships and putting effort into promoting his partnerships.
I hope Jason Puckett kills it with his new venture and that his audience finds him quickly and helps him build a loyal community who support him and those that support his content. I hope his current advertisers tell other businesses about what a great job he does for them so he can get even more support and that Jason ends up doing much better in every way possible than had he taken that contract offer.
Cheers, Jason, you are a good man. Best of luck to you as you go out on your own.
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The Best Thing I Heard This Week
As they say, “It’s hard to say goodbye.” Well, Ronnie Lane and Tom Krasniqi did just that this week when their show, Ronnie & TKras, came to an end on Wednesday after nearly a decade together on WDAE in Tampa.
Neither is retiring or leaving, Lane decided to pull back a bit and not have the daily grind of a three-hour show. Instead, he will host the pre, pre-game show for Rays baseball in addition to continuing the work he does for the station in covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Krasniqi is staying in afternoon drive with producer Chris Mathis for a new show, The Drive.
It’s not that often that a show gets a proper goodbye, but this one did. Kudos to Mathis as the final show had humorous voicework, surprise guests, produced messages from celebrities, co-workers and more. It also had raw emotion. You can tell these two enjoyed working together and are both excited for what is next.
You can listen to the final episode of Ronnie & TKras by clicking here.
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In Case You Missed It
Social media is hard to keep up with. I don’t mean the content, I mean the algorithms, the rules, the monetization and those sorts of things. I was taken back a bit a couple of months ago when Jim Rome announced he would take the video stream of his CBS Sports Radio show off of CBS Sports Network, and would soon be airing the video feed on X. There are other big name hosts in other genres who have also made deals with X. This is something to keep an eye on as the platform formerly known as Twitter starts to compete more with YouTube than Facebook.
Demetri Ravanos talked about this subject in his column last Tuesday, Jim Rome is More Valuable to X Than X is to Jim Rome. Demetri gives a few thoughts on why the move makes a lot more sense than I first thought.
You can read the column by clicking here.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
