As 98.5 The Sports Hub celebrates their 15th anniversary, many of the shows have talked about what they believe are the formulas that have led the station to being one of the most successful in the sports radio format. As Mike Felger and Tony Massarotti discussed the history of the station during Felger & Mazz Tuesday, they looked at the remarkable consistency of the station as it relates to both employees and ratings.
Of course, things could have been very different for The Sports Hub back in 2017. That is when Audacy had to make a choice to keep either 98.5 or WEEI. They chose WEEI and The Sports Hub ended up with Beasley Media Group.
“For us to be surrounded by all the people we’ve been surrounded by here, me to be surrounded by you guys, incredibly fortunate, incredibly lucky,” Felger said. “Think about if they had made the other choice, you know? So, how lucky we are, and I know there’s a lot of challenges in the radio business and the Beasley’s and everybody else in radio is facing a lot of challenges. I’m not telling you it’s perfect or peaches and cream, but we should all consider ourselves extremely lucky that we landed with the Beasley’s and Mary Menna and the group that we did.”
The hosts talked about the limited number of people that have turned over in management and most of it was due to the switch from one company to another, otherwise it has been a lot of the same people throughout the station’s history. “That continuity is just incredible,” Felger said. “And what also is incredible, I very rarely, and we very rarely, almost never mention the ratings, but since it’s our 15 year [anniversary], I’ll just do it quickly.
“The consistency of the ratings of this station are, I’ve got to assume unheard of and unprecedented, and I’ll just give you our show because I track it.”
Felger pulls out some papers and says, “This is every monthly and quarterly rating. I started in January of 2010. We came on in August of 2009. Since January 2010, I’ve logged every single monthly and quarterly rating book.
“The last time we here in the afternoon lost a quarter, lost a ratings book was 2012. The spring of 2012. EEI finished second. We finished third. So, we have won every quarter since the summer of 2012, that’s 47 consecutive ratings periods. And not just winning, beating EEI, number one. We’ve been number one for 47 consecutive quarters. If you want to break that down by months, it’s basically 119 months. We’ve been number one, not just beating EEI, but we’ve been number one in the market for 118 of the last 119 months.”
Later, Felger would add, “So that is, like I said, that’s the Felger & Mazz story. I’m sure the other shows can tell you something pretty damn similar. And the station can tell you something pretty damn similar. And so that’s something to be proud of. Like that doesn’t happen in radio like that. A lot of shows can have a flash. A lot of shows can come on and have a run, but to grind it out and keep it together for that amount of time, that takes something, that’s a skill in and of itself. Cause a lot of shows burn themselves out, blow up their spot. Just can’t keep their crap together. Can’t keep the relationships together. That takes a whole different skill in and of itself. And so that’s something to be proud of here at the station too.”
