People love rooting for David vs. Goliath. Well, that’s what they claim, at least, but rarely does the data back that up. The latest example of this is March Madness, and it’s a lesson for news/talk radio hosts as well.
Despite big brands winning in historic fashion, the ratings not only weren’t impacted negatively without a Cinderella, but they went up. This week, the Sweet 16 is made up entirely of teams from power conferences, a first since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
But for those who insist they are not watching without the No. 15 seed crashing brackets all over the country, the opposite has happened. The first weekend of March Madness was the most viewed weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament since 1993. The figures released Tuesday morning showed that by combining the full viewership between TNT Sports and CBS Sports, the average audience reached 9.4 million viewers throughout the second round of the tournament.
What’s the lesson for the news/talk radio industry?
The niche topics — AKA, the underdogs — are (generally speaking) dead.
We are in a world where we can consume more news than ever before, but the massive amount of top content being produced daily covers a couple of big topics that your audience likely cares about and wants your opinion and analysis on.
Sports fans want to watch the stars. In March Madness, they want to see Duke win, even if it’s because they love to hate Duke. The same applies to the Yankees and Dodgers in Major League Baseball, who met in the World Series this past season. What happened? Average viewership for the five-game series was up 67% on last year’s World Series. The 2024 postseason averaged 7.49 million viewers on Fox and FS1, up 42% over last season.
In news/talk radio, there will be great interest in the big national news story around President Trump, and this administration. In your market, there might be one or two stories of great local interest per day, and that’s it.
There’s very little else that’s going to move the needle dramatically.
The hardest part of the job today is not finding as many stories as possible, it’s creating unique, creative, thoughtful content around the top couple of stories that your audience cares about. Then, it’s finding strong guests, different angles, and unique callers/texters/social media followers, who can be additive to the show for the listener.
Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t entertain your audience with breaking news coming from your own sources or have that hot topic that your audience knows is of interest to you, and they’re “with you” along for the ride. Think about Rush Limbaugh, his fascination with technology, and his love for Apple (the company, not the fruit). It was endearing, and he picked his spots wisely.
Those are still great live radio moments, but they obviously can’t dominate the show.
In cable news, Fox News is showering its audience with two or three Trump-themed topics per day that drive their audience into his arms, while MSNBC is doing the opposite. The strategy is, more or less, the same, from very different ideological perspectives. New hosts give new opinions, and new shows bring on new guests, but the themes are steady.
This strategy isn’t necessarily new, but it’s even more evident now, because the consumer has more media choices than ever before. As a result, it’s up to you to keep them entertained on the topics that you know move the needle and that they care about. Don’t deny reality. Accept it, and work your hardest to be creative and win.
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Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the morning show host and program director for KCMO in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. Pete was also the sports and news director for Omni Media Group at K-1O1/Z-92 in Woodward, Oklahoma. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on Twitter @PeteMundo.
