Is Dan Patrick right? The veteran sports talk host and former ESPN SportsCenter anchor sat down for an expansive hour-long interview with Pardon My Take while on-site for the American Century Championship at Lake Tahoe. Patrick discussed his upcoming retirement from traditional sports talk radio, what his plans are for retirement, and how he had the opportunity to be the host of both The Price Is Right and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Patrick decided to turn down both opportunities, which is debatable if that was the right call or not.
However, Dan Patrick’s comments about how terrestrial radio ratings no longer matter in the current radio industry struck a nerve with me. While Patrick stated he still doesn’t understand how the Nielsen ratings system works, what he does know is that the metric means nothing when there are other metrics that advertisers care more about. If this is true, why aren’t more people who run radio stations listening?
Dan Patrick Is a Trusted Voice
There are few talents larger than Dan Patrick in the spoken word space of the radio industry. He consistently ranks among the top five in nearly every annual ranking and is considered one of the more respected voices in the industry.
While he may be on his last contract with FOX Sports Radio and Premiere Radio Networks, Patrick is investing in the future of broadcasting, partnering with Full Sail University in Orlando to build the Dan Patrick School of Broadcasting. He’s been honored twice by the National Association of Broadcasters with the Marconi Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year and was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame in 2020.
Dan Patrick’s resume speaks volumes for itself, and his words carry impact.
“I’ve been with terrestrial radio all my life,” said Patrick on Pardon My Take. “You keep thinking about those ratings, those ratings. Now, nobody cares about that. They care about social media, what went viral, and the number of people watching clips.”
Patrick continued to talk about how he still is confused by why people in radio still hold ratings in high regard.
“I don’t like being beholden to that, because you have a lot of people who are in radio who are your bosses who haven’t done radio,” said Patrick to Pardon My Take. “It’s unfair sometimes what they project—what you should be doing, or why aren’t you doing, or why didn’t you ask. When you’re in the chair, and there are live bullets, it’s just different.”
Trusting in a Broken and Flawed System
The simple fact is, for terrestrial radio stations, Nielsen ratings measurement is not a true representation of accuracy, nor exact. The flaws and gaps in the reporting collection continue to widen no matter how much they “try” to improve the system.
In PPM markets, people were asked to always wear a pager-like device during the day only to dock the hardware at night to report the data back. Who wants to wear a pager anymore? Plus, more people are beginning to listen to radio on phones, devices, and sometimes while wearing headphones, which blocks the PPM tone from reaching the pager on your belt.
Then they tried to inflate listening via headphones or earbuds, then inflate listening by online stream consumption. The latest tactic is now just needing three minutes per quarter-hour instead of five to count for measurement. Just think of that—you only need to be listening to 20% of a single quarter-hour to get credit for the other 80% of it.
Imagine if I only wrote the first paragraph and another sentence of this column but got full credit from Barrett Media headquarters for a job well done. Does that make sense? Is that fair?
Does this seem like a bona fide way to tell a radio station what their report card is, when the system itself is putting Band-Aids on a continuously open wound?
Radio Can Think Differently With Different, Impactful Metrics
Good Karma Brands CEO Craig Karmazin decided to cancel his company’s subscription as of January 1st of last year. He said the reason why was to focus on other measurements such as podcast downloads to gauge their reach. He called the Nielsen ratings system one that “doesn’t reflect the entire listening audience and viewing audience across all the different ways to consume media now.”
Podcast downloads, website traffic, subscribers, average listening time, listens, social media impressions, engagement, likes, shares, listener retention rate, ad impressions, attrition rate, reviews, and conversions are just some of the key performance indicators you can use to tell your radio station’s story and generate revenue.
Every day, more and more radio stations are being consumed not on the radio, but through streaming, podcasts, time-shifted listening, reels, social, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook (Meta), among other methods of distribution. There’s no number of pagers that can tell the complete story of how a radio station is performing.
So, why aren’t more radio companies saving the money they currently invest in Nielsen and reinvesting that money into more technology that builds up metrics that truly matter for the future?
Or maybe reinvest what you’re currently spending on Nielsen into something that can bring in added opportunity to make money: people.
Radio has never been a round-peg, round-hole type of industry. Nothing has been 100% perfect for as long as the medium has existed. The system to measure success has been, is, and always will be as flawed as the industry it serves. What I don’t understand is: why continue to invest in something lacking trust for accuracy when it doesn’t represent the total picture?
Talent Beg for Help, Will Management Listen?
I spoke this week with an anonymous radio talent who currently works in a top-ten market and shared his feelings about the current ratings system.
“I want to say this while our numbers are really good, so it’s not bitterness or anything like that,” said the anonymous talent. “The people in charge and who are responsible for this ratings system—it’s a bunch of horses**t. It’s a disservice. It’s wrong. It is an injustice to people in this business who don’t get the numbers that they deserve, and that have lost jobs because of this random horses**t lottery system.”
Why is it that talent seem to be the ones speaking out, but the ones cutting checks who continue to feed the system are nowhere to be heard?
I ask again: is Dan Patrick right?
After over 45 years in the radio industry, even one of the greatest voices in the sports radio format doesn’t believe in the system that decides the fate of radio talent all over the country.
If Dan Patrick can become one of the greatest storytellers in the format, it’s time for the format to begin telling its own story better.
By itself, and for the sake of its future.
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John Mamola is the sports editor and columnist for Barrett Media. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. Honored to be a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Media and honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL). Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
