David Samson believes baseball has outgrown the radio. The former Miami Marlins president says changing listening habits have made the medium unnecessary for MLB.
What We Know: Samson made the remarks on his program, Nothing Personal with David Samson. Baseball and radio share more than a century of history. In fact, Harold Arlin called the first MLB radio broadcast on Pittsburgh’s KDKA on August 5, 1921. Since then, radio has served as the game’s daily companion for generations of fans. However, with adaptions in technology over generations, radio has seen dramatic decreases is usage but still commands significance among the population. Samson believes that’s no longer the case, and the only reason baseball remains on radio is because the older generations only desire it.
What They Said: (All quotes via Nothing Personal with David Samson):
David Samson says baseball no longer needs to be on the radio: “The difference between TV and radio is disappearing before our very eyes. We don’t need baseball on radio anymore. The only reason we have baseball on radio is so people can feel better about what baseball means to them.”
David Samson believes that radio is going away: “Here’s the thing about radio today. It’s totally changed. There’s no money in radio. If you’re on AM radio right now, well, let’s just say that you ought to be simulcasting. You ought to be on YouTube. You ought to be a podcast because money in AM radio has pretty much disappeared.”
David Samson on how MLB teams attempt to profit their radio product: “What teams do is they buy time on their radio stations. Sometimes they own their radio stations, not a good business. They buy a block of time, and then they go out and sell ads. They literally either outsource it to a company, or they have a sales force themselves trying to sell radio ads. Plus, they produce their own radio, and guess what? It’s not very profitable. It’s like a nightmare.”
David Samson says baseball is only on the radio for old people: “Baseball and radio goes together like peanut butter and jelly. It goes together like cookies and cream. You require to have baseball and radio because everybody hasn’t died yet who grew up listening to baseball on the radio. But guess what? That generation is going to die at some point. Then you will have people who are older, who they grew up on their device, listening through the internet, listening to the audio of the video.”
David Samson believes radio will shift away and become extinct: ” We all live by the clock that is kernels of sand through an hourglass. So, radio will go the way of Kodak and Blockbuster. It doesn’t mean the voices will go away. The voices will find a different way to get into your brain because you have a different way of engaging with content.”
What Remains Unclear: While some MLB clubs have previously moved away from a tv to radio simulcast, no current MLB team has a setup like that. It remains to be seen how the upcoming labor strike between MLB and the players union could affect budgets for separate television and radio play by play tandems.
What It Means: Ultimately, Samson views radio’s decline as generational. He believes younger fans already follow games on their devices, often through the audio of video streams. Similarly, he compared radio’s path to Kodak and Blockbuster. Still, he expects the broadcasters’ voices to survive on new platforms if not on the radio.
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