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Corey Dillon Exits Morning Show Producer And Middays At 93Q Houston

BMM Staff
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Corey Dillon Exits Morning Show Producer And Middays At 93Q Houston

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Corey Dillon has left his position as the morning show producer and midday host at Radio One Country 93Q Houston, TX, after three and a half years with the station.

Mason Pradt is now handling middays. Pradt joined the station in 2014, initially working in promotions until 2019. Before this role, he served as midday host on the former sister station Country Legends 97.1 and hosted nights on 93Q.

Dillon became a midday host at 93Q in May 2021 and took on morning show duties in May 2023. Before joining 93Q, Dillon hosted nights at Country 100.3 The Bull, Houston, from 2017-18.

There is no word on plans for a new morning show producer.

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ESPN Day One Wild Card Viewership Up 15% Over Last Year

BSM Staff
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ESPN Day One Wild Card Viewership Up 15% Over Last Year

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

ESPN reports that viewership for day one of the 2024 MLB Wild Card Series on their platforms was up 15 percent from last year, according to Nielsen. The four games averaged 2,503,000 viewers and peaked with 6,710,000 viewers across platforms at 5:30 p.m. ET when three games were in play.

The Detroit Tigers victory over the Houston Astros on ABC 3,187,000 viewers, up 44 percent from ABC’s Game One last season. It was the most-watched MLB Wild Card Series Game ever on ABC. 

In addition, ESPN’s two-game viewership average was up 17 percent from last year against the Vice President debate. The two games averaged 2,749,000 viewers. 

ESPN platforms carry all of the Wild Card round games and had four games on Tuesday as well. Only one series will need a third game as the Padres, Royals and Tigers all swept the first two games.

The New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers will play a Game 3 today at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN

810 WHB in Kansas City Celebrates 25 Years

BSM Staff
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810 WHB in Kansas City Celebrates 25 Years

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This week marks 25 years since Union Broadcasting launched Sports Radio 810 WHB in Kansas City. Sports programming had been airing on a daytime-only station, but on October 1, 1999, it moved over to a 50,000 station. A local ownership group comprised of radio executives, former area athletes and others were the ones who put it all together and a couple of them were charged with running the operation. Chad Boeger would serve as President and handle the programming side and Sandy Cohen would be Vice President and Director of Sales. 25 years later, that is still the case.

Cohen had been the General Sales Manager for 101 The Fox, a classic rock station and the home of the Kansas City Chiefs. He said after leaving the station, Boeger, who had the daytime sports station, contacted him and told him about something that was in the works. Cohen decided he wanted to be involved in running the sales department and also wanted to be involved with the ownership team when he heard about the move they would be making to the new signal.

“I wanted to join and help build something special,” Cohen said.

Cohen said it has been some of the greatest and most challenging times of his life in the 25 years and said, “There have been lots of bumps in the road and pivots and boulders that we’ve had to drive around instead of driving through, because the path we thought that was going to be clear was unclear.”

The station was the lone sports station in the market for five years which became a point of transition when some of their talent left for what they thought were greener pastures. In the end Cohen said the competition, “made us better.” There has been a competitor in the market ever since and just recently the competition flipped to the FM dial.

Union Broadcasting had a celebration this week with their current staff, old teammates, investors, clients, fans and more. When asked about what people talked about that night, Cohen said, “I think all of us appreciate what we went through, but none of us thought we would be looking back 25 years later on everything that we accomplished, with very limited funds in an environment where people in the beginning really didn’t take us seriously.”

These days markets like Kansas City are dominated by the larger radio groups. Cohen said Union Broadcasting’s strategy to compete from the business side has been, “relationship building and problem solving, constantly calling on local businesses and trying to help people sell more of their products or solve a problem and putting programs together that work.”

On the content side he said, “You’ve got to be where everybody wants you to be with the best source of entertainment possible. And now we have a really nice mix of on-air hosts who’ve been with us for 20 to 25 years, but then we also have several people who’ve only been with us less than five years.”

Morning host Steven St. John has been with the station the longest, joining prior to the flip to WHB after previously being a caller to the station and then hosting a weekly boxing show. Afternoon host Soren Petro started at the station in the early 2000’s.

Cohen said his partnership with Boeger has been like a good marriage through the years. “There’s give and take, and you appreciate what their strengths are, and you respect differences, and you keep going. I trust that he knows how to put great content on the air and guide people to be entertaining. And he’s also a great promotions mind. And then, obviously he trusts me to run the business and the sales side, and it’s been great.”

Reflecting back, Cohen said, “25 years ago, and even maybe 15 to 20 years ago, it was a lot simpler world. We thought we were really busy, but we weren’t juggling nearly the number of responsibilities that we have now to solve problems on the business side. But as I look back on it, it’s pretty amazing the overall impact that our locally owned and operated sports media group has made on the city.

“You see it in the way that people respond when they come to your 25-year celebration, or how people respond to contests on social media, or they just send an email to me. So, I guess looking back on everything, there’s definitely a sense of satisfaction. We’ve done a great job providing the best sports content and solving business problems, and I’m proud of that. But at the same time, it’s only as good as our last breathing moment, so we keep looking ahead instead of looking too far back into the past and patting ourselves on the back too hard.”

The other side of things is how the landscape of Kansas City sports has changed since the station hit the airwaves. As Cohen described, “There was basically not much going on from a championship standpoint until the Royals caught fire the back half of their season in ’14 and went all the way to the World Series to lose and then obviously come back and won the next year. And then you get Mahomes in 2018 and then in ’19 we win our first Super Bowl of now three recent Super Bowl wins. So, I tell everyone to really appreciate and enjoy the period that we’re in that basically started in 2014 and here we are 10 years later with all of these pinnacles of sports that we’ve reached in baseball and football and soccer and with Kansas and all three area schools for that matter too. We’re so fortunate to have the sports that we have going on here and each one of us knows that, we’re just trying to enjoy it as much as possible.”

WWE NXT Draws 895,000 Viewers for Debut on The CW, Largest the Show Has Seen Since October 2023

BSM Staff
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WWE NXT Draws 895,000 Viewers for Debut on The CW, Largest the Show Has Seen Since October 2023

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

WWE NXT had its broadcast television debut on The CW Network this week and delivered the largest audience for the weekly show since October 2023, with 895,000 total viewers, up 44% compared to last week’s episode on cable TV. The premiere peaked at 965,000 total viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET and was the No. 1 telecast on The CW this year among adults 25-54 and adults 18-49.

The episode saw Trick Williams regain the NXT Championship and featured guest appearances by WWE Superstars CM Punk, Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill. The episode fueled triple digit increases compared to The CW’s Tuesday primetime season average, up 143% in total viewers versus the previous week.

In November 2023, The CW Network and WWE announced a five-year agreement to bring NXT wrestling to broadcast television for the first time ever. As the exclusive home of NXT, The CW will air 52 events per year. Launched by WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, NXT has aired weekly since 2012 and features young wrestling talent.

Nearly 90 percent of the participants in last year’s WrestleMania were developed under the NXT banner, which is led by WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels.

Meet The Leaders: Sam Pines, Good Karma Brands

Demetri Ravanos
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Meet The Leaders: Sam Pines, Good Karma Brands

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Good Karma Brands is one of the most unique companies in the radio space. The company was focused almost exclusively on local sports brands for years. That changed last year with an expansion to its agreement with ESPN Radio.

Sam Pines has been with the company since 2000. In that time, he has led the company’s properties in Madison, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles. Most recently, he added leadership responsibilities at ESPN Radio and Podcasts.

In the latest conversation for our Meet the Leaders series presented by Point-to-Point Marketing, Sam and I talk about how the company has defined its own approach to measuring audience impact, how the company views its relationships with its play-by-play properties, and why cheeseburgers matter so much to the way they work with advertisers. 

You’ll see the phrase “fans, partners and teammates” a lot in this interview. It’s the prism through which the company sees everything and measures its success. Enjoy!

Demetri Ravanos: How does GKB see itself? As the partnership with ESPN Radio expands, does that make you one of the big boys in the radio business or are you still small enough to move quickly on good ideas?

Sam Pines: I guess I would go a couple ways with that. We see ourselves as a best-in-class operator of world class brands, obviously ESPN being a big one of those. I think if I had answered this a year and a half or two years ago, I would have said “best in class local operator of world class brands.”  

The idea of how we see ourselves is really in focusing on our fans, partners and teammates. Those are the three that have mattered, whether we’re in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where we still are in operating or the ESPN Radio Network, which operates in every Beaver Dam and every big market. But the fundamentals and what we’ve done in the past are still there and hopefully stronger than ever.

DR: We have talked about your LinkedIn presence and direct communication with the GKB team before. Why do you think the ‘Time to Win’ columns you write strike a chord with your team and not get dismissed as just more corporate speak?

SP: First, I think it’s really important to mention that I’m not a good writer, and that is really big. It’s really because of teamwork, which is one of our core values, that, that has happened. 

The quick story is there was a moment in time where I was managing Cleveland and Milwaukee. That was eight or nine years ago now. The Milwaukee sales manager at the time was Dan Carlson, and I would send a note every Monday morning. That’s really where ‘Time to Win’ came from – in that note, there’d be some kind of tip. So, as I stopped managing Milwaukee, he had asked for that to continue. 

Dan and Debbie Brown, who’s one of our EVPs, really kind of championed it to the rest of the company. That’s when I had to start watching my grammar and asking other people to read it. Was I using the right “to/too/two” or whatever other mistakes that I generally make? So then during COVID, a couple of teammates had me start putting them on LinkedIn. 

So, I think after doing this for 24 years, there’s thoughts in my head that, I can speak, but it’s really been a team effort to get it there. And hopefully it’s coming from a genuine voice, which is mine, and that it’s not corporate speak.  

I think anyone who knows me well, probably knows there’s not a lot of corporate speak in me. When I think of corporate speak, and this is the early years of Barrett Sports Media, Jason wrote an article once saying that we had “brass balls” for doing ‘The Land on Demand’ in Cleveland, which is a subscription service For ESPN Cleveland. I liked that and used it for every communication for like…I might still use it sometimes, so, thanks, Jason!  

But the point is that has always been more of my verbiage. So that’s how I hope it comes across. And it’s always fun when as the team has gotten bigger and I don’t know every teammate’s name, someone will reference something from it in a companywide call. It is nice to know it’s hitting a chord.

DR: We’ve known each other for six years or so now and in that time, I have heard you say, ‘a ratings point has never bought a cheeseburger’ probably two dozen times. 

The whole company is really living that motto now in your new approach to measuring your stations’ impact. What have been some of the benefits of moving away from Nielsen as a company?

SP: For us it goes back to fans, partners and teammates. First of all, I don’t know how much I can say about Nielsen, but I think they are a data point, obviously a data point you have to invest for, and every company should make their own decision.

As we looked at our fans, partners and teammates and focused on those and really had our sales and marketing teams focus on those, we didn’t think Nielsen was the best way for us to do that as a sports marketing company. Having some of the other resources we have now, and knowing that 20% of our audience is streaming in some of our local markets, that means we know that, for every streamer, there’s four other fans, right? Edison’s “Share of Ear” has that report. There are other ways to get a reliable number.

We’ve also invested in our own research teammates and Eric Davidson, who’s one of the other founding partners, heads up our research. That wasn’t a role when we had less teammates.

The ultimate answer for our research is “is our team putting out content that our fans are hearing and supporting our partners?” and that feedback from the partners. Are we helping them reach and exceed their objectives? Those are really key metrics for us.

Look, if Nielsen would like to give their numbers to us for free, we would take it.

DR: What is it we are saying or asking when we talk about radio’s overall share of the audience being down or needing adjustments to the way those ratings are measured? Is there anything wrong with radio’s audience? Is it too old or too small or, this is something Ginny Hubbard pointed out last week, is the problem in how we talk about our audience and the future?

SP: I guess you have to answer, “what is radio?” which I think is interesting. It’s not just audio, right? If you take ESPN LA, we’re the first sports radio station to cross a million social media followers. Karlo Sy Su and the team are amazing.

If you haven’t already, watch our YouTube channel, because the things that are going on there, that’s radio now, right?

I had one of our marketing consultants go into a partner’s business, and he said on their TV was our show, no differently than they would have had First Take up there in the past. With audio, video, and 24-hour consumption, I think we need to be talking at least about the whole consumption, and how fans are really interacting with it throughout the day. And so, probably a little bit of a broken record. But when we look at our partners, what’s the right solution?

DR: Tell me a bit about the state of your play-by-play partnerships. I know it’s an area that has always been important to you, but this year, there has been a lot of evolution. Whether it’s content sharing in New York or the premium product you launched along with the Milwaukee Bucks, it seems like the idea of what play-by-play means to the radio business is evolving.

SP: We treat those play-by-play partners no differently than a big advertising partner, and you know, what is right for the Rams might be different for the Browns or different for the White Sox. We look at what is best for them and best for our fans. Each partnership, it’s not “how do we get the most play-by-play?”, right.

Live sports are pretty important right now. I mean, we see the numbers when it’s on TV. The consumption of live sports, it’s the one thing that you can’t watch back. So, for us, and in LA specifically, being able to add USC football, men’s and women’s basketball and being able to add LA Kings hockey and having all those games and knowing that they’ll be on the ESPN LA app and that can become the home for an LA sports fan, and they’re going to get 500 live sporting events. We think it’s really easy on our fans to consume all that. It’s great for our partners, like USC, the Kings, and all of our team partners prior to that. And hopefully it’s good for our advertising partners.

The Bucks+ partnership, I’m not that close to, but it’s really exciting to be creating unique content with the team. It really is pretty cool.

DR: In terms of what’s best for advertising partners, I want to circle back on the cheeseburger/ratings point idea. What is the state of advertiser relationships in the industry as a whole? There is so much data available to anyone at any time that I wonder how you make sure those partners are basing their decisions and satisfaction on the best information.

SP: We’re in an interesting space where there’s some marketing that’s really easy to measure. You can pixelate it to the smallest detail. This is for audio too. That’s interesting to advertising partners. Then there’s a whole other space of consumption that isn’t as easy to measure.           

We have seen this before. I think it was called “last click attribution” when digital first came out.           

I think the whole funnel is where, if I was looking at the state of the marketer and of the advertiser, there probably needs to be more focus, not just “let me show you how I know it worked.”  There needs to be an entire focus on the funnel and the top of the funnel and bringing the brands to the top of the list of consideration when a fan is in the market for the product. 

So, if you’re only reaching cheeseburger fans when they’re hungry, you’ve missed a bunch of cheeseburger fans when they weren’t hungry to get top of mind with them, that’s when we use the cheeseburger analogy. 

DR: How flexible can radio be in terms of their talent and what they are allowed to do outside of their contract?

SP: It’s a challenge. If I just take LA as an example, that’s multiple teammates. So, when we’re making decisions, it becomes “are we investing in teammates first or are we investing in technology?” You have to invest in both. It’s finding that balance. Those are the decisions as leaders we get to make.           

Where I think [Good Karma Brands Founder and CEO] Craig Karmazin has always been really good is once we make the investment, continue to invest in it and evaluate it to make sure that we’ve made the best decision. If we have to pivot, we have to pivot and be flexible and adaptable to do that reality.

DR: But how flexible can radio be in terms of what opportunities talent can pursue and still allow the station to maintain a unique offering?

SP: We operate in a way where every answer is case by case. I think of John Ireland with the Lakers. We’ve also had teammates on the Browns Radio Network. 

In general, again going to our themes of fans, partners, and teammates, if our teammates can further their careers and grow, we want them to do that. And I would think a combination of a variety of outlets would bring more people than just what they do with us alone. We’ve always had that mentality.  

I think if you look at what Evan Cohen was able to do, from the time he was a local host at ESPN West Palm, he was also doing sports on TV. Then, obviously, he went to Sirius and that means he is generating revenue that we will never see, but if we don’t let him do those things, both ESPN West Palm and he don’t grow, to the points they have.

To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.

‘TNT Sports: The Line’ and Hosts Keiana Martin, Sean Little & Tim Doyle Are Right on the Money for truTV

John Molori
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‘TNT Sports: The Line’ and Hosts Keiana Martin, Sean Little & Tim Doyle Are Right on the Money for truTV

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

I’m not breaking any news by saying that they are a plethora of sports betting, odds making, and wagering shows speckled across the sports media landscape. On Tuesday, October 1, I caught one of these programs in its first season, TNT Sports: The Line on truTV.

The show is wonderfully hosted by Keiana Martin, erstwhile host of MLB Network’s Quick Pitch. She brings style, attitude, enthusiasm, and presence to the proceedings and gets The Line started with an upbeat tone. From Martin’s on-camera intro, the show moved to a quick and slick high-tech video open then back to the host.

Martin recognized that, in sports, this is indeed “the most wonderful time of the year” with MLB and WNBA playoffs, college and pro football, and hockey and basketball not far behind. The effervescent Martin was then joined by betting analysts Sean Little and Tim Doyle.

These days, even traditional, meat and potatoes sportscasters position themselves as betting gurus – mostly to get lucrative endorsement deals with betting companies. On The Line however, Little and Doyle are for real. Doyle, the former Northwestern All-Conference hoopster and NYC playground baller has talked bets on CBS Sports Network and NBABet. He is a rabble-rousing rascal on air.

Little, whose Twitter/X handle is @ChicagoFlow, is Chi-Town cool with wagering media credits from MSG Networks, Action Network, and TNT. To paraphrase Barbara Mandrell, Doyle and Little were betting when betting wasn’t cool.

The triumvirate of Martin, Little, and Doyle drew me in and kept me glued. The show started with a look at the MLB postseason with a nice graphic of the matchup grid. As she did so ably on Quick Pitch, Martin added a strong voice to some video of the upcoming NL Wild Card matchups. Given her solid run on MLB Network, baseball is definitely a strong suit for Martin.

Little talked about the key doubleheader this past Monday between the Braves and Mets, which catapulted both teams into the postseason. He was correct in categorizing it as some of the most exciting baseball we’ve seen in a long time. Little then provided his best bets for the baseball action to come.

There are not a lot of superfluous frills with Little. He just gives you straight dope on the lines, trends, and smart bets. I like his minimalist yet authoritative delivery. If Little is the slow burning embers of The Line, then Doyle is the exploding gas fire. He brings a lot of shtick and showmanship to his monologues.

Doyle picked up where Little left off, talking about the Atlanta Braves chances in Game 1 of their Wild Card series vs. San Diego. He stated, “If you are betting the Braves, I want to hang out with you because you’re a sick, sick individual and I want to be friends with you.”

Doyle is entertaining as heck with his one-liners and jokes, but you can tell that underneath the Crest White Strips smile and Pat Rileyesque slicked back hairdo is a guy who knows the odds and can deliver cash money to viewers.

While Doyle was giving his baseball picks, a graphic showed the MLB teams who have had the best record since the All-Star break. It’s not just about talk with Little and Doyle. Both dudes toss out some heavy facts and numbers. You have to love a guy who still uses props on TV, and Doyle wields his trademark gold hammer whenever possible.

Throughout the show, both Little and Doyle provided some interesting and unique prop bets as well. I really think that the strength of this parlaying pair is how they combine statistical analysis with personality, wagering acumen, and good old-fashioned hunches. It makes for a nice mix of info and entertainment.

Unlike betting discussions on many other shows, Little and Doyle are betting guys who are good on TV, not TV guys trying to show that they are good at betting talk. The knowledge base is apparent. Doyle provided a nice analysis of Manny Machado as a prop bet while a graphic showed how Machado’s season turned around in the second half.

Like any great host, Martin does a nice job of picking her spots to stand down and let Little and Doyle do their things. When the right time comes, however, she knows how to get in and out of segments and lead her analysts down the right road.

Coming back from the first break, the show moves to discussing the odds, props, and trends for the WNBA Playoffs, specifically, the marquee matchup between the Aces and Liberty. First of all, it’s pretty cool to see a mainstream betting sports show devote ample time to the WNBA. Thank you, Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. Seriously, the arrival of Clark and Reese, and the overall raised play and profiles have catapulted the WNBA into the consciousness of sports fans. Betting analysis is no exception.

Little provided some nice insight into the Liberty saying that they tend to relax in the first quarter of home games. Doyle said that the key to the success for the Aces is getting more shots for A’ja Wilson. Just as they mingle game statistics with betting lines, Martin, Little, and Doyle nicely mix general sports talk with the betting data.

The Line is a hardcore betting show. Little and Doyle take deep dives into the numbers while Martin expertly moves the show from sports analysis to debate to money line action. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this program is that each of the participants seems to entertain the others. You can tell that they like the gig and each other.

Beyond the love, these cats do some bang-up research. They give bettors real talk on points, field goal attempts, rebounds, batting averages, and more for teams and individual players.

If variety is indeed the spice of life, then The Line is a fine mixture of paprika, celery salt, and chili powder. From MLB and WNBA action, the trio then took a header into NHL numbers. Thankfully, they did not waste time offering betting guidance on NHL preseason games, instead delving into the 2024-2025 Stanley Cup Champion odds with Vegas giving Edmonton the best chance to take home Lord Stanley’s mug.

Deana Martin led Little and Doyle into the futures market, getting their thoughts on who would win the cup this year. Little went with the favorite Oilers +800 while Doyle admittedly went “off the grid” picking the New Jersey Devils to win the cup at +1300.

Martin does a really nice job describing highlights and then tying the video to betting data. She terrifically combines talent, tenacity, and tempo. The show ends with the ‘Bottom Line’ segment where Little and Doyle give their best bets for the night. With information, intelligence, and insight, from points to props to players, TNT Sports: The Line is a winner, and could make you a winner.

Keys to Being a Great News Talk Radio Producer

Peter Thiele
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Keys to Being a Great News Talk Radio Producer

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

I started in the dark ages of radio. Computer systems were not a thing in 1990. I had to run the board of AM 1500 KSTP by hand. I started as a part timer, and then became fulltime overnight, eventually being promoted to Producer of The Barbara Carlson Show. The Producer and Board Operator of a talk show is a very important job. There are several aspects beyond pushing buttons to be a great one. Here are my rules:

Put down your phone and pay attention to the host. You are the host’s security blanket. When a talk show host is performing, they are worried about a myriad of things: Is this topic interesting? Am I connecting to the audience? Am I boring? Your job is to be the hype human for the host. Smile. Laugh. Be engaged. Make eye contact with the host. If the host is remote, keep that eye contact on zoom. If that phone rings, answer it on the first ring. Make sure that the host is only worried about doing a great radio show. You are key. You are essential for that host. That host is the star quarterback.

A great Producer or Board Operator is the Program Director of that show. Keep that host focused. You are the offensive coordinator. You answer to the Program Director, not the talent. Before you think that I am anti-talent, let me take you behind the curtain.

Even the best hosts lose their focus. An argument with a spouse, side-piece, or partner may distract the host from doing a great show. The station ran out of coffee. The printer is broken and jammed. The office computer is doing an update in the show. We have all seen these distractions. The host must deliver a Listener-Focused Radio Show.

The Producer must be that person to reign in the distractions. The host sometimes is on with a caller too long. The Producer or Board Operator needs to be that individual who tells the host to move on. Having a great relationship with the host is helpful, but the most important job of the Producer is to get a great show from the host.

The Producer must screen calls well and make sure that the caller is ready for air. There is one rule about callers: the longer they are on-hold the worse the caller gets. Screen and focus the caller. You take calls to make the host look good. Ask the caller what they want to say. If the caller wants to ask the host about something from two weeks ago, thank the human for calling and move on. If the caller has a great point and you are holding him/her through the break, talk to the caller and say this, “John, you are telling the host about the topic of the day, right? Remember your point was…”

Tell the caller the order they are up. Also, always tell the caller to TURN OFF THE RADIO. If you ask them to turn the radio down, that is not a specific request. Once the caller is on the air and they hear themselves on delay, it is a disaster. If a caller is not ready when they go on the air, it is likely the fault of the person answering and screening the calls.

Now, to defend the Producer or Board Operator, when you put someone on hold, anything can happen. I have had callers go completely sideways. If the caller is ill-prepared or listening to the radio while on hold, it is the Board Operator’s responsibility.

Some hosts love calling the guest to get them on the air, other hosts don’t like doing that. I personally don’t like too much interaction between the guest and the host before airtime. It is natural for a host to ask a question or two before airtime. Guests typically do not answer the question more honestly the second time around. The Producer or Board Operator needs to make sure that in-studio guests are brought in at the very last moment. This is very important.

Engage with the host. Sometimes a host may be at a loss for a word. Whisper it into her/his ear. Hosts sometimes may get off the mission of the station. The Program Director will likely tell the host before the next show. The Producer or Board Operator needs to get them focused on the station mission now. I had a morning show host once that came from an Adult Contemporary Disc Jockey background. He was a very good host. This station was running the news wheel with 2 news maker guests every hour.

There was a community event at a local park. This park offered classes for adults and children. The host lost focus and started asking the guest about ‘Crafting’ classes. Ok, for a male focused News Talk station, this was a tune-out. I pulled in the host and Producer after the show and quizzed them about this. The host thought that men loved crocheting. I had to correct him and tell the Producer that his job was to keep the host focused. The Producer booked the guest, and his prep sheet needed to keep the host from forgetting the target listener.

Most successful Program Directors that I know came up from the Producer ranks. People with these skills know what it takes to create a great radio show. If you are a Board Operator or Producer, don’t be a clocker. Figure out ways to learn everything. I have had Board Operators and Producers who have moved up in this business. They have the same DNA. They are studio rats.

Radio for me was my mission. My first Program Director had to boot me out of the station. If I was not going to school or working one of my other jobs, I went to the radio station. I came to learn. If a host was at the coffee machine or having a cigarette, I was there. I asked questions. I shared my ideas. And I am sure that I drove them totally nuts. I wanted to learn. I wanted to be good. To practice voicing spots, I came in on my off hours. Be that next generation of this business. If you love News Talk radio, bury yourself into it.

Producers and Board Operators are essential for a listener-focused radio experience. Your work is important. Producers and Board Operators are the future of News Talk radio. They bring fresh ideas and energy to the radio station.

Listeners Are Starstruck By The Radio Personality

Robby Bridges
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Listeners Are Starstruck By The Radio Personality

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

This past weekend, the CBS Sunday Morning program ran a sociology piece titled “Starstruck” about the relationship—or lack thereof—between fan and celebrity. The piece featured bright, successful, seemingly normal individuals interviewed about how they half-lost their minds having encounters with the likes of Stevie Nicks, Meryl Streep, and Jesse Eisenberg.

CBS spoke with Professor Vance Ricks at Northeastern, who talked about what psychologists and sociologists label these celebrity fandoms as: “Parasocial relationships”; those that are one-sided – like the fascination and devotion that fans hold for their favorites and how that intense fan-celebrity relationship speaks to the human condition.”

What struck me is that, as a radio programmer and host, I’ve met and interviewed so many celebrities now that I’m not sure I’d remember them all. As I write this, I’m about to get on Zoom to interview Rascals frontman Felix Cavaliere, who not only had 13 top 40 hits and three number ones but is also in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Earlier this morning, I interviewed Sal from the Impractical Jokers. Just another Tuesday for me. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy or find myself grateful for these opportunities, but it probably takes Sinatra returning from the great beyond to stop me for a meet and greet to stop me in my tracks.

But listeners are different. Never mind the disbelief the average person has that most of us in this business not only meet celebrities all the time, but they are impressed by us and the other radio entertainers we know. It’s pretty exciting for a person to meet another person whom they’ve heard on a speaker or seen on a screen and enjoyed.

Listeners often place their favorite hosts on a pedestal just as they do movie and music stars or athletes because they enjoy our work just the same. We ought to never forget that or be jaded by the frequency all of us meet celebs or even other radio stars.

But it goes a step further, leading me to suspect there is a much deeper, more visceral “parasocial” connection with the radio host because of first, the power of the spoken word and its ability to generate a variety of emotional responses, the intimacy of the medium, one on one and direct and the access to us the listener has.

Not only do radio personalities have the opportunity to hook a listener directly, but unlike most celebs, radio hosts, while not immediately accessible, are often reachable by request line, email, social media, and appearances in the community.

That’s a deep connection, creating a real relationship that can be slightly more than one-sided. Radio hosts can get to know their fans by name (and that can be perfectly normal), leading to long-term listenership locality and that host being a powerful local brand influencer.

Whether it’s a fan showing up at an event to meet me or a person overhearing me speak at a restaurant and coming up asking if I’m the guy they know from the radio. That parasocial connection is a powerful one, and those kinds of interactions, by the way, have more value to me and my work than the cattle call photo ops with celebs do.

Let’s none of us take them for granted. 

Anatomy of a Broadcaster: Gary Cohen

Andy Masur
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Anatomy of a Broadcaster: Gary Cohen

Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. To make sure you’re updated on the latest happenings across the media business, sign up for our newsletters to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

Gary Cohen is living every Mets’ fans dream. Born in New York, Cohen was there when the Mets themselves were born. He would spend time as a youngster in the upper deck at Shea Stadium to watch the team that was brought to Queens. As a result of that intense fandom, according to one of his broadcast partners Ron Darling, Cohen is like “Mets Google” and has a true appreciation for the team he’s been with since 1989.

Mets’ fans have been fortunate to have talented broadcasters associated with the team’s history. They had the trio of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner for the first 18 years of the team’s existence. Now they have the trio of Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez for the past 19.

The fans have a true connection with Cohen, and his first partner on Mets Radio Murphy, are the history of the franchise.

“When Lindsey, Ralph and Bob started with the Mets, there was no Mets history,” Cohen told The Athletic last December. “They created Mets history, they created the sound of what the Mets feel like to fans, whether they’re watching or listening on the radio. Anything that I have done — or Howie (Rose) has done — comes by dint of what they accomplished and the history they accumulated. All I’m doing at the best is following in their footsteps.”

ROAD TO METS/SNY

He began his broadcasting pursuit at Columbia University. He graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Even though his studies were not directly in a media related field, Cohen started his career at the school’s radio station, WKCR Sports. There he would do play-by-play for baseball, football and men’s basketball. Cohen also announced men’s soccer games with future presidential advisor and Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos. Now the political science thing makes sense!

Prior to joining the Mets’ broadcast team in 1989, Cohen worked for many years in baseball’s minor leagues. He started in 1983 as the voice of the Spartanburg Spinners. In 1986 he moved on to the Durham Bulls, and then a year later, he emerged as the broadcaster for the Pawtucket Red Sox. He also called hockey and basketball games for Providence College from 1988 to 1989, and football for Brown University in 1987.

In addition to his baseball duties, Cohen has also called men’s college basketball games. He started with St. John’s on WFAN, for which he broadcast from 1995 to 2002. WFAN lost the rights to St. John’s games, so Cohen moved on to Seton Hall, where he continues to call game in the offseason to this day.

Along the way he also served as a backup announcer on New York Rangers radio broadcasts, called Olympic hockey at the 1992, 1994, and 1998 Winter Games, and NCAA tournament games for Westwood One.

It was announced on November 9, 2005, that Cohen would become the play-by-play announcer for the new Mets cable television network, SportsNet New York (SNY). As part of the agreement, Cohen also calls about 25 Mets games per year on WPIX along with analysts Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez.

WHY IS HE SO GOOD?

Being a credible source for an audience is always a good thing for a baseball announcer. As I’ve pointed out, Cohen grew up a fan of the Mets and understands what it is to root for this club. Knowing the history, the passion, the ups and downs of a franchise firsthand gives you empathy for the fan base. It’s one thing to have the knowledge, but it’s another thing to be relatable, with real emotion in the good times and bad. Cohen is really good at this. His partner Darling knows it too.

“I’ve learned so much from him that it’s helped me understand what it’s like to be a Mets fan,” Darling told The Athletic last year. “Gary has learned from Keith and I some of the intricacies of the game, but he’s taught us much more and that is who and what the Mets fan represents, where they come from and how they feel about their team.”

The word many of his colleagues, both former and present use, is humility. When you work with big personalities, especially on television, there has to be a good ‘give and take’. Cohen has been able to gain the respect of his analysts, by setting the tone in the booth. Meaning, he lets them be who they are, with the understanding that he has a job to do as well.

So, it’s actually a mutual respect among the three. If you don’t have a great play-by-play guy, this grouping wouldn’t work as well as it does. And it does. The constant ‘ribbing’ of one another shows that they all care about each other and that nobody is above giving or receiving a little grief.

Every play-by-play announcer worth his/her salt, is a prepared one. Cohen has a reputation of being a tireless worker, making sure he is ready to go for every single broadcast. Navigating a Major League Baseball game is not always easy, but Cohen certainly makes it appear that way.

Cohen has the ability to rise to the occasion. Using inflection, timing, and a sense of the moment, his calls are nearly perfect. Letting the pictures and sounds help tell the story, there’s emotion in his voice, which matches the emotion on the field. His viewers must feel like they are at the game, even though they aren’t, thanks to Cohen’s masterful work.

Not surprising, with the Mets battling for and then making the playoffs, he has been at the top of his game.

After the Mets clinched a spot in the playoffs with a wild and crazy win over the Braves, Cohen was all over it.

“Ground ball, Lindor waits on it. He’s got it and the ballgame is over! From 0-5 to OMG! What a ride!” said Cohen. “The Mets are going to the postseason in 2024!  And what an incredible game to clinch it with! Down 3-0, up 6-3, down 7-6, Lindor with the home run to put ’em over the top! Diaz stretched to the max to close it out! And the Mets, 8-7!”  

In mid-September the Mets were being no hit by Toronto’s Bowden Francis. It was a 1-0 Blue Jays lead in the 9th, when Francisco Lindor came to the plate and crushed a game-tying home run.

“And a home run ends this no-hit bid. Linsanity!” Cohen said on air. “Francisco Lindor ties the game with a ninth-inning home run. As big a hit as the Mets have had all season. Francisco Lindor breaks up the no-hit bid and the shutout and he ties the game with his 31st home run of the year.” 

Cohen is really good.

THE TOP BOOTH IN MLB 2024

Every year, the website Awful Announcing ranks MLB Broadcast booths based on fan voting. In the television category this season, The SNY booth of Cohen, Hernandez and Darling were ranked number one overall for 2024.

“After a decade in the top five, their rank never decreasing, and an always respectable score, the beloved New York Mets broadcast team has finally topped our rankings with their best score ever,” Awful Announcing wrote.

The chemistry in their booth is really good.

Things weren’t going well for the Mets in Pittsburgh in August. They were facing rookie phenom Paul Skenes. As the Mets struggled, the announcers stepped up. Rowdy Tellez hit a grand slam in the eighth inning, which was Pittsburgh’s seventh home run of the game. Shortly thereafter, the Pirates announced on both the videoboard at PNC Park and on X that they were out of fireworks. Cohen noticed the message.

“There is a note on the scoreboard that the Pirates, with their seven home runs, have not only tied a club record — they have run out of the fireworks that they use to celebrate the home run…They shot off for the first six home runs. But no more fireworks left.”

“You’ve got hawk eyes, Gare,” Keith Hernandez said. “I’m impressed that you spotted that.”

That’s just one example of how well the booth works.

DID YOU KNOW?

In September 2022, Cohen pre-recorded announcements along MTA New York City Transit’s 7 line, along with Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling.

Lite 100.5’s ‘The Mike & Mary Show’ is Connecticut’s ‘Place To Unwind’

BMM Staff
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Lite 100.5’s ‘The Mike & Mary Show’ is Connecticut’s ‘Place To Unwind’

They have spent every weekday morning together for eleven years on Lite 100.5 WRCH/Hartford’s “The Mike & Mary Show.” You’d think the Connecticut co-hosts would need some space during their downtime, but the “work husband and wife” live four houses away from each other in Rocky Hill, near Hartford. “I asked Mike if it would be weird,” says Mary (who’s a lifelong Rocky Hiller). It’s not. The hosts and their families are friends.

The two treat listeners like family. The devoted “M & M’ers” tune in from 5:30 to 10:00 am to “wake up and be awesome.” The fans respond to the pair’s pleasant, upbeat yet low-key vibe, which fits the Audacy show’s tagline, “the place to relax and unwind.”

Opposite of Morning Zoo

“The Mike & Mary Show” is the polar opposite of a “morning zoo:” 

“We’re always positive, nothing salacious, nothing to embarrass mom in her minivan with the kids,” Mike explains. “That was our former program director Allan Camp‘s mission since 1989 at the station.”

Mary adds, “We’re not setting people up for second-date updates. We’re just real people talking about something funny that happened.”

Their play is safe, but they’re playful, baking dashboard cookies on a hot day and following the saga of a missing iguana. The music mix is upbeat Lite AC in line with Audacy’s “relax and unwind” motto. Mary delivers the news conversationally, so much so that people who say they don’t like the news probably don’t even know it’s a newscast. She steers clear of grisly details. Veteran traffic reporter Mark “The Shark” Christopher covers the roads.

Lite 100.5 WRCH is billed as “Southern New England’s Listen at Work Station,” and indeed, you hear the ubiquitous channel from the dentist’s chair to the gas station and everywhere in between. The show is hyper-local, featuring segments naming the best beaches and the best places to get sweet corn.

On Fridays, “The Weekend According to Mike” lets listeners know what’s worth checking out. The pair really resonated with the audience when they discussed iconic area businesses and institutions that are no longer.

“This is something that A.I. can’t do,” says Mary. “They try, but they can’t have the same depth as someone who remembers stores like Two Guys, The Elm Theater, The Joshua Tree, Weathervane.”

Yin and Yang

The two share personal and even embarrassing stories about their lives on the air with their radio family. Mary selects what to divulge based on the following criteria: Is it fun? Is it teachable? Does it inspire? Is it inclusive? Does it create community?

Mike says because he and Mary come from different decades, they cover the gamut on parenting stories. Mary and husband, Wes Nicoll, have two school age boys, Charlie (11), and Cooper (12). Mike and his wife, Carol (another lifelong resident of Rocky Hill), have two grown sons, Jake and Ben. The two radio personalities are a yin and yang, as they explain that Mike has a knack for things about which Mary has no clue and vice versa. This works well in their division of labor.

Mike Stacy – One and Done

WRCH’s morning show host, Mike Stacy, has never worked anywhere else in radio. He began as the Lite AC station’s promotions director in 1991.

 “Within a year, I was on the morning show,” he explains. “Our program director Allan, who co-hosted the morning show, hated sports. He asked if I could do a thirty-second sportscast.” A sports lover’s dream come true. “I joined him and Kathy Wyler. I was always the last one picked for the sports team as a kid, so it was ironic.” What made it sweeter was that Mike had been told by another program director that he “had a good voice for impersonations but would never be on radio.”

Mike has also contributed to a variety of publications like Patch and Audacy.com and had his own DJ company for over two decades. He officiates weddings. He hosted the State of Connecticut’s Governor’s Ball, the Connecticut Public TV Auction, and more.

Mary Scanlon – Back Where It All Began

Co-host Mary Scanlon Nicoll is back where her radio career began. She worked at D’Angelo Grilled Sandwich Shop while studying to be an X-ray technician. She wasn’t thrilled with the math requirements in her coursework when her friend, Megan Doll, then a Metro Networks employee, suggested Mary try traffic reporting. She did, and she was good.  Mary’s first radio job was on WRCH. Just as Program Director Allan Camp gave Mike a chance to cover sports, Allan elevated Mary’s trajectory by asking her to do liners after hearing her traffic reports.

She was on air at WRKI in Danbury, CT, at WKCI New Haven, and at Hartford’s WCCC-FM before joining Mike back at WRCH Lite 100.5 as morning show co-host in 2013. She’s also the station’s news director. When the show’s over, she’s got her hands full at home with her sons’ school sports and the Parent Advisory Council.

“My husband coaches and volunteers, so our calendar is full of different colored highlighters to keep everything straight.”

Mary first met husband Wes while working at the sandwich shop. The two re-connected later in life. They served Fenway Franks at their wedding but say they may have D’Angelo cater a big anniversary. 

Community Focus On and Off Air

The two hosts are community-focused both on and off the air, and their families pitch in. One of a long list of charitable successes was “Mike’s Christmas Wish,” a 501-(C)3 foundation that helped thousands of Connecticut families in crisis at Christmas.

“We would sit with the kids before Christmas and help them write letters to Santa,” he recalls,” so we could see what their needs were. They got clothing, gift certificates to Big Y supermarket, plus a sit-down dinner with games and a huge sack of gifts. We brought in six figures every year,” says Mike, “and I’m still going through chiropractic work on my back which was damaged from carrying all of the packages.”

The party, at the 5,000 square foot play-space Nomad in South Windsor, was attended by 1,000 people.

The pandemic sidelined the event, leaving Mike and his family free to enjoy one another’s’ company after years of volunteering on the holiday. COVID, coupled with increased work responsibilities, caused Mike to close his DJ business, but he still officiates the occasional wedding.

The “Mike and Mary Smile Club” continues to spread the ‘wake up and be awesome” message as listeners get together for community service projects like blood drives and feeding the homeless.

Light the Month Pink

“Everyone in our audience has someone who has been touched by cancer,” especially breast cancer, says Mary. Mike worked for 25 years to raise funds to fight the disease with a comedy benefit at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford with heavy hitters like Lily Tomlin and Bob Newhart.

COVID and changes in entertainment and pricing for shows have prompted a pivot. This year, and specifically this month, their goal is to provide 500 mammography screenings for women in need during “Light the Month Pink.”

Throughout the month of October, “The Mike & Mary Show” will feature gripping interviews with women whose lives have been saved by the newest mammography technology, as well as information from physicians and scientists, to educate the audience and collect contributions for the cause.

Yard Goats and Whalers

Not all their off-the-mic activity is so serious. Mike and Mary team up with the Hartford Yard Goats baseball team for fun and frivolity, including Mary throwing out the first pitch at the AA game in Duncan Ballpark. The team and the show have a close relationship with the former Hartford Whalers Hockey team (still beloved in the area, though they left in 1997), and former Whaler greats go to the games.

“The Whalers would get off the ice and go to Chuck’s Steakhouse downtown and be at the bar and they never acted like superstars,” says Mary. “They were involved in charity. They’re a lot like us.”

The Mike & Mary Show gives away concert tickets and even trips to Curacao, where they broadcast their morning show live. Less swanky but still extremely fun was their pre-Eastern States Exposition VIP taste-test in August. Mike loves the ability to try out new food at “The Big E” fair.

“Great perks. Cream puffs, crab cakes, and etouffee from the New Orleans exhibit,” he says.

Social Media Changed the Landscape

His sidekick says “The Big E” food tasting for media muckety-mucks is “really a great example of how radio has changed. We have the ability to go and either broadcast live or share it on social media, and the audience gets to know you a lot better,” says Mary.

But social media’s a double-edged sword: “Sometimes the level of connection that you get is magnified in the best way possible, and sometimes you’re like, I don’t want to put on makeup today; I want to wear my pajamas to work.”

Mary recently asked the audience whether she should have “work done” on her face. “It’s no longer okay just to have a face for radio. The new radio people all want to be influencers,” she says, and their looks come first.

Christmas Tree Connection

Botox or facelifts may not be necessary, though, because the connection that Mike & Mary craft with their audience is more than skin-deep.

Mike recalls an on-air discussion two decades ago on WRCH where he compared real versus artificial Christmas trees. A listener named Maryellen called to weigh in. She sold real Christmas trees from the parking lot of her Cromwell, CT restaurant. Years later, her son was killed the day after his high school graduation, and Mike hosted a memorial golf tournament in honor of the young man just last week.  

It’s more than the morning show music and information that keep the M & Mers tuned in. The audience revels in the relationship that Lite 100’s Mike & Mary have cultivated with the community both on air and off.

(It’s easy to get confused in Connecticut about Mike & Mary because there’s another “Mike & Mary Show” in the Hartford market on Star 92.7 FM, also in the morning. You can hear the Mike & Mary featured in the above article on weekday mornings from 5:30 to 10:00 a.m. on WRCH Lite 100.5 and on the Audacy app.

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