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WCBS 880 Signs Off With Wayne Cabot Commentary After Nearly 6 Decades of Newsradio Format

BNM Staff
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WCBS 880 Signs Off With Wayne Cabot Commentary After Nearly 6 Decades of Newsradio Format

After nearly 60 years, WCBS 880 signed off on Sunday evening with Wayne Cabot being the final voice heard on the Audacy New York station.

Earlier this month, Audacy announced that it had struck a deal with Good Karma Brands to lease the 880 AM signal as ESPN New York moves away from its 98.7 FM signal. With the decision to end WCBS Newsradio 880, Audacy will now focus all of its all-news power on 1010 WINS, which features an FM simulcast on 92.3.

The station re-aired its WCBS Magazine program that showcased the station’s long history and standing in the market, including a look at some of the breaking news events and station jingles and sounds throughout the decades.

In the final 15 minutes, longtime anchor Wayne Cabot helmed the station’s farewell, pointing on the names of dozens of on-air anchors and reporters, as well as leaders of the venerable all-news station.

In the station’s final two minutes, Cabot shared a poignant story of how listening to the station as a youngster led him to join it decades later, and what serving as a morning news anchor in the city has meant to him.

“To paraphrase a CBS News legend, good night and good luck,” Cabot said. “You will ask, ‘Why does this radio station mean so much? Why is the reaction the way it is?’ And I really can’t speak for others, I can speak for myself. My parents split when I was 11. We split Christmas, and when I was at dad’s house, he gave me a clock. And this one had a beam at the top that shined the time onto the ceiling. I wanted to make sure it was set correctly, so I went to the station I heard in the back of the car at WCBS to make sure the time was exactly right.

“And I listened and listened, and before long, I became hooked as a 12, 13-year-old. When I was 14, my dad drove me to the radio station in New York City during morning rush hour traffic, and he introduced me to the place I’m now signing off in 2024.”

Cabot then played a portion of The Beatles song “Imagine,” shouting out WCBS 880 producer Ray Martell in the process. He then thanked station leadership for allowing a send-off of the station.

“Chris Olivero, Ben Mevorach, Ivan Lee, our bosses, pushed for and got the authority to let us have our goodbyes, to have a last show. That’s something very rare,” Cabot admitted. “I thank them for that. I thank my dad for driving me into New York City in 1978. Parents, you never know what impact these random acts of love and attention may have on your children.

“I’m Wayne Cabot and for the final time, this is WCBS New York,” Cabot concluded.

And with that, the final chapter of the nearly 60-year history of WCBS 880 as a New York all-news station was finished.

Tay Tay Takeover at 100.5 The Vibe, Owensboro, KY

BMM Staff
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Tay Tay Takeover at 100.5 The Vibe, Owensboro, KY

Cromwell Media’s Classic Hip Hop WXCM-HD3 (100.5 The Vibe)/Owensboro-Whitesville, KY, appears to be stunting for a format change.

Over the weekend, the station went to all Taylor Swift, calling itself “Taylor 100.5.” The imaging is teasing that all relationships eventually lead to a breakup.

The station had been in that format for the past eight years.

Watch this space.

Dennis Foley Named News Director of KCBS All News Radio in San Francisco

BNM Staff
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Dennis Foley Named News Director of KCBS All News Radio in San Francisco

Dennis Foley has announced he has been named the new News Director of KCBS All News Radio at the Audacy San Francisco station.

“I have not been this excited for an opportunity like this in a very, very long time,” Foley said in a post to social media. “I am beyond thrilled to announce that I will be joining KCBS All News Radio in the San Francisco Bay Area as the station’s News Director beginning in early September.”

Foley most recently served as the Director of Content for Houston Public Media. Other previous stops include 710 KEEL in Shreveport, working as a reporter/editor at WTOP, working as the News Director at 550 KTSA in San Antonio, and a stint as the Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated Markley, van Camp and Robbins, among a variety of other roles.

In his announcement, Foley shared that his love and appreciation for the all-news format was too enticing to pass up joining a venerable station like KCBS.

“It’s a format I and many in my generation have grown up with and continue to use today. Pair that with an all-star level team with a deep and amazing legacy, a dynamic audience base in a market like San Francisco, and a company with big goals and diversified technology resources like Audacy…the possibilities are boundless,” he wrote. “I have been incredibly fortunate to have worked with amazing people and great stations throughout my career and look forward to continuing that run with the amazingly talented team at KCBS Radio!”

Who’s A Reporter? How Influencers Are Changing News Media

Perry Michael Simon
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Who’s A Reporter? How Influencers Are Changing News Media

Face it: The definition of “news media” has changed. Who gets to define themselves as “reporter” has changed. Even the very definition of “news organization” has changed. If you didn’t know that before the Democratic National Convention, you should now. In case you weren’t paying attention to what was going on behind the scenes in Chicago, the DNC handed out press credentials to about 200 influencers, bloggers, vloggers, and others fitting the loose definition of “creator.”

This didn’t necessarily go over well with reporters from traditional news organizations, who endured indignities like sharing air with mostly young people of whom they’ve never heard, being kept from the floor of the convention due to overcrowding, that sort of thing.

Much hand wringing ensued, but the bottom line was that the DNC embraced “creators” in larger numbers than before (the Republicans accredited “creators” in Milwaukee, but it was less than half the DNC contingent, maybe about 70). And the creators were able to get interviews with the big names, post reports from the floor, and generally do anything a traditional reporter would do.

There aren’t any reliable numbers for how many people got their DNC news through social media posts and YouTube videos, but it has to be a large audience, especially among young people, who aren’t as likely to watch CNN, Fox, MSNBC, or C-SPAN for their coverage, or read the New York Times and Washington Post for their analysis or listen to talk radio for opinion. They rely on a different set of reporters and pundits. The political parties are only now recognizing that while you can’t yet skip the mandatory interviews and appearances with the networks and major newspapers, you now have to reach a sizable portion of the voting public through alternate means, which is where the 200 creators have become indispensable.

This doesn’t come without peril. A lot of the creators – maybe all of them – are not exactly nonpartisan in their reporting. The DNC did credential some conservative personalities, but most were liberal, and when a partisan, especially one without years of news experience, interviews a politician on the same side of things, you’re not gonna get controversy or challenging questions.

But is that a whole lot different from traditional media? Bias may be in the eye of the beholder, but traditional mainstream American news media has its own biases; they just don’t admit it or advertise it. It’s very unlike the rest of the world, where the newspapers are known for their political lean and there are state-run TV and radio networks. The U.S. media have always portrayed themselves as, pardon the expression, “fair and balanced” while at times not being either of those. At least most American talk radio has no pretension of being anything other than conservative (the word “right” is in some stations’ slogans), but even the “both sides” approach of the major newspapers is a political position today.

So, is adding influencers to the definition of “news media” a bad thing? They may not be operating with consideration of traditional news ethics; Can we be certain that they won’t spread falsehoods or slanted stories to their loyal audiences? No, but you have to take the good with the Alex Joneses… er, bad. Whether or not you like it, it doesn’t matter. Whole generations have come of age for whom ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, the Times and Post, and talk radio aren’t relevant, but hosts on YouTube or TikTok or podcasts are. If you’re a mainstream news reporter, you might consider whether you can translate what you do and bring your current audience to other platforms. It’s not impossible, and it could prolong your career.

If you want to catch fish, you have to go where the fish are. The fish have moved.

Content Creators And Seizing The Moment

Ron Harrell
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Content Creators And Seizing The Moment

Content creators responsible for producing or managing an event, a brand, or a talent know the significance of “the moment.” We associate success and failure with that bellwether, hallmark, capstone, pinnacle (did I mention enough overused presentation metaphors?)…moment.

It happened last week during night two of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Roll call is one of the most tedious parts of the night when all states and territories certify their nomination for President and Vice President of the United States. 

Last week, it became one of those crescendo events when DJ Cassidy, the DNC staff entertainer for the four-day political festival, created and revived the moment with music. 

He used a popular tactic of music-branded radio stations: themes. Instead of playing bumper music when each state had its moment to announce the delegates’ decision, DJ Cassidy played a theme song associated with each state.

Alabama got Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd (duh). Michigan’s theme was Lose Yourself by Eminem. That’s a tough choice for a state associated with the Motown catalog. I’ve placed a link to a list and the meaning of each song at the end of this column.

Radio stations, especially gold-based formats like Classic Rock, Classic Country, Oldies, and Classic Hits, used to rely on music themes to freshen their era-captive playlists. Twofer Tuesday, Beatles for Breakfast, The Drive @ Five, Motown Monday, Throwback Thursday, Flashback Friday, New Music Monday, and 80s at 8 are a few of the themes rotated through radio’s features categories.

I don’t hear music themes often these days. Maybe we burned out the “Songs of Summer,” “Movie Music,” or “One Hit Wonders.” When I browsed through websites of large, medium and small market stations from the major radio companies, there were almost no music theme postings aside from weekend era-based shows like “80s Saturday Night.”  It doesn’t mean those stations don’t do daily features, but the content doesn’t appear as a recap or a promotional feature.

Website content, especially with the big owners, is dictated by mass appeal clicks across all stations. This makes most sites look and feel the same without much attention to stationality and local differences. Website and social media content may not be a fair representation of whether or not these features are happening on the air.

However, I have another theory about why these features appear less and less on the air. Syndicated talent shows can’t do these features because they don’t connect with the station’s music unless their show generates the music feed. Voicetracked talent can connect with a station’s music log, but their schedule may not allow the time it takes to write, prep, and execute these features. 

As a radio programmer or content director, you may ask: Does the audience care about these features? Concepts are challenging to research without hearing or seeing the result. It becomes the moment when your morning show makes you laugh out loud, empathize, or get angry. 

The creator and curator understand music features on paper like It’s All About Green for St. Patrick’s Day, but the magic doesn’t happen until the presentation. How do we freshen an old concept for today’s fragmented audience?

You see, DJ Cassidy has been the convention’s house band/DJ since 2012, and he has a history of providing entertainment for the room going back to the first Obama inauguration. According to a Variety interview, Cassidy said DNC Convention producer Ricky Kirshner came up with the idea of the “first musical maestro of a convention roll call.”

Radio station programmers, presenters, content creators, and event planners live in a constant state of What Now? We’ve been doing this show the same way for years. Consistency is good because it’s more challenging to establish your brand in today’s noisy media environment.

Are we looking for new ways to make the delegates’ roll call more entertaining? You can bet there have been meetings in the RNC camp this week to brainstorm ideas for making their roll call different in 2028.

Don’t let the limitations of your music format or the strategy of the Program/Brand Director be an excuse for missing the moment. Your brand may not play Green River by CCR or a song by the band Green Day on St. Patrick’s Day. Today’s noisy media environment gives us more choices to create engaging content. Station Imaging, blogs, Reels, TikTok, and YouTube videos allow us to make it different and be in the moment.

DJ Cassidy summarized his experience and presentation at the DNC in this response to the Variety interview. “After every one of these events, I say, ‘This is the greatest night of my life. It can never be topped.’ And then somehow it is. How great that I can use my DJing for some kind of greater purpose than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams.”

Sometimes, we get stuck because we challenge ourselves to create the best idea. The misuse and overuse of the word innovate stalls the process. Start by improving those programs, events, and shows. The best will be generated from the momentum.

Here’s the list of songs from the DNC Roll Call with an explanation of how each song fits, according to AP.

Oh, if you do a music feature or an audio imaging piece for St. Patrick’s Day, make sure you include Joe Diffie’s John Deere Green. 

SiriusXM and the FCC: Is the Camel’s Nose Under the Tent? 

Dr. Ed Cohen
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SiriusXM and the FCC: Is the Camel’s Nose Under the Tent? 

You probably read about SiriusXM’s recent announcement of a new “free” option, called SiriusXM Free Access. The company’s announcement cited a number of limitations, but if you go to the homepage, you’ll find all of the details. If your vehicle is eligible for the plan, you can sign up. This development is truly important for broadcast radio.

Forty years ago, during my Ph.D. program at Michigan State, I took a required class in media economics taught by one of the best media economists around, the late Dr. Barry Litman. Like many academics, Barry was a unique character, but he knew his stuff. In the ‘80s, we were still talking about “scarcity” which I’ve covered in an earlier column and the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 which allowed competitive local newspapers to skirt the antitrust laws among other topics.

Antitrust is a major component of US business laws. The first antitrust law was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, so we have a long history in this country of dealing with and occasionally breaking up monopolies. There are different kinds of monopolies. Some result from buying companies to block competition (typically illegal), some are regulated monopolies (your local utility) and others exist because the market will only support one firm (radio ratings). 

The direct-to-consumer satellite radio business is a monopoly. When the FCC first approved satellite radio in the ‘90s, the plan was to have two licensees which would allow for competition. Eventually, these became XM (which launched first) and Sirius. Each made deals with the various automotive OEMs so some car brands had XM and others had Sirius. 

In the early days, the two companies spent plenty of money trying to lock up talent and other programming that might get drivers to pay for the service after their initial free trials.  Some examples:

  • Sirius signed Howard Stern in 2004 with the initial contract worth a reported $500 million plus $83 million bonus potential
  • XM signed Oprah Winfrey to create a channel for a reported $55 million for three years. 
  • XM signed a deal with Major League Baseball for $650 million over 11 years.
  • Sirius signed a seven year deal to broadcast NFL games for $220 million, although $32 million of that was in Sirius stock

Then there were the initial costs of designing a system, launching satellites, convincing OEMs to include the service which included offering the companies warrants to purchase shares in the companies, marketing, and staffing up. In other words, getting started was not cheap and the companies had some self-induced issues as well. 

Eventually, the two companies found they were losing lots of money by competing and overpaying for content and announced a merger. However, Sirius and XM had to convince the FCC that a single satellite radio company with no competition in that space was good for the consumer even as it violated the FCC’s own decisions and regulations. In 2008, they succeeded and the combined SiriusXM as we know it today became a reality.

The FCC’s Memorandum Opinion and Order and Report and Order of August 5, 2008, which passed on a 3-2 vote covered a great deal of ground and took me back to my days in Media Economics even including a reference to the dreaded Herfindahl-Hirschman Index which measures market concentration. 

When considering whether a combination is a monopoly, the question of “relevant market” comes up. In this case, was the market satellite radio alone? Was it audio news and entertainment which in 2007-08 meant broadcast radio and satellite (streaming was in its infancy at the time). Certainly, if the “relevant market” was satellite radio, SiriusXM would be a monopoly.

The FCC economists thought long and hard expressing concerns over pricing because monopoly power generally means you can charge more (just ask Nielsen Audio). Would a combined SiriusXM try to go after local radio? The result was that the new company was given conditions, such as holding prices steady for three years.

What no one appeared to consider was what would happen if the combined company simply gave the service away with ads? Sounds a lot like broadcast radio, doesn’t it? Now, SiriusXM is offering a free service with ads to a “select” group of consumers, those who have had the service before and have the 360L receivers in their vehicles will be able to hear a “select” group of channels. Reviewing the list, these aren’t the best channels the service has to offer, but the price is right.

Do you think SiriusXM will stop there? I remember watching a CNBC interview with Travis Kalanick in the early days after he founded Uber. He explained that the service was set up to help “black car” drivers (limousines) get more business during down times. The first time I used Uber was with a “black car” in LA thanks to a $50 discount from my hotel. Today, Uber’s ridesharing service is in 70 countries. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook for Harvard students and later restricted the service to college students. Today, Facebook has around 3 billion monthly users. 

For those of you who know Dick Taylor, he wrote about SiriusXM potentially offering a free service eight years ago! If you don’t read Dick’s more or less weekly blog, it’s worth your time. He figured it had to happen because as Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners said last week in a New York Times article about Tubi, “People love free”.

Now consider how the FCC views broadcasting. A key concept for US broadcasting in the Communications Act of 1934 is “localism”. SiriusXM does not provide any sort of local programming, nor does it sell local advertising. However, if SiriusXM offers a free service, this will likely reduce the audience for local radio by giving another choice to consumers who previously opted against paying for satellite radio.

Given the state of the radio business today, is it really in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” for radio to have another “free” competitor that is licensed by the FCC? In other words, isn’t the FCC working at cross purposes to its mandate by allowing an FCC-sanctioned monopoly to compete more directly with local radio broadcasters? The Commission has been working on localism as recently as this year.

The FCC should revisit the SiriusXM merger and consider whether offering a free service is truly in consumers’ interest with the need for a strong, local broadcast radio service and determine whether this should be allowed under the company’s current license. And if you think this affects only commercial broadcasters, the free SiriusXM service includes NPR Now. Considering the financial state of public radio these days, this may be the last thing those stations need.

The National Association of Broadcasters is the logical leader to take this fight to the FCC. While NAB is busy with getting Congress to force OEMs to include AM in every vehicle, this battle is probably more important to the industry in the long run. NAB acts based on what the NAB Board directs and that board is made up of broadcasters. I urge you to get in touch with your NAB Board representatives and tell them to raise this issue.

Let’s meet again next week.

Consultants Corner: Joel Raab

Jeff Lynn
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Consultants Corner: Joel Raab

Joel Raab is a Country radio programming consultant based in the Philadelphia area. Joel currently consults for media companies, including Audacy, Bonneville, Max Media, Beasley, Americom, Forever Media, Renda, Saga, VerStandig, Leighton, and others.

Raab was inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame in 2015. He has programmed and was on the air in New York, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. He is a graduate of Northwestern University. Lastly, he is someone I have known and admired for a long time and am happy to call a friend.

We get a chance to pick his brain in this week’s “Consultant’s Corner.”

Jeff Lynn: How do you view the current state of Country Radio?

Joel Raab: Country is having a moment. Artists like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs are crossing to pop, and that’s good for us. Pop artists want to come to our party (Post Malone, Jelly Roll, etc.). The even better news here is that these songs are not warmed over pop music, but genuine Country music, sung and produced in unique ways. 

JL: With things go well, what are the biggest challenges facing the format?

JR: Keeping up the momentum. Radio stations need to do great radio regardless of how strong the music is so that they can sustain and prosper when things cool off, which they inevitably do. Sales is becoming more of a challenge for all formats as we have to fight for every dollar, especially when some stations and companies whore their rates to get buys.  

JL: With talent voice tracking in multiple markets, what advice do you give them to sound local?

JR: I’ve found that out-of-town voice trackers often sound more local than in-market talent, as the former doesn’t take localism for granted. The good ones spend time researching their markets, using local references, and imagining doing their shifts in real-time. It also helps if they make updates if something remarkable happens.

JL: Currents vs. Gold right now. And is there a resurgence in 90s music?

JR: Varies by market. While in general, I’d say “yes” – it’s (resurgence of ’90s) not as much as you might think. When it comes to the 90s on a mainstream Country station, a little goes a long way. All Country gold stations tend to burn themselves out after a few years, if not sooner.  You can only hear “Tight Fittin Jeans” so many times!

JL: I recently monitored a large market station that went 4 ½ hours between female artists. I assume this is abnormal, but why is it still hard for female artists to break through?

JR: Some of the nostalgia for the 90s music that you asked about before may have to do with the time when considerably more females charted more regularly then. The good news here is that there are some incredibly great female artists in the process of breaking through, like Megan Maroney and Ella Langley.  Lainey Wilson is a multimedia superstar.  I think that if a male song is testing similar to the female song, I am likely to go with the female cut to give the station more depth. 

JL: What was the last/best promotion you saw executed?

JR: As far as forced listening goes, I like contests that are fun to listen to as well as those that reinforce an image the station is trying to project. I recently know of a market where “Double Your Paycheck” has had success. Who doesn’t want to do that? 

JL: What advice are you giving clients to cut through in a cluttered social media landscape?

JR: Treat your posts like your breaks on the air. No “Happy Thursday” or excess verbiage messaging to waste people’s time. Get right to the point; make them worth a fan’s time. While there’s a lot of pressure to do a lot of posts, try to go for all the quality and relevancy to your audience that you have time for. You want your audience to connect with you when you’re not on the air, and you do that by being interesting (never boring; thank you, Valerie Geller) and fun. In Country Radio, listeners are looking for a good time – an escape from the day’s trials and tribulations. The more your social media reflects that attitude, the more success you’ll have.

Connect with Joel at 215.750.6868. Or email him here. 

ESPN New York and Good Karma Brands Ready for 880 AM Era

Derek Futterman
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ESPN New York and Good Karma Brands Ready for 880 AM Era

The relationship between Good Karma Brands and The Walt Disney Company has stretched for more than a decade and taken on various iterations. Two years ago, the radio broadcasting conglomerate closed a deal in which it acquired ESPN New York 1050, ESPN 710 Los Angeles and ESPN 1000 Chicago.

The transaction also had Good Karma Brands assume a local marketing agreement for ESPN New York 98.7, working under the 12-year lease of the powerful FM signal from Emmis Communications. The deal was said to be worth an initial $8.5 million per year with a 3.5% rate appreciation, but it ultimately proved to be an expendable part of the Good Karma Brands portfolio due to a changing industry. Beginning on Saturday, that signal will broadcast a music format concurrent with the decision from Good Karma Brands not to sign a new contract and instead move ESPN New York off the FM band completely.

Internal data from Good Karma Brands demonstrated that 60% of listenership for ESPN New York took place outside of terrestrial radio. The metric has been substantiated in the ensuing months through the ESPN New York app surpassing 100,000 downloads, demonstrating sustained interest and listenership to its various programs. Yet ESPN New York, a station that branded itself with the 98.7 FM signal for many years, is working to urge listeners to reset their preset and establish new brand affinity as Good Karma Brands focuses on serving its fans, partners and teammates. Steve Politziner, the president of Good Karma Brands, explained the growth of the partnership over the years and the high standard these stations and marketplaces demand.

“ESPN owned and operated ESPN New York for a long period as they have other markets, including LA and Chicago,” Politziner said. “As Disney has made decisions on the best businesses for them to concentrate on, we’re fortunate to be in the position really to be considered a best-in-class operating partner from our years operating local affiliates and the other lines of business in relationships that we have with Disney and ESPN.”

ESPN New York departing FM is a decision indicative of a modified media ecosystem in which more consumers are accessing content through digital means of distribution. Programming on the station remains enthralling and engaging, including The Michael Kay Show in afternoon drive for over two decades. In addition to sports talk shows, the vertical also houses the play-by-play rights for several prominent New York sports teams, drawing fans who look to follow the action in real time.

“We’re already moving into the directions of just being where consumers are, and we know that consumers are also still on traditional radio,” Politziner said, “so if we have the chance to be able to deliver to them in an economical fashion, we’re always going to keep our eyes on the best chance to do that.”

Over the last 12 years, ESPN New York has maintained the 1050 AM signal on which it originally launched in 2001. Since that time, traditional radio outlets have been supplanted in an environment with stiffer competition and haste innovation to earn shares of listenership. Vinny DiMarco, who currently serves as the market manager of ESPN New York, was with the station from the time it launched as its general sales manager.

“We know we have great content, and we know we’ve got great shows and compelling hosts that people want to hear every day,” DiMarco said. “There’s a real connection between the fans and our talent and the rest of our content, and we know that people are going to follow it.”

Driven by the obligations to its invested parties and partnerships, Good Karma Brands ultimately made a business transaction that it was prepared to execute at the end of the month. The auspices of that plan called for ESPN New York to leave 98.7 FM and transfer local programming to 1050 AM while remaining available on a digital platform. Utilizing one terrestrial radio signal would have removed ESPN Radio network programming from the airwaves and presumably complicated the overflow situation regarding simultaneous sporting events.

Nonetheless, the company was ready to move in that direction and make it work, strengthened by a commitment from The Madison Square Garden Company to retain play-by-play rights for the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, while the New York Jets shift its broadcast rights to Q104.3. ESPN New York continues to have conversations with the New York Islanders and expects to have a relationship with the organization into next season.

“It’s how 1050 was launched,” DiMarco said. “When it was first launched, it was with the Knicks and the Rangers, and so play-by-play, we know, is a big driver of fans and where they spend their time and give their time listening to, and that’s why we were thrilled that the Knicks and Rangers are great partners and decided all along to stick with us.”

Although Good Karma Brands and Audacy have been perceived as competitors in the New York marketplace, the two sides had engaged in business transactions in the past. For example, the audio companies negotiated a deal with the Cleveland Browns to retain three flagship radio stations for the team, including ESPN 850 Cleveland and 92.3 The Fan.

In a seminal cross-format agreement, Good Karma Brands is taking over the 880 AM signal from Audacy under a local marketing agreement starting this week. Local content on ESPN New York is shifting to 880 AM, while ESPN Radio network content will continue to air on 1050 AM.

As part of the agreement, live game broadcasts of New York Mets baseball will continue airing on 880 AM for the foreseeable future. The team moved its radio broadcasts to Audacy’s WCBS ahead of the 2019 season in a deal that runs through next year after broadcasting for several years on iHeartMedia-owned 710 WOR. Audacy is in the process of trying to emerge from Ch. 11 bankruptcy and received an extension of a debtor-in-possession forbearance agreement until at least Sept. 30 as the Federal Communications Commission reviews its restructuring plan. The company’s common stock was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange last year a few months before the company filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy.

“[The] 880 [signal] is as powerful a station as it comes,” DiMarco said. “As someone who grew up around the news business and the news brand specifically in New York, it’s something that everyone knows… and likely [is] already preset in many cars and people are used to going there. So, we feel very strongly, and certainly Mets fans know about the station and where to find it and are finding it regularly, right?”

Good Karma Brands has been focused on executing a marketing strategy for the last several months to inform listeners how they can find the station going forward. Because of the additional deal, the campaign has been altered to reflect the new arrangement that works to leverage its partners and ensure that the messages are heard. The company effectively had two weeks before ESPN New York launched on 880 AM to disseminate the adjustment, and it is confident that the strategy will pay dividends.

“Our job as it relates to our advertisers is to make sure that people are aware of whatever it is the opportunity that they present,” Politziner said. “Our job is to make sure that our fans are aware where they can consume us and how they can consume us.”

“The reaction from advertisers has been kind of, ‘Wow,’” DiMarco added. “I think as people processed [it], who have grown up in this market, and processed the sad part of [WCBS] going away, they genuinely see the value in us moving onto that frequency, and so the response from advertisers has been favorable and nothing short of phenomenal.”

As it pertains to the future of the 1050 WEPN-AM signal, the company is currently focusing on enacting programming on both AM frequencies. A potential sale of the 1050 stick, which it purchased as part of the aforementioned larger deal for $15 million with AM frequencies in Los Angeles and Chicago, is not ostensibly at the top of mind for now. Outside of its operations in the three largest U.S. media markets, Good Karma Brands also owns and operates stations in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Beaver Dam, Madison and West Palm Beach.

“I think given how surprised people were about this, you can say anything is a possibility, but right now, we are just so pumped to be able to offer a local lineup, play-by-play, a network lineup [and] the best national play-by-play in a city that has become accustomed to receiving that and has the sports fans to support it, so that’s really all we’re focused on right now,” Politziner said regarding the future of 1050 AM. “We certainly have our hands full with this and everything else going in Good Karma.”

Starting this week, the pattern of call letters associated with the 880 AM frequency has changed to WHSQ, a syntax that is embedded with an indication of a forthcoming relocation. ESPN New York is moving its local studios to Hudson Square in early 2025, hence the decision to adopt the structure of the new combination.

“We’re excited to have our talent and our shows operating in the same building where our sales offices are, and that’s a big factor of us moving down there,” DiMarco said. “It’s something that we haven’t had recently, and that’s a big part of it. To get the team – the full team – back together in the same building is going to be huge to just continue to drive excitement and camaraderie and collaboration.”

ESPN New York is not making any changes to its programming lineup despite the new frequency, sticking with its weekday prime offering as it has stood since last January. Modified archetypes related to listenership measurement and how to gauge total consumption resulted in Good Karma Brands to unsubscribe from Nielsen Media Research ratings data for ESPN New York. The augmented emphasis on streaming has resulted in proprietary data and internal first-party recognition to become a prominent part of the equation for Good Karma Brands, which does not compare itself to other brands. The conglomerate ultimately believes that the enterprise gives partners a better chance for proper evaluation of the on-air product.

As ESPN New York commences a new era on WHSQ 880 AM and simulcasting national shows on 1050 AM, it intends to further promote sports talk radio and provide informative and entertaining coverage of the local teams. Despite the loss of WCBS Newsradio 880, which has left many listeners crestfallen, there will still be live and local programming on the synonymous frequency, albeit in a different format. Seeking to maintain existing listenership and garner additional shares of attention, the station will seek to reinforce the impact of live programming in its auspicious collaboration between Good Karma Brands and The Walt Disney Company.

“We were full steam ahead with everything that we have and everything that we were moving forward with,” Politziner said. “We’re just excited that this just provides one more opportunity to amplify that choice for maybe people that haven’t consumed us before or want to continue to consume us via a terrestrial offering.”

Christine Hoffman is Looking to Capture Momentum as The Daily Wire’s SVP of Ad Sales

Krystina Alarcon Carroll
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Christine Hoffman is Looking to Capture Momentum as The Daily Wire’s SVP of Ad Sales

After intense congressional hearings and several lawsuits, The World Federation of Advertisers has shut down the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). It’s a notable win for conservative outlets like The Daily Wire over brand safety. “One of the things that I am most proud of is this leadership position that we’ve taken on the topic of brand safety,” The Daily Wire’s Senior Vice President, Ad Revenue Christine Hoffman told Barrett Media.

“There are brand safety guidelines that have existed, such as GARM, that have taken a more subjective look at content,” she continued. “As a result, conservative publishers [were] punished on the revenue side and Daily Wire has really led that charge.

“It’s been a hard-fought battle. We also have active lawsuits going with the State Department, for example. But I think [the ending of GARM] was a really great moment. Ben Shapiro did an outstanding job, providing or exposing what was going on behind the scenes.”

Fortunately, The Daily Wire’s continued success was unhindered by GARM’s short existence. “Advertising revenue growth has really mirrored the growth that we’ve seen in numbers at The Daily Wire,” Hoffman said. “The audience is absolutely booming. We are seeing over 50 million downloads per month on the podcast side. We have over 120 million social followers and over 25 million YouTube followers. So, we’ve really been able to generate revenue that follows that path.”

What Hoffman believes is most important now is, “Capturing the momentum that is in place right now. So, our numbers have really taken a lift the last few weeks with the election season really taking off. On the sales side [we] have been all about capturing that momentum, and really giving our advertisers the best experience.”

Hoffman believes the focus now shouldn’t be on brand safety but instead brand suitability, “which opens the door to potentially politically targeted decision making. That’s one that we’ve been very carefully navigating. I think we’re always cognizant of other areas that are gaining a lot of momentum, retail media for example. I think we always want to be mindful of areas that are performing just as well as podcasts in terms of advertising results. But I would say one of the bigger challenges is this kind of hesitancy for advertisers to run against news content.”

With a focus on brand sustainability, Hoffman noted where you market doesn’t change people wanting to buy. “Stagwell just released a study in 2024 and what it showed was with an ad adjacency, news, sports, entertainment, the purchase intent did not change at all. Which said to us, wow, you know, news is a category that advertisers should not be shying away from.”

Hoffman started advocating for equal and fair news, long before joining The Daily Wire as a freshman in college. “My initial exposure to political news and advertising was as a freshman in college after 9/11,” she said. “The college I attended was Fordham University in New York City and [I] was really eager for them to add Fox News to their channel lineup. It was not available when I started and just wanting to watch a specific news channel turned into a whole campaign where I went to the dean’s office several times, had several meetings with them.”

The school added Fox to their lineup thanks to Hoffmans efforts. More importantly for her career, the story caught the attention of some Fox News executives, “which landed me an internship at Fox News. After about four years of interning, it turned into some full-time positions at Fox News in their sales and affiliate marketing departments where I learned the ins and outs of advertising and affiliate marketing.”

Hoffman then moved on to roles at multiple Fortune 500 firms, including Johnson & Johnson and Google, however she had greater ambitions in mind. “While working at Google, every morning before work, I would run while listening to podcasts. One morning I was listening to Ben Shapiro and he transitioned into an ad read for the open sales position at The Daily Wire. Before I even got home, I decided I’m moving my family to Nashville, Tennessee for that job.”

The SVP said working at the big tech firm was “a phenomenal experience,” but she wanted more. “I really yearned to work for a company that I felt very passionate about, I felt really aligned to and that was more than enough to take me away from Google. I really have not looked back since.”

No matter where, or who, you are selling, the media and sales leader noted there are always challenges. “I think for The Daily Wire, being in the news and political space presents its own unique set of challenges. A seller is always going to have to ride the tide of the economy and what’s going on because we tend to feel that, when advertisers pull back marketing budgets when the economy is having a tough time. But I would say the challenges that we experience are not unique to us.”

Despite challenges, Hoffman and The Daily Wire are excited to be nimble and pivot in the face of change. “We run at a breakneck pace and minimize the red tape that will get in the way of getting things done for our audience and for our advertisers,” Hoffman said. “Being nimble is definitely our secret sauce in the face of challenges and what makes Daily Wire stand out relative to other big companies that I’ve worked for.”

For those looking to follow in Hoffman’s footsteps she suggests gathering real world experience and finding your passion. “I was less concerned about learning what was in the books and more concerned about getting real world experience that will lead me to a job and career and it just kind of gave me a sense of what’s out there,” she said. “What am I interested in, what am I passionate about?”

She noted of her career, “Landing at the Fox News internship was very positive in that I realized when I’m aligned to something I can achieve great results because I’m really passionate about helping that company achieve success. Find a job that doesn’t feel like a job and something that you’re really, passionate about.”

Eavesdropping: ‘The Triple Option’ with Urban Meyer, Mark Ingram II and Rob Stone

Dave Greene
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Eavesdropping: ‘The Triple Option’ with Urban Meyer, Mark Ingram II and Rob Stone

As the temperatures have started to dip, especially at night here in the Midwest, it is starting to finally feel like football season. This is without question my favorite time of the year and I know most sports fans across the country feel the same way. When I thought about what I wanted to listen to this week I knew I wanted something with a lot of football talk. Fortunately, I saw this story about Sinclair launching a new football podcast, ‘The Triple Option’ and then I saw a social media post that said Nick Saban would be the guest on the debut episode which dropped on Wednesday, Aug. 21.

The podcast, which also has a video feed on YouTube, features FOX Sports’ Rob Stone along with three-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer and Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram II. The three, along with Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn, make up FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff show.

You can tell the trio has experience working together right away as the beginning of the show has a locker room feel to it with some loose chatter about what they’d all been up to recently. Ingram talked about chasing his five kids around and all of their activities and made the point that he had never had this time before with his family as he was always getting ready for a football season. When it was mentioned Meyer and Ingram spent some time together in Cabo over the summer, obviously Stone wondered what had happened to his invitation.

Ingram, also referred to as ‘Deuce Deuce,’ brings the humor and keeps things loose, but don’t let that fool you, he is just as knowledgeable about the game as anyone and just recently finished his pro career after a dozen years in the NFL.

All three of the hosts showed off their knowledge of the college football landscape as the show really got going and they took a look at all 10 of the preseason AP Top 10 teams in reverse order. Meyer said before they got going that with a lot of these teams the schedules really determine a lot of things and it’s the first thing he looked at for each team.

From Florida State at No. 10 to Georgia at No. 1, the three gave thoughts on each time and talked about their chances to be the one standing with the National Championship at the end of the season. In about 20 minutes they broke down what they see as the strength and weaknesses of each team. There is a lot of intrigue about Ole Miss, who is ranked No. 6, as well as Texas who will be in their first season as a member of the SEC.

As they concluded, Stone mentioned that all three agree the top three teams of Oregon, Ohio State and Georgia are somewhat interchangeable and could have all been ranked No. 1. None would be surprised if any of the three won the championship this year.

After running through the top 10 teams, Stone asked for teams “outside of the Top 10 teams that we think is going to make some noise.” He mentioned that according to show sponsor BetMGM, Utah is the team outside of the Top 10 with the best odds, they are currently ranked 12th.

This made Meyer perk up as he spent time at Utah as the head coach and said, “I think they have the best coach in college football,” in Kyle Whittingham, although he admitted he is a bit biased. However, he has been to see them practice twice and mentioned getting a text from Whittingham saying he thinks they have a good team. Meyer said that really means something as he noted normally Whittingham is a ‘half-empty’ guy when it comes to talking about his own team.

Ingram went with Miami, who is ranked 19th in the preseason poll. He noted their success in the transfer portal, highlighting former Oregon State running back Damien Martinez and ex-Washington State quarterback Cameron Ward.

The second segment of the show featured their special guest, seven-time National Championship winning head coach Nick Saban. This brought together the only two coaches to win two FBS championships at two different schools with Saban winning at LSU and Alabama and Meyer doing it at Florida and Ohio State.

They started by asking Coach Saban what he has been up to lately, not having a team to get ready for the first time in forever.

“Well, I had the opportunity to do the draft this year, SEC Media Days, now I’m going to do GameDay,” Saban said. “There takes a lot of preparation time for these things, but the one thing that you can do is you do it on your time. You can do it in the morning, go play golf in the afternoon, go see your mom in the afternoon, whatever you need to do. So that keeps me busy. It gives me something to do.

“The biggest thing that I realized is for 50 years of my life, I was always in a hurry, always in a hurry to do the next thing, always in a hurry to get wherever I was going, because it was something else you had to do, whether it was to recruit, get ready for practice, prepare for a game, whatever it was.

“And what I realized when I retired is I didn’t even know that I was always in a hurry. I just thought that was the way of life…I like to say that I retired from coaching, but I didn’t really retire from working because I do enjoy having something to do all the time.”

The rest of the interview is best summed up as a masterclass in what has gone on in college football over the last decade and really gets to the heart of what this podcast is, which is to get some of the best football minds together to not just talk about what is happening on the field but the important things off the field as well.

Another question centered on what Saban has said to new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer about coaching at Alabama. “We coach at these programs that have high expectations, which is what we all want…But I think the number one thing you got to do is be who you are, focus on the things that are in front of you and don’t get impacted by external factors…And I think [ignoring external factors] is a little more difficult to do in this day and age because of social media…There’s all kinds of impacts that you can have from worrying about what other people think rather than controlling what you control.”

Both Meyer and Saban have been vocal about what the responsibilities of a head coach have become in the age of NIL and the way the recruiting schedule has changed. First, Saban was asked about the evolution of the recruiting calendar as Meyer noted he had talked with Ryan Day at Ohio State who said he spends half of his time dealing with things other than coaching his team.

“I don’t think there’s any question about the fact that, especially the last five years, we’ve passed a lot of legislation relative to college football that has really made it more difficult to spend time with your current team…because you’ve got to recruit the players on your team all the time, because basically they’re free agents twice a year,” Saban said. “When they changed the recruiting calendar to allow spring and summer visits… those were almost sacred times…you had a lot of time to spend with your team throughout the summer, even though you weren’t allowed to go out there and coach them, you could spend a lot of time with them. And that’s all kind of disappeared.

Another topic Saban was asked about was the amount of transferring that is going on and this clearly struck a nerve.

“Players that came into your program, the number one goal is how can we help them be more successful in life because they were involved in the program,” Saban said. “So, you’re really going to college, to create value for your future. And as an athlete, that could be on the field in terms of developing a career at the next level, but most importantly, preparing yourself for the day you couldn’t play football. And that means making sure you get an education.

“The one fear that I have is guys being able to transfer, especially two or three times, you know, they impact how many guys graduate. So, we may have down the road, we may have some sad stories about what happens to these players…I am very concerned about that because there is statistical information out there as to when you transfer, how that impacts your chances to graduate.

“I do think that having the ability to transfer after two or three years of school and you can go someplace else and play, maybe that’s not a terrible thing in some cases, but when guys just do it for financial reasons, I think, it’s a little short-sighted in terms of what they can develop down the road.”

‘The Triple Option’ had plenty of knowledge, some laughs, and fascinating conversation. In about 90 minutes, Stone, Meyer and Ingram II delivered on their promise of having a football show that is different and brings unique perspective.

The show will drop each Wednesday and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is the scheduled guest for week two.

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