On Sunday afternoon, President Biden announced he would no longer seek re-election as the Democratic Party nominee for President. In the aftermath, both Fox News and ABC News led coverage of the decision.
The President published his announcement just after 1:45 PM Sunday afternoon, launching cable and network news organizations into breaking news mode.
In the immediate aftermath of the decision, Fox News led cable outlets as it eclipsed 3 million total viewers from 2-11 PM ET. CNN and MSNBC battled for second place throughout the day. CNN experienced a bump right after the announcement, reaching up to 1.9 million viewers before 5 PM ET. The network faltered throughout the day, dropping to 1.5 million viewers from 5-7 PM ET and down to 1.2 million from 8-11 PM ET. MSNBC saw between 1.8 and 1.9 million from 3-11 PM ET.
From 7-9 PM ET, ABC News led the network news sector with 3.6 million viewers, the biggest average audience of the day’s coverage, according to Nielsen. It just barely beat out CBS News, which saw an audience of 3.4 million during the two-hour window. NBC News lagged behind with 2.3 million viewers.
Additionally, the network news organizations saw higher viewership from the Adults 25-54 demographic than its cable news competition. ABC News featured 672,000 viewers in the demo, while CBS News (562,000), and NBC News (494,000) weren’t far behind.
In compassion, Fox News’ largest audience in the demo came during the 3-5 PM ET window with 593,000 viewers. CNN’s best finish in the sector also came during that timeslot, with 508,000. MSNBC was well behind its competition in this regard, as it’s top finish with persons in the coveted demographic only saw 272,000 viewers in that same 3-5 PM ET timeslot.
Brooke Summers, afternoon host of NRG Media’s Country KFGE (Froggy 98) and morning co-host at Top 40 KBBK (B107.3)/Lincoln, NE, will host the CBS “Country Labor Day Radio Special.”
Summers said, “I’m thrilled to be part of CBS’ expanded music programming special. Labor Day & barbecues would not be complete without country music.”
CBS Radio Executive Editor Jennifer Brown added, “Brooke knows Country. We can’t wait for listeners across the country to hear her show.”
Since joining NRG, Lincoln, in 2021, Summers has also been featured as a two-time voiceover announcer for the Academy of Country Music Awards.
The three-hour show, featuring music by Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, and other surprise highlights from today’s country music stars, will be heard on stations nationwide.
Capitol Broadcasting has signed a multi-year agreement with Duke University Athletics and Learfield’s Blue Devil Sports Properties to continue as the radio home of Duke Athletics.
WRAL News+, heard in Raleigh on 99.3-FM and in Durham on 96.5-FM, and The Buzz, available on 620-AM and 104.5-FM in Durham, represent the flagship networks for the Blue Devils and headline a list of nearly 50 affiliates across the Carolinas.
“We are thrilled to extend our partnership with Duke University and continue outstanding local broadcast coverage for one of the most storied programs and fan bases in the country,” said Brian Grube, Vice President/Radio for Capitol Broadcasting in a release. “Our commitment to covering local sports remains stronger than ever, and Duke will always play a major role in that. We’re extremely proud to carry on the rich tradition of Duke Athletics on our stations.”
“When you think of Duke Athletics on the radio here in the Triangle, one name stands out, and that is Capitol Broadcasting. We are excited to keep this long-standing partnership going,” said Mike Sobb, Duke associate athletics director for resource acquisition. “Thanks to Jimmy Goodmon and Brian Grube for their incredible support. We look forward to many more years with the Capitol family.”
Learfield’s Blue Devil Sports Properties is the exclusive multimedia rights holder for Duke University Athletics and oversees the relationship with Capitol Broadcasting on behalf of the Blue Devils.
The road that Andy Roth took to being the Brand Manager at Audacy in Cleveland included stops in Philadelphia, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Buffalo.
After moving around a bit, Roth landed in Cleveland in 2011 to launch 92.3 ‘The Fan’ and it’s been quite a run.
“There’s no way that this doesn’t happen unless everyone is geared for success,” said Roth. “And then everyone performed right, and it was just great. It’s been awesome.”
A big reason why it’s been “awesome” is because Roth knew right from the get-go what was going to work in Cleveland. As far as sports radio is concerned, what works in one market may not necessarily work in another market.
For ‘The Fan’ to be a success, they had to be “hyper-local.”
“I knew that when building the station, every talk show had to have one tie to Cleveland no matter what,” said Roth. “You just have to make sure that the guys perform and that they’re having fun. If they’re not, then you have to make sure that they’re having fun and they’re performing.”
Along his journey, Roth picked up important knowledge at each stop that he made. One of the most important pieces of advice he received was when he worked at WFAN in New York and was able to absorb some knowledge from legendary Program Director Mark Chernoff.
It was at WFAN where Roth learned not just how important it was to listen to the radio station but also how to listen.
“They key is to be a good listener,” said Roth of what he learned from Chernoff. “He did give me one really good (piece of) advice as we started which was don’t listen in your office all the time. Make sure you walk around or drive around so that you’re not distracted, and you can hear what people are hearing.”
Sometimes it’s not a good idea to bring your work home with you, but Roth also tried that listening advice with his family and that worked out for him as well.
“I have two kids and a wife who are huge sports fans,” said Roth. “Being able to listen with them and see when they perked up was a big thing.”
After his time at WFAN, Roth moved on to Major League Baseball where he helped launch the first all-baseball radio station “MLB Radio” and that’s where he learned about technology that has become so important today for the sports radio format.
It was at MLB where Roth could see that digital content was going to be a big part of the industry.
“I learned quickly that, despite the fact that there’s a slight internet delay, the reach of what the internet can do were two things I had never even thought of when I worked at WFAN,” said Roth.
“We quickly realized what we can do with it and clipping stuff and made it a part of MLB.com.”
Roth brought that digital content back to radio with him when he moved on to run WGR in Buffalo from 2002 to 2011. His time in Western New York meant a lot to him and it was really his first taste of what he would eventually install at ‘The Fan’ when he got to Cleveland.
It was in Buffalo where Roth really learned about “hyper-local” coverage.
“When you lived in Buffalo and you didn’t wake up and know what the Bills did on Sunday, you weren’t a part of the conversation on Monday,” said Roth.
In moving from Buffalo to Cleveland, Roth already had a feel of what was needed to serve sports fans that represented the DNA of the city and its sports teams. The fans in Cleveland, just like the fans in Buffalo, live and die with their sports teams and they also share another common trait.
They pay attention to what other markets are saying about them.
“I think people care so much about these teams but also, they have their ears up for what the nation says, and I think that may be some of the things that other people see and hear about Cleveland,” said Roth. “Clevelanders don’t like it when other people say bad things about their teams and maybe a little more than others.”
Just like WFAN in New York and WIP in Philadelphia, ‘The Fan’ in Cleveland continues to be successful because they’ve been able to inspire people who want to get into the business and to be able to work at their hometown sports radio station.
More than a decade into their existence, ‘The Fan,’ under Roth’s leadership, has been able to turn passionate listeners into talented hosts.
“We’re 12 years old but people remember the first generation of our guys,” said Roth. “Now the people who are coming through the people who were listening to us when they were 12 and 13 or 15 or in college and now, they’re part of our radio station.”
Depending on where you live, markets in other parts of the country can be labeled in different ways.
You could have a city with great sports fans, an area with average sports fans and even a market with bad sports fans.
There was probably a time when Cleveland could have been labeled, whether it was justified or not, as a bad sports town. Today, that could not be any further from the truth.
Cleveland is as good a sports town as you will find because they fought back when they were kicked in the teeth.
“I think you can put Clevelanders, especially because of what happened with the Browns, as part of the best sports fans,” said Roth.
“They are the ones who forced action and the city of Cleveland forced action to make sure that the Browns played here. I don’t think that you find more people who identify that Cleveland sports helps define a city. Sports resonates in this city because that’s what people talk about.”
And ‘The Fan’ has been the place for fans to talk about Cleveland sports because the station was built the right way by Andy Roth.
Last week I listened to some live news talk radio reports from the Republican National Convention. I enjoyed what little I heard not because it was the GOP convention but because it reminded me of the good old days when presidential nominating conventions were the every-four-year Olympics of American democracy packed with genuine intrigue and patriotic excitement.
In those days listening to the “gavel-to-gavel coverage” of rousing speeches, platform votes, and behind-the-scenes reports from smoke-filled back rooms where real decisions were being made allowed me the pride of feeling I was participating in my duty as a citizen.
You have to go back 40 years to remember a truly contested presidential candidate nomination. (1984: Mondale beat Gary Hart for the Democratic nomination and then was slaughtered in the general election by President Reagan.) Now we get short sound bites, a sentence or two from network news anchors, and a lot of biased commentary.
Say what you will about politics today, but it used to be a lot more engaging, though much of it was staged hype even back then. We knew that but we still loved it.
Sometimes curiosity bites off more than it can chew. I knew this as I listened to the RNC conversation last week and wondered again, for maybe the 10-thousandth time, why conservative politics dominates talk radio.
I went to some experts for answers and got some interesting responses.
Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers suggested that the question assumes a too-narrow view:
“Conservative talk radio is a format unto itself and it’s a very successful one because it has high profile talent. It makes the news a lot. Ratings-wise, it’s moderately successful, but it doesn’t dominate. Country music is big. Sports radio is big. All news radio. In other words, it’s one format out of many. It’s also not as dominant in political talk (as people think) because (we) don’t call public radio, liberal radio.
Yeah, the people that work there say “We are liberal,” but anybody who knows radio politics knows that commercial news talk radio or political talk radio leans conservative, and public talk radio, NPR and all the others, which have millions and millions of listeners lean liberal. So, when you look at radio, the big picture of talk radio, as opposed to focusing on commercial news talk radio, you find out that radio does have more variety in terms of politics than would meet the eye or the ear.”
For a view from the happy, proud, and righteous right, I turned to Mark Davis, mornings on KSKY, Dallas, and former frequent fill-in for Rush Limbaugh:
“There is an appetite for conservative talk radio because so many other sectors of life are dominated by liberalism – the dominant news culture, Hollywood, academia. People say talk radio needs balance. Actually, talk radio IS balance. It offers conservatism against the wave of liberalism found elsewhere.
“Why have many liberal talk shows failed? As with the Air America network example, liberal talk tends to be a parade of humorless partisans offering nothing but a scolding and hatred of America. Rush Limbaugh and a generation of other conservatives have offered a foundation of optimism and good humor, even while lodging sound objections to the direction in which America is headed.
“Another characteristic of conservative media is the welcoming of liberal ideas. We love to mix it up, we love to debate. The left shrinks from that challenge, and it is evident every day on liberal cable networks, just as it was on liberal talk radio.
“There have been liberal shows that have been successful in individual markets, and it is because they have observed the primary rule of radio – be entertaining first, and the political flavors will be more popular.”
I agree with Mark. My general impression of progressive/liberal commentators is that they tend to be angry, snarky, insulting, and often profane. They don’t invite me to consider their views, they dare me to disagree. Again, that’s a generalization but it has been created by most of what I’ve heard and read over the past 40 years.
Not coincidentally, 40 years ago in 1984 I was a Democrat but voted for Reagan. He smiled a lot, told jokes, and offered an optimistic plan. Mondale and Hart just sniped at each other. That was my take, anyway.
A few years later I was doing morning news on KFBK, Sacramento, and excitedly introduced a live interview with SNL funny man and future Democratic Senator Al Franken reporting live from the DNC convention in San Francisco. I gave him the standard big teases and introduction and then it went off the rails:
ME: Mr. Franken, good morning!
AL: Just a minute, I’m having a conversation. Go ahead and talk among yourselves.
I hung up on him.
Of course, there are professional, clear-headed liberal talkers. I wish I knew more than a couple of their names.
“Be entertaining first,” Mark Davis says, a radio summary of the age-old proverb, “You’ll attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
Michael Harrison agrees:
“The trends go where the talent lies and conservative talk radio has had some enormously successful talents. But why, what is it about their message and their style? There’s more to success in talk radio than just your message. There is charisma, entertainment, there’s personality, there’s that X factor: creating relationships with listeners, trust, credibility.
“There’s so many factors involved in what makes a talk show host successful. It has been said that if Rush Limbaugh were liberal, he’d still be successful because he was a talented broadcaster. So one of the reasons is the trends go where the talent lies.”
Mr. Harrison wasn’t impugning the individual talents of any particular left-wing talkers, but the point is clear and accurate. Nobody can succeed in any radio format by being pissy, sarcastic, and insulting. Americans are better than that and they have bigger lives to lead. Your snark is just a tiny voice in the cacophony.
I’m trying to present a balanced and thoughtful view of this, I really am. I remember when the radio and TV networks featured respectful opposing commentators in their convention coverage. Rather than being assaulted with cherry-picked quotes out of context, we were encouraged to listen, absorb, and think for ourselves.
But there I go again, being a wistful old fart.
Back to now, here’s a liberal/progressive view from…
(This space is blank because none of the three big-name liberal talkers I reached out to bothered to reply to my invitation for comment. Make of that what you will. I tried.)
Politicians divide us for power, talk show hosts need us for ratings. We the People just need to listen with an open mind, sort through the BS, and to think quietly for ourselves.
You’re sitting alone in a T-Mobile store on a summer Saturday morning, asking why not one listener has appeared at your ‘live remote.‘
It’s a self-inflected wound.
Your announcements about the event didn’t reach the target.
Plus, the offer wasn’t robust enough to move butts into the store.
The scenario embarrasses you, the client, and the Account Executive.
Let’s explore – why.
Digital audio measurement—Nielsen Audio Portable People Meter—has been deployed in the Top 48 Radio Markets for a decade and a half. Certainly, the methodology has flaws, but data gathered from people using the meter teaches us lessons.
If you have the opportunity to dig inside the Nielsen PPM data, you’ll find one data point that tells us about listening habits.
The average occasion of listening – whether you’re a Talk, Christian, or Country brand – is somewhere between 11 and 15 minutes.
Whether you’re 1st or 31st – average 13 minutes.
Couple this data point with the information that people’s attention spans have diminished by 50% in the past two decades, and listeners are more passive listeners than ever.
In the television orbit, NBC knows that the audience is distracted and often ‘second screened.’
The amount of promotional announcements NBC runs in Prime Time for the 2024 Summer Olympics averages six messages per hour.
Per HOUR!
Old School programmers remember the ‘promotional grid,’where we’d allow perhaps 28 mentions per week for outside events—four per day.
With this in mind, consider the following:
Increase the number of announcements for your events to get greater exposure. In lieu of standard :30 second promotional announcements, develop :10 second (or even :05 second) messages and air them several times per hour.
Lead with benefit. What’s the MAIN attraction to get the audience through the door? At times, we hear promotional announcements that lack creative insight and put the benefit at the end. For example, if you’re giving away a trip to Hawaii at your T-Mobile event, that’s your lead.
Let’s broaden this practice to all elements:
Station ID’s – Let’s eliminate all ‘silent segues’. That is – ID between every element. We hear from programmers – even those suffering through PPM measurement – that ID’ing the brand between every element creates ‘clutter’ and, worse yet – “The listener knows who their hearing”. Not true. Imagine Starbucks only printing their logo on every third cup. They would save big money on printing, yet would the consumer OR the people who see the consumer know where their coffee was created? Nope. If the occasion is 13 minutes and you don’t ID your brand for several elements, listeners won’t know who gave them that listening experience.
Music – When Taylor Swift was white hot six months ago, why NOT play a TS song two – maybe three – times per hour? Why NOT play Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”(Classic Rock’s best tester) six times per day? Listeners complain about hearing songs that they do NOT like often. Not their favorites.
Imaging – To YOUR ear, you might have imaging or elements that seem to play ‘a lot’. To YOU, it’s burned or overplayed. From Neilson’s PPM data, listeners actually hear your product about three to four hours a week. You listen twelve hours a week. Again, occasions are about 13 minutes throughout the week.
Morning Show Benchmarks—A spirited debate has ensued on this. Most shows run a popular benchmark only once per show. If the feature is hot with your audience, why not run it multiple times? The audience at 6:20 am is far different than those listening at 8:40 am. In fact, Nielsen data shows that if you run a bit at—say, 8:40 am once—less than 5% of your loyalist listeners (P1—cume) will actually hear it.
Show Promos—Music brands typically cross-promote their morning shows a few times per day. We hear that increased frequency adds to perceived ‘clutter.’ This is solid practice, but frequency needs to increase IF you want the majority of your audience to hear it. Solution: Run shorter promos on-air with greater exposure and push details to digital platforms.
From Neilson’s own experts – “Your cume is bee-hiving all the time.”
Turning over every – 13 minutes.
Your brand is not in a vacuum. Radio competition is small compared to the audio platforms begging for the ear. Spotify – Soundcloud – Alexa – SiriusXM – Apple Music – Podcasts and dozens more are constantly in the way of your brand.
To add to those distractions, your audience is bombarded with up to 10,000 ads per day.
Pissing people off is just part of the job description in sports talk. We give our opinions on the air five days per week and sometimes those shows run for two, three or four hours each day. It’s a lot of time that you have to fill with interesting content. If all you ever did was give milquetoast, uncontroversial opinions, you wouldn’t last very long in this business.
Last week, we saw the consequences of a lifetime of giving big opinions on big platforms. Whether it was Paul Finebaum’s confrontation with Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin at SEC Media Days or the public reaction to the news that Skip Bayless will be leaving FS1 at the end of the summer, plenty of average sports fans felt the need to get their takes off.
I’m always surprised by how much sports fans care about the people talking about the players and games, but I suppose it’s good that they do. If you can get the audience to care about you enough to be happy when you’re on the receiving end of a verbal lashing, you’re probably pretty good at this job.
I listened to Paul Finebaum every weekday when I was in college. That of course predates his ESPN tenure. It even predates his time at WJOX in Birmingham. Since I started writing for Barrett Media, I’ve gotten to know Paul well and he has always been good to me. I like Paul, and I still got a kick out of Lane Kiffin calling him out.
Now, I couldn’t tell you if Kiffin really despises Paul Finebaum, but it sure seems like he has made a point to keep Finebaum off his Christmas card list. He was very genuine in recounting his emotions and the events that followed after Finebaum went on College GameDay and called him “a joke” and “the Miley Cyrus of college football” in 2013.
Kiffin said that ultimately, he was at fault for his failure as USC’s head coach, but he made it clear that Finebaum’s comments weighed on his bosses’ minds. “You didn’t help. You really didn’t,” he said, reminding everyone that he was fired the same day that Finebaum made his comments.
Finebaum looked a bit uncomfortable, but he didn’t try to shy away from what he said. To me, that’s the sign of someone who gets that this is part of the job description. You share your opinion and you don’t mince words. More importantly, you accept that the people you talk about are entitled to react honestly.
When Kiffin delivered his punchline, “Really, I don’t know what you’re good at,” pointing out that Finebaum was wrong about Cyrus’s staying power and the multiple times he wondered aloud if Nick Saban was done, two things were clear. First, both men got that this was entertaining the people at home. Also, Kiffin was giving Finebaum and his audience a genuine reaction to content Finebaum had created in the past.
For Bayless, the factors are a little different. Count me amongst the many that don’t get the appeal of Skip Bayless. He’s a hot take cannon that fires without aiming. I kind of saw the writing for him and Undisputed on the wall when Shannon Sharpe left the show.
That being said, I understand that there’s a reason FOX was willing to go all in on Bayless when it had the chance to steal him from ESPN. He creates headlines, he creates reactions, and he doesn’t waste time wondering if his takes are right or wrong or how they make the people he is talking about feel.
Certainly, there are more responsible ways to do what Bayless does. A lot of players and colleagues clearly do not like him. But there are plenty of people who don’t like him and recognize that angry reactions can be a sign of someone doing their job well.
Finebaum and Bayless are not alone. There is a long list of sports talkers who have had to sit there and take it while the audience or the subject of one of their takes lays into them. The audience doesn’t react to people who have established themselves as stars in this industry in a vacuum. The anger over one comment is fueled by dozens of previous comments they have objected to.
That’s a good thing. It means people are watching and they’re reacting. You can be a lot of things in this business, but one thing you have to be is memorable. You won’t have a job for very long if you aren’t.
No one event creates the exact same memory for everyone. What keeps your audience coming back may make you a heel to the person you are talking about. They’re allowed to tell you that when they have the chance. Dealing with it is just part of the job. So is turning it into interesting content.
Across a variety of formats, timeslots, and cities, New York City’s WCBS-FM host Jesse Addy has a pretty simple goal while on the air – leave listeners in a better mood than you found them. And while his professional career arguably started with college radio as a student, Addy’s connection to broadcasting runs much deeper than that.
“I actually was born in Dallas, Texas because of radio,” Addy explains. “My dad worked at a rock station, KZEW, which is no longer around.”
“So I was always around radio stations, radio people, radio events. I would go with my dad to the radio station softball games. They were in a league with all of the other DJs and stuff,” he recalls of his early broadcasting connections. “But I never really, at that point, thought I was going to do radio. It was just something that my dad did.”
His father’s radio career aside, a familial history of coaches, teachers, and healthcare workers left Addy unclear at first where his professional life would take him. “Obviously, when you’re a freshman in high school, and the seniors all know your dad as a DJ, that was cool,” he says. “But at the same time, my grandfather had been the former athletic director at the high school. The football stadium’s named after him.”
Addy attended Michigan State University, thinking a degree in geography would lead him down the path of teaching high schoolers and coaching the football team. But his involvement with the school’s radio station steered him closer to his journey in broadcasting.
“I would say about halfway through college…I started to realize I was the first one into the station and the last one to leave. It’s what I thought about in my free time, not so much teaching or lesson plans or being a coach,” he says. “I just had to be honest with myself – I had kind of fallen in love with this thing called radio.”
Upon graduating college, Addy thought, “Why don’t I give this radio thing a try for a year or two? And here I am in 2024 still giving it a try.” He’s now worked with music genres spanning Alternative, Top 40, Country, and Classic Hits in cities like Detroit, Atlanta, and now, New York.
Addy’s early immersion into the radio business through his family gave him a leg-up initial understanding of what he was up against, but it was really the music that had him hooked. “It was definitely music-driven,” he says. “I worked in the alternative format; that was my first commercial job. And so that was kind of the passion.”
What ultimately kept Addy in the broadcasting space was a found interest in some of the behind-the-scenes workings of a music station. “As I got more into the career, the science of being an on-air talent and what went into deciding what songs get on and just the industry part of it started to really grab me as well – the art and the science.”
“I love pretty much every aspect of radio,” he explains.
With a career that has already touched many genres of music, Addy reflects on what it’s like shepherding listeners to the tracks he plays. He’s sure to level with the audiences he serves, regardless of how the music is categorized. Ultimately, Addy finds ways to organically connect with the folks tuning in.
“I think that we all have different variations of ourselves,” he says, “you’re certainly different if you’re talking to a niece versus a grandmother, but it’s still all you. I think the filter is that it’s really about the audience and who I am when I’m around those people. So for a long time whether it was in Top 40 or Hot AC or even Country, I’ve talked to people increasingly younger than me. And this is the first time in a long time I’ve talked to people my age.”
He says of his current afternoon drive slot with the classic hits on 101.1, “It’s almost like there’s less filters…I don’t think it’s a big difference for me, just really thinking about who I’m talking to.”
While Addy’s current role hasn’t taken him physically back to Dallas, Texas or his time in Detroit, there’s an element of what he does now that feels like home. “CBS-FM is kind of a dream format in a way,” he explains. “So many of the songs, I’m back in my mom’s backseat.”
Having experienced a number of highs in his career so far, Addy still holds a special place for some of the larger, passion-filled initiatives he’s had a hand in, starting with his time on what was New York’s Country 94.7. “One of the things that was really cool about being at the epicenter of an entire format…is obviously the opportunity and the access to the artists and being there in New York,” he says.
“One moment for me was we did a 30-minute live broadcast with Luke Bryan to all of the Cumulus country stations, the country fleet at that point. I did that with Katie Neal, who is a superstar in the company as well,” he says of his colleague and host of country music show Katie & Company. “It was sort of an ‘every tool in my belt’ moment. It took everything I had to pull that off and was really gratifying,” he recalls.
He also fondly remembers a Jonas Brothers event he hosted in Detroit, due to the sheer ardor of the listeners. He says of the event, “It reinvigorated me, I think, in terms of where I was in my radio career, to tap into that. I still, to this day, think back to that kind of excitement. That’s what we’re trying to give to people on the radio.”
When it comes to the recipe for a good show, Addy highlights the importance of familiarity, human connection, and having some knowledge to share. “That balance of consistency with surprise with comfort with learning something new – to me it should feel like you walked in to hang out with a friend you haven’t seen in a couple months, and you’re catching up,” he says.
At the end of the day, Addy believes the special sauce of being a music radio broadcaster lies in the opportunity to brighten the days of your audience – that’s the ultimate goal when he heads into work every day. “Somebody gets in their car, and they had a so-so day; their mood’s about a 6, and I’m trying to get them to an 8 or 9. And that’s what my job is,” he explains.
“There’s a million different ways to do that, and there’s an incredible amount of talent in our industry. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter the air shift or format – you’re a mood enhancer. However you do that, that’s magic.”
To support the launch of the new Barrett Media, we’ve created a special series titled “20 Brands In 20 Days.” Highlighting successful stations across the country in various formats by conducting conversations with their brand leaders. Up next is Hubbard’s Mat Mitchell. Mat is PD KSTP-FM (KS95)/St. Paul – Minneapolis the station we are highlighting today.
Jeff Lynn: Let’s discuss this legendary brand in Minneapolis/St. Paul KS95 “2k to Today.” You’re always a perennial market leader. What’s the magic formula?
Mat Mitchell: There’s a lot to it, but for me, it’s the amazing legacy of Hubbard Radio. We’re the home base here in St. Paul. Last year was Hubbard Radio’s centennial year, so the company is celebrating over 100 years.
The Hubbard family has continued to take special care of this flagship brand. It’s been a career highlight for me because. I’ve been fortunate to work with and even program heritage brands in my career.
I’m very grateful and fortunate to celebrate four years of managing this brand as of this past Monday. I think it’s the best brand content director position in the country because Hubbard Radio does the right thing by hiring great programmers to let them do their jobs.
JL: I’ve talked to other Hubbard programmers during this “20 Brands In 20 Days” series. And I’m just disappointed that, in a long radio career, I never got to work for Hubbard because it sounds like a tremendous experience.
MM: I’ve enjoyed reading the Q&A with Tommy Mattern [105.7 The Point/St. Louis] and Cat Thomas [X1075/Las Vegas]. They’re smart programmers who are forever searching for the right music for their brand before they look at the chart. I love reading that.
Because I have many data points that help me make music decisions for KS95, I always believe that gut and human instinct have a place in the decision-making process.
I created a custom edit of the Lil Durk—Morgan Wallen track last year. The song continues to raise its hand for us. I’m currently the only Hot AC in the country playing a track by Zach Bryan called “Pink Sky.”
Not only does our audience appreciate the song, but they’ll represent that enthusiasm when he plays at U.S. Bank Stadium next month. Hot ACs, particularly KS95, have the luxury of playing multiple genres and styles of music.
JL: KS95 has been traditionally known as a difficult add for new music. It’s refreshing to hear you say you’re taking some chances on stuff and still doing well.
MM: There still has to be the human element, the programming director, and good instincts that shake through the lip service that labels or influences can have on you.
Is this right for my brand? Even if it’s not on the chart, if it’s something I think will work well for us, I’ll take a stab at it. Not all the time, but many of those records often see their way through. When they do, I smile because I feel that much closer, and I’m feeling the pulse of the brand.
Mat Mitchell
We have the freedom to make music decisions. When you put a song on the radio station, you’ll see it backed up by the audience’s reaction and all the data we receive. And it becomes something because many eyes are on this radio station and this brand.
JL: Minneapolis-St. Paul has a reputation as a pretty hip town, and I think that’s well deserved. What opportunities does that provide, and, on the other side, challenges?
MM: It’s a wonderful place to live. I mean, I don’t like the snow, but other than that, it’s a great place to visit. What challenges and or opportunities does that give you? The fact that we’re in our time of year right now, in the middle of summer, you’re quickly reminded that everybody maximizes that opportunity to be outside or do activities all over the metropolitan area.
When we can be in front of or participate in events in our community, that’s in the fabric. It’s in the DNA of KS95 and has always been a part of the Hubbard culture.
It’s interesting because one of the documents drafted by our founder, Stanley Hubbard, in 1939 is called the “General Policies of Hubbard Broadcasting.” One of the timelines that preempted that document is the company’s policy of putting community services ahead of other considerations.
So, we’re going to be out in the community, and there’s just so much going on at any given time. And you’re right. The Twin Cities is a very hip metropolitan area, and we must be a part of it every day.
JL: Tell me about “KS95 for Kids.”
MM: Oh, absolutely. So, this past year, our 25th annual KS95 Kids Radiothon raised over $1 million.
We raised $1 million for our partners at Gillette Children’s and Masonic Children’s Hospital the year before.
That is the largest fundraising total for the Radiothon campaign in the past 19 years. We can’t raise those kinds of numbers without a special connection and partnership with our Twin Cities community and sponsors. The 12-hour Radiothon event happens on one day every year in December.
One of the other things we established two years ago was with our KS95 morning host, Crisco. He lost his beloved dog to cancer. Immediately, the town and the community jumped into action with Pet Rescue Organization to raise money in his honor to find foster and forever homes for dogs and pets in the Twin Cities. In just two days this year, we raised $70,000. This brings the grand total of the campaign to over $250,000. Explaining that to people is one thing, but I’m always at a loss for words.
Our partners and sponsors are amazing. They speak to the strength of this brand and how much it means to people in this community. We’ve got a couple of other big ones.
We won the Crystal Heritage Award this year. It speaks to the working in the community.
JL: Teams in Afternoons seem to be a thing now, and you have a good one.
For as long as I can remember, KS95’s DNA has been rooted in a personality-forward presentation. To the present-day lineup with “Crisco Dez and Wes” in the morning, TJ is our midday host, who is also incredibly talented and fills in when needed for our drive-time shows. Our current afternoon show, Staci & Hutch, shares their lives on the air as parents, staff, school and community leaders, and neighbors.
And I smile when I hear our audience recite the storylines of our talent with ease and un-aided. And that’s the type of familiarity in our talent where we set the bar and what strong brands are built on.
JL: I used to tell my people; I won’t force you to share your business on the air. But I will tell you without doubt that the more you’re comfortable sharing, the more success you’ll have.
MM: One thousand percent, yeah.
JL: How important is contesting?
MM: It’s very important. I say that because we’ve run a long-standing contest on KS95 called “Double Your Paycheck.” We found that after running it for several consecutive years, it’s become an expectation of the brand.
With all of the choices and distractions in the present day, finding those sticky opportunities for our fans and audience to come back to us, have a little fun, and play along is incredibly important. And I think focusing all our contesting on our audience locally and not sharing it nationally is even more important.
I love the conversations that start with, hey, what if we did something like that? And it becomes that thing, and we go, wow, that started from a hallway conversation, and now we’re on the air with it. And it became something we weren’t expecting to blossom. That happens a lot.
It’s amazing what comes out of hallway conversations. And it’s part of our team and our staff.
The KS95 wing is not incredibly big. It’s very hallowed ground because many talented and respected names in the industry walk these hallways. But in this short hallway, so many people are standing outside their office doorways talking about what we can do, how we can be involved, or what about this idea and seeing it come to fruition.
JL: You talked about collaboration. Given how successful this brand has been for so long, I assume your sales team also believes in it.
MM: I can’t do it without them.
It’s nice to have a great relationship with a team and find opportunities to collaborate. We certainly want to make money, but they understand listener benefit very well. That’s always something I keep at the top of my mind when we talk about station promotions that might have a sales branch attached to them. But we certainly can’t do it without them.
We look to them for help with some of these unique partnerships within the community. We have a great relationship with Place Credit Union, which is incredibly supportive. Developing long-standing relationships with local businesses is very important and one of the standout pieces of KS95’s revenue success.
JL: Is there anything about you or the station that I haven’t asked that you want me to know?
MM: Again, I’m celebrating four years here. I didn’t think jobs like this existed anymore, where you’re going to hire somebody and let them do their job and see their vision through.
That’s one of my concerns for program directors. The role loses the integrity of the title. I find it frustrating to run someone else’s programming playbook but be held personally accountable for the ratings results of those decisions, especially if I didn’t agree with them.
We discuss all the music decisions, promotions, and strategies on the ground in this building. It’s one of the fortunate blessings and luxuries of working with a company that’s so supportive because that’s truly how I feel. It speaks to the success of everybody under the KS95 brand.
It’s been a great ride so far, and I look forward to every day. It’s certainly not Groundhog Day. Every day, I come in, and it’s always an exciting challenge, but it’s been one of my career highlights.
Listen to KS95 here. Find them on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Connect with Mat Mitchell here
You can almost hear the collective eye roll anytime a non-news/talk radio programmer takes a job leading a news/talk brand. And despite his recent run leading 104.5 The Zone — a sports station in Nashville — new SuperTalk 99.7 WTN leader Paul Mason has plenty of news/talk experience in his background.
Last month, Cumulus Nashville elevated Mason to Talk Programming Operations Manager, which means he’ll oversee both the sports station he previously led to new heights in the Music City — the highest-rated station in the cluster in the latest monthly ratings from Nielsen, alongside its news/talk sister station.
It isn’t Mason’s first foray into the format, however. Earlier in his career, he programmed 850 WFTL in West Palm Beach, and also worked as the Executive Producer and Assistant Program Director of the venerable news/talk station 700 WLW in Cincinnati.
And while he was solely focused on sports before his promotion, he was excited to get back to his news/talk roots with his new position.
“I definitely missed it. It was the first time in my career I had not done news/talk, when I got here. So it was one of those things that I always missed. Just seeing everything that’s gone on, you miss that thrill that you have just being in the day-to-day news cycle,” Mason admitted. “When it was presented to me, it was like ‘This is my opportunity to get back in,’ and to be associated with such an iconic brand in SuperTalk with an already established great team in place, it was a no-brainer.”
SuperTalk 99.7 WTN is in a strong place in the Nashville market. In the latest full-book ratings, the station finished with a 7.2 share in the Persons 35-64 demographic. The station has long-running shows hosted by Dan Mandis in mornings, Matt Murphy in middays, and Brian Wilson in afternoon drive. The station added Chris Hand in middays in July of 2023 to cement its lineup.
The station was previously programmed by Mandis, who will now focus solely on his duties as host of Nashville’s Morning News. And having someone who knows the ins and outs of the station like the previous program director still in the building has been, and will continue to be, a valuable tool for Paul Mason.
“I’m very lucky,” he shared. “I can’t say enough good things about Dan Mandis. The stuff he’s done for this brand, this radio station, and for me to have him on my team going into this is invaluable … I think he’s definitely one of those that so much — there are so many good days ahead. I’m excited to see what he can do. He can fully focus on that, but yes, for me, it’s nice to have someone here with the transition and to have someone to bounce off of.”
Often times when a news/talk radio brand gets a new leader, it’s because it was underperforming in some aspect, whether it be ratings or revenue. That’s not the case at SuperTalk 99.7 WTN. The brand isn’t a reclamation project. Paul Mason doesn’t have to oversee its rise from the ashes. It is already established as a leader in the market, and is widely known as one of the best news/talk brands in the South.
He believes the people in place at the Cumulus Nashville station make the difference.
“We have a group here that they just know what to do. It’s just obvious,” he said. “When we had the situation with the assassination attempt (of former President Donald Trump on Saturday, July 13th), to just watch this group spring into action in the most inconvenient time — a late Saturday afternoon, early evening — they were just on the air instantly and embraced it. They just know how to handle not only those situations, but the day-to-day. What’s also exciting is I don’t think we’ve reached our full potential. So the fact that we know we have people who know what they’re doing? It gets me excited to get out of bed in the morning.”
When asked what separates a good news/talk brand from a great one, Paul Mason had a simple response.
“I think it’s the talent,” he quickly responded.
He continued by noting that he believes SuperTalk 99.7 WTN currently has people in place to fit that “great” moniker every station strives for.
“I think we’re really lucky to have four very good shows … we have Ken Weaver doing news and staff of great producers and support staff, and a leader in our market manager, Allison Warren,” he said. “You have to have the right people in place. When you have those resources in place, the sky’s the limit.”
