Travis Kelce and his brother Jason have had a lot of fun during this offseason, but it is time to get more serious about football. Travis has training camp coming up with the Kansas City Chiefs and Jason will be getting ready for his new career with ESPN and Monday Night Countdown. This means their podcast, ‘New Heights’ will take a bit of a break.
This past week, in what was called the season 2 finale, the brothers made the announcement. “We got a nice couple months off from podcasting because, I guess in three weeks time Travis will be in the middle of training camp,” Jason said. “And let me tell you, not enough time to do a podcast, especially the best podcast in the world. He’s gonna be busy focusing on football, getting in shape for this upcoming season. So, we’re gonna be off for about two months.”
Travis replied, “I’m down to pick it up once we’re done with training camp.”
The Chiefs are scheduled to begin training camp on July 21.
Jason told fans of the show to keep an eye on their social media channels for updates and releases of unseen footage. “That’s terrifying if you ask me,” Travis quipped, “But should be entertainment, nonetheless.”
‘New Heights’ has posted 97 full episodes and has 2.42 million subscribers on its YouTube account. The most recent full episode drew 659,000 views.
On May 6, 2024 I announced that Barrett Media was expanding its content focus. That becomes a reality one week from today. Making this move requires changes to our structure, staff, social media, brand identity, website, and more. I’m confident that it will pay dividends long term but as is the case with any change, short term challenges are expected.
Anything we do, I expect to do well, otherwise why do it at all? Much of what people have enjoyed and respected about BSM and BNM will remain in place moving forward, but we will introduce new elements too. One that I’m excited to turn Jeff Lynn loose on is a debut series titled ‘20 Brands in 20 Days.’ Jeff will be talking to music radio PD’s and brand leaders across the country for the series. If interested in being featured, email Jason@BarrettMedia.com. The series kicks off on Monday July 15th.
We’re also introducing our brand new music radio newsletter next week, and showcasing a brand new Voices page featuring some of the industry’s best voice talent. A big thank you to all who have signed on to be part of it. Our new newsletter ‘The Pulse’ will be emailed daily at 10am ET and feature seven daily stories, photos of industry professionals, radio airplay charts, a job of the week, and a question of the week, which will include an incentive to participate. To sign up for The Pulse in advance, go here.
The website will have a new look and feature a stock ticker, tip section to relay news, increased promotion for members, an industry conference schedule, and one special members benefit, which I’ll reveal next week. We’ll also have an improved Jobs section, and are working on a dedicated ratings section. Executing the content is hard enough but giving readers more reasons to visit the entire site is a big part of this move. The fact that we’re launching during the week of the Republican National Convention and during MLB All-Star week and the ESPYS provides additional content opportunities for BSM and BNM too.
As I’ve gone through this process the past few months, I’ve learned a lot. Many people read us daily, which is supported by our online traffic, but understanding what it is that you value most and least has become harder. Engagement was higher on social and through text during our first few years. Now, activity in those areas is far less.
Twitter for example was our second best referral source from 2020-2022. Since 2023 though it’s dropped to fourth and fifth. Facebook and LinkedIn have declined too. Meanwhile Search, Google News, Newsbreak and direct visits to our site have grown. I used to think we’d be screwed without social media. Now I can make a case that we prioritize it too much, which is crazy to me. I still love and believe in social media but for publishing brands that prioritize print and don’t have an endless budget to boost posts and buy ads, it’s more complex.
What I’d love to know from our readers is how much do broadcasters want to learn and be challenged versus remain informed on industry gossip and news? I’m also curious where you access our content from. Those who attend our conferences value education but stories on our site that revolve around drama tend to perform best. I realize there has to be room for both but I’m a bigger believer in quality over quantity. There’s also more professional fulfillment breaking news and offering insight than amplifying drama. As we begin our transition, I’m aiming to deliver more news, substance, and detail and less generic reactions.
The second thing I’ve learned is that a few trades aren’t exactly thrilled about our expansion. In fact, one writer we hired, was forced to pull out over pressure from an outlet. The pettiness that exists in our business can be silly at times. It’s a bad look for a brand that I’ve respected and promoted many times. I’ve consistently promoted other trades because I believe there’s room for everyone. The media industry needs more advocates fighting for it not less. Taking the high road is my preferred style but unfortunately, not everyone shares that view. It just means I’ll have to be less cooperative with some.
When we roll out the site next week, you’ll notice sports, news and music are prioritized. Tech and podcasting coverage are part of our plan too, but those sections will gradually build. I have other things I want to do in the future too but the goal is to continue building and improving not rushing everything out quickly and half baked. We have a lot to do in a short period of time to make sure the first impression is strong. I’m even taping a video interview this week with Dave Greene to discuss the vision and new site. It’ll be in our video playlist that appears inside of our content once we launch next week.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear your feedback so we can continue delivering the best content experience possible. I’m also going to be asking for input after we launch. My new email is the best place to send it to – Jason@BarrettMedia.com. Thanks as always for your support, and I hope you love what you see next Monday!
Jimmy Pitaro: ESPN’s Chairman addressed the company’s 2024 first half performance last week and looked ahead to the second half. A great video highlighting ESPN’s first half successes supported the statement. As I read Pitaro’s remarks, I thought of how smart it is for the leader of the most-recognized sports brand in the world to address his fans and advertisers. People feel more connected to brands and their leadership when they are kept up to date. Which made me wonder why the top bosses at CBS, NBC, FOX, TNT, Amazon aren’t doing the same thing.
6 months into 2024 & ESPN hasn't taken its foot off the gas
Take a look back at major moments & milestones, then buckle up for the second half of the year!
Neil Patel: Do you want to learn a lot about digital, social, marketing, etc.? Do yourself a favor and follow Neil Patel. I’ve been reading him for years, and his insights are outstanding. Given the difficulty of reaching audiences on Facebook, X and other social platforms, smart, practical advice is needed. Neil offers plenty of it.
Darryl Parks: WLW’s former program director doesn’t always paint a rosy picture for radio, but that doesn’t mean some of his criticisms aren’t accurate. Case in point, his posts over the weekend. Parks drew attention to four mistakes being made by radio stations. All are avoidable with better attention to detail. The one from his list which is my personal pet peeve is the way some stations program their streams. Running outdated commercials, and incorrect liners is an easy fix if you monitor your product. You’re not going to grow your digital revenue in the future with a bad sounding product.
Howard Eskin: One of WIP’s most recognized talents is under fire. Howard Eskin allegedly attempted to kiss an Aramark employee at Citizens Bank Ballpark. Audacy has since banned him from attending Phillies games for the remainder of this season. His Saturday morning show though is expected to continue.
The Eagles are monitoring the situation that resulted in radio sideline reporter Howard Eskin being banned from Phillies' home games for the rest of the MLB season. https://t.co/e374SmoBhE
Angelo Cataldi took issue with the company’s stance, and the 76ers have since restricted his access from its training complex. If advertisers, listeners, and team partners create more noise or if worse, another accuser comes forward with a similar story, it could be lights out for Eskin. Howard better hope this is the worst of it.
New Heights Podcast: The Kelce brothers shared last week that their podcast is going on hiatus while Travis prepares for Chiefs training camp. Jason Kelce said, “In three weeks, Travis will be in the middle of training camp, and there’s not enough time to do a podcast, especially the best podcast in the world. He’s going to be busy focusing on football and getting in shape for this upcoming season. So, we’re going to be off for about two months.”
Travis and Jason Kelce's popular podcast, New Heights, is going on a brief hiatus.https://t.co/LEbzHAwyoP
New Heights won Podcast of the Year at the iHeart Awards and is popular and entertaining. I credit Jason and Travis for building an audience, generating financial support for the show, and using smart strategies to cut through in digital media. What I don’t get though is how a weekly show can’t be done during training camp but can during the NFL regular season.
One negative with podcasting is that shows come and go often. Can you imagine if radio or TV operated this way? Say what you will about traditional media, the one thing you can’t deny is that it’s there every single day.
Carrington Harrison is someone I used to listen to just about every day when I was the General Sales Manager for Audacy in Kansas City and oversaw sales for 610 Sports and the Kansas City Royals radio broadcasts. Harrison, who has also hosted nationally with Infinity Sports Network and SiriusXM, is one of those people who was just meant to do what he does, which is to entertain and inform audiences with sports as a catalyst for the conversation. Since it had been about five years since I last heard him, I was excited to eavesdrop in on the Wednesday July 3 edition of The Drive on 610 Sports in Kansas City.
One thing about Harrison you will learn as you listen to him, he is a straight shooter. Not much beating around the bush with him. And that goes for serious and not so serious topics such as when he said this Wednesday show was really a Friday as they would be off on Thursday for the 4th of July and on Friday because as Harrison said, “nobody is going to be listening to the radio on Friday.”
With it being a holiday week in July, Harrison and producer Rob Brenton had some strong topics including playing off the Royals game the day before, which had a two-and-a-half-hour rain delay. Harrison asked the audience what the worst kind of game is to attend. The options were the long rain delay game like the day before, the thrilling, close, down to the wire game where your team loses in the end or a game where your team gets absolutely pummeled.
Brenton made a good point when he said that for two of the options, you can leave. However, the gut-wrenching close game loss, that’s the one you have to stick it out and then end up leaving with that horrible feeling.
Both guys ended up agreeing that traveling to see your team play and having them lose may be the worst and Harrison used a fairly recent example of traveling to Manhattan, Kansas to see Mizzou lose 40-12 in football to Kansas State in a driving rain.
Next, Harrison starts a conversation about how baseball really needs to own the holiday weekend much like the NBA used to have with Christmas and the NFL has with Thanksgiving. And while the baseball part could be figured out, the big thing Harrison is suggesting is that we ditch the ‘4th of July’ concept. Instead, he suggests we celebrate Independence Day like we do some other holidays where we choose an observance day.
“I’m going to give you guys a take that is going to sound controversial, but I assure you that it’s not,” Harrison said. “I think we should petition a way for Independence Day to always be on the first Thursday in July…I think it’s time to rebrand the holiday and just call it Independence Day…think that Thursday is, by far and away, the best day for us to have a holiday.”
Carrington goes on to describe the holiday as “Summer’s All-Star Break,” where we celebrate many things we love and said we need to wrap some baseball around the celebrating and that MLB needs to try some things, similar to what the NBA has done with the In-Season Tournament.
The Drive doesn’t stay on any one topic too long, and I also noted and appreciated that Harrison brings topics back for those that might be tuning in for the first time who did not hear the earlier segments.
Harrington set up the next topic by talking about some podcasts he listens to and then played a clip of something Bill Simmons recently said about NBA free agency on his show, specifically about Paul George. After the clip, Harrison said, “We are really unfair to athletes and hold them to one of the most unrealistic job standards.” His point was when most athletes leave college, they get drafted by a team and city they didn’t necessarily want to play for, they don’t get a choice like most people do. Harrison said if you leave somewhere for money or if you chase championships with a top team or if you stay loyal and don’t win, you get criticized whatever you choose.
At 3:15 p.m. Harrison does an NFL thought of the day feature. I love quick hits like these, such great opportunities for a client, especially when it is done daily at the same time. This feature talked about an ESPN 2025 NFL Mock Draft from Matt Miller. Harrison reviewed some of the names and threw out the topic of which of the three quarterbacks – Georgia’s Carson Beck, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders or Texas’ Quinn Ewers, is most likely to fall out of the top 10.
Harrington made a good point when he said, “Sanders has to go to the Raiders. If you are the Raiders, you have been waiting for this kind of prospect, this kind of player, this kind of buzz…You gotta go get Shedeur if you’re the Las Vegas Raiders, that’s one of your kind of prospects. Play with a little bit of flash, you’re in Sin City…”
Royals General Manager JJ Picollo had been a guest of the 610 Sports midday show, Cody & Gold, and Harrison played some of the audio of the conversation and mentioned where the listeners could find the full interview had they not heard it earlier.
Harrison and Brenton were having a lot of fun and moved around from topics such as whether or not Katy Perry’s Firework or Miley Cyrus’ Party In The USA was a better song, whether Hard Knocks had turned into the new Law & Order where it has several different versions and why the running back position can be where a team is cheap if the rest of the offense is solid.
When a topic was discussed, Harrison would go back to the main topics and continued to give his thoughts on what the worst type of game to attend is and also gave feedback on what was coming from the text line. Harrison was blown away that people had stayed through the long rain delay the night before but gave the Royals credit for giving ticket vouchers to those fans who stayed. Harrison was rather funny when he said the vouchers weren’t enough and that each fan should get to have a ten-minute conversation with the owner of the team for waiting out that long of a delay, “for a Tuesday regular season game against the Tampa Bay Rays,” Harrison said. “You know the thing about baseball is that there’s another game tomorrow and probably one the next day. There’s 162 regular season games.”
Harrison went back to the holiday discussion as well and the more he talked about it the more he hammered home his point that the first Thursday in July every year should be the day chosen to observe Independence Day. With most people off on Friday as well it makes for something great to look forward to every summer.
The Drive with Carrington Harrison is something many in Kansas City look forward to each afternoon. The host and producer have strong chemistry and Harrison will make you think and laugh. And no matter the topic, you will hear the passion in Carrington Harrison’s voice that lets you know he is doing what he is supposed to be doing and loving it.
During the summer of 2010, the New York Knicks were in discussions to try and sign superstar forward LeBron James and pitched him with a 10-minute video that included a segment featuring James Gandolfini and Edie Falco reprising their roles from The Sopranos. The video also contained additional celebrity cameos with an intent to try and persuade James to sign with the organization.
After nearly a decade unseen by the public, the video compilation was obtained by Pablo Torre Finds Out, a digital program from Meadowlark Media in its first year on the air. Segments from the subsequent episode in which the tape was revealed intrigued viewers and quickly went viral, an example of an adaptation in investigative journalism built for digital media.
Although James ended up signing with the Miami Heat and proceeded to win two championships while in south Florida, there had been rumors about the unique manner in which the Knicks pitched him within the process. Torre’s show divulged the idiosyncrasies within the attempted signing, retaining its format as an eclectic, multiplatform consumption experience. The program diverts from the standard paradigm of sports media content and seeks to optimize its credibility to elicit shares of attention from the audience. In turn, the offering is built on the inquisitive nature and varied interests of Torre, who serves as its host, executive producer and managing editor.
“It’s a show where we use journalism to solve mysteries, and using journalism to solve mysteries that are both smart and stupid,” Torre said. “We do serious things stupidly and we do stupid things seriously. That’s how I think about the show – it’s that highbrow, lowbrow dynamic that I’ve learned over the course of my career.”
Torre, in being granted the autonomy to explore his broad interests and intrigues, is able to discover an array of various topics that appeal to him. At the same time, the program utilizes the tenets of journalism and performs significant groundwork and preparation before recording and subsequently publishing new episodes.
“The business proposition of the show is that we do it often enough that it feels like you’re getting it every day,” Torre explained, “and we do it often enough such that it’s not like a short-run prestige, docustyle, narrative podcast series, which I listen to and enjoy as a genre, but isn’t enough, I think, in the modern sports media economy to basically keep a staff employed year round, which is what my show is trying to do.”
EXCLUSIVE: We found the secret tape the Knicks made to recruit LeBron.
Attaining a resemblance to Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, the investigative sports journalism series that recently concluded an award-winning, 29-year run, Torre aspires for his show to uphold the ethics and fundamentals of journalism. The Meadowlark Media show has correspondents of its own, a travel budget, producers and editors dedicated to compiling high-end, quality presentations.
“We’re doing shows about topics that I don’t think Real Sports would ever touch with a 100-foot pole, but that level of ambition and the sort of void that we’re trying to fill in sports media,” Torre explained, “I would say that, yes, exactly, we are trying to be the next evolution of what Real Sports had been for so long and so successfully.”
Torre has a background in investigative journalism, originally earning his way into Sports Illustrated with enterprise reporting as he performed his role as a fact checker. While at Harvard University, he had had aspirations to practice criminal or constitutional law and focused his college experience on amassing expertise in those subject areas. Torre perceived that his critical thinking, argumentative and debate skills would be utilized in the courtroom; instead, he found himself working to earn opportunities and establish himself in sports media at Sports Illustrated upon failing his first LSAT examination.
“I was not going to get assigned a big profile – nobody was going to say to me, ‘Hey, go profile LeBron’ as a fact checker, bottom of the totem pole at Sports Illustrated,” Torre said. “Instead, you need to bring ideas to the table to convince them, our magazine editors, that this was something that was (a) worth doing even though they didn’t know about it; and (b) was something that me, a young person who they didn’t necessarily trust yet, could pull off.”
Do athletes, coaches, and GMs give a s*** about what sports media says about them? Short answer: yes. ????
"Bryan Colangelo … had burner accounts online, and this was seen as like, 'What a wack job, he's so extreme.' And then you realize how many people in this business are… pic.twitter.com/xV7IpZXqgA
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) July 2, 2024
Torre’s current show with Meadowlark Media draws parallels to the work he completed in print journalism through its docustyle conversations and adherence to journalistic principles. In fact, there are elements of both magazine storytelling and sports talk radio embedded within the program that help render it distinctive from part of its competition.
“If we can give you the element of friends talking to each other while also giving you the payoff of great narrative storytelling, then I think we found something that feels like both the unholy mutant child of those genres, but also [is] something that logically is actually where my interests exist,” Torre said. “I’m somebody who loves both of those things. If you love good stories and you love listening to people shoot the sh*t, then this show logically should also have a long runway of existence before an asteroid hits planet earth.”
Although Torre had appeared on television as a member of Sports Illustrated, it was never a formal part of his job until joining ESPN. Appearing on the air for the first time was “mildly terrifying” for him, but he quickly proved his versatility and aptitude in the craft through appearances on The Sports Reporters. In his first month as an ESPN employee, he tried out for Around the Horn, a show that he asserts changed his life and helped define the direction of his career. Demonstrating subjectivity on the air while using the background of objective reporting was a challenging task in addition to proving his worth.
“Your opinion is being heard by people around the world – it’s broadcast internationally – and so the initial insecurity that I had to overcome was me assuming that everyone’s response would be, ‘Who the f**k is this guy that I have never seen before?,’” Torre recalled, “and that was, for somebody who was in his mid-20s, Asian-American guy who clearly didn’t play professional sports, that was not easy to sort of psychologically be confident and credible enough so that you could feel like you belonged.”
Paul George is the 'perfect fit' for the 76ers, says @PabloTorre.
Torre learned more about the intricacies of hosting and sports talk through his appearances on both Highly Questionable and The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz while it was on ESPN Radio. Through his experiences, he learned more about how to thrive in the craft, causing him to feel somewhat afraid when Le Batard left ESPN in late 2020 and launched Meadowlark Media alongside former ESPN president John Skipper.
“It felt in its own way inevitable because by that point, Dan wanted very clearly his freedom to say and do whatever he wanted,” Torre said, “and he’d also built this audience – which I am in awe of still – this massive audience of arguably unhinged superfans that he knew would follow him because he had earned their trust even if he were to leave ESPN.”
Early in the process, Torre thought that he needed to find a way to join Meadowlark Media because of the value proposition the business presented and the changing nature of the industry. A few years later, he achieved this goal while continuing to remain as a contributor to both Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. Being afforded the freedom to work for both companies, Torre believes, is something that “trickles down from the top,” referencing Stephen A. Smith and Ryan Clark as examples in this regard.
Torre launched the program, Pablo Torre Finds Out, last September and has amassed an audience of consumers across several distribution platforms. Compiling a high-quality show three times per week requires extensive planning, dedication and execution, all with a level of consistency in creating new content.
“I’m always looking for another angle in on a big story, and that’s where my curiosity is sort of like a metal detector of like, ‘Is there comedy where there seems to be only scolding? Is there seriousness where there seems to be only jokes?,’” Torre said, “and so to me, the perfect story is able to engage with the news cycle while also really being about something deeper or bigger.”
In addition to his eponymous project, Torre co-hosts The Sporting Class podcast alongside John Skipper and David Samson, two sports business executives with vast experience in different corners of the industry. Skipper is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Meadowlark Media after working for ESPN as its president, while Samson is the former president of the Miami Marlins and current host of the Nothing Personal podcast.
Throughout the last year, the show has discussed a variety of industry topics, including NBA media rights negotiations, Venu Sports and the involvement of private equity within college sports. The discussions usually contain both tension and conflict through their contrasting viewpoints, leading to the revelation of different insights and frames of reference.
“I love hosting The Sporting Class so much, and I refer to it all the time as ‘Rich guys’ OnlyFans’ because really what it is is I’m wildly curious about what it’s like to be them and have their perspective on a business that is changing so chaotically and rapidly really hour to hour,” Torre said. “We’re watching billion-dollar swings happen regularly, executives change employers and just sports emerge seemingly out of nowhere, and so, so much of sports right now is a business story, and my genuine curiosity also applies to, ‘What’s actually going on here?’”
For Torre, being able to develop his own projects and working with colleagues he had known made assimilating into Meadowlark Media a facile task and granted him a feeling of trust. Between Le Batard and Skipper, he has people in whom he can both confer in and collaborate on a variety of different shows. Through the process, Torre has found a way to preserve the feeling of curiosity, excitement and pride that people feel through watching the programming, something that energizes him on a daily basis to leverage his astute outlook on content selection and editorial direction.
“It’s not simply that, ‘I like this thing, and I’m going to shove it down your throat even though you’re really interested in this other story happening,’” Torre explained. “I’m going to explain why it is that right now is the right time for us to be talking about it, and that to me is the lesson of a great magazine.”
From Newhouse to the White House, ABC News Radio’s National Correspondent Steven Portnoy brings hard-hitting news straight to your house. He learned from some of the best in the industry and now has joined their ranks, passing on what he’s learned to the next generation.
“One of the great things that I love doing is mentoring young people. I speak to college students as often as I can. I try to encourage and foster the growth of young reporters here at ABC,” Portnoy told Barrett News Media over a Zoom call.
Long before he attended Syracuse, Portnoy had a calling to be in the industry. “I remember from my earliest days as a four-year-old kid, my dad would listen to Howard Stern on WNBC Radio. He would make recordings that I now know to be airchecks of Howard Stern and would listen to them later. And through osmosis, I had, as a very young boy, a deep appreciation for the impact that radio had in our home.”
By the time he was in high school, the radio journalist was already working in the industry. “I was maybe 16 and it was just a couple of days a week in the summer but they had me writing. I remember pulling material from our affiliate feed service called News Call. And I was able to go to the New Jersey State Capitol in Trenton on stories and shadow a reporter. It was an extraordinary opportunity for me as a young high school student to see a local, community-focused radio station.”
He chose ‘The Orange’ because of the Newhouse program but he had no time for on campus antics. While attending school, Steven Portnoy worked at three local stations, the ABC-TV affiliate, the NBC-TV affiliate, and WSYR Radio, where he interned for his now colleague and dear friend, Aaron Katersky.
“I was working 32 hours a week when I was in college. I don’t know how I graduated, but I did, and by the time I did, I’d already interned twice at ABC News here in Washington in the White House unit.”
The D.C. Bureau is where Steven Portnoy has made his industry home and broken some big news, including being on the air for eight hours straight with CBS Radio on January 6, 2021.
“We knew that something was terribly wrong and that the rioters had breached the building. And so the decision was made for me to go on the air in a work-from-home environment.”
While Portnoy described what he was seeing from home, “We aired the sound of the gunshot that was fired outside the House chamber. We later knew it as the shot that killed Ashli Babbitt. It was a painful moment for me as someone who had spent time reporting from Capitol Hill and had decided to make it my career in Washington to see the Capitol being desecrated and overtaken in those moments. It was, really, extremely chilling. It was one of those moments where I felt deeply how important it was to be communicating in real-time to radio listeners who couldn’t themselves see what was happening.”
Today, Steven Portnoy is back with ABC and most recently was a part of their live coverage of the Supreme Court Decision in Trump vs. U.S. “One of the most exciting aspects of my job is I get to help radio listeners understand the most esoteric and complicated decisions of the Supreme Court that have come in some time. Pouring through the opinion and looking for the key words and phrases in Roberts’ writing to explain to the public exactly what it means at first glance.”
It’s a skill the veteran journalist has learned over time. He notes there are key words and phrases that he looks for before translating the opinions into ‘practical realities.’
“I immediately go to the very last page of the majority opinion, because an opinion will most often end with a declarative paragraph. That really gets to the nut of what the court is saying. And most often, when you see a quote that’s pulled quickly out of a Supreme Court opinion, it comes from that very last paragraph before the line. ‘It is so ordered.’ Then we can read from the dissent.”
While everyone is hoping this year’s election will be more subdued than in 2020, Steven Portnoy believes it’s extremely important to check facts, and bring new developments to light.
“For all of us to decide who we want to be represented by and to be a part of that process, helping the people understand who their options are is the reason I wanted to go into journalism. Because it’s not for me to decide for the audience who should be the next President. I’m here to help facilitate this self-governing country govern itself.”
It is this fundamental belief that Portnoy hopes to pass on to the next generation of reporters. “One of the great things about our new era is that in our pockets, we have these devices that allow us to be our own photographers, broadcasters, editors, [and] publishers. That means that we no longer have to worry about whether there’s an opportunity at a local radio station. We can now all do it ourselves, which is very exciting.
“But it also means that the opportunities to hone that craft and learn from experienced people is harder to come by. And that is something I’m a bit concerned about because I was so lucky to learn from the greats. And I just hope that young people are able to get in touch with people who have experience.”
One other nugget of advice Steven Portnoy offered was to work hard.
“When I was at WMAL, in my last year, I freelanced for ABC, and so I would work morning drive from 4:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon, and then head downtown to the ABC News bureau and work a freelance shift from 1 PM until 7 PM at the network. That’s a pretty long day. I was 25, I had a lot of energy, [and was] eager to do it. I also made a lot of money doing it. But that was the lesson: being willing to put myself out there and work really hard. It made opportunities possible for me.
“I also believe in offering people opportunities. I’m not suggesting everyone should be working a 16-hour day. I’m a believer in the rights and responsibilities that employers have to their people. But you have to be willing to demonstrate your worth and value to an employer and sometimes that means working hard to demonstrate your value.”
Not many people are writing positive things about the radio industry these days. Oh sure, Pierre Bouvard is releasing lots of great material from Westwood One showing the power of the medium and as I’ve mentioned here before, he’s right.
Occasionally, someone else in the industry writes something positive that doesn’t have to do with the “good old days” when everyone listened to radio and even small markets had a local radio star or two.
Radio played the songs that became hits, let us know what was cool, and even informed us about what was going on in the world. That last one didn’t refer to which stars are getting divorced or the latest rapper to be arrested, but rather real news stories about matters of importance such as elections versus a steady diet of pop culture. Are you old enough to remember when the FCC mandated a percentage of programming for news and public affairs as part of the license obligation?
It could be worse. If you haven’t heard about the travails of The Washington Post, you should take a look. The word is that the newspaper lost $77 million last year. While that is equivalent to loose change in the sofa cushions for Jeff Bezos, who owns The Post, it’s a serious number. The losses have led to changes in top management at The Post, but now the employees are upset with the proposed changes. Bezos purchased The Post for $250 million in 2013. What do you think it’s worth today?
I recently re-read a column from TVNewsCheck by Hank Price, who spent thirty years running local TV stations. He was opining about the sale of Paramount, which as this column is being written, looks like it will now be sold to Skydance. However this is the second time we’ve heard that announcement.
His thoughts were not only about the decline in the value of Paramount, from about $30 billion when Sumner Redstone passed away to perhaps $8 billion now. Price’s real interest was the CBS Television Network and the O&O’s. The network itself, which while greatly diminished, still has the most overall viewers (and they’re happy to let you know that), and in the past, the O&Os would be diamonds. Beyond political campaigns causing millions of dollars to flow into local stations in presidential battleground states as well as some nasty gubernatorial and Senate races, how’s the local TV business doing these days?
Let’s consider magazines. How many print magazines do you subscribe to, that is, pay some amount of money per year to receive a printed version in the mail regularly? I’m down to one, Car and Driver, to satisfy both my interest in cars and because the writing is great. When I started getting C&D, it was a monthly, then dropped to ten issues per year. As of 2024, it is down to bi-monthly, but has more pages (not double, but more) and is printed on nicer stock. They’ve also increased the font size, which is a blessing to all of their elderly readers who have complained about the small font for some time. Is C&D growing? Probably online, but my bet is that the print version is losing readers at a steady pace.
Two recent statistics jumped out at me. One was the audience for last month’s presidential debate. According to Nielsen, just over 51 million people watched it across 22 networks. That’s a lot of people, but the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 pulled in over 73 million viewers. That’s below the 84 million that viewed the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016. The decline from 2016 to 2024 is nearly 39 percent. You can argue that the 2024 debate was far earlier than usual and the American electorate wasn’t ready to watch just yet. Still…
The other statistic came from the Pew Research Center. As of 2023, 32 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 regularly get their news from TikTok, up from nine percent in 2020. In terms of the percentage of platform users who regularly get news from a social media site, TikTok was tied with Facebook at 43 percent, in other words, 43 percent of TikTok users regularly get news from it.
Beyond the obvious questions about our future generations that should arise from seeing those statistics, this shows the existential problems that “traditional” media are facing. At this point, radio may be in the best position of all. Something positive for radio…makes me feel good all over.
Last week, Philadelphia talk station WURD beat ABC News host George Stephanopoulos to the punch and earned the first post-debate interview from President Biden. Now, the radio host who led the discussion — Andrea Lawful-Sanders — is out of a job with the station.
After the interview, Lawful-Sanders appeared on CNN and admitted that the four questions asked to the President came directly from the White House and that they were all pre-approved before the interview took place.
According to a statement from the station, the two parties “mutually agreed to part ways” after the interview and revelation.
“The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” WURD Radio President and CEO Sara M. Lomax said in a statement.
“Agreeing to a pre-determined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official policy … WURD Radio is not a mouthpiece for the Biden or any other Administration. Internally, we will commit to reviewing our policies, procedures, and practices to reinforce WURD’s independence and trust with our listeners.”
Lawful-Sanders’ admission that she accepted pre-approved questions from the White House went viral Friday evening after making the revelation on CNN. There was swift pushback from many observers on both sides of the political aisle, ultimately leading to her departure from the outlet.
A company in Dallas sued to block the new rules after the Federal Trade Commission voted to ban the contractual practice earlier this year.
In a ruling, Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas postponed the date of September 4th, which would have enacted the ban. In her ruling, she argued that blocking the ban was in the public’s interest.
She added that “The FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition.”
An estimated 30 million people are bound by non-compete agreements, according to a report from NPR.
The FTC has maintained it will continue to fight to outlaw the practice. In a statement, the commission said “The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy. Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand.”
ABC News host George Stephanopoulos sat down with President Biden for his first post-debate interview Friday evening, and the conversation drew reactions from the news media.
After a preview was originally slated to air on World News Tonight Friday evening with David Muir, with the entire interview airing on This Week with George Stephanopoulos and a subsequent portion airing on Good Morning America Monday, ABC News reversed course. It then aired the full, unedited interview Friday evening, with more than 8 million viewers tuning into the conversation, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen.
Many in the news media had reactions to the job done by Stephanopoulos. Conservative media figures had wide-ranging opinions when the conversation was announced. Some argued that the interview was likely to draw softball questions from the host, while others argued Stephanopoulos would attempt to push Biden out of the race for the White House.
I credit @GStephanopoulos for civilly asking the right questions. People will see what they want but you really can't say this is reassuring
George Stephanopoulos failed to euthanize Joe Biden tonight, but he probably inspired a lot of Democrats to force Schumer, Pelosi, Jeffries, etc. to push Biden to get out.
ABC News host George Stephanopoulos scored the first post-debate interview with President Biden last week, and the special program was a ratings winner for the network.
The interview was originally slated to air on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning, with another portion airing on Good Morning America Monday. However, ABC News reversed course and aired the unedited interview in its entirety as a special program on Friday evening.
Early Nielsen reports show more than 8 million people watched the nearly half-hour-long interview between the President and the ABC News host.
That 8 million figure does not include those who streamed the conversation, nor does it include those who viewed the special on digital platforms like Hulu on Saturday after publishing to the streaming service.
During the discussion, Biden made news by telling George Stephanopoulos that his debate performance was simply a “bad night.” He also added that should he lose the race for the White House to former President Donald Trump, he’ll be able to accept that he did his best.
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” President Biden said.
