If there was ever a time to pop in and listen to Carlin vs. Joe on ESPN Radio, this week would be a pretty good time to pick. After all, the Joe part of the name is for Joe Fortenbaugh who is an ESPN Sports Betting Analyst and there happen to be two major sports stories involving gambling happening right now. The Carlin part of the name is for Chris Carlin, a former Mike and the Mad Dog producer at WFAN who has excelled in sports radio for a long time and is also the 20-year play-by-play voice of Rutgers football.
When tuning in, the first thing you notice is the high energy level of the show. There is not much down time in the program, everything happens fast and furious. Coming out of the breaks you know Carlin has a plan for the direction of where they want to go.
Something else you realize fairly quickly is that the two are very well prepared for what they are going to talk about and usually have some sound bites to back up their points or to add to their discussions. They will also do this with guests they bring on the show. In one case, after plenty of discussion on what has happened at the NFL owner meetings, they brought on ESPN NFL reporter Dan Graziano, live from Orlando, to add to the discussion.
Whether it was breaking down where J.J. McCarthy may fall in the NFL Draft, the Shohei Ohtani press conference or even what the meaning of the word “zaddy” refers to in a discussion about Jets head coach Robert Saleh’s offseason beard, it is clear Carlin and Fortenbaugh are having fun doing their show. Sometimes this is half the battle with your listeners – keeping them engaged by hearing how much fun the hosts are having doing their jobs.
I enjoyed their “The Said What?!” segment where the hosts play audio clips and respond to what the person has said, sometimes on the topics of the day and sometimes just fun content to react to. Something else I noticed was Carlin using social media to enhance conversation. In the case of the Saleh beard discussion, Carlin posted a picture of what he was seeing and gave listeners an easy place to find it so they could follow along with the conversation.
Listening to Carlin vs. Joe made me think and it made me laugh and I think those are two things all hosts are striving for. While both hosts bring a lot of information to the table, they can also be self-deprecating, at times, which can lead to some very funny chatter.
On this show, it was a reference to an old-school radio term from one of the producers which led Fortenbaugh to say, “Shockingly, if anyone can believe this, I know almost nothing about this industry. I have no formal training. I was not brought up on the side where I learned how to cut audio or produce or do anything like that. Somebody heard me doing radio hits and gave me a job on a morning show in San Francisco, that’s how it worked for me. When I’m in the TV department, same thing. I have no idea what any of the terminology is. Everyone looks at me like I’m an idiot, but nobody has ever tried to teach me even though I’ve asked. So, I have given up. I don’t know how to speak any of the language of anything that I do for a living.”
Carlin vs. Joe is a fun listen where you get the news of the day, really strong opinions from two very well-prepared hosts as well as conversation back and forth between guys who know their sports but also have a way about their delivery that keeps you engaged, feeding off their high energy. They do not stray off topic very often, but when they do, it is generally brief, and they come right back to the topic at hand.
This show was part of the sweeping changes at ESPN Radio which happened six months ago. From what I heard, Chris Carlin and Joe Fortenbaugh have developed nice chemistry in that time and don’t try and overdo anything. They just have fun and talk sports.
Locked On Podcast Network has inked a new agreement for AdsWizz — a subsidy of SiriusXM — to sell the company’s podcast advertising inventory through 2026.
SiriusXM will sell Locked On inventory through a new collection of content provided by the satellite service, which includes the league-specific channels like NFL Radio and MLB Network Radio, as well as College Sports Radio through targeting data and programmatic capabilities.
Currently, Locked On features more than 200 sports podcasts including 60 dedicated to major colleges and college conferences. Last year, the company reported more than 300 million downloads and video views of its content.
Locked On will continue to also provide its own direct sales for its content.
The Minnesota Broadcasters Association has announced its 2024 Hall of Fame class, and four members of the legendary Hubbard family are included in the group.
Kari Hubbard-Rominski, Stan E. Hubbard, Ginny (Hubbard) Morris), and Robert W. Hubbard will all be enshrined in the latest class honored by the Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Stan E. Hubbard is the current Chairman and CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting, while Robert W. Hubbard serves as the company’s Vice President and president of the Television division. Hubbard-Rominski currently runs the corporation’s foundation, while Morris serves as the chair and CEO of Hubbard Radio.
A storied family in Minnesota broadcasting, Stanley E. Hubbard launched Hubbard Broadcasting in the Twin Cities nearly a century ago. Since its inception, the broadcast company has grown to include 14 TV stations, including six in Minnesota, and also 54 radio stations, with 19 in the North Star State.
Joining the family in the class of 2024 are
KMOJ Radio Watler “Q Bear Banks”
Newspaper columnist Bill Diehl
WCCO-TV political reporter Pat Kessler
Broadcast engineers Park and Paula Persons
The 2024 Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame class will officially be inducted on Tuesday, October 1st, in a ceremony held in Rochester.
On Tuesday, NBC News ended its relationship with former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel after just five days due to intense internal backlash over the hire. The network’s News chairman, Cesar Conde, is taking responsibility.
In a memo sent to employees Tuesday, Conde says he approved McDaniel’s hiring, and ultimately made the decision to remove her from the outlet’s list of contributors.
“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor. No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal,” Conde wrote. “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down. While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”
McDaniel — who has also been dropped by the CAA talent agency — has reportedly been seeking legal representation to explore potential breach of contract litigation with the network.
NBC News announced the hiring of the former Republican leader on Friday, which led to scrutiny from staffers angered by McDaniel’s previous comments about the press and her role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
However, in her first paid appearance for the network, she told Meet the Press‘ Kristen Welker that Donald Trump did not win the election in 2020, and that the process was not rigged against him. It was the first time she publicly admitted those sentiments. She inferred that she felt a duty to back the former President’s claims as RNC chair, and will have more freedom as a political analyst at NBC News.
“Now, I get to be a little bit more myself,” she told Welker, before being lambasted by former moderator Chuck Todd for her lack of credibility.
After the appearance, several MSNBC hosts — including Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell — shared their extreme displeasure with the hiring, which ultimately led Cesar Conde to reverse course.
When 97.5 The Fanatic midday host Anthony Gargano agreed to a deal to contribute to PHLY Sports, a local digital venture within ALLCITY Network, he was promptly suspended by Beasley Media Group and subsequently sued for breach of contract. Although the two sides eventually reached a settlement and officially parted ways, the future of the daypart was still in question. In the interim time period, the station granted Andrew Salciunas the opportunity to lead a four-hour solo program with producer Ray Dunne. Salciunas had served as Gargano’s producer in the midday slot and still has a strong relationship with the sports media personality today despite no longer working together.
The onerous aspect of the situation, however, was in recognizing that Salciunas was being afforded a chance to prove himself as a host in the marketplace. In the past, he had filled in when Gargano took vacations, but it was not for an extended period of time. Although he was familiar with the flow of a midday program, achieving a successful, yet sudden assimilation into a regular timeslot without a partner was an invigorating circumstance.
“I knew that it was going to be a learning experience because it’s one thing to host a show on Saturday or it’s one thing to host a weekly podcast and you have a week’s worth of content at your disposal,” Salciunas said. “It’s another thing to [be] hosting every single day and needing to come up with new ideas and new angles and new twists on things, so it was a challenge knowing that I was going to have to do that for however long the process was going to be.”
Salciunas received help from program director Scott Masteller, a sports radio veteran who has helped elevate brands and nurture budding talent. Several months later, Masteller asked Salciunas how he would feel about working with morning program host John Kincade. Salciunas replied by saying that it was something he would be interested in doing, and he later added that he already wakes up early and could easily work in morning drive. Salciunas was somewhat nonplussed when he discovered that Masteller’s intention was to have him anchor the program rather than Kincade, who has been hosting in the daypart since January 2021.
In the weeks and months ensuing, Salciunas and Kincade were involved in meetings to plan the new program, which officially made its debut on 97.5 The Fanatic last week and is titled Kincade & Salciunas. Both hosts knew about the program for roughly two months, and Salciunas is surprised that it was kept a secret for as long as it was. Outside of their scheduled meetings, Salciunas was able to speak with Kincade between their shows since they occurred after the other as well. From the onset, he wanted to make his thoughts about the program clear to ensure a smooth transition amid a quest to inform and entertain the audience.
“The first thing I told John when they told us that this was the plan moving forward was that, ‘This is going to be our show,’” Salciunas recalled. “Yes, I might be the guy running the ins and outs out of commercial breaks. I’m the guy that brings on the guests; I’m the guy that brings on the callers, but this is our show. We both have ideas, we’re both passionate about Philadelphia sports teams, we’re both high-energy people, we’re both opinionated and we’re also respectful of each other.”
While there is natural disagreement between Salciunas and Kincade on a variety of sports topics, they make sure not to fabricate their discussions and engender debate for the sake of the show. Instead of feigning their contrarian discourse, there is a legitimate willingness to be genuine with their audience while continuing to put radio first. Salciunas, Kincade and show producer Connor Thomas all contribute ideas for the program to appeal to the audience and continue building the show as a whole. Thomas also had familiarity in working with Kincade since he served as an associate producer on his previous morning program.
“I’m not a former journalist; he’s not a former professional athlete,” Salciunas said. “We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing. Even though our opinions might differ on sports-related stuff, we see doing radio in a similar way.”
Upon Kincade officially joining 97.5 The Fanatic, he demonstrated his magnanimity and commitment to his colleagues by offering to take all of them out to lunch individually to learn more about them. It was a gesture that surprised Salciunas and something that stuck with him, ultimately helping familiarize themselves with one another and subsequently creating a viable on-air product.
“He’s one of those guys who likes getting to know people, and I think that’s helped a lot,” Salciunas said. “We already had that sort of knowledge of one another [and] we already had that relationship, and because we’re just both so bought in and both so hungry, that’s made it so much easier that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the show work.”
Before arriving at 97.5 The Fanatic, Kincade had worked at sports radio both at the local and national levels while also hosting a podcast with Hall of Fame center and Inside the NBA studio analyst Shaquille O’Neal. Bringing him back to his home marketplace and realizing success in the morning daypart was valuable as the sports media ecosystem underwent stretches of change. Transitioning to the new morning show iteration without colleagues Bob Cooney and Pat Egan presented its challenges, but Salciunas has had no qualms that Kincade was invested to win. As a result, the transition has been relatively simple in terms of building palpable chemistry among the on-air team.
“He believes in anybody that he works with,” Salciunas said of Kincade, “and knowing that somebody has worked that long as long as he has in sports radio that he values the young person’s opinion, not just in sports but in terms of radio, that goes a long way.”
There is constant communication between the morning show team leading up to a program outside of typical pre-show meetings and twice-weekly conversations with their boss. Salciunas arrives at the station well before the start of the program and compiles ideas from the previous day into a document, along with ideas from others that come during their commutes. Additionally, they continuously monitor the news cycle and determine what to address on the air while also interviewing special guests throughout the week.
Effectuating a fully prepared show rundown by 6 a.m. EST has been marginally difficult, along with the fact that it can be difficult to book guests on short notice before sunrise. Because of this, the program frequently outlines its guests early in the week and makes adjustments as necessary while maintaining fealty towards conveying their true, authentic personalities.
“I’m a little bit more energetic on the radio because I understand the entertainment portion of doing what we do and having to properly express myself,” Salciunas said. “I’m probably not going to scream at a bar, but when I converse with callers; when I converse with John [or] producers… that’s who I am as a person. There’s just a microphone in front of me.”
When he first started working at 97.5 The Fanatic as an intern, Salciunas did not have a goal of eventually becoming an on-air talent. He was content with his role as a producer, which was borne out of an internship where he worked with Jon Marks and Steve Vassalotti. Both station members served as mentors that he utilized to gain information and advice, a fortuitous outcome after Salciunas impetuously applied for the opening.
While Salciunas was matriculating at Temple University, he needed at least three internship credits in order to qualify for graduation. Reflecting back on his education days, he does not regard himself as the best student and recognized that he needed to intern with the radio station to set himself apart. Honing his focus in sports media took time since he had varied interests in areas such as reporting, podcasting and play-by-play announcing, but he ultimately gravitated towards the sports radio format during his time in Philadelphia.
Salciunas made a favorable impression on those with 97.5 The Fanatic and ended up being hired as an associate producer where he learned more about the format and its programming. Eric Camille, a former executive producer at the station, is someone Salciunas regards as seminal to his professional development.
“He was the guy that hired me out of my internship, and then once I started working, he really helped me,” Salciunas said. “He kind of took me under his wing and helped me out a lot.”
Once Salciunas was hired as a full-time producer, he began to work with Mike Missanelli on his midday program, providing an invaluable learning experience to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the sports media industry. As a veteran host who has captivated Philadelphia sports fans and media consumers at large, Salciunas noticed that collaborating on Missanelli’s program was a different experience than the other shows he had done. Whereas a morning drive show is oftentimes one of the first points of reaction on a given day, Missanelli knew that he would need to approach his daypart differently and adopted a paradigmatic style implementing second-level topics.
“It’s not just going on the air and reacting to an Eagles loss,” Salciunas explained. “It’s reacting to a storyline within an Eagles loss or reacting to a storyline within an Eagles win that may generate conversation. Trying to figure out topics that generate conversation but are not just the, ‘Oh wow, I’m angry they lost today,’ and give out the phone number. It’s [trying] to find topics that make people think and make yourself think and make the audience think.”
When Missanelli left the station, Salciunas began his stint working with Anthony Gargano where he began occasionally hosting select programs. The rationale behind his decision to go behind the microphone was that when the Eagles won a Super Bowl championship, the station needed someone to host from 2 to 5 a.m. Salciunas decided to volunteer for the program, presuming that it sounded fun. From that shift on, he continued his work as a producer while also refining his craft behind the microphone in a major market. It deviated from a philosophy perpetuated by former program director Matt Nahigian of limiting the amount of time producers were on the air, assuming that consumers listened to hear the hosts.
“Now you have to be a producer,” Salciunas affirmed. “You look at both radio stations in Philadelphia – a lot of the hosts now were former producers, and so you learn so much of the craft and then you figure out your own role. You figure out how you handle yourself as a host, so I think producing first before becoming a talk show host should be the way to go moving forward.”
Beasley Media Group’s 97.5 The Fanatic shares the Philadelphia marketplace with Audacy-owned SportsRadio 94WIP, and both stations have had intense battles in the ratings over the years. Salciunas shared that most people between the two stations have worked with their competitors at some point in their careers, and there is an evident respect that exists between the two entities. With both outlets introducing new morning shows within the last two years though, Salciunas understands there is a chance to gain ground on the WIP Morning Show, which finished ahead in the four Nielsen XTrends quarterly ratings books last year.
“Clearly if somebody’s behind a microphone in Philadelphia, everybody’s talented, and we’re going to do whatever we can to try to bridge that gap a little bit, and we’re seeing some good strides already,” Salciunas said. “I think having a new show is a big part of that trying to grab that initial audience, but then it’s holding on to that initial audience.”
Being able to achieve this outcome, however, requires a commitment to showcasing talent and different personalities. Salciunas referenced how there was a point in John Kincade’s stint hosting mornings in the daypart’s previous iteration where he gained ground on his crosstown competitor Angelo Cataldi with WIP. Kincade, of course, used to work with Cataldi’s show as a contributor and received a chance to take the air while with the outlet.
“I’ve seen the turn of tides of ratings over the years for every show [and] every time slot, so there’s always an opportunity, but that means we always have to be on our game; that means we always have to be doing the best show possible,” Salciunas said. “We can’t go in the next day and say, ‘Wow, that show was really good yesterday. Let’s have some fun today; let’s make this a lighthearted show.’ No, we always have to be thinking about, ‘Alright, what can we do next to put on another great entertaining four-hour radio show?’”
Over the last several years, there have been several leadership changes at 97.5 The Fanatic responsible for overseeing the slate of programming and station operations. Scott Masteller currently leads the outlet, someone in whom Salciunas has confidence that he can continue to elevate the standing of the station. In his earlier years working with 97.5 The Fanatic, Salciunas had an innovative spirit but was discouraged from taking steps to align with the multimedia evolution. For example, when he offered to do a podcast several years ago, someone at the station questioned his judgment and the reasoning behind the idea.
“I was told by someone, ‘What’s the point in doing that? We’re a radio station,’ and I knew back then that that was a mistake to say,” Salciunas explained. “You shouldn’t say, ‘We’re a radio station;’ that was years ago, so seeing that bosses and market managers and hosts and producers all realizing, ‘Alright, we have to adapt,’ that excites me.”
Possessing the background as a producer lends shrewd and calculated judgment on how to include members of the audience into the program. While there are still open phone lines for callers to chime in, the program has introduced a text line and also engages with the audience through the live chat functionality of YouTube. Having Thomas as a producer of the show has helped in this area as well, with Salciunas sharing that he has a strong understanding of how to create and optimize content for various platforms of dissemination.
“We have a great YouTube audience where they basically have their own community all of a sudden,” Salciunas said. “They’re constantly talking about the show, and sometimes we grab what they’re saying on that YouTube feed because that’s another area of today’s new media where you have another avenue to communicate with people.”
Philly has the best fans in the world.
With that being said, the guys on Kincade & Salciunas have a question.
What is the best mindset to have as a fan – being a fanatic with high hopes at all times, or lowering expectations with a more logical way of thinking?
As Salciunas grows accustomed to the early start on 97.5 The Fanatic and his new colleagues in morning drive, he is filled with enthusiasm and the prospect of possibility. The radio station has been the only outlet by which he has been employed since the start of his media career, and he hopes to work there for as long as possible. National radio and television intrigue him going forward, but his priority centers on thriving in the new role.
“I want to try to get 97.5 The Fanatic – because it starts in the morning – back up in the map; back in the top five of the ratings books – and that’s going to take some time,” Salciunas said. “We’re a new show – we’re going to have to figure each other out.”
Salciunas expressed that the last year-and-a-half has been “hectic” in the midday daypart, but there has also been excitement surrounding the ephemerality as well. Taking the microphone in a major market with a dedicated sports fanbase such as Philadelphia is a privilege he does not take for granted, and he aspires to continue excelling in the marketplace for years to come.
“I just started, so I’m not thinking about the next step just yet,” Salciunas said. “I want this to last for a long time – for a very long time. If I never have to leave, that would be great.”
I’ve written in this space in the past that Barstool Sports is often an enigma to me. Outside of some of the brand’s major stars — like Dave Portnoy, Big Cat, PFT, and Kevin Clancy — I struggle to figure out just who does what at the outlet. But there’s one role I don’t question, and that’s the role of Frank The Tank.
I’m a true believer in the “personality hire” theory. If you’re unaware, it’s the idea that, sometimes, you simply hire a high-energy, positive, great-personality employee who might be underqualified for a job, but will keep morale high inside the office.
And while Frank The Tank doesn’t exactly exude positivity — quite the contrary, most often — you can tell that he’s the heart and soul of the company.
If you’re uninitiated, Frank Fleming — obviously known as Frank The Tank — is an often-viral sensation that pulls off one of the most incredible feats you’ll ever see in modern-day sports media.
If you can simultaneously be the angriest person on the planet, and also be viewed as completely wholesome, you’re doing something right. And that, in a nutshell, is Frank The Tank.
Tank makes no bones about his feelings. Ever. If you ask a question, he’s got an answer, a strong take, and generally a well-thought-out one at that.
In fact, he was discovered by Barstool Sports for his now-infamous rant about the New Jersey Transit Commission and its “incompetence.” He shouted in anger inside a transit hub about the public transportation’s inability to properly inform passengers about updates, resulting in him missing a New York Mets game.
And yet, despite his unbridled anger, you can’t help but sympathize and relate to the man.
Maybe Frank’s most endearing quality is his complete and utter lack of what anyone thinks about him. To sound a bit country for a moment, Frank The Tank’s give a damn is busted. He says what he thinks, when he thinks it, and doesn’t care what you think about it. But it’s never intentionally malicious. It might be harsh, but it always comes with an air of honesty rather than venom. He’s never trying to harm whoever he’s criticizing, but just believes in the age-old “Honesty is the best policy” thought process.
I’ve long enjoyed the clips of Frank, whether it was future NFL Hall of Famer J.J. Watt sharing his admiration for the digital star, or the times he’s often ambushed in the office by the outlet’s digital team to ask questions like “Who are the five most overrated athletes of all-time?”, which results in him rattling off a list you can’t believe was concocted on the spot.
Others are hopping on the bandwagon, too. Late last year, Mike Francesa was introduced to The Tank, and you could instantly see the chemistry and connection between the two. (As a side note, I can’t tell you how invested I’d be in a Mike and The Tank sports show. It’d have to be about half an hour because any longer and Francesa might strangle Frank, but it sure would make for great radio.)
Frank Fleming has turned into a content machine at Barstool Sports. The consummate underdog, Frank The Tank really burst onto the scene with his acceptance speech at the company’s award show, shouting “Never give up your dream!” and sharing the story of his previous life as a court clerk before joining the digital outlet.
But his latest content endeavor might be one of the biggest in Barstool history. Frank Fleming used to weigh over 500 pounds. But now after a walking schedule, he has dropped more than 160 pounds.
The company has turned his walks into a content series, where he converses with sports and media stars, with sponsor attachments throughout the videos. Recent walks include Mike Francesa, Scott Van Pelt, and an upcoming episode with former New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley.
I began to realize what Frank The Tank meant to Barstool Sports after one recent walk with the outlet’s founder, Dave Portnoy, who admitted he had pegged the digital star all wrong.
“It’s probably one of the most wrong things that I’ve (said). When we hired you, I put you on an innings count,” Portnoy said, inferring he didn’t want Fleming included in much visual content. “I was dead-ass wrong on that one. Gladly wrong.”
You see, Dave Portnoy admitting he’s wrong about something is about as jarring as hearing a kangaroo order an Oreo McFlurry. It just doesn’t happen. And yet, there was, admitting that even he underestimated one of his biggest stars.
And in his response to that, Fleming shared an optimism and a belief in himself.
“I just wanted to go there, get involved, and show what I can do,” Frank The Tank responded to the company’s founder.
In addition to his walks, Frank The Tank also shares videos of his culinary exploits on his personal YouTube page, which now features nearly 50,000 subscribers. Even my wife enjoys sitting down and seeing what The Tank is going to whip up on each edition of Tank Cooks.
There’s a sense of protection around Fleming from other Barstool personalities. In a company that is often maligned for how it treats each other and those who criticize the outlet, you can tell those at the digital juggernaut look out for Frank.
When his personal phone number was leaked on the internet in 2022, most other employees inside the company would have been inundated with calls and messages because others at the outlet had encouraged the harassment as a practical joke.
But when it happened to Frank, a complete onslaught of messages from bloggers and video and podcast hosts begging those to stop messaging the digital star.
And that, to me, shows the role of Frank The Tank at the often-controversial outlet. He’s rarely, if ever, controversial. He’s humble, he’s honest, he’s angry, and he’s wholesome. Frank The Tank is a virtual walking conundrum, and that alone shows why he’s the heart and soul of Barstool Sports.
After weeks of speculation amidst a plethora of out-of-the-box conspiracy theories, Kate Middleton reemerged in the public spotlight on the afternoon of Friday, Mar. 22 for the first time since her abdominal surgery back in Dec. 2023, In a brief video, which aired on several cable news outlets like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, Middleton indicated she has cancer and will be undergoing chemotherapy to treat it.
The likely top outlet to broadcast this breaking news, which occurred at 2 p.m. Eastern on March 22, was CBS. Although official daytime ratings for the broadcast networks were not made available at publish time, the network was airing a first-round NCAA men’s basketball tournament game between Northwestern and Florida Atlantic (the year-ago Friday game in this same early timeslot USC/Michigan State drew 4.06 million viewers on Mar. 17, 2023) until it interrupted that telecast with the Middleton news.
On cable, usual afternoon leader Fox News Channel was tops again on this particular Friday Friday, Mar. 22, delivering 1.35 million viewers from 2-3 p.m. and then 1.14 million viewers at 3-4 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research. MSNBC was a distant runner-up with 740,000 viewers from 1-3 p.m. then jumped up to 974,000 viewers at 3-4 p.m.
Although CNN drew 690,000 in the 2 p.m. hour, it was the only major cable news outlet to grow within the same Friday timeslot compared to its previous five Fridays (Feb. 16 & 23, and Mar. 1, 8 & 15 at 2-3 p.m.), up by two percent; Fox News was down 12 percent (from 1.53 million) and MSNBC down 18 percent (from 901,000).
CNN then posted 653,000 at 3-4 p.m. on Mar. 22.
Compared to the prior Friday (Mar. 15), both CNN and MSNBC grew while Fox News did not:
Wild times in Colorado and parts nearby. The Rockies hit this week with the regular season just a few days off and a local broadcast deal nowhere in sight.
Enjoy, Rockies fans! This one’s for you — assuming you can find it.
If you’re wondering about the state of baseball on TV, this is it — or at least it’s the very near future, either for the team you love or the team you love to hate. The Rockies’ case may represent an extreme, but nobody should call it an outlier.
The regional sports network (RSN) construct in America is blowing apart. The Rockies’ former local home for game broadcasts, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, is a goner, part of a national housecleaning of RSNs by Warner Bros. Discovery after it took over last year.
According to the Denver Post, the Rockies have been looking into partnerships with carriers like Comcast, Dish Network and DirecTV, but as of this writing nothing has materialized. The team opens its regular season Thursday in Arizona, with its home opener in Denver scheduled for a week from Friday.
So what does the landscape look like for Rockies fans who can’t find the games on their local provider?
Pricey, for starters.
Again, this could change. But as of now, the only option is a subscription streaming package cobbled together by Major League Baseball itself, which announced in February it was taking over the production and distribution of the Rockies’ broadcasts.
Good news: You can stream the app without a cable or satellite package.
Bad news: It’ll cost ya. The Rockies.tv app runs $19.99 a month or $99.99 for the year. And since the majority of all content consumers, including baseball fans, remain tethered to some sort of cable/satellite subscription despite reports of increased cord-cutting, that cost will most likely be in addition to what folks are already paying Comcast or whichever carrier they’ve got.
It stinks. But it’s also a glimpse of what MLB thinks could be the longer-term picture for baseball broadcasts.
The Rockies’ case is one of a couple that we might as well call MLB experiments. These were forged by emergency, not design, but the league now controls broadcasts for the Rockies, Padres and Diamondbacks after those teams’ RSN deals fell apart.
There is value to the league in learning how to do this, because with the regional networks continuing to disintegrate, streaming services are going to become a larger and larger component of MLB’s broadcast outreach. And although the Rockies are currently without a local carrier, a streaming-only options is not the model — at least not completely.
The model is actually closer to a hybrid, as The Athletic explained last year. What MLB commissioner Rob Manfred envisions is a short-term future in which carriers like Dish, DirecTV, etc. still offer home-team games through RSNs, for however long those continue to exist. Meanwhile, the league builds up its streaming offerings into something that can hit on both a local and national level.
Imagine a world in which you could choose a league-wide bundle of in-market games, with no blackout restrictions, distributed either directly by MLB or through a partner like Amazon or Apple. You’d also have the ability to buy your home team’s standalone season — or maybe only a month, or perhaps only a particular game you wish to see.
That would be one advantage of an all-in streaming service, and it’s different from what MLB.tv offers now, particularly in the area of local blackouts. As The Athletic’s Evan Drellich notes, MLB is years away from being able to enact such a plan because of the exclusivity clauses built in to several ongoing RSN contracts. But the idea is already taking root.
The league has to figure out how to make a deal work. Any large-scale media partner, Apple and Amazon included, would want the entire MLB package of broadcasts, and that will be a tough sell to owners in places like New York and Los Angeles, which hammer massive profit through their local deals and have deep financial stakes in their RSNs.
But with those regional networks in free-fall, the league may have to move quickly and hope to find its footing along the way. As fans in the Mountain West are discovering, there’s no future in hoping the old methods of seeing games will stay intact.
Current Timberwolves play-by-play man Michael Grady is getting called up to the national stage. He’ll call tonight’s matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings alongside Greg Anthony.
According to Awful Announcing, this will be Grady’s first NBA on TNT broadcast. Grady has been the television play-by-play voice of the Timberwolves for two years alongside Jim Petersen. Before heading to Minnesota, he served as an on-air talent for the YES Network on Brooklyn Nets games.
Many across sports media sent Grady their congratulations and well-wishes for his next opportunity:
Fantastic Wolves' play-by-play announcer Michael @Grady will call tonight's Mavericks-Kings game on TNT. Love to see/hear it. https://t.co/Z3KXbD6Woa
Grady has already called a game for NBA TV and now calls a game for TNT, which could mean he’s not long for local television. Like many of his sports media colleagues have said, T-Wolves fans should enjoy him while they have him, because he’s headed to the national stage.
As the NFL owner’s meetings continue in Orlando, news has come out about some rule changes that have been approved as well as some updates on some scheduling and media items. As Mike Stone filled in for Doug Karsch on 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit, along with co-host Gator Anderson, they discussed what they liked and didn’t like about the announcements.
The NFL revealed that it will now host a Christmas Day doubleheader and stream two games exclusively. The league announced that the Week One Friday night game in San Paolo, Brazil, featuring the Philadelphia Eagles, will stream exclusively on Peacock.
‘Stoney’ talked about the new kickoff rule and said he liked the decision and that it shold lead to more kick returns to make the game more exciting. Stone continued, “There’s also some stuff the NFL did announce that we don’t like, including there will be a game Wednesday December 25th. Christmas, it’s bad enough they’ve got to play, but on a Wednesday…it boggles my mind…it’s a bad look…The NFL also announced that the Philadelphia Eagles week one game in Brazil is going to be only on Peacock.”
With that, you heard an audible sigh from Scott ‘The Gator’ Anderson who then said, “Look, this is where we are going. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I don’t like how they’ve gone from network TV to network and cable TV to now network, cable TV and streaming services to get the games.”
Anderson concluded, “Eventually I think this is going to be just too many games on streaming services which is really going to piss me off. It’s a money decision by the NFL because they know that they can get more money and these services will pay a lot of money for those rights to the games because they know people are crazy about the NFL and they will subscribe to those streaming services. Don’t like it. But it is what it is.
