Betting analyst Mark Zinno announced on his X account today that he has re-signed for another year with ESPN Radio. “Excited to be back with a great crew and more Josh allen love in 2024!” he posted. Zinno also provides analysis for VSiN, Spotlight Sports Group and SportsGrid.
Zinno formerly worked at 92.9 The Game in Atlanta and hosts the “Hazard Ground” podcast, which brings on service members to discuss their deployment stories. Zinno has served over 22 years in the US Army, both on active duty and in the National Guard, where he currently holds the rank of colonel.
???????????? Some news … just re-signed for another year with @ESPNRadio! Excited to be back with a great crew and more Josh Allen love in 2024!
Zinno came to Atlanta in 2014 and was a part of The Game for three years. After they let him go, David Dickey picked him up for his then sports station Xtra 106.3 as well as fill-in slots on the Fan. After Xtra went away, Dickey gave him a shot talking politics at Dickey’s new conservative talk radio station at 106.3.
With terms like “economic headwinds” and “choppy ad markets” being used to describe advertising challenges in 2023, there were still some encouraging signs for radio revenue last year.
According to a report from Kagan Research, AM/FM revenue in 2023 was down slightly, dropping 1.5%. In total, the industry brought in $15.15 billion in advertising revenue during the calendar year.
“The radio station business has been challenged to remain relevant and part of national ad budgets, although it is still relatively strong in the local ad markets,” said Kagan Research Senior Research Analyst Justin Nielson, per Inside Radio.
“Radio ads are predominantly local and focused on the auto, retail, travel, and entertainment categories, which have been under pressure from inflation and a higher interest rate environment over the past couple of years,” he continued.
In its forecast for 2024, Kagan Research shared that local advertising will drop by just under one percent to $11.8 billion. While that figure is basically $1 billion larger than revenue collected during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it’s $2 billion off where the industry was before the pandemic hit.
After departing MSNBC earlier this year, Mehdi Hasan has announced the launch of a digital media company.
The Mehdi Hasan Show was canceled late last year, which ultimately led to Hasan leaving the cable news outlet he called home since 2020.
After the cancellation of his show, Hasan joined The Guardian as a regular columnist but has subsequently announced plans for a new digital media company called Zeteo.
“You thought I was gone? You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Hasan joked to begin a video announcing the debut of the company. “I’m back with a whole new media company. In fact, my own. We’re calling it Zeteo, the ancient Greek word that goes back to Socrates and Plato, which means to seek out to inquire to get to the truth. And that is the guiding principle behind my new media venture.”
????Some personal & professional news: I'm launching a new media company! It's called Zeteo.
And, in this era of war abroad, fascism at home, and propaganda everywhere, I hope I can count on your support.
He continued by claiming he has assembled an “Avengers-style team of contributors” that “will blow your mind.”
Mehdi Hasan will anchor a weekly streaming video show called Mehdi Unfiltered. He also teased podcasts, op-eds, and newsletters from the upstart company.
Hasan isn’t the first former cable news host to launch their own digital media startup. Both Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly have created similar ventures since they each departed Fox News. However, Hasan noted, “No one really on the progressive left has been able to pull off anything similar.”
After being removed from CNN This Morning after the network shuffled its daytime lineup, former anchor Phil Mattingly has a new role at the cable network.
CNN has announced Mattingly will serve as its Chief Domestic Correspondent. As his first assignment for the network, Mattingly will cover the Presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump.
The role won’t be a foreign one to Mattingly, who served as the network’s Chief White House Correspondent before shifting to the anchor chair of the morning show.
“Phil Mattingly is one of the strongest political journalists and anchors we have at CNN,” saidCEO and Chairman Mark Thompson. “As a 2016 campaign correspondent, Capitol Hill correspondent, Senior White House Correspondent and Chief White House Correspondent, Phil has risen to every challenge CNN has thrown at him.
“He’s the perfect choice to become CNN Anchor, Chief Domestic Correspondent and to play a central role in our coverage of one of the most momentous election cycles in American history,” concluded Thompson.
Mattingly joined CNN in 2015 as a New York-based correspondent. He had previously worked at Bloomberg Television in Washington.
If you saw the Barbie movie, you know the line. Barbie is living the perfect and perfectly plastic life, perfectly choreographed and full of perfect smiles.
But the movie turns on that one line, basically shattering Barbie’s world with a concept no one there would ever have considered.
Death.
Why would you consider it when everything seemed in perfect order?
Well, when it comes to broadcasting and media, a lot of you think about dying … a lot. I do, too.
Of course, it’s not the stop breathing and get buried type of death but rather, the death of a career in media.
The truth is, when it comes to our business, very few people get to choose when it ends. Take a minute and consider a major media personality who truly “retired” after a multi-decade career.
It happens, but percentage-wise, it’s rare.
Take a minute and think. Name some. Name one. It’s not easy.
More often than not, you will get laid off or fired before you want to leave, and after a certain age, getting that next opportunity may be a bridge too far.
Then, you are done done.
That’s as much a music stopper as Barbie admitting she has considered her own mortality in the middle of the dance floor. Here on planet Earth, at least from the people in my orbit, the death of a media career often leads to even better professional options and more balanced lifestyle choices.
I have friends doing a million different things: Public relations, crisis management, content creation for large companies, political communications, fundraising, and teaching. Almost all of them tell me that it was such a stress relief to have a “normal” life, to not be worried about every pending contract or new boss.
Their work is appreciated. Their job is stable. And their schedule? Normal. Never has “normal” sounded so lovely than when they talk about watching shows with spouses, going out for a drink on a Tuesday, or having a regular pickleball game (or insert any middle-aged recreational sport).
I believe them.
Sort of.
The “sort of” comes from me not being able to actually envision that for myself. As enticing as it would be to see people on a more accessible schedule or play a weekly game with buddies, nothing beats talking and writing for a living. Nothing. And I am going to hang on until the lights are out, and we can’t pay to get them turned back on.
For me, I’m in too deep. I’m an indoor cat, incapable of survival outside.
Meetings. Deadlines. Reliant on other people. Meetings.
I’d be dead in a week. It’s beyond no, thank you. It’s, “I can’t”.
Sure, I have three teenagers and three college tuitions to pay. And two dogs. Two cars. And a mortgage.
Here’s where I am supposed to tell you that you should not only have thoughts about (career) death but also have a survival plan – a professional media-career living will if you would.
I should tell you that because you should.
But I don’t have one. And I don’t want one.
Why?
Because I don’t want to think about death anymore. I mean, I’ve already died twice. It wasn’t fun, and the third time most likely would be the charm in terms of getting me out of the business for good.
Why so stubborn? I don’t know.
Several times, I’ve said to myself, I need to make sure I have a backup plan … just in case. Each time, I find a reason not to get one.
Ultimately, what’s my point? Get a backup plan. Think about death. But it can’t take away from the essential joy of having the privilege of talking for a living. In that vein, don’t take it for granted. Ever. Even if the pay stinks and the schedule stinks. If you think about career death so much that it detracts from being in the moment, maybe it really is time to move on.
Peter King is in no danger of being underappreciated. With a career that included such high-profile gigs as lead NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, all-purpose maven for NBC Sports and author of the long-running Monday Morning Quarterback column and website, his place as a star in the sports journalism firmament is secure.
Still, there’s an aspect of his career that is destined to go less noticed than the rest of it. King is a straight-on print journalist, from the old school, who successfully and completely blended his talent into the broadcast and digital era before many of his contemporaries were even sure it was happening.
That seems a small thing. Truth is, he was way out in front. And it is one more way in which King, who announced this week that he’s retiring at age 66, has left such an impression in his work.
You don’t have to go crazy slapping him on the back about it. But King grew up in a time when print journalism essentially dominated sports coverage, and he rose to its apex. It might have been tempting to just dig in and hold on tight. Instead, he was among those writers who figured out how to diversify – not merely to survive, but to thrive in changing times.
Sports-talk radio as an industry began in earnest after King had already started his print career, when WFAN in New York, with 24-hour sports, debuted in 1987. But through the ‘90s and into the new millennium, most sports fans in America still relied on print dailies or magazines if they wanted to keep up with the sports news.
King was already branching out. He was and remains a reporter at heart, but a huge part of his success at SI and with MMQB was his gift for storytelling, and he realized pretty quickly that other types of media provided plenty of bandwidth for that. Rather than be suspicious of or hostile to sports talk, King leaned into it – often as a way to promote his own reporting, which was rigorous and detailed.
Again, this may sound obvious. It wasn’t, really, at the time. Many of the sportswriters in King’s orbit disdained electronic media in general, and they specifically resented sports radio for ripping off their reporting and using it as talk-show fodder. King was more sanguine; he had plenty of friends on the electronic side, and I think he just understood their place in the sports biosphere better than some other writers did.
It didn’t hurt that he covered New York teams for Newsday before going to Sports Illustrated, which in the ‘90s and early 2000s was still a holy grail of sportswriting. But King not only worked hard on his craft; he also worked hard on understanding what radio and TV needed from him when he made appearances, and he consistently got better at delivering that.
The beauty of what King was doing was that, in his way, he was elevating appreciation for the art of reporting. He joined NBC’s Sunday evening studio show Football Night in Americain 2006, and he spent his time on the air either dropping straight news nuggets or, mostly, talking about topics that were related to reporting he’d already completed.
He was a coast to coast radio guest, a podcast guy and a sports-talk talker who seemed equally comfortable with Dan Patrick or a local host. In 2018 he joined NBC Sports exclusively (that always felt more about the impending collapse of SI than anything else), where he made regular appearances on PFT Live and Football Night in America, hosted the Peter King Podcast, and basically appeared across the network’s array of platforms as needed, which was a lot.
Yet King continued to be, first, a reporter. He continued to grind out 10,000- and 11,000-word columns on Mondays through the NFL season. That grind was part of the reason he cited Monday for stepping aside, and implicit in King’s explanation was that, after all this time, he really didn’t know how to do the column any other way and still be satisfied with the result.
If so, it marks one of the few times in King’s career that he did not make a successful adjustment to changing times. And as obvious as some of his moves seem in hindsight, the larger truth for folks who want to be part of the sports media landscape is that change is inevitable.
We don’t know what the next significant alteration or wrinkle in sports journalism might be. It’s possible that it hasn’t yet been invented. The only sure thing is that some people will resist it, and others will follow Peter King’s path and give themselves every effort to stay in the game long enough to win it. King did that very, very well.
As many media outlets shutter their doors, some have clamored for the return of the Fairness Doctrine. Newsweek released the results of their new way to connect with readers, by asking if its reporting is “fair.” Since September 2023, readers were asked to judge stories on the site, 78% said the outlet is “fair.” Another 22% found at least one story they read to be “unfair.”
AllSides Media has judged Newsweek to be center. However, let’s not forget they are the same outlet that wrongly claimed President Donald Trump was golfing on Thanksgiving in 2019. As Sheryl Attkisson noted on Full Measure this week, on Thanksgiving in 2019 President Trump was visiting troops in Iraq and the Newsweek story was fabricated.
While the reader assessment of Newsweek’s content is on par with AllSides Media, is it right for readers to judge what is “fair” and what is “unfair” news? If outlets like The Daily Caller (Right) or Vox (Left) would ask the same of their readers, would their echo chamber subscribers find them “fair?” While historically print (and later digital) outlets could (and still can) embrace the political leanings of their owner(s), from 1949 till 1987 TV news had guidelines they must adhere to: The Fairness Doctrine.
Long before Americans argued about bias in news, every TV outlet (there were only three major ones at the time) would follow “The Fairness Doctrine.” The Reagan Library notes the doctrine was “enforced by the Federal Communications Council, [and] was rooted in the media world of 1949. Lawmakers became concerned that the monopoly audience control of the three main networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, could misuse their broadcast licenses to set a biased public agenda.”
To put it simply, the Fairness Doctrine made it so all sides of any story were presented. In 1985, under the Reagan Administration, the FCC found “the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.” Two years later, a panel under FCC Chairman Dennis Patrick repealed the Fairness Doctrine unanimously.
Keep in mind, at this point in time, CNN was the first and only 24-hour news network in the United States (it launched on June 1, 1980). Fox News wouldn’t be launched until almost 10 years after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, on October 7, 1996.
Also happening at this time, large corporations (with lobbying power) were buying media outlets. General Electric purchased NBC in 1986. Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1995. One year later, ABC was bought by Disney. These purchases did not go unnoticed. Saturday Night Live even mocked the acquisitions in a now-banned short called “Conspiracy Theory Rock!: Media-opoly.”
The unwillingness of news organizations to cover both sides of a story has led to the creation of biased outlets including: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, OAN, Newsmax, and others. None of these would be able to exist in their current form if the Fairness Doctrine wasn’t repealed.
News outlets that aren’t overtly biased use another trick to manipulate their viewers/readers, using emotionally charged verbiage. AllSides Media defines sensationalist words as presenting information in a way that gives a shock or makes a deep impression. This includes words like “shocking”, “heart-breaking”, “explosive”, “scathing”, “chaotic”, “desperate”, and “remarkable”… this list goes on but you’ve seen and heard these words from the news outlets daily. This is the media telling you how to react to a story instead of letting you determine how you actually feel after they present the facts of the story.
Today, what’s most concerning are outlets saying ‘fair and balanced’ news is a disservice to the public. An August 2023 NPR article explored just this, saying “Objectivity actually comes from an accurate examination of facts (actions, documentation, and even educated opinions) presented in transparent reports. Often, that coverage should also encourage audiences to examine supporting evidence for themselves.”
An “educated opinion” is not a fact. It’s an opinion that is neither right nor wrong.
It is impossible for human beings to be completely unbiased (see January 31st column)
While it’s great Newsweek is asking readers if their reporting is ‘fair’ is the reader’s judgment neutral, or just as biased as the outlet they prefer to read? Sometimes when we are clicking to satisfy our own confirmation bias it’s hard to tell.
What the media and all Americans need to start recognizing is their own echo chamber. Knowing we all have some sort of bias is not a flaw but what makes us human. Our flaw is the inability to recognize our bias yet call out others for being biased just because they are on the other side of an issue.
The cable news outlets got increased viewership from two different news events during the week of Feb. 12, namely the shooting at the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City.
On Wednesday, Feb. 14, of the mass shooting at the Super Bowl celebration parade in Kansas City for the Chiefs football team. One person died and roughly two dozen others were injured.
All news outlets spiked upon live breaking news coverage with Fox News — already the weekday afternoon leader in cable news — leading in total viewers.
The following are what each network drew as the story unfolded on that Feb. 14 afternoon from Kansas City and how it grew from the same Wednesday time slots from Jan. 3 thru Feb. 7:
Fox News Channel
3-4 p.m.: 1.656 million viewers (+18 percent)
4-5 p.m.: 1.873 million viewers (+34 percent)
5-6 p.m.: 3.175 million viewers (+7 percent)
6-7 p.m.: 2.441 million viewers (+12 percent)
7-8 p.m.: 2.250 million viewers (+4 percent)
MSNBC
3-4 p.m.: 1.008 million viewers (+10 percent)
4-6 p.m.: 1.504 million viewers (+7 percent)
6-7 p.m.: 1.763 million viewers (+17 percent)
7-8 p.m.: 1.474 million viewers (+13 percent)
CNN
3-4 p.m.: 0.762 million viewers (+27 percent)
4-5 p.m.: 0.913 million viewers (+35 percent)
5-6 p.m.: 1.007 million viewers (+28 percent)
6-7 p.m.: 0.985 million viewers (+43 percent)
7-8 p.m.: 0.960 million viewers (+29 percent)
Newsmax
4-5 p.m.: 0.343 million viewers (+23 percent)
5-6 p.m.: 0.354 million viewers (+16 percent)
7-8 p.m.: 0.547 million viewers (+13 percent)
Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Feb. 13, the results were announced for the special election race for New York’s third congressional district between its former representative Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican challenger Mazi Pilip. Suozzi left office in 2022 to run in the New York gubernatorial election but lost out to incumbent Kathy Hochul. Suozzi’s successor in Congress was the infamous George Santos who was officially expelled from office on Dec. 1, 2023 over charges of federal criminal laws including campaign finance fraud.
MSNBC and CNN were the only major national news outlets that provided live coverage of the special election results, stressing the significance of Suozzi’s eight-point win over Pilip as it reduced the GOP’s advantage in the House of Representatives by one.
From when the voting polls closed in New York at 9 p.m. ET, MSNBC easily topped CNN in total viewers at 9 p.m. (1.616 million viewers vs. CNN’s 0.847 million), 10 p.m. (1.903 million vs. CNN’s 0.879 million), 11 p.m. (1.112 million vs. CNN’s 0.541 million), and at midnight (774,000 viewers vs. CNN’s 299,000).
From 9-11 p.m. ET, though, both MSNBC and CNN scored the same performance among the key 25-54 demographic: a 0.15 rating at 9 p.m. and a 0.18 rating at 10 p.m. (Note: a 1.0 rating in 25-54 equates to 1.21 million viewers within the aforementioned age range.)
For the 10-11 p.m. hour, when the New York candidate speeches had aired, CNN grew by 68 percent (in viewers) and by 80 percent (in 25-54) from its Tuesday 10-11 p.m. hour output from Jan. 2 thru Feb. 6 — a time period that included a Ron DeSantis town hall and New Hampshire primary results.
MSNBC was up as well at 10 p.m. hour — +16 percent in viewers, +33 percent in the 25-54 demo — using the same reference parameters.
Even though Fox News did not offer live coverage of New York’s special election results, Hannity at 9 p.m. (2.528 million viewers; 0.21 A25-54 demo rating) and Gutfeld! at 10 p. m. (2.357 million viewers; 0.31 A25-54 demo rating) still held the top spots in their respective hours on all of cable news.
Last summer, West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins was weeks removed from uttering homophobic slurs on a Cincinnati radio station when he registered a blood alcohol content measurement of 0.21%, while driving his SUV in Pittsburgh. Law enforcement pulled him over and began to question him, eventually administering field sobriety tests that he failed. One day later, he resigned from his head coaching job, concluding a tumultuous tenure with scorn and contempt.
A few months later, Huggins was the topic of discussion on 93.7 The Fan where Colin Dunlap was hosting a solo nighttime shift. Several months earlier, Dunlap and his morning show co-host Chris Mack were reassigned into expanded multimedia roles within the Audacy Pittsburgh cluster of stations. The decision ended an eight-year stint for the duo and placed Dunlap back in solo hosting situations, on which he can utilize the callers as ostensible co-hosts of the program.
This role was similar to how he began his time working in radio following several years as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Although he never studied sports talk radio in the past, he came in with an innate understanding of how to relate to others and convey a sense of understanding.
On an August night where Dunlap was discussing the incident surrounding Huggins, he welcomed a usual caller from Florida onto his program. The discussion began with the listener articulating that he has beers after work and tries to relax but would never think about putting others in harm. In fact, he recognizes the dangers of driving while inebriated and expressed that he would call a rideshare service if in this inebriated state.
As he continued, he shared that his life was at an inflection point and said that his wife threatened to leave him if he did not seek help. Admitting that he was a functioning alcoholic and trying to retain his relationship, Dunlap offered to help him find a treatment plan near him to which he accepted and promised to follow up.
“I thought if somebody was that brave to call in and talk about themselves and put themselves out there, they may have wanted to get noticed or they may have just needed some help,” Dunlap said. “….There was a real-time, in-the-moment platform to use, so why wouldn’t I use it? How often do you get to do that or how many people get to do that?”
Dunlap helped the caller schedule an initial evaluation in Florida and start on the pathway to recovery, a commendatory act that will be honored at the 2024 BSM Summit. As the recipient of the Champions Award, he will be recognized for his selflessness and benevolence, an esteemed honor with the potential to serve as a microcosm of the impact those in media can have on the listening audience.
BSM Founder Jason Barrett said the following when describing the annual award, “I created this award because I saw a lot of good being done across the media industry. That isn’t always captured in the press. Many times disgruntled ex-employees and those looking to benefit from radio and television’s demise paint a picture of a crumbling industry. But what they miss completely is how much good is done by people and brands operating in it.”
Last night something happened. Longtime listener Matt in Florida called (we were talking Bob Huggins) & admitted he’s a functioning alcoholic. Said he’s close to losing it all. I went back/forth about making this more public than just that call, but we need to rally behind Matt. pic.twitter.com/o6anwu3se2
Even though Dunlap battles stage fright, he is genuinely his authentic self behind the microphone and has no qualms about disseminating his opinions and emitting honesty.
“We don’t have to be hot-take artists all the time, we don’t have to be mean-spirited [and] we don’t have to run people down,” Dunlap said. “There’s still a real big place in the world just to help each other out. That still gets a lot of run and a lot of play in terms of what you can do to be a great radio host, what you can do to be a great person and what you can do just to help humanity.”
Developing an ability to concentrate and consider his audience was imperative early in his career while writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dunlap never envisioned himself pursuing a career in sports talk radio and strived to hone his journalistic skills by adeptly covering high school sports. After some time, he transitioned to covering Big East Conference football before being assigned to the Pittsburgh Pirates beat. The sense of trust that he fostered in the early stages of his career, specifically while in the Pirates clubhouse, continues to pay dividends on the air today.
“I think that print journalists oftentimes make the best radio hosts because they understand, especially with subjects, that you don’t always have to talk to people when you need something,” Dunlap said. “Sometimes you just talk to people as regular people when you don’t need something from them, so that helped.”
Shortly after the Pittsburgh Steelers lost Super Bowl XLV to the Green Bay Packers, Dunlap and his wife welcomed twins into the world. The newborn children were born prematurely and spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), leading him to take a year off from working in sports media to care for his family. As their condition began to improve, Dunlap worked part-time weekend shifts in the early days of 93.7 The Fan having never regularly hosted his own show. He ultimately began to ramp up his radio work and realized that the lifestyle was more optimal than that of a beat reporter, consistently traveling and writing late into the night.
“Your life isn’t on hold – you have set parameters in which you’re on the air and you give it 1 million percent within those parameters,” Dunlap said. “You put your earphones down, get in your car and you go home, and you show up and prep the next day and you do the same thing.”
There are times, however, when programs need to be upended to address breaking news or other matters that lead to a deviation from the rundown. Advertising revenue plays a part in keeping the entities in operation, and hosts are often implored to stay on schedule in order to actualize these agreements. While accepting the Champions Award during the first day of the BSM Summit, Dunlap will look to impart a message to attendees.
“You don’t need to be in a hustle to get to the next break,” Dunlap stated. “You don’t need to be in a hustle to talk about the next hot topic or the next thing that people are going to argue about or the next list that you have to tell people about. Just be pure and in the moment and real, and I think you garner respect from people.”
When he first began regularly hosting alone from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Dunlap made it a point to listen to other hosts in the timeslot. After all, he had not studied the craft and was learning about the nuances and formatics while working in real time. Station sports director Jeff Hathorn advised Dunlap to discuss a topic if it felt right to him, a shrewd insight that helped simplify things in the early days.
Since he was from the area and familiar with the local teams, Dunlap knew how to resonate with the listeners in this new means of dissemination. With interest in what he had to say, people began to call in and Dunlap always found ways to implement their perspectives into the program.
“It’s a great American city that reinvented itself, and its people are very prideful to be from here, and fair or unfair; right or wrong, they tend to gravitate and have a magnetic pull to one of their own,” Dunlap said. “They know they might disagree with me, but I’m not somebody who got shipped in from another city to work here.”
Dunlap’s straightforward approach has been transferable to other formats, which has included recent hosting stints on KDKA NewsRadio 100.1 FM/AM 1020. The alteration in the subject matter has broadened his horizons, granting him the ability to discuss local topics pertinent to Pittsburgh. Moreover, it has enabled him to foster trust in a different audience within the marketplace and is an assignment he has genuinely enjoyed. Whether it is sports or news talk though, Dunlap abstains from recapitulating the thoughts of others and yearns to be original and distinctive.
“You can listen all day and hear the same thing regurgitated with not much personal spin on it, and that to me is mind-numbing,” Dunlap said. “This is the main thing is I think far too many people walk into a studio and become paid actors as opposed to just themselves. It’s very important for me if I’m picking my kids up from school and a fellow parent asks me about the Steelers and they say, ‘Hey, I heard you on the radio. What do you really think?’ The answer’s never different than what I say to people in my neighborhood, and I don’t think that’s true for everyone.”
Dunlap is quick to help people in difficult situations with his humanitarian spirit, something that was augmented when his daughter battled leukemia at a young age. She was diagnosed at the age of 5 and underwent 30 months of cancer treatments before being able to ring the bell to signify its conclusion. Amid this challenging stretch for Dunlap’s family, he utilized social media to share his daughter’s progress and received messages of encouragement and offers for assistance. It granted him a sense of perspective and further cognizance of the power of live radio broadcasting.
“There’s a lot more good people than there are bad people in the world, and there were a lot of people that reached out to help, which was very good,” Dunlap said. “Even though we never accepted any monetary things and nothing… there were people that reached out just to lend support. That showed me that when you’re in a time and you do need help, it’s good to have someone there or someone offer that help.”
As he accepts the distinguished Champions Award and continues carrying out his newfound career path, Dunlap hopes he can continue to embrace the moment and help the community. Employing the pulpit of the microphone, he aspires to keep helping others plow paths to victory and eliminate the obstacles to get there. The route through the maze may have many twists and turns, but he is here for the journey and far from his final mission.
“If I see somebody that’s in peril, I’m still the kind of guy in 2024 that stops and helps,” Dunlap elucidated. “I know it may be an antiquated virtue, and I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but I just do. With that show that night – and there wasn’t any thinking that went into it – it’s all been in retrospect after I’ve listened back to it [that] the train just needed to stop, and that situation needed to be taken care of.”
Andrew Porter has been experimenting with digital sports media since the beginning. In 2010, while still enrolled at Penn State, Porter launched his own blog turned online radio show The School Philly. Modeled after Barstool Sports, TSP was a blend of sports and lifestyle content around Penn State and Philly sports. He parlayed that project into a job at Philadelphia sports powerhouse, Sportsradio WIP where he has worked now for over a decade.
Porter learned the ropes under Spike Eskin who was running WIP’s social media from 2012-14. He eventually worked his way up to overseeing a social/video team of his own while managing and producing digital content for WIP’s website and across social platforms.
Porter has been around the biggest personalities and moments in Philly sports recent history. He shared the responsibilities that come with putting the words of Angelo Cataldi, Howard Eskin and Joe DeCamara into the internet. He also talked about the highlights and challenges he has faced in his 12 years at the station. Be advised our nearly 30-min conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. Visit the Barrett Media YouTube page for the extended interview.
AR: What does a typical day at your job look like right now?
AP: It varies a lot because in the sports world we’re very dependent on the news. The benchmark for each day is to make sure we get good audio from each show. So, I’m waking up, going online, and trying to package the audio on air from the morning show, midday show and afternoon show and distribute it online in a creative, thoughtful way where we can engage viewers.
We’re setting up the big topics, and what our hosts’ opinions are on them. And we’re trying to set the tone online, the way we set the tone on the air because it’s kind of two different vehicles but we’re trying to merge that as much as possible and create some synergy.
Then throughout the day, it’s sending push alerts towards our station to get people to listen. If we have an exclusive interview of someone from one of the sports teams, a coach or a manager, we’re getting that interview podcasted and working with the producers to get that podcast and story up on our website quickly.
Same with breaking news. And even when I’m technically not working, you always have to keep an eye on it, because that’s just the nature of it. You never know when stuff can happen at night. Sometimes it’s posting highlights on social media from a Sixers game or posting interviews that can inspire conversation. So you’re never really done. The main daily focus is our three main shows and converting that audio and making sure our hosts’ takes are part of the dialogue on the internet.
AR: What are the keys to converting audio into great digital content?
AP: There’s really no set formula, I kind of have the pulse of what we want to do based on experience. But generally speaking, our hosts’ strongest takes are going to be their opening segments, that’s where they’re going to hit their main points. So usually, that’s going to be the best content in terms of engagement because it’s the most interesting and entertaining content.
Big exclusive interviews, which are huge drivers because they really differentiate us from other media outlets. We get to talk to people like Nick Sirianni, Jalen Hurts, and Bryce Harper. They do come on our station. When we have those days, those are big Hallmark moments, because we’re promoting them, and hopefully creating content out of those interviews.
AR: What are the biggest platforms of focus for WIP?
AP: So we’re on the main three: Facebook X/Twitter and Instagram, we’re on Threads as well. I feel like in the sports world, X is the biggest conversation driver right now in terms conversation, brand awareness and news, especially in sports and politics. But in terms of generating clicks and engagement, Facebook is still our number one driver, based on our demographic.
We’re not really worried about converting traffic on X. That’s more so to drive brand awareness and package different video clips. We’re experimenting with different things as these platforms are changing constantly.
AR: What are the strategies or benchmarks that you looked at in terms of growing your audience on those different platforms?
AP: Engagement, reach, followers. All that stuff is very quantifiable. You can measure it and see growth. A lot of times it’s going to be correlated to how our teams are performing. And that is the same with ratings. I mean, when the Eagles are in the Super Bowl and the Phillies are in the World Series, the work kind of does itself. The content is just endless.
When you have a down year, and you’re in February, and there’s nothing going on, then you have to start some creative meetings to drum up interest. But all three of those sites make it very easy to follow analytics. What’s harder to quantify is the brand and if you’re growing your brand positively. Sometimes we pass on certain things because something may be said on air that might not relay best on social media. There’s a fine line because we don’t want to make our hosts look bad at the expense of engagement, either.
AR: Tell me about your relationship with the hosts and talent.
AP: Pre-COVID I was in the office every day and I developed really strong relationships with the hosts, most of whom are still there. I know them all well, personally, and they’ve all been great. Over the past year or so we’ve really ramped up converting their takes on to digital. And, you know, if there’s ever anything controversial, or anything that teeters the line, I can always ask them for their permission. And they have a communication channel with me and they can always say, ‘Hey, maybe this isn’t best for online, or this isn’t what I meant to say. So please don’t post stuff like that.’
So it’s communication. It’s understanding our hosts and having a relationship and dialogue with them. Then it’s kind of understanding the pulse of how this will be interpreted online versus on the air.
AR: Looking back at the past decade that you’ve been at WIP what have been some of the biggest wins on social?
AP: That’s a really good question. Back in the day when Spike [Eskin] was doing social and I was working for him, we had a former Eagles player mention that Nnamdi Asomugha was eating lunch in his car. That went like super, super viral.
We had during the NFL draft, which was in Philadelphia, in 2017, Donovan McNabb live on our show, which was when Facebook Live was just starting. So we were able to film that on Facebook Live and that was massive.
Even this past year, Bryce Harper mentioned that he hit a homerun for one of our callers and that was a cool moment for us. We had Jason Kelce do a beer chugging contest with one of our morning show hosts at Sea Isle [City] this year, which was really cool. Great video, obviously.
But maybe our biggest post on X off the top of my head, it probably was Jason Kelce saying that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift were dating on the morning show. No one’s really sure if he said that or what exactly he said but he basically broke that news on our morning show. That has over a million views or something that’s got to be one of our top posts.
AR: So in a moment like that how are you all over it on social?
AP: I knew Jason Kelce was coming on and this Taylor Swift story is a big story. So in the back of my head, I’m like, ‘I have a feeling that Joe [DeCamara] is going to ask about this.’ So you’re waiting there ready for it. Sometimes you even have your story pre written. Let’s say Nick Siriani is coming on and you know the topic is about Jalen Hurts’ injury. You’ll have that story pre written ready to go. But when a big moment happens it’s all hands on deck and we make sure we get everything up as quickly as possible.
AR: On the flipside, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve run into in your time managing social channels for WIP?
AP: I think the biggest challenge is merging on-air with digital because online is forever. We’ve had different hosts, and someone like Angelo [Cataldi] may say some things that would offend the fan base on air. It is what it is but, our reach online is just so massive that there are many people that are scrolling Twitter that aren’t listening to the show, or can take something out of context.
So you really don’t want to make an enemy out of one of our own people. We don’t want to turn it against them and have them taken out of context if they’re speaking negatively about the Eagles or the Phillies, because 99% of our followers are fans of these teams. And it’s kind of like an echo chamber world now where people don’t want to hear negative stuff, they want to hear positive stuff.
Our hosts have four hour shows every single day where they have to talk about different topics. So naturally, you’re going to get some speculation and negative stuff. You’re going to get some weird stuff and non sports stuff. I want to make sure that our hosts are being conveyed properly. I never would want to put someone in a bad spot where they were not happy with the way they were being portrayed. That’s always a fine balance and probably the toughest part.
AR: Can you explain how different the true radio audience and the wider social media audience can be?
AP: It’s a really weird climate and it’s tough today. I don’t know how many people are listening to every show for four hours a day but now we have an Audacy app, which is great. It allows you to rewind and listen on demand to pretty much entire shows. And it gives you context and allows you to develop relationships with the host.
It’s kind of like a TV show, right? If you watch the same TV show every day you start to become part of the show. You realize the nuances, you start to like the characters, and you feel the show. If you’re just popping in for one episode of The Office or one episode of Seinfeld, you don’t really understand the jokes. It’s not that funny to you.
That’s kind of what online is like. Most of these people online aren’t necessarily huge fans of the shows that follow us. I mean, we have 227,000 followers on X. They’re just huge fans of Philadelphia sports. Obviously there’s an overlap there but a lot of people can be following us for Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, or Sixers news and not necessarily listen to the show. So their perspective on the content is a lot different than someone who knows Joe DeCamara because they’ve been listening to him for 15 years.
That relationship is a lot stronger than someone online who’s just coming in for a quick comment or a quick troll because they don’t like this or they don’t like that. So social media is a very different animal and it’s tough to navigate in today’s climate.
AR: WIP has made the transition to video in terms of getting cameras in the studio and showing hosts in that way. Do you think that’s going to be the future of terrestrial radio, being able to integrate video to take advantage of how digital platforms are changing?
AP: 100%. I don’t think that radio stations should call themselves radio stations. Honestly, I think they’re just digital media brands. The same way Bleacher Report is or Barstool Sports or ESPN. These are all digital media sports brands. I don’t think terrestrial radio will go away because it’s good, people like listening to it in the car and when there’s big news and stuff like that. But you have to be able to repackage it in podcast form, in audio form, in video form and in written form.
There’s just too many platforms to package news. There’s just too much content out there. You have to be creative, and package quick, entertaining content. People don’t want to read long articles and listen to four hour shows anymore. They just don’t. They want quick 10 minute clips, two minute clips, 30-sec clips. It’s a shame and it makes our job harder but that’s what people want. That’s what wins online.
We’re just a digital sports media brand. We’re a sports media brand in general. Radio is part of our business- it’s probably the biggest part of our business in terms of ratings- but as time goes on, the digital part of it I think should be viewed equally as important, if not more important.
