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Howard Stern: Being Called Woke is a Compliment

BNM Staff
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Howard Stern views critics labeling him as “woke” as a compliment, as he expressed during a recent The Howard Stern Show episode. In this episode, Stern shared a fan’s YouTube video clip where the fan praised him but also claimed that the radio host had become “woke.”

According to Mediaite, Stern responded to this criticism, saying, “I often hear that I’m no longer good because I’m considered woke.”

He went on to explain his perspective on being labeled as woke, stating, “Personally, I take it as a compliment. Let me clarify my stance on this. In my view, the opposite of being woke is being asleep. If being woke means that I cannot support Trump, as I believe it does, or that I stand with individuals who identify as transgender, or that I advocate for vaccination, then go ahead and call me woke as much as you like.”

He further emphasized, “I’m not in favor of ignorance. In fact, last Friday morning, I went to CVS and received the new Covid vaccine. I’m all for science. This country is truly remarkable.”

Stern celebrated his commitment to knowledge and progress.

“I am woke, motherf—er, and I love it. I want to be awake. I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am. I believe the election was not rigged,” Stern said of the 2020 election. “I am woke. I think that’s a compliment.”

Meet The Podcasters – Mike Golic, DraftKings

Demetri Ravanos
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Meet The Podcasters – Mike Golic, DraftKings

You won’t find Mike Golic on the radio anymore. That may be a little hard to believe for some of us. He was one of the constants of ESPN Radio through so many different eras and iterations of the lineup.

He is still doing a morning show though. Gojo & Golic features himself and his son talking about life and sports. It airs live on DraftKings Network and is distributed digitally each morning. 

The new platform means Golic had to learn some new tricks. It also means that some of what he was doing all along worked well enough that someone wanted to pay him to keep doing it as the sports media industry changed.

The key to his success has been recognizing which mindset is the right one for each situation.

Demetri Ravanos: In the podcast world, we talk a lot about the power of niches, right? It’s a crowded space. Everybody has a podcast, so you’ve got to find your way in. But you and your son are doing a big, broad show. So what efforts are you guys making to make sure you stand out in that crowded field? 

Mike Golic: I don’t know if we particularly sit there and say ‘we need to do something to stand out.’ Let’s be honest. When I was on the radio years ago, there wasn’t a lot going on in talk radio, and then as we went on, a lot more, different talk radio came out. Now, as you just mentioned, we’ve got podcasts and streaming and every which way you can you can get shows out there. The way I’ve always done it is I’m always just doing it like a show. The microphone hasn’t changed in front of me. The show Mike and I did when we were at ESPN, it’s and the way Mike does the show when he was doing it on his own and the way I do a show that hasn’t changed. We’re not reinventing the wheel.                       

I know when new shows come out, they say ‘we’re going to do this’ or ‘we’re going to do that.’ We’re just doing the show. We’re just doing the show that we’ve done and it’s getting distributed in different ways now. To me, that’s the only difference. It’s not changing the way I do a show.

I was used to 23 years of 6-10 doing morning radio in Phoenix before I got to ESPN. Mic goes on at six and mic goes off at ten. Now, Mike and I are back. Our show is a podcast, but it’s also live from 8 to 10 Eastern every morning on Samsung TV Plus and DraftKings’ YouTube, DraftKings Network, and it’s going to now start to be broader, I think, starting next week with more outlets. So we’re back to doing it’s kind of a live show, but obviously, it still gets turned into a podcast. 

DR: You know, you, you do bring up something though, that I wonder about because you were in radio for a long, long time, local before national. A lot of us that came from a more traditional media world, it took a while to see that podcasting or digital media was this viable space. Maybe it is less glamorous, but the ability to find an audience is just as strong. Do you remember the moment that you started to realize that like, “Hey, this digital thing isn’t the future. It is right now”? 

MG: Oh, yeah. Not only from the digital side but doing Mike and Mike all of a sudden getting into Twitter and getting instant feedback. You start talking about a topic on air and you get instant feedback on Twitter.                  

For me, I keep goofing around and saying it. You know, I’m sixty years old, I’ve seen the change, but in all honesty, to me, you turn the microphone on and I’m just doing a show. I’m not when I go on to do Gojo & Golic, when I go on God Bless Football with Stu and Billy and Mikey, and when I go on with Golic and Smetty for DraftKings, I’m just doing what I did since I started doing shows. It’s just different time segments for me. Mike (Jr.) Is probably better to talk to about this than me. I and I’m probably not giving you great stuff of what you want, but I don’t really view it differently. I still a mike goes on. I’m doing a show and then the show ends.

Probably one of the biggest differences for me is, I did a four-hour show. I think the average listener was like 22 minutes in the car or they were at home getting ready, watching on TV. Then they jumped in the car to listen on radio was 22 minutes. So we would have to repeat the headlines. Here, on streaming or podcasts, you don’t really do that. You don’t really repeat the lines and keep re-introducing the guests. So there are some technical differences in doing podcasts and the live streaming now as opposed to the radio show, but those are stuff you just kind of pick up quick. 

DR: Do you think not having to re-set the headlines is the strength of digital content for the audience? Particularly with the NFL, there is such an appetite for content out there that there has to be things that the digital space can do that traditional media cannot. I wonder if it is that ability to say over the course of 2 hours, we aren’t going to repeat ourselves. We’re going to have a two-hour discussion of this one topic. 

MG: That’s probably the biggest thing out there. When you go from a headline where we talk about Aaron Rodgers getting hurt – we talked about it once off the top and we may have sprinkled it in there in a different way on some other parts of the show, but it’s not completely resetting the whole Aaron Rodgers story at the top of an hour and then the top of the next hour, starting again with the whole Aaron Rodgers story. We don’t do that. That is definitely a big difference of how people take this in. I always I still sit there and wonder, “Should we be hit the Aaron Rodgers injury again?” or whatever the big story is.                   

Our show is two one-hour podcasts. You know it’s not a two-hour podcast. So it’s all split up differently. Minds a lot smarter and more current than mine know the best ways of how to divvy up the conversation. That’s why I do lean heavily on Mike (Jr.) as far as kind of the make up and way we run his show. That’s something that has definitely changed over time.             

Content is still content. We’re going to talk about we’re going to give our opinions, we’re going to take people inside. We’re going to talk about things going on. Now it’s just how it gets dispersed has changed from my years in radio. 

DR: Well, let’s talk about that content, because you are working under the DraftKings heading and the goal of any show is to be a compelling personality that people want to come back to over and over again, right? But being attached to a sportsbook, how much of Gojo & Golic feels like just the two of you talking versus having to come in with an education on things that may move the line in a game one way or the other? Not hardcore betting talk, but at least you can’t get that stuff wrong. 

MG: Basically, how we’ve approached this because yeah, that was a thought process when I signed.  I told them, “Listen, I don’t know the in-depth parts of gambling” and they said, “We don’t care. We want to become a sports media outlet as well.” They have vision and others who could talk.

I know how to talk lines. I can give my opinion on whether I think one team’s going to beat another team by five and a half points or score over 50. I mean, that’s that’s been around forever. But anything more in-depth than that we’re not expected to do that.                      

I think that’s the biggest thing in getting that out with DraftKings is, yes, it’s a sportsbook like FanDuel, but DraftKings is also trying to get in the sports media market as well and eventually have a 24-hour network that will have shows like Mike and I and more traditional gambling shows as well that will come from VSiN, where they’re stationed in Vegas or from DraftKings in Boston. In all honesty, that’s just about repetition and just letting people know that our show is out there every day and that every day, this is a sports show just like we did together at ESPN. That’s what it is.

Way back in the day we just picked games, Greeny and I would simply answer who was going to win or lose. We didn’t really do the line. It was almost like gambling, it was coded amongst the old-time play-by-play guys. “There’s a reason to keep watching this game late in the fourth quarter” and everybody knew what they were talking about. Now it’s all out in the open.             

It’s kind of like NIL. You took the bag of money under the table and you put it on top of the table. The NFL finally learned how much money you can make in gambling. It’s exploded becoming legal in state after state after state now. So that’s one of the things Mike and I we’re real happy with DraftKings is they want it to obviously be a big part of the market in that. But also they don’t want to just be that. They want to be where sports fans are. Sports fans do gamble, but sports fans like sports talk and they like sports stories, so why not try and give them both? So that gave DraftKings the idea to say. “Just do a sports show! If every now and then you have a gambling segment, we’ll get you a guest to talk about that, to dive in deep to it!.” Just like, back in the day, you’d have to get a guest to dive into fantasy football to break it down. We definitely are not a gambling show. It’s just going to be a matter of getting that out of the minds of people that just will just naturally think, “Oh, if it’s DraftKings, it’s got to be a gambling show.”

DR: You were part of one of the shows, maybe the show that pioneered putting radio on television. Now we’re in a world where, in the digital media space, having video is almost a necessity for a podcast to really reach its maximum audience. Are you, even this many years later, still surprised that people want to watch audio on TV or the Internet? 

MG: Oh, without a doubt. We learned that when we started over on ESPN News and ESPN2. Greeny and I, a couple of years into the show, it was different. Now it’s not different anymore. It’s the norm. You have to do it. Nobody just wants audio. They want something to look at and then it becomes “what can you put with it? What graphics, what video, what pictures can you put with it to make it entertaining?”                            

The biggest thing we wanted to do, and I still think it kind of needed to be that way, when we were going from radio to TV, I personally had NFL Tonight, I was like, “Oh my God, You know, every studio, TV show at ESPN, you had to put on a tie.” When they said, your radio show is going on TV. I’m like, “Oh God, do I got to put on a coat and tie?” And they were like, “No, this is a radio show on TV. So treat it like that.”                 

I was happy about that. It’s a little more loosey-goosey. It’s not the traditional studio show where a host comes to you and you have 45 seconds to make your one-shot point to the camera. This is free flowing conversation that just had video around it.                           

That’s the way I’ll always look at it, that we are still telling stories, giving opinions. It’s still a talk show, but with video around it, but don’t turn it into a segmented type of a TV show where you talk then I talk. The best show is a conversation, even studio shows. Make it a conversation. Bring people into your conversation. That’s never going to change. 

DR: You guys had a great moment of that I thought. It might have been earlier this week where you and Junior were arguing about whether or not you had the right to claim a shirt he left at your house as your own. I thought that was a very relatable moment. 

MG: And that’s never going to change, you know? Like I said, I still treat it like radio.                  I have always, always said, especially in the morning, you’re getting people that are that are on their way to work however they’re digesting. It could be at work, could be at home getting ready to go to work. My thought has always been take them somewhere they can’t go. The mind of an athlete on the field, of an athlete in the locker room, of an athlete in any sport, and make them laugh a little bit, make them smile a little bit, or talk about something that’s relatable to them. You know, taking shirts or taking clothes or food or things like that. That has not changed since day one.

All my gigs have basically been in the morning since I started doing this. People are starting their day. Let them smile or laugh about something, Don’t be blue. I never cross that R-rated line because I know people are driving their kids to work. That’s still one of the greatest responses I got over the years. A guy would say, “Me and my dad or me and my mom were with you on the way to school. We didn’t have to turn the station.” That doesn’t change. The idea of what you’re going to do doesn’t change. Entertain people, give them information, make them smile a little bit. It’s just the way they’re delivered may change a bit. 

DR: So I want to wrap up with you on a question about your podcasting history in general, because the Golic family has been really quick to embrace the format, even back at ESPN when you guys were doing your family show. I wonder how you look back at that because from the outside, it was a very interesting thing. Here were two guys, you and Junior, that I know from this network that I watch all the time talking about sports, but you found this weird way to cross podcasting with reality TV in a way that I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone else do on a grand scale even since. 

MG: That and the Sorry In Advance podcast, our family podcast, was all my wife’s idea. We’re a very close family anyway, but it was kind of a fun thing to do every couple of weeks to actually all be together just to talk about life. You get the stories of my daughter-in-law, Jenny, thinking rotating tires, is just putting the car on a jack and spinning the tires or, other stories that just kind of kind of make you laugh but are relatable. It’s not talking down to anybody. We had fun doing that. It just got hard. My daughter is married. She’s pregnant. Her husband, who used to play in the NFL, was in med school. Jake and Jenny are running two businesses and they now have a baby. It’s just it’s tough to get everybody together again. We ran into issues doing that.               

I would love to have some help from somebody on how to go about the business part of it, because this was truly from scratch, and doing it on our own. We started to get very little help toward the end of it. It would really be a lot of fun if we had backing in this and a little more professionalism around us because God knows we’re not professional in helping and guiding us to this and because we’d like to keep doing it. 

To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.

Charly Arnolt Found a Home at OutKick

BNM Staff
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Charly Arnolt Found a Home at OutKick

OutKick personality Charly Arnolt is in her element right now. Following her departure from ESPN, Arnolt has settled in with one of the country’s most popular digital media brands. She realizes that to continue to grow in the industry, she needs to strengthen the relationships she has already established.

As a young reporter in Indianapolis, she honed her on-air presentation and writing skills while covering local sports and news. Those opportunities led to bigger ones.

Earlier this year, she left ESPN, as she was bored with talking strictly about sports and knew she wanted to explore beyond the limits of that platform. That’s when she discovered OutKick, a brand encouraging its talent to speak their minds and creating a place where pop culture, sports, news, and politics intersect.  

Charly Arnolt balances her new role with her ongoing commitment as a host and reporter for the UFC, demonstrating her unwavering dedication to delivering top-notch sports content.

Before joining OutKick, she spent nearly five years at ESPN, leaving her mark as a multi-platform host and reporter. Her contributions extended across ESPN’s flagship programs, including First Take and SportsCenter. She also graced the screens of ESPN+’s weekday morning show, SportsNation. 

The way the media portrays the 2024 Presidential Election will be unprecedented. Donald Trump, the former President, has been indicted four times, two times on the federal level and twice in state courts. Conservative media must navigate how to address the misconception that news broadcasted on their platforms is fake. Charly Arnolt and her colleagues at OutKick will play a significant role in capturing the attention of young and impressionable voters who might notice their First Amendment rights eroding.

Charly Arnolt is worried about her country, the same country that gave her the right to earn her way to the top of the media industry. She takes her right to freedom of speech seriously and wishes that the other GOP Presidential candidates would drop out of the race and support Donald Trump. 

Arnolt wants to clarify that her intentions are sometimes misunderstood. In the past, some people have mistakenly believed that her current actions contradict her previous statements. However, she disagrees with those who label her as hateful. Charly Arnolt acknowledges that specific subsets of people pose a dangerous threat and must be stopped and spoken out against.

Specifically, she is against people who try to indoctrinate and brainwash children. Charly Arnolt reiterates that just because she speaks out against certain things doesn’t mean she has hatred in her heart. 

During an interview with Barrett News Media, Charly Arnolt discusses the success of OutKick and shares insights on individuals who have influenced her storytelling style and career. She also reveals who she would love to sit down and have dinner with and how she developed a well-rounded passion for sports, pop culture, news, and politics. 

Ryan Hedrick: What factors have contributed to the success of OutKick? 

Charly Arnolt: OutKick talks about news from a straight perspective. If there’s a detail that certain versions of the media are leaving out that would align with their own agenda, OutKick doesn’t see it that way. If something is glaring, and there’s a detail that helps to tell the story, you’ll be able to find those details on OutKick.

I appreciate approaching things from an honest and authentic standpoint, and I think a lot of people appreciate that, too. That’s why OutKick is so successful.  

RH: You recently interviewed Dave Portnoy, the owner of Barstool Sports. What misconceptions does the media have about him? 

CA: We all have different opinions; that’s how the world works, and you should be able to voice your own opinions. If you don’t like what someone says, you don’t have to follow or listen to them. I don’t understand why people are always trying to silence each other; just move on. We don’t all have to be on the same page here.

I think what Dave does fabulously is he hears all the people screaming, he hears all the criticism, and not only does he ignore it, but that fuels him.  

RH: When did you realize you could talk and wanted to talk about sports and news? 

CA: I have always been like that. I’m the girl who always had so many different interests. I can talk sports with the guys and then can turn around and tell you what happened with Keeping Up With the Kardashians in the season finale. I am a versatile person regarding the things I am interested in and the things I can talk about.

I love having the ability to talk about different things because I got bored being at ESPN and talking about sports all the time. Sports are fun, but there are so many other things that are important in this world that I think are more important than sports in a lot of cases.

Sports are great; they are a fabulous escape from our everyday lives because there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world that is very burdensome, but it is a lot of that burdensome stuff that needs to be talked about; otherwise, we are going to find ourselves in an even deeper hole than we are right now as a country.  

I like getting into those more intellectual discussions and having a platform where I can pivot so quickly from sports, news, politics, and pop culture and interject my opinion into all those different areas.  

RH: What can you tell me about the culture at ESPN? 

CA: ESPN is a great place as far as the content that they put out. Obviously, they are a powerhouse. I don’t think I would describe ESPN as being different from any other media organization. It’s standard the way that it’s run. There are the big fish and the small fish, and I think you have to understand the lane you need to stay in if you want to get to the top and what’s expected of you. But that’s not anything that’s unique to ESPN.

I’m sure if you went to NBC Sports or FOX Sports, it’s all run pretty similarly. I just think that we can all agree that ESPN takes a more liberal approach to how it does its reporting rather than allowing a debate to air on the more conservative side as far as politics go.  

RH: Talk about your show, OutKick the Morning with Charly Arnolt, and what you are excited about with that show. 

CA: Already from day one, Dana White (UFC’s CEO) was on my show as a guest. Obviously, he’s my boss at UFC. It makes me feel very special and really shows me that I am doing something right when I can call up Dana White and say, ‘Hey, would you be the first guest on my show?’ He told me, ‘Anything for me.’ That is probably the biggest compliment I could be paid regarding the relationship-building I have been doing so far in my career.

That’s something I hope to continue is just forging more relationships, whether in the world of sports or in politics. I had Senator Tommy Tuberville the other day. He is a fabulous interview. I’m going to be having Ken Paxton on later this week. (Texas Attorney General who was acquitted last week in an impeachment trial before the state Senate. He was accused of abusing his office to protect a political donor).  

There are so many different people who will be guests on the show, which will make it so much more interesting. I am so excited to have the opportunity to talk to them on a platform where they want to come on and talk to me about different topics.

Additionally, we are going to be getting into stories that you just won’t get anywhere else. I am hoping over the course of time that, I can create a show where people know that they’re coming for something different, and that’s the reason they want to come because they know they are going to pick up something or hear about something, that they wouldn’t hear or talked about anywhere else.  

RH: Are there any broadcasters whose work inspires or motivates you? 

CA: Joe Rogan really inspires me. When you listen to his show, I think you hear things talked about that you just don’t hear about anywhere else. He pushes the envelope, he pushes the limit, and I find that to be very motivating and inspiring, and I would like to bring a semblance of that into my OutKick show as well.  

RH: What role does great storytelling play in your job as a host on OutKick? 

Charly Arnolt: You have to do your research. There is so much clickbait out there these days, where you see something that seems sensational, but then you delve a little bit into it, and maybe there’s something there, or maybe it’s been sensationalized on the surface, and it’s not worthy of a spot in the show.

I think if you do your research and at the core, even if you want to be interesting and compelling, you have to remember that you are a journalist, and you want to make sure what you’re saying is factual, and even if you can put your own opinion on top of it, you still have to have facts. I think that the most important key is remembering not to say anything that’s incorrect, even though it might be able to attract more people.   

RH: Has one person or brand influenced your personality and commentator style at OutKick? 

CA: There are a few different people. I think being able to work under a guy like Dana White in the UFC, who is so unapologetically himself and who has used his resources in the platform he’s given to extend past the world and now he’s become a cultural icon as well. I would say being around him and how he uses his platform to help and drive the conversation in a very important way has been critical.  

Coming to OutKick gave me the ability to do some stuff for Fox News. Never in my life would I have imagined that I would’ve gone from ESPN, which oppresses political standpoints, views, and opinions, to being on an ultra-political platform like Fox News, where they welcome the things you have to say.  

Every little step of my journey has culminated in what has really played to my strengths. I have always been into lots of different kinds of subject matters. I’ve always been into sports, news, business, and politics. I didn’t have the platform to voice my opinion on these very different areas until now. I have finally come into a space where I can take everything that I’ve learned so far in my career and life and bring it into one thought and deliver something special.  

RH: Is there anybody you haven’t met yet that you would love to sit down with, learn from, and talk to? 

Charly Arnolt: I would love to sit down with Elon Musk because I think that he is so important in every aspect of the world right now. He is one of the people who has the resources and the platform, and the money to help save this country. That’s the direction that he’s trying to take things in. He bought Twitter for a reason, he didn’t just buy X to take over the platform and have some fun, he bought it to preserve free speech. He is one of the most unapologetically authentic people you can encounter.

Even just looking at the things that he’s willing to speak out on X. The conversation that he helps to nurture and drive. The fact that he’s also willing to give people platforms on X who otherwise would not have the platforms to say the things that they believe and that’s also important because it is helping to bring back a healthy debate in conversation in a world for just a couple of years ago, we were seeing a lot of that free speech suppressed because it didn’t align with the political agenda of our country which is really sad and ultimately will take us to a devastating place.  

Is ESPN New York Giving Up or Getting Stronger?

Garrett Searight
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Is ESPN New York Giving Up or Getting Stronger?

A massive sports radio story dropped on Tuesday. 98.7 ESPN New York is dropping the 98.7 next year.

It seems like curious timing, no? At a time when AM radio is fighting for its life, it’s rare for a station to drop its FM signal instead of its AM.

On the surface, to be frank, it appears to be a cheapskate move. Good Karma Brands making a decision to pocket a reported $12.5 million every year to not have an FM signal sounds like half-assing a radio station in the nation’s largest market.

But then, when you look at the decision through a different prism, I keep going back to the same question: Is giving up your FM signal a waving-the-white-flag moment, or is it putting your resources elsewhere?

If the 98.7 ESPN New York actually does put those resources elsewhere, then yes, it makes sense. If the move becomes something other than just a way to pocket a couple million bucks each year, then I’m all for it. Investing in more local talent, bigger on-air promotions, stronger play-by-play rights, or better video channels/equipment all make sense with newfound millions in the budget. But I’m skeptical that it isn’t simply a cost-saving measure.

However, the reasoning put forth does make sense. The station claims more than half of its audience doesn’t listen on the 98.7 FM signal. That, in and of itself, should be reason enough to at least examine what you’re doing as a company.

I’ve long been a proponent that sports radio has long needed a digital revolution. I also strongly believe in recognizing that in today’s media landscape, you need to put your content on as many distribution channels as possible. AM/FM Radio, websites, mobile apps, social media, Twitch/Rumble/YouTube/linear or cable television, are all must-have outlets in 2023. I just never imagined that FM radio would be the first one to go.

Obviously, Good Karma Brands believes it can make this work. The company operates stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Cleveland strictly on the AM band and digital platforms. And in an ever-increasing on-demand world, maybe making your content primarily available through digital channels is a smart bet.

I just can’t help but wonder if it isn’t a decision five years too early. There are still millions of listeners in the New York market that utilize FM radio. That number isn’t likely to experience a steep decline in the coming years. But AM radio will, in my opinion.

The station is likely to lose or see significant alterations to its play-by-play rights with the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. Who knows what will happen to the rights of the New York Jets? One could imagine that if those franchises wanted to be on AM radio, they would go with one of the many other, more widely listened to, options in the market like 880 WCBS, 1010 WINS, 77 WABC, or 710 WOR.

Make no mistake about it, the move is a gamble. And it feels like a gamble with no middle ground. Either this move works wonders and Good Karma Brands ends up looking like radio visionaries, or they’re making a decision that will ultimately lead to killing a strong brand. There’s no in-between. Let’s see how it plays out. I’ll be watching. Closely.

Misconceptions of News/Talk Radio From a Former TV Host

BNM Staff
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Misconceptions of News/Talk Radio From a Former TV Host

As a kid, I listened to the radio for music and waited for school closings. That was it.

The fact that actual people had actual careers in radio did not even enter my consciousness until I was in my mid-20s in graduate school.

I never thought you could make a living reciting town names in alphabetical order, and I certainly knew I wasn’t cut out for the music DJ business (“Comin’ at ya right now, a banger from Def Leopard – the two-armed drummer era – it’s Photograph!”).

In grad school though, I spent hours alone in my apartment, doing my homework, and wasting time. My number one time waster in the late ‘90s became sports radio. I was in Worcester, Massachusetts; Greg Dickerson and Gary Tanguay hosted a local show. They would go on to varying degrees of success in Boston, with Tanguay being the more accomplished of the two. I enjoyed listening to the banter – I had never heard it before — and like a zit-faced teenager, I’d get nervous calling in every now and then.

It spoke to how pathetic my personal life was at that point in time, but more interestingly, it spoke to my authentic enjoyment of the medium.

I thought about those guys as having the best time ever, talking sports, and hanging out. I pictured multiple TV monitors, chicken wings, and maybe even beer. Seriously. It was Worcester – not even Boston – but I thought of them going to all the games and talking to all of the players. I know, I was 26 but had the global awareness of a 12-year-old.

Of course, in Worcester in 1997, they probably had one television, couldn’t even get credentialed, and likely shelled out their own five bucks for Subway.

Flash forward 10 whole years.

In 2007, I was the morning television anchor at the local NBC in Hartford, Connecticut. At the same time, I was a freelance host for ESPN Radio. Before leaving my full-time ESPN.com job at the Worldwide Leader back in 2001, I had cultivated a network and convinced a few friends to try me on the radio as a host.

I wasn’t terrible, but I was reliable, low maintenance, local, and cheap.

As I have said in the past, I also loved it. ESPN wasn’t Worcester of course; access to athletes was easy. All I really knew was ESPN, so I thought it was always that simple to get a coach or quarterback on the phone – reach out to our on-site stringer in 2003, and boom, Ben Roethlisberger’s on the phone after throwing for 350 for Miami of Ohio against Western Michigan.

I would learn later that there aren’t many (or any) other places that could do it the way ESPN could back then.

But in 2007, I was at a career crossroads. I could have left NBC and rolled the dice as a freelancer with the hope of getting picked up full-time at ESPN. I had seen it happen, and one of my fellow freelancers, Ryen Russillo was working himself up the ladder and doing quite well. Same with Freddie Coleman.

However, I never considered it a viable option. It wasn’t because I didn’t love the medium. I did. It wasn’t because I didn’t have faith in my ability. I did.

It was because I thought that, back in 2007, radio was dying. Internet. TV. Newspapers, kind of. I thought they all had better long-term viability than radio. Yes, even newspapers.

When I was offered the TV reporting job at CNBC, I accepted, and since my contract stated I could only work for NBC Universal, goodbye ESPN Radio.

I didn’t hesitate to make that sacrifice.

Was that a mistake? No, I don’t think so. Did I regret it? To some degree, yes. I traveled to the New York/New Jersey line and continued my television career. I did do some short radio features that played across the country, which was fun but never jogged my soul enough to make me realize I liked it better than television.

Then along came John Gambling and WOR.

During the financial crisis, starting in 2008, just about every media outlet in the country wanted CNBC people on their air. The network had not streamlined its media relations at that point, so when some random radio producer could not get Jim Cramer or some other CNBC A-Lister, they reached out to me. As for WOR, I had never heard of the host and never listened to the show, but of course, I said yes right away.

I realized then that I missed radio, and I looked forward to being a guest as opposed to a host, and though it was total BS, I liked being called a “financial expert”.

John Gambling, as I recall, was a right-leaning morning host, and we had great conversations. They asked me to come on with more regularity, and it got to the point where they asked me to fill in for him a few times when he was on vacation.

I had no idea what to expect.

They had a news person. A weather person. A traffic person. All of us at one small table in the studio. It was weird. But intimate.

A television show would have had multiple producers, production assistants, and technical folks – as many as a dozen in all. At WOR, off the air, there were like two.

No green room breakfast spreads. No person bringing you coffee, water, and more information.

Not what I expected but then again, I had no expectations. Radio was more streamlined than television anyway, but many of the cuts had already begun before I got there.

And the offices/studios? Ancient. Nothing like ESPN or CNBC. Not quite linoleum floors and old wooden desks – but not far off.

But that was the thing. I didn’t care because I didn’t really know. My TV experience was so full of staff and sources of energy, which was great. And then, ESPN Radio made me think booking and staffing was easy. I was in LaLa Land, and local radio was a universe away from all that.

When I eventually landed full-time in radio, more than a dozen years after WOR, I was partially right about radio. It was struggling. What I was wrong about was that, had I gone the full-time route in 1997, I may have been ground floor of the podcast movement or moved back into a local market right when national sports radio was losing its power. If that had been the case, I may have graduated out of the infantry phase of it and actually had a green room, some hot coffee, new equipment, and some staff to help book a show.

Honestly, I was spoiled. Maybe even a little entitled. But stripped down and struggling, radio is still here, still (fighting to be) relevant … and way more fun than 90 percent of all the TV jobs out there.

So let’s milk it for everything she’s got.

Cable & Satellite Providers Unhappy With More Monday Night Football on ABC

BSM Staff
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Cable & Satellite Providers Unhappy With More Monday Night Football on ABC

With no end in close range to the labor dispute between the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood studios, networks like ABC are looking to live sports to fill gaps in fall programming.

Disney announced Monday that ABC would be simulcasting ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast for 10 additional weeks this season. It’s a decision that many cable and satellite distribution executives are fuming about.

ESPN already comes at a premium to consumers and distributors, but execs are upset because games that were supposed to be considered ESPN exclusives are now going to be available on over-the-air TV.

“This whole double-dipping on the backs of distributors is just ridiculous,” one executive told Sports Business Journal. “This is not going to endear the Walt Disney Co. to its distribution partners. Its flagship content was supposed to sit within ESPN. The fact that it has now sprung free to ABC to cover the fact that they aren’t willing to pay actors and screenwriters is BS.”

The Weather Channel Ratings Quadruple During Hurricane Hillary

BNM Staff
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The Weather Channel Ratings Quadruple During Hurricane Hillary

The hurricane season of 2023 has been unique in that it affected Hawaii and the West Coast first. The fires in Maui back in early August were fueled by hurricane winds from the Pacific Ocean. By mid-August, Hurricane Hillary peaked at Category 4 strength but lessened to a tropical storm as it made landfall in Southern California — the area’s first in 84 years. The Weather Channel tracked Hillary on Aug. 20. From 1 PM to midnight ET, coverage averaged 473,000 viewers including 119,000 within the key 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research — approximately quadruple the figures the network draws on a daily basis.

Then, in late August, the Category 3 Hurricane Idalia was headed towards the southeast, including Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. It’s the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend region, the nook between the panhandle and peninsula, in more than 125 years. Italia was also the third hurricane to hit the state of Florida within the past 12 months.

Weather Channel delivered its most-watched week in 11 months — since Hurricane Ian hit Florida on Sep. 28, 2022. Coverage tracking Idalia began on Tuesday, Aug. 29th for an average of 713,000 total viewers including 181,000 adults 25-54.

When Idalia made landfall in Florida on the following Wednesday morning, Aug. 30th, an average of 1.19 million viewers and 265,000 adults 25-54 had tuned in from 8 a.m. to noon Eastern; its 9 a.m. hour ranked eighth for the week among cable news within the demo. As the following ratings track indicates, most of those who watched in the morning stayed with Weather Channel throughout the early and late afternoon hours:

  • 7:00-8:00 a.m. ET: 0.973 million viewers; 246,000 adults 25-54
  • 8:00-9:00 a.m. ET:  1.216 million viewers; 270,000 adults 25-54
  • 9:00-10:00 a.m. ET: 1.335 million viewers; 288,000 adults 25-54
  • 10:00-11:00 a.m. ET: 1.183 million viewers; 275,000 adults 25-54
  • 11:00 a.m.-noon ET: 1.033 million viewers; 228,000 adults 25-54
  • Noon-1:00 p.m. ET: 0.888 million viewers; 211,000 adults 25-54
  • 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET: 0.786 million viewers; 172,000 adults 25-54
  • 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET: 0.723 million viewers; 154,000 adults 25-54
  • 3:00-4:00 p.m. ET: 0.721 million viewers; 152,000 adults 25-54
  • 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET: 0.755 million viewers; 178,000 adults 25-54
  • 5:00-6:00 p.m. ET: 0.647 million viewers; 143,000 adults 25-54
  • 6:00-7:00 p.m. ET: 0.542 million viewers; 123,000 adults 25-54
  • 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET: 0.477 million viewers; 139,000 adults 25-54
  • 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET: 0.438 million viewers; 134,000 adults 25-54

Cable news averages for August 28-September 3, 2023:

Total Day (Aug. 28-Sep. 3 @ 6 a.m.-5:59 a.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 1.095 million viewers; 130,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 0.860 million viewers; 86,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.515 million viewers; 104,000 adults 25-54
  • The Weather Channel: 0.283 million viewers; 71,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.172 million viewers; 14,000 adults 25-54
  • HLN: 0.136 million viewers; 37,000 adults 25-54
  • Fox Business Network: 0.120 million viewers; 15,000 adults 25-54
  • CNBC: 0.117 million viewers; 27,000 adults 25-54
  • NewsNation: 0.054 million viewers; 9,000 adults 25-54

Prime Time (Aug. 28-Sep. 2 @ 8-11 p.m.; Sep. 3 @ 7-11 p.m.)

  • Fox News Channel: 1.714 million viewers; 199,000 adults 25-54
  • MSNBC: 1.351 million viewers; 133,000 adults 25-54
  • CNN: 0.609 million viewers; 131,000 adults 25-54
  • Newsmax: 0.261 million viewers; 24,000 adults 25-54
  • NewsNation: 0.087 million viewers; 18,000 adults 25-54

Top 10 most-watched cable news programs (and the top programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) in total viewers:

1. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.819 million viewers

2. The Five (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.775 million viewers

3. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 8/29/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.728 million viewers

4. Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC, Mon. 8/28/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.711 million viewers

5. The Five (FOXNC, Thu. 8/31/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.685 million viewers

6. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.584 million viewers

7. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.572 million viewers

8. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Tue. 8/29/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.490 million viewers

9. The Five (FOXNC, Fri. 9/1/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.422 million viewers

10. Hannity (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 2.405 million viewers

71. America’s Morning Headquarters (TWC, Wed. 8/30/2023 9:00 AM, 60 min.) 1.335 million viewers

147. Inside Politics (CNN, Wed. 8/30/2023 12:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.913 million viewers

453. Varney & Company (FBN, Fri. 9/1/2023 10:00 AM, 60 min.) 0.334 million viewers

466. Forensic Files (HLN, Sat. 9/2/2023 11:00 PM, 30 min.) 0.305 million viewers

553. Fast Money Halftime Report (CNBC, Mon. 8/28/2023 12:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.225 million viewers

733. Newsnation Prime (NWSN, Sat. 9/2/2023 7:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.151 million viewers

Top 10 cable news programs (and the top  programs of other outlets with their respective associated ranks) among adults 25-54:

1. Jesse Watters Primetime (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.354 million adults 25-54

2. The Five (FOXNC, Tue. 8/29/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.348 million adults 25-54

3. Hannity (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.335 million adults 25-54

4. The Five (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.334 million adults 25-54

5. Gutfeld! (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 10:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.328 million adults 25-54

6. Gutfeld! (FOXNC, Mon. 8/28/2023 10:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.310 million adults 25-54

7. Hannity (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.298 million adults 25-54

8. America’s Morning Headquarters (TWC, Wed. 8/30/2023 9:00 AM, 60 min.) 0.288 million adults 25-54

9. The Five (FOXNC, Wed. 8/30/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.287 million adults 25-54

10. Hannity (FOXNC, Tue. 8/29/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.287 million adults 25-54

15. Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC, Mon. 8/28/2023 9:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.273 million adults 25-54

25. The Lead With Jake Tapper (CNN, Tue. 8/29/2023 5:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.229 million adults 25-54

312. Forensic Files (HLN, late Sun. 9/3/2023 1:00 AM, 30 min.) 0.090 million adults 25-54

533. The Exchange (CNBC, Mon. 8/28/2023 1:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.051 million adults 25-54

620. Duck Family Treasure (FBN, Sat. 9/2/2023 10:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.041 million adults 25-54

641. Cuomo (NWSN, Fri. 9/1/2023 8:00 PM, 60 min.) 0.040 million adults 25-54

Source: Live+Same Day data, Nielsen Media Research

Evan Roberts: Overlapped Games Ruins ‘Beauty of Monday Night Football’

BSM Staff
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Evan Roberts: Overlapped Games Ruins ‘Beauty of Monday Night Football’

The first of three NFL doubleheaders for ESPN and ABC took place on Monday night. While WFAN host Evan Roberts was happy to watch two games, he just wished the start times were a little more spread out.

On Evan & Tiki on Tuesday, Roberts told co-host Tiki Barber that he would prefer that if there were two games on Monday Night Football, that you have the games kick off at 7 and 9:30 p.m.

“At least as the 9:30 game is starting, it’s early, we watch the end of the 7 o’clock game and then there’s more of a split,” Roberts said.

ESPN in the past would usually only have the one doubleheader in Week 1 or Week 2 and then have a game kick off on the East Coast in the early window followed by a West Coast game later. Roberts said having a game on ESPN and then another on ABC kind of took away from what MNF is supposed to be.

“The beauty of Monday Night Football is we all just sit around and watch one game,” he said.

Tiki Barber chimed in saying start time is irrelevant if it’s a good matchup that people will want to tune in for. He pointed to the massive ratings draw the Colorado/Colorado State game over the weekend was, pointing out that the game ended after 2 a.m. eastern time. But Barber ultimately agreed with Roberts on the spreading out of start times with regards to Monday night.

“It just felt too on top of each other, and they kept cutting in like, ‘Oh this happened in this game and Deshaun Watson did this,” Barber said. “It was weird how they were interrupting those games.”

Evan said even though it’s not going to be a regular occurrence for Monday nights, there’s a time and a place for the jumping around checking in on multiple games happening at once.

“Football Sundays are for us to have the million TVs and flip around,” he said. “Football Mondays are for all of us to just sit around and watch one game.”

Dan Patrick: ABC ‘Owed it to the Audience’ to Show Nick Chubb Injury

BSM Staff
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Dan Patrick: ABC ‘Owed it to the Audience’ to Show Nick Chubb Injury

The big story coming out of the Monday Night Football doubleheader this week was the season-ending knee injury Browns running back Nick Chubb suffered in the first quarter against the Steelers.

The injury was brutal enough in the eyes of the ABC production crew that announcer Joe Buck said they would not be showing any replays of the moment Chubb got hurt. Dan Patrick said on Tuesday that he felt like not showing it at all did the viewers a bit of a disservice.

“Now you have to show it again to at least put it in context of what happened there,” Patrick said. “I would’ve done it. I would’ve done it once, because you’re carrying the game and I think you owe it to the audience. And you could do a disclaimer. And look, I might be in the minority here but if I was running the show I would say, ‘Alright Joe give them a disclaimer we’re gonna show this. Just let them know that this is a gruesome injury.'”

The consensus among the Dan Patrick Show crew was that showing it at least once was the move to make and then showing it from an angle that makes it less gruesome to watch. They recalled moments where other athletes suffered injuries and while hard to watch, viewers had a chance to see what happened for themselves.

But Dan said what it really comes down to is split-second decision making by the broadcast director.

“You have to make these decisions in the moment,” Patrick said. “I have the benefit of 12 hours here or whatever it is that I can go, ‘Well I don’t…’ In the moment, you’re the director, you’re the producer. You probably have your boss who’s running the network who’s gonna be involved in this as well. I think you have to show it once.”

ABC, ESPN, FOX Expected to Share Spring Football With USFL, XFL Merger

BSM Staff
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ABC, ESPN, FOX Expected to Share Spring Football With USFL, XFL Merger

As the XFL and USFL appear to be headed towards a merger, details have emerged about how a joint spring league would be carried on television.

The XFL currently has a deal with Disney to air its games on ESPN and ABC. The USFL is owned by FOX Corp. and had an agreement in place to have games carried on FOX, FS1, NBC and USA Network.

The belief is that once the merger is complete, games will be split between FOX and Disney. This according to Axios, which broke the merger story first.

There’s hope that the merger will be completed in time for the joint league to kick off the 2024 season. The XFL’s new season is supposed to begin in February, with the USFL starting in April.

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