The 2022 World Cup Final will go down as one of the most exciting matches in World Cup history. It will also go down in history for FOX Sports.
The match featuring Argentina and France is the most-watched World Cup Final in U.S. television history. According to the network, over 16.7 million viewers tuned into the conclusion of the tournament.
According to the network, the previous high for a World Cup Final was in 1994 when Brazil defeated Italy before a television audience of over 14.5 million.
The broadcast is now the most-watched World Cup match in English-language history in the country, defeating the record set earlier in this year’s tournament between the United States and England in the Group Stage.
It’s the latest ratings victory for the network during the world’s premiere soccer event. Several games hit highs for FOX Sports, with the network claiming Americans would spend more time watching the World Cup than they would watching March Madness.
Sports USA has announced Hockey Hall of Fame announcer Pat Foley will join the network to serve as the play-by-play announcer for the 2023 Winter Classic.
The New Year’s Day game features the Pittsburgh Penguins taking on the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park at 1:30 PM ET.
“The opportunity to join Sports USA and debut at a marquee event in a spectacular setting is very exciting,” Foley said. “I’m looking forward to sitting next to Nick Olczyk, who is a terrific analyst. I cut my teeth in radio and keeping up with the fastest game in the world is always a challenge, but one that I’m very much looking forward to.”
Foley worked as the voice of the Chicago Blackhawks for 39 years — primarily on television — before retiring earlier this year. He’ll work the game with the aforementioned Olczyk, who currently works as an analyst for the Seattle Kraken. Billy Jaffe will serve as the network’s rinkside reporter.
“I’ve always loved Pat’s work with the Blackhawks. When he retired after last season, I, like so many of his fans, felt a profound sense of sadness,” said Sports USA founder Larry Kahn. He is unquestionably a legend in the broadcast industry, and having him come out of retirement for an event like the Winter Classic is a great way to start off the new year for Sports USA and all hockey fans.”
Over the weekend, Twitter owner Elon Musk released a poll asking whether he should step aside as the social media platform’s CEO or not. Users voted that yes, Musk should turn over the operations to someone else. 98.9 The Answer host Bruce Hooley has questioned whether that was Musk’s plan all along.
“I would have thought he would have won that poll with a resounding (no), but the leftist martialed their forces and the results came back 57% (yes) and 42% (no),” Hooley said. “There are two schools of thought on this: Is Elon Musk really allowing the inmates to run the asylum? The people who use Twitter to decide whether he gets to stay on as CEO.
“Or did Elon Musk already determine that he would step away from Twitter, return to Tesla, return to SpaceX, (and) stabilize the stock price because he has someone else in mind to be the CEO of Twitter. I gotta assume a brilliant guy like Elon Musk does not allow people who use Twitter — I can’t believe he’d put that out as a poll if he had not already prepared for the worst eventuality of the poll.”
Hooley continued by asking if Musk planned to install someone as Twitter’s new CEO that “would drive the left even crazier” than himself. The radio host then said he hopes Musk hasn’t “lost the stomach” for defending free speech after criticism levied against him since purchasing the platform.
A report from CNBC claims Twitter owner Elon Musk is “actively looking” for a new CEO of the social media platform.
Musk conducted a poll over the week asking users to vote on whether he should remove himself as the CEO of Twitter. The final totals saw over 57% of respondents voting yes on the matter. In the initial tweet, Musk said he would “abide by the results” of the poll.
The billionaire then insinuated the poll was a muse intended to catch bots on the platform. He then agreed with a user who said Twitter Blue subscribers — those who pay the platform $8 or $11 per month — should be the ones allowed to vote on policy changes going forward. “Twitter will make that change,” he said.
The Tesla and SpaceX owner has come under fire in recent weeks for his conduct surrounding the platform. Several prominent journalists saw their accounts suspended or were permanently banned after Musk accused them of “doxxing” him. He claimed a “stalker” approached a car — eventually jumping on its hood — carrying his family members. He placed the blame on the journalists he claimed provided his real-time location. A report from The Washington Post revealed the “stalker” was actually following Musk’s ex-wife — recording artist Grimes — and is an Uber Eats driver.
Randazzo stepped into a fill-in role at AppleTV+ during the baseball season, and Roberts said he was aware that the radio voice would be exiting the team’s radio booth during that assignment.
“You know when it was over? I don’t know if you realize this,” Roberts said. “There was an AppleTV+ game, the Friday night package. The guy who was broadcasting got sick, probably a COVID thing. It was a Met game, so they called Wayne in at the last second to do the AppleTV+ game. He did a really good job. He’s a solid broadcaster. As soon as he filled in I said ‘It’s over. He’s gonna be a TV guy. Done.’
“He was good on TV and you just knew — whether it’s AppleTV+ or it’s another team — he’s getting a TV gig. As much as I love radio play-by-play — and to me it’s more important — I’ll be honest with you, I care a hell of a lot more about Howie Rose and John Sterling than I do Gary Cohen and Michael Kay. It’s not a knock on them. I’ll say this about Gary, Gary was one of the greatest radio play-by-play voices of all time. Radio announcer — to me — is a bigger deal, but the TV guys gets paid more. The TV gig is more prestigious for some reason, so you knew the first chance at a TV gig, Wayne was gone.”
Randazzo’s move to the Angels puts in question the future of Matt Vasgersian with the club. Vasgersian has served as the team’s primary television voice for the past two seasons, working the majority of the 2022 season from a remote studio. He has previously worked national broadcasts for ESPN, FOX, and MLB Network.
After six days of recognizing the best that News/Talk radio has to offer, we’ve reached the end of the line. Today, we roll out our final category in the BNM Top 20 of 2022 presented by Steve Stone Voiceovers. If you missed any of the prior Top 20 announcements, click the BNM Top 20 tab on the menu bar on the website, and you can navigate through all of the different results that we distributed over the past week and a half. These results have been determined by 44 radio industry programmers and executives from 15 companies in 36 cities, and we appreciate them being part of our voting process.
As it pertains to today’s category, Original Digital Shows, these are the programs that are produced exclusively for audio and/or video outlets, not over the air radio programs. This means that radio shows that can get repurposed via on-demand were not eligible for consideration. We are looking at shows that are specifically created for digital outlets and digital audiences.
We try to make sure the top shows, hosts, program directors and brands from the News/Talk world are listed for voting consideration on all of our ballots but we also allow room for our voters to add nominees if for some reason someone isn’t listed. Though we triple check before publishing the lists and hope to present a perfect layout, mistakes do happen sometimes. If you see an error, please let us know. We want to shine the light on the best brands and shows in a way that makes them feel proud to be recognized, not frustrated by incorrect details.
I’d also like to point out that we don’t include NPR brands and shows on our lists. Maybe down the line that’ll change or we’ll add an extra category but for now, terrestrial outlets are our main focus. This series ends with today’s rollout but please make sure to visit the website tomorrow (Wednesday December 21). We’ll have an announcement to make, which we’re confident News/Talk media professionals will be excited about.
With regards to the voting in this category, here are a few things to be aware of.
#1 – Our executive voters were asked to pick their Top 20 selections based on a few key factors; quality of show (ear test), originality, ability to entertain-inform-connect across multiple platforms, ratings success, clearance (national shows) and industry buzz. Remember, our voters live in different cities, have different tastes, work for different groups, and value certain factors higher than others. This isn’t a perfect system but it’s the best one we’ve been able to create to showcase the industry’s best. Having done this for seven years for the sports talk format, we’re going to stick with it until another approach makes more sense.
#2 – Our executive panel consists of program directors and corporate executives from a number of top broadcasting companies including Audacy, iHeart, Cumulus, Beasley, Hubbard, Good Karma Brands, Cox Media Group, Radio One, Alpha, Bonneville, FOX News Radio, Hearst, Federated Media, Zimmer Communications, and Westwood One. We involve a large number of people in order to receive feedback from all parts of the country, and to avoid the results heavily favoring one company.
#3 – A total of 87 Original Digital Shows appeared on ballots submitted by our radio industry voting panel.
Which brings us to today’s category – Original Digital Shows. Congrats to The Joe Rogan Experience on being voted #1. This was the most impressive win I’ve seen in more than 7 years of reviewing results from a programming committee. Rogan not only earned the most 1st place votes in the category with eighteen (18), which was the most of any category in this year’s Top 20, but he also finished more than 200 points ahead of the runner up. We’ve had some comfortable victories before but nothing like this. BNM congratulates Joe, his team, and Spotify on the well deserved honor, as well as every other show that gained a spot on this year’s list.
Now, here are the full results of “BNM’s Top 20 Original Digital Shows of 2022!”
Additional Notes:
Joe Rogan ran away with this category, finishing 221 points ahead of The Daily. That was the largest separation between 1st and 2nd place in a category for not only this series, but for any of the BSM Top 20’s we’ve done for the past 7 years. Rogan also recorded the most 1st place votes with 18.
Spots 21-25 belonged to The Axe Files w/ David Axelrod, Chicks on the Right, Kennedy Saves The World, Zero Blog Thirty, and Politico Playbook: Daily Briefing.
The closest contest involved Michael Savage and Rachel Maddow. Savage finished 2 points ahead of the MSNBC host. Additionally, Anderson Cooper held off Candace Ownes by 3 points.
Of the 87 original digital shows to appear on ballots, 7 received at least one 1st place vote.
That’s a wrap for the BNM Top 20 of 2022. A huge thank you to Steve Stone Voiceovers for sponsoring the series, and all of the programmers and executives who took time to be part of our voting process. It’s been a pleasure highlighting the News/Talk radio industry for the past seven days, and we look forward to doing it again next year.
A quick reminder, tomorrow (Wednesday December 21st) we will have a big announcement on this website. If you work in the News/Talk radio, television or digital business, be sure to check out what we’re working on for 2023. As always, we thank you for your support.
Syndicated radio host Ben Shapiro said Monday that Twitter CEO Elon Musk is feeling pressure running one company while his other companies lose value.
According to The Guardian, Musk’s Tesla has lost half its market value since its bid for Twitter in April. Musk also owns SpaceX which has lost considerable value in recent months.
“This is not unusual; anytime the market perceives Musk as a volatile figure, his stock drops and then it always comes back,” said Shapiro. “This happened with Tesla when Musk went on Joe Rogan’s show and smoked pot.”
Tesla shares were jumping premarket Monday amid news that Musk would stop running Twitter and focus his attention back to the engineering company that he founded.
“It’s been a pretty chaotic couple of months for Musk,” Shapiro said. “Much of what he has done has been excellent. For example, the breaking of new Twitter files, demonstrating exactly what Twitter was doing to shut down free speech before Musk took over.”
Shapiro said Musk was perceived as a libertarian when he took over the platform but given his recent actions of suspending accounts and bringing them back with poll results, Musk has left a lot of questions unanswered.
“What’s funny about that is that the entire media is caterwauling, screaming to the heavens, screaming to God about why exactly the standards are so opaque,” stated Shapiro.
“Welcome to the party pal; it’s been like this for the last 10 years,” he added.
Syndicated radio host and author Buck Sexton is sounding off following an ABC News interview with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Sunday. Abbott was discussing the crisis at the southern border when he was pressed about common talking points used to describe the severity of the situation.
Sexton commented about the interview during Monday’s “Clay & Buck” program. His comments were directed at Martha Raddatz who serves as the network’s global affairs correspondent.
“Martha Raddatz is a joke,” Sexton said. “This is what she has done her whole career. She represents Democrat interests in the false cloak of journalism. No intelligent, honest person capable of discernment would ever think that she’s a journalist.”
According to Yahoo News, Raddatz grilled Abbott for his previous claims of an “open border” that she said sent a message that “reverberates in Mexico.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard President Joe Biden say, ‘We have an open border, come on over,’” Raddatz said.
“Notice the way she approaches this,” he said.
Sexton took exception to Raddatz stating, “that the reason illegals are pouring into the country is because of Republicans who are pointing out that the border is open.”
“This is a new one, I must tell you. In the lib propaganda toolkit, I haven’t seen this in a while,” Sexton said. “The problem isn’t the person lighting the house on fire; the problem is the person on the street shouting, the house is on fire, someone get the fire department!”
“As if the billions and billions of dollars the cartel has made in the last couple of years under Biden isn’t enough,” he added.
Billionaire Elon Musk was voted out as the company’s CEO Sunday in a poll that he created. The post garnered 17 million votes with 57 percent voting to oust Musk. He said he plans to abide by the results.
Could political commentator Jason Whitlock be the answer that Twitter is searching for?
On Monday, the Blaze TV host cited his tenacity and fortitude as perfect characteristics for a future role as the platform’s new CEO.
“Twitter has been awful for American culture, and it felt like Elon Musk being involved and putting his personal hand and stamp on Twitter was actually a blessing and something that was taking social media in a different healthier direction,” said Whitlock.
Whitlock stated that the fact that Musk created a poll asking for the public’s opinion on whether he should remain as the company’s CEO indicates that he may be waving a white flag.
“It feels like he’s bitten off more than he could chew,” said Whitlock. “I think he knew he was biting off a lot, he knew this would be very difficult, I don’t think he planned to stay in this role forever,” Whitlock said. “I thought he would make it a little bit longer than a month or two.”
Whitlock said despite Musk leveling the playing field on social media, Musk is not the right person for the job as Twitter’s CEO.
“What type of person can stand against this evil, Godless movement?” Whitlock said. “I am willing to stand up against these people and stand on biblical truth.”
The disappearance of the AM band, the new realities of audience reporting, our relationship with social media. The future of radio is a bit of a mystery and Fred Jacobs tries to help make some sense of it.
