He does NBA games with a “BANG”! Mike Breen features his signature call as the lead voice of the NBA on ABC/ESPN. Working in the league since 1992, Breen brings a professionalism and wit to his broadcasts. He’s seen many great moments in the NBA covering the playoffs and NBA Finals since 2006. Because of his tremendous work in the field, he was just inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the winner of the Curt Gowdy Media Award.
Breen took over as the number one NBA guy at ABC/ESPN, February 8, 2006 when Al Michaels left the network for NBC. Breen was also with NBC for a time when that network had the NBA contract. It hasn’t always been basketball for him, he’s also called New York Giants preseason football. He has also called regular season NFL games for both Fox and NBC. But now it’s all about hoops.
Courtesy: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
He grew up loving the Knicks. Mike Breen says his guys were Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Dave DeBusschere. He listened to Marty Glickman and Marv Albert growing up in Yonkers, New York. The local kid got the chance to call many a Knicks game and even got to work with Frazier.
PATH TO ESPN/ABC MAIN VOICE
The 2020-21 season marked Breen’s 29th season as an NBA broadcaster, and he’s spent many of those years with the New York Knicks.
He began his professional radio career as a sportscaster on WNBC radio in the early 1980s, and frequently substituted as host of “SportsNight” on the station. From 1988 to 2000, Breen did the sports segment on the WFAN and nationally syndicated “Imus in the Morning” radio show. According to his Wikipedia page, Breen became noted for his delivery of false sports news, such as in the mid-1990s reporting that in the previous night’s New York Mets game, “Felix Millan went 4-for-4 with 3 runs scored.”
His play-by-play career started when he called games for the Marist College Red Foxes basketball team in 1985. He then started as the Knicks’ radio announcer for WFAN in 1992 and moved to television during Marv Albert’s first leave of absence. In 2004, Breen became the Knicks’ full-time television play-by-play announcer when the team parted ways with Albert.
Breen has announced in five Olympic Games during his career, one Winter Olympics and four Summer Olympics. At the 1996 Summer games in Atlanta, the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2004 Summer games in Athens, Breen called basketball, handling the play-by-play for both men and women. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Breen called ski jumping. Breen served as a play-by-play announcer for NBC Sports coverage of men’s and women’s Basketball at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
WHY IS HE SO GOOD?
He must be good, because this July will be his record setting 16th NBA Finals broadcast. That’s more than both Marv Albert and Dick Stockton who did 9 NBA Finals apiece for NBC and CBS respectively.
Breen’s style is just that he sounds like a guy you’d want to hang out with. The way he interacts with his partners, usually Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, is made to sound like three guys chatting watching a basketball game. The skill in which Breen navigates the broadcast with two very opinionated colleagues is evident. Somehow the “traffic cop” is able to still call a game among the “congestion” of the airwaves. It’s not easy to do.
The three have a genuine appreciation for each other and its evident in the broadcast. Mike Breen has a way of stirring the pot and then backing off to see the result. He’ll bring up an old story that puts Van Gundy on the defensive, Jackson will pile on and then Breen will succinctly call the action. Usually, Breen can get under Van Gundy’s skin with mention of an official that maybe JVG from a game or something like that. Again, Breen is professional enough to know when to go to this form of entertainment and when to let the game do the entertaining.
Courtesy: Scott Evans/ESPN Images
The other thing that separates Breen from others is his prep. You can tell that he’s a student of the game and knows the players he’s covering. He’s also a guy that will talk to everyone on a game day. According to an article at the Ringer in 2016, Breen speaks with players, the local broadcasters, coaches, assistant coaches and even officials. The latter of course sparked a comment from Van Gundy.
“He loves officials,” said Van Gundy to the Ringer. “He’s like the one American who is absolutely in love with officiating, and the nuances of officiating, who is not a referee.”
Breen is known to spend hours in his hotel room just studying for his next game. He’ll look over articles done on some of the teams or players he’s calling a game between. Breen will scour box scores of previous games and will create a “fact sheet” about each team involved in the game. The other thing he’ll do, taken from his days of calling the Olympics, is make sure he’s good on pronunciations. This is so important for credibility, it’s not surprising he spends a lot of time making sure he’s got them right.
“BANG!”
As mentioned, Mike Breen is known for screaming “Bang!” when a shot is made at a critical moment. Breen is also known to use “It’s good!” and “Puts it in!” to describe some clutch shots. He continues to use the catch word or phrases, even if the game evolves into a blowout.
“Bang!” is the word Breen has used for pretty much his entire career. He started using it as a student at Fordham. When he wasn’t calling games there, he’d watch from the stands and yell “Bang!” every time a Fordham player hit a shot. Then he took it to air.
“I tried it on air as a student couple of times. I said, ‘This doesn’t work. I don’t really like it.’ he told the NY Post last year. “Then I went back to it when I started doing TV and felt it was a nice, concise way in a big moment. You say a one-syllable word and the crowd rises and you don’t have to scream over it. One easy word. I’m from the Vin Scully, Pat Summerall school of conciseness. It worked with a big, loud crowd.”
There have been those to criticize the usage. He decided to stick with it even after some said it was stupid. In an interview with CBS Radio last year, Breen explained why the call continued despite the pushback.
“Even when I first started using it on TV, a TV-radio writer took a shot, saying, ‘That’s such a lame call. Why does he use that?’ It turned out to be something that became popular. But I started using it and I had a few people say to me, ‘Hey, I like the way that sounds. It’s a good way to do it.’ So, I tried it more and then more people said they liked it, so I stuck with it.” Breen explained.
In fact, Breen has doubled down on the word in some cases. Oh yes, once in a while you hear, wait for it, a DOUBLE BANG! It has only happened three times. That means it’s saved for special moments, big moments and the most exciting moments.
The first was Steph Curry’s nearly 40-foot three-point shot against Oklahoma City. This one came in a regular season game in February of 2016. The Warriors entered that game 53-4 and Curry seemed to be in a zone all season long. Hitting shots from ridiculous spots on the floor. The game winning three, was the record-tying 12th of the night for Curry. Breen clearly was caught up in the emotion of it all, seeing where it came from on the floor, the roll the Warriors had been on and who hit the shot.
Where did it come from? He had no idea. “Don’t ask me why or how it came out,” Mike Breen was quoted of saying after the call. “It was like an out-of-body experience.” Thus the “double-bang” was born.
In 2019 Eric Gordon hit a game-tying three for Houston against the Lakers that earned the DB call. It wasn’t a playoff game or even a very memorable game overall. Perhaps Breen got caught up in the moment? It happens when you are really invested in a game and its call.
The third, double-bang of all-time came in last year’s playoffs in Orlando. That’s where Luka Doncic beat the Clippers with a step back three-pointer. It drew a double-bang very quickly. This one meant a ton to the Mavericks and to Doncic who was playing in his first playoff series. If a game-winner ever deserved a double-bang, this was it. Considering Doncic finished the game with 43 points, 17 rebounds and 13 assists, I contend it should have been the first triple-bang in history.
CONCLUSION
I just love listening/viewing a game that Breen does. He has that voice that lends itself to a national broadcast. If it makes sense, he has an ability to make that game broadcast on ABC/ESPN sound like it’s a local game. Viewers really appreciate that ability, where the national guy is dialed in to what we already know about our team.
Courtesy: ESPN Images/Ben Solomon
Mike Breen was recently honored with induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame He was named the winner of the 2020 Curt Gowdy Media Award, an honor being bestowed upon both Breen and ESPN’s Michael Wilbon. The ceremony took place May 14 in Connecticut.
This month’s subject of five goals is Rob Perez, better known to NBA Twitter as World Wide Wob. The content creator and producer for FanDuel shared with me five things he wants to accomplish or see happen.
1. I want to make FanDuel, my licensing partner in content creation, as happy as possible.
My goal is to drive people to their web site or app, and spread the reach of the brand. I’m sure there’s a more formal word for that, but I want to organically integrate FanDuel into everything I do.
I don’t want to just be a commercial — hey 20% off, or here’s a free bet — because people are drowning in those across various forms of communication. All the content I do is naturally involved, and if someone’s asking about who’s favored it’s a very seamless type of content integration in which I can include them and drive them to FanDuel if they’d like to put their money where their mouth is.
I would certainly love the opportunity to continue working with them — not just because they pay me to do so, but I do find value in working with a sportsbook of that size that is turning into a content company. Of course, they’re always gonna be a sportsbook. It makes them the most money. But, giving you additional reasons to engage with that brand, if you have an itch to bet on something, is what my job is.
I want to continue to be the face of the NBA for them, having a very casual conversation about the game itself — whether that’s off the court stuff, or all the coaching departures earlier this week. Integrating the FanDuel logo into all this feels much more real than a 30-second commercial between timeouts. I want you to enjoy the experience of the show, and gamble if you so choose.
2. NBA Red Zone.
I’ve always had aspirations, hopefully with FanDuel in collaboration with another network, to apply NFL Red Zone to the NBA. It would work best on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday, when there are 8-9 concurrent games.
That’s why I’m where I am today. I’m watching every single dribble of every single game. But, I would never expect any other normal human with responsibilities outside of NBA content creation to ever keep up with what’s going on between the Kings and Pistons while there’s seven other games on, one of which is nationally televised.
So, if the NBA ever decides to have a true commitment to their version of the Red Zone — they’ve tried versions of it on NBATV, but I’ve never seen one hopping between games every 15-20 seconds, hot switching any time there’s a play stoppage — I’d love to do it.
You’d have a Scott Hanson type host who is as integrated with the league as it gets. I hope maybe one day I have the opportunity where what I do on my own personal timeline merges with true rights partnership from the NBA. Just based on the feedback I get on my Twitter page, there would be demand for it.
3. Do another NBA variety show.
In the past, I had a show called Buckets that I did with Cycle and ESPN. It had sketches, pre-produced talk segments, and interviews. Think of it like Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon’s shows, but applied to the NBA.
Inside the NBA is obviously the gold standard for an NBA talk show. But, those guys are going to retire at some point. What I do on Twitter Spaces, Twitch, and Periscope — I want the ability to blow that out with some more production resources.
Photo Credit: TNT
Right now, I’m doing everything myself, from playing DJ to directing to taking calls to actually running the show and talking basketball and researching stats — I’m doing it all on the fly. While I’m certainly happy to do that, I know what we could create with a team around me because we’ve done it in the past. I would love to do a weekly variety show based around the NBA.
4. Some more work life balance.
My entire day for 11 months out of the year revolves around the NBA. It’s my job and I’m happy to. I love following it. At some point, I feel like I’m gonna get burned out, and I don’t want to ever get to the point where doing this feels like work.
It felt a little bit like work this year, and that might be because I’m on Year 8 doing this. [RG note: at this point, I mentioned how last offseason was so condensed after the bubble, and how the energy felt partially zapped out of sports with a lack of fans]. I’m gonna watch regardless because I’m a crazy person, but I think a lot of people would agree with you that the return to normalcy is helping with the engagement on a mainstream scale.
This offseason will be condensed again. We have the Olympics, which of course I’m going to watch because stars will be playing. Summer League is in August. There’s free agency and the draft. There’s barely going to be one month — September — where there probably won’t be a whole lot of NBA news or events.
But then we’re going back to the normal schedule from before the pandemic, which means Media Week will be the first week of October. There’s one month off before it all starts again, and I’m hoping I don’t get burned out by it.
Being on the East Coast, it’s impossible to follow the NBA 24/7. I don’t know how people with kids and families do it. Getting back to the West Coast is a personal goal of mine, which will happen this summer when I move back to Los Angeles. These hours will allow me to get back to a more normal life.
5. I want the Knicks to win a championship in my lifetime.
Just being a die hard Knicks fan and not seeing a title in my lifetime, that’s a personal goal. I’ve put so much work into watching every effing game since I was eight years old with Patrick Ewing and John Starks in the NBA playoffs.
I was young, but I was old enough to know that I wanted to stay up for those games. I was emotionally invested. I would even get to the point where I was putting towels underneath the door so my parents couldn’t see that the TV was on. They thought I was sleeping.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Of course I want my team to win a championship, and I don’t want to die without seeing that mountaintop. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a Red Sox or Cubs fan and going all those years without seeing them win, then having it happen. I want to experience it once.
Whatever it takes to get there. I have too many gray hairs on my head, and every single one of them I can attribute to a single Knicks game from the past decade. Being a fan while trying to create objective NBA content will always be a challenge, but being a Knicks fan will always take precedent over a career because it means that much to me.
Back in August of last year, the pandemic was still front and center, acting as a roadblock for business. Retailers were in business and at the stores, but what about the advertising buyers? Where were they?
Well, the ad-buying community, corporate employees, and most white-collar workers were still at home. So were most of us in radio sales. So, when it came to prospecting for new accounts, some of us gave up, most sent emails, and a few brave souls hit the phone. Earlier this year, I wrote about the sales trainer John Barrows and how he got to the top by cold calling 400 prospects a week! That’s not cold emailing. That’s cold CALLING. And to be exact, if Barrows was working a 10 hour day on the phones Monday through Friday, he would dial at least eight prospects an hour.
Does that send a chill down your spine? Or does it make you want to run to your keyboard to avoid rejection and send some more cold emails? Back in August, when most of our ad buyers were at home, not near a business phone, Jeb Blount and Anthony Iannarino were recording a podcast about why you should hit the phone, not the email. Both sales consultants and authors thought we could improve our connect rate immensely by working the phones over email.
Both authors agreed that we need to have conversations with people about our stations, personalities, shows, and the sports world! We can hire an automated CRM service to send emails!
Now I am all for some well-crafted custom emails sent to targets that do not answer phones or listen to voice mails but not as the first activity in a sales sequence. Don’t confuse marketing with sales. We are not human advertisements or, even worse, spam. Our job isn’t to create awareness for buying sports radio packages; it is to make the sale!
We are consultants offering custom solutions to the unique challenges your clients have. And consider that if you pick up the phone and connect with the advertising buyer and get the appointment, you won’t need an email!
Both consultants agree that you don’t need email to warm up a client when using the phone to get the appointment! I recently tested this theory myself and decided that with the pandemic subsiding in most metropolitan areas and more buyers going back to the office, I could start hitting the phones more.
It worked. I got more appointments faster and wasted less time. I even got help. I had a business owner who I reached out to via email with a custom approach. I offered a few excellent ideas on how I could help him. Crickets. I let 2.5 weeks go by before I picked up the phone to dial the business and ask for him. They told me he was out on vacation and asked me if I had personal interaction with him. I explained no I was looking to connect with him on an advertising idea. The receptionist said you need to talk to Jane, the ad buyer. I was connected immediately.
Courtesy: Goodsell Museum
I left a voice mail. The next day I received a return call indicating interest in my idea, and we set the appointment. Now, why didn’t I try that in the first place!
If you want a custom phone pitch that I wrote out for myself, send me an email at jeffcaves54@gmail.com. Now it’s time to smile and dial!
A player collapses on the field during your broadcast, what now? While you absolutely feel for the individual, you have to describe the activity and hope for the best. Nothing can prepare you for this eventuality. As we’ve talked about in previous columns, you can’t play doctor and speculate on the injury; you just have to describe what you see. While thankfully these incidents are few and far between, you just can’t possibly know if something like this could happen in one of your broadcasts.
It all comes down to how you handle it. In this case, at the European Championship, Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field. He needed CPR in order to be resuscitated. Ericksen was given chest compressions as his teammates stood around him to create a type of “privacy wall”. Eriksen was carried off the field to a loud ovation from the audience. This is when you start dealing in fact-based commentary only. What you see being done is what you talk about. Reaction shots from the crowd, teammates and officials can tell the story better than you. This is the time when your director, producer and camera operators are critical to the storytelling.
Courtesy: Getty Images
The game was broadcast throughout the world. ESPN had the broadcast in the United States and as you can imagine, they took some heat for the way the medical incident was handled. Many complained that the telecast lingered too long on the scene before cutting away. ESPN said it didn’t have its cameras at the match and was using a “world feed” supplied by the Union of European Football Associations.
“Once it was clear the world feed was going to take a more aggressive approach to covering the situation, we should have moved quicker to a static wide shot of the stadium or returned to the studio,” ESPN said in a statement.
You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If there was no focus on the injury, ESPN would have taken heat for that as well. In these cases, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.
The Eriksen situation, got me thinking about a situation I found myself in, while doing pregame for the Chicago Cubs in 2002. In fact, we’re approaching the anniversary of this sad day. It was June 22, 2002 at Wrigley Field when the game was being delayed and nobody knew why. It was the day that Cardinals’ pitcher Darryl Kile passed away in his hotel room in Chicago. He didn’t report to the ballpark for batting practice, when he normally would. The team had hotel staff check Kile’s room and that’s when they found him in his bed. He passed away in his sleep. Just an awful day at Wrigley and a terrible day to be broadcasting.
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Chicago. I remember it was a strange start time (2:05pm Central) due to Fox televising the game. My pregame show started at 1:30 that afternoon. Before our show began, we were informed of Kile’s death. However, we were not allowed to broadcast the information, since his family had not been notified yet. I remember thinking, ok, so how are we going to let people know that this game isn’t happening, without giving up this tragic information. On one hand we have a responsibility to let fans know what’s going on, but then there’s the more important aspect, someone has died and the family didn’t know. Even in a competitive world, the latter trumps the former. We started the show as normal and had some discussions on how to move forward during commercial breaks.
As I recall, we decided to mention that there was going to be a delay, without going into specifics. Keeping it vague at least let the audience that the game wouldn’t start on time. But, at the same time it opened up a whole different set of issues. You have to remember that in June 2002, we were only nine months removed from the horrific terrorist attack on our country on 9/11/2001. I was sure that people’s first thoughts would be that there was some kind of security risk to fans in the ballpark. In fact, later I learned that a rumor had been swirling around that an attack was imminent. Of course, that was just an unsubstantiated rumor.
After discussion with my sports director Dave Eanet and booth mates, Pat Hughes and Ron Santo, we decided to alleviate that thought. We had to. Knowing that in those days a lot of fans brought their radios to the ballpark, we felt the need to alleviate any concerns about security. Coming back from a break we decided to say, “we have been informed that there will be a delay before first pitch this afternoon. We have been assured by Cubs officials that the reason is not a security situation, we’ll have more info as it becomes available.”
I remember feeling very empty about that statement, seeing as I knew the real reason for the delay and that the game was not going to happen at all. We had the responsibility to keep going and continue to provide a pregame show as if nothing was happening. Santo and I started to fill, talking about general baseball things, standings, league leaders and the Cubs upcoming schedule. After extending the pregame show a bit, it was time to hand things off to Hughes for the start of what was supposed to be the broadcast of the game.
It was at that time, I decided to take our wireless microphone and head down to the field. It was very strange being on the field at that time of the day. I saw no activity in either dugout. People in the stands were asking me what was going on. I had to lie and say, “I have no idea, that’s why I’m down here.” It was just a few moments later that Cubs’ catcher Joe Girardi came out of the dugout, surrounded by teammates, members of the Cardinals and the umpiring crew, to make an announcement to the crowd. It was 2:37pm and his message was carried live on our airwaves and on Fox.
“Excuse me. I thank you for your patience,” he started, with his voice cracking with emotion. “We regret to inform you because of a tragedy in the Cardinal family that the commissioner has cancelled the game today. Thank you.”
Fans were still confused after waiting for as long as they had. Some could be heard yelling “What happened?”
“Please be respectful,” Girardi responded. “You will find out eventually what has happened, and…I ask that you say a prayer for the St. Louis Cardinal family.” The fans politely applauded Girardi as a sign of thanks. Girardi would later say it was the hardest thing he ever had to do in the game. He said it was more difficult than taking his uniform off for the last time as a player.
There are a few things I’ll never forget after Girardi’s address. Seeing Tony La Russa and Cubs manager Don Baylor shake hands and embrace, each was shaking his head in disbelief. Baylor knew Kile, having managed him in Colorado during the 1998 season. Listening to the fans clammer in that din we’ve all heard before during a baseball game. Watching them file out of the park was something to behold as well. Cubs’ fans embracing and patting Cardinals’ fans on the back. For a moment the rivalry was not important. The final thing I saw on that field before making my way back up to the pressbox, were several St. Louis players, including Jim Edmonds walking across the field. They were going to address the media in the only interview room at Wrigley Field, on the third base side of the field. The looks on their faces, I’ll never forget.
Courtesy: Stephen J. Carrera/AP
While some outlets decided to run with the news before the family was notified, there was no way we were going to reveal the news prematurely. I’m extremely proud of the way my station handled a very difficult and sensitive situation. It was one of the toughest, if not THE toughest pregame broadcast I’ve ever done. I’m grateful to my teammates in the booth that afternoon for understanding the gravity of the moment.
There is no guidebook for how to broadcast under these circumstances. You have to rely on common sense and decency to get it done when it comes to tragedy. As much as athletes have a bit of celebrity to them, at the end of the day, they’re human beings with families, kids. When horrific injuries, or even death occur, remember that fact and treat the moment with the respect and dignity it deserves.
The phone is ringing off the hook. The buttons, glowing in an assortment of different hues, are indicative of listener engagement, with a genuine interest in what is being discussed. And the more the phone rings, the better. There’s no harm in having too many callers. Is there?
As sports talk radio’s dissemination has broadened across multiple platforms, the inclusion of audience interaction directly with the hosts of the show has remained constant, with some shows even including it in their daily rundowns. However, including callers on the air just for the sake of adding a new voice to the show is frequently being diminished in its practice, with show producers realizing the importance in putting the right callers on the air.
The role of a caller is beginning to be thought of as an additional enhancement to the listener experience, rather than a standard by which to judge the success of a show. Resultant upon this shift in psyche, the art of call screening; that is, preparing a listener to go live on a sports radio show, has become more than just saying: “Please hold.”
“Screening calls has always been a bit of a challenge, but it’s critical to verify the content that the caller is bringing to the table,” said Steve Bute, assistant program director and producer of The Drill on 1010 XL/92.5 Jax Sports Radio, Jacksonville. “The ability to dial seven digits doesn’t necessarily facilitate your passage to the airwaves.”
While it may seem superficial on the outside, call screening is indeed a thorough process that ensures the on-air hosts interact with people prepared to make a point about or take a new angle related to the topic at-hand, giving the hosts something new on which to expound. Occasionally, callers will partake in some debate, but often, their appearance on the airwaves is as swift as possible.
“Ideally, the caller comes on [with] a focused, brief point — they make it — then, if it’s obvious that they understand the flow and dynamic of what their role is, we move on,” said Michael Lefko, producer of Wyman & Bob on ESPN 710 AM Seattle. “Sometimes, they are rambling [because] they may not be used to being on the radio — then, you have them almost hijacking the segment.”
Sports fans, often passionate and zealous, may unintentionally struggle to formulate a cogent, succinct point, instead speaking impetuously about whatever is on their mind. As they speak to more callers, screeners have been able to find ways to quickly get the listener to focus and get their point out.
“A guy I used to work with [got callers] to take a deep breath and calm down, [then] took everything they said, and summarized it back to them,” reminisced Aaron Raybould, producer of The Blitz on ESPN 97.5 Houston. “He had that understanding that brevity is such a good thing in talk radio because the caller can be there to give an opinion and then let the hosts take off with it.”
Being concise is vital for radio shows implementing callers, and when a caller does not let the host speak or continuously cuts them off, the producer or the host must take action to maintain the quality of the on-air product.
“You have to have an assertive host who will just drop the caller or interrupt them,” said Lefko. “Our hosts have the ability to drop the caller. I don’t think there’s any malice with that. The callers are in a supporting role with our hosts on the air.”
Evolving technology and distribution has brought enhancements to call screening, assisting both the producer and the hosts in ensuring that new voices are being heard. Those who call in to radio shows frequently, while they are appreciated, render themselves more of a nuisance to other listeners eager to hear new perspectives from the hosts and the occasional new caller.
“I will always take a first-time caller over someone who has been on the radio station multiple times,” said Al Dukes, executive producer of Boomer & Gio on WFAN New York. “We have the software now that tells us how many times each caller has called in, [so] I don’t pick up the frequent ones anymore; I have no interest in them.”
“I think there is still value in doing pre-recorded calls instead of [taking] live calls,” said Declan Goff, producer of Mackey & Judd and Purple Daily at SKOR North Minneapolis. “When you pre-record a call, it gives you a safer space. The hardest part about doing anything live is that you only have one take, whereas if you do it pre-recorded, you can take your time and do it a couple of times to get the right point out.”
While there are callers who enhance the on-air product by complementing the hosts with compelling, shrewd opinions on sports, finding and hearing from them is less common than ever before, largely due to advances in technology.
“Over the years that I’ve been doing this, I like the callers less and less,” said Dukes. “I like a caller that can add something to the discussion that we don’t already know or [something that] the host hasn’t already said. To me, there’s not a lot of them. The longer I go, the less calls we are using.”
Listening to other radio shows is something producers often do to determine how they will structure and/or innovate their own program. Something that is often remonstrated and being moved away from is the tendency for some radio shows to take a large number of callers at once, or to talk to the same caller every day for their opinion.
“I’ve heard other shows that take caller after caller where they ramble or it’s the same caller every single day and it becomes boring,” said Paul Reindl, executive producer of Ben & Woods on 97.3 The Fan San Diego. “We don’t want to do that; we try to keep it limited and on topic for us.”
As a result, some sports talk radio shows have begun to abstain from having callers on the air altogether, instead transitioning to new avenues of engagement centered around the multimedia platforms that people use most, most notably those centered around the advent of the smartphone.
“We do not take live phone calls,” said Brad Barnes, producer of FastLane on 101 ESPN St. Louis. “We have a text line that is available for us at all times, along with a mic drop feature on our app where people can leave a 30-second snippet of whatever they want. It’s worked out a lot better for us because we can control what content goes out [and are] able to get straight to the meat of the conversation.”
Other terrestrial radio stations, such as SKOR North Minneapolis, are shifting their avenues of audience to incorporate visuals with the audio being broadcast. They are utilizing the transmission of video through live social media streams and conferencing platforms to include listeners in the conversation in ways never before possible.
“An AM or FM dial can reach thousands of people, but you are pigeonholing yourself in where you want to target,” said Goff. “The thing with radio and where it’s heading is that you need to look at other spaces where you can maximize fan engagement. We have now transitioned [from taking traditional calls] to having people on our video screen with us. It’s been a rewarding experience because they feel like they are more of a part of the show. Being able to be digitally-focused has added a completely new element for us which has been really fun to see.”
Changes in consumption trends that were already taking place prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic were starting to catalyze evolution; however, it was not until the worsening of the pandemic in which radio stations had to react to a changing world — and fast.
“The traditional workplace has changed,” said Lefko. “If someone is working and has us on in the background, they can write out a text and send it to the text line. On Twitter, we will put out a question or a video clip that will generate engagement. I think it feels like they engage in the same way a phone call used to do.”
Some producers believe that audience interaction hinders radio broadcasts, putting the focus on subsets of the listening population rather than the on-air hosts, one of the principal factors as to why people are listening in the first place. Al Dukes of WFAN believes producers and hosts should act in the best interests of their listeners, many of whom listen to hear the hosts instead of guests or callers.
“For the longest time when you would talk about your show, it would be ‘How was the show today?’ ‘Good, who’d you have on?’ That does not matter for my show; it does not determine if I had a good show or not. I love talking about callers and guests, and to me, the less of both of them the better, but it puts a lot of reliance on show hosts and contributors. The shows really need to rely on those people — not callers and guests. I think [sports radio would] be better for it.”
After enjoying five great years with San Francisco’s sports radio ratings king KNBR, Jeremiah Crowe is ready for a new adventure. The sports leader’s program director informed his staff on Monday that he’ll be leaving the station in mid-July. Crowe and his family are moving to Las Vegas, creating a PD vacancy that should become one of the crown jewel programming opportunities in sports radio.
“After five successful years at Cumulus San Francisco, I’ve decided to move on from my post as KNBR’s Program Director,” said Crowe. “I’d like to thank Dave Milner, Bruce Gilbert, Justin Wittmayer and Larry Blumhagen for their support in entrusting me to lead one of the most prestigious and dominant brands in sports radio history. The privilege of working alongside the best staff in all of radio while experiencing the Bay Area’s rich culture has truly been the experience of a lifetime. I’ll always cherish the deep friendships made around The Sports Leader’s studios, and plan to visit often. Our family looks ahead to our next chapter in Las Vegas, ground-zero for the ever-expanding sports betting industry.”
After accomplishing everything he hoped to in the Bay Area, Crowe has his sights set on making an impact in the sports betting space. The category is one which Crowe is both experienced in and passionate about. He told BSM he’ll begin exploring his professional options once he settles into his new Las Vegas residence. With nearly a decade of programming experience in a top five market, and another ten years spent previously working on the national circuit for ESPN Radio, Crowe should have no problem finding suitors for his services.
Sports radio this year has seen a number of programming changes at top markets and stations. Spike Eskin is leaving WIP in Philadelphia to lead WFAN in New York. Eskin’s exit leaves WIP searching for a new PD, a situation that WEEI in Boston is also going thru. With Crowe leaving KNBR, Cumulus SVP of Sports Bruce Gilbert and new GM Larry Blumhagen immediately begin scouring the nation for the right person to guide the sports leader to future wins. With a strong FM/AM signal, the San Francisco Giants and 49ers play by play rights and a talented staff in place, the next programmer chosen to lead KNBR is stepping into a great situation.
I do not mean your style of dress. I mean your social style.
One of the best training programs I ever completed was from the late Ken Greenwood. The Greenwood Performance Selling System relied on Wilson Learning and their Social Styles. Greenwood took us through a complete series of videos with role players going through various radio sales scenarios. At the heart of his work was the versatility he thought salespeople should have in working with different types of social styles both inside and outside of the station.
I took to the study like a duck to water, as did most of my fellow salespeople, and started learning about myself and how others experience me. We first had to learn how each of us was different in how we communicated. Our styles didn’t only stay in one quadrant they could range from being ask assertive to tell assertive or more concerned with tasks over people depending upon our situation.
The bottom line was that there were four types of social styles: Driver, Amiable, Expressive, and Analytical. The thinking was that you would get along with one out of every four people ideally, one out of four horribly, and the other two were up for grabs. The key was to learn how to be versatile enough in your approach to respect how others communicate.
I am a driving expressive. I am task-oriented, want others to respond to me in a timely fashion, and like to get others jacked about my ideas. I have to be careful around an amiable who is analytical. If an Amiable/Analytical buyer wants to pass my proposal on to others to share in the decision, remain fairly structured the way they make decisions, and require a bunch of factual evidence before they buy, I am in trouble. In general, those who want to be friends before clients can present a real challenge for me.
The same is true of the amiable who is trying to communicate with me. It would be most effective if they cut to the chase, lead with the solution and be timely in presenting information requested. As Wilson Learning teaches, an analytical buyer may need a formal approach or just time to consider making a decision. An amiable requires me to be open and honest about my feelings and willing to pass around my proposal. Drivers, like me, want business communication mainly focused on the problem and favor direct approaches that need only one or two people to sign off on it before implementation. Expressives need time flexibility and want to hear and see the excitement in proposals.
Watch this video of Pat McAfee, and you tell me that he isn’t an Expressive who likes to drive.
Wilson points out that slight modification in your style is critical. Just make sure you ask the buyer’s opinion first, maybe get to the point quicker, slow or quicken your pace, and use more or fewer gestures and facial expressions. It’s all good. Every style can be successful in business.
This exercise will lower tension in relationships and help you also to realize when it is time to move on. Sometimes, no matter what, it isn’t worth it to a Driver to sell to die-hard Amiables who want to be friends and clients. And the same goes for Amiables, who have no interest in Drivers looking for bottom lines and minimal personal expression. It’s all about getting the work done- one way or another- to me.
Remote broadcasting is not ideal. It’s not easy for the broadcasters and it’s not fair to the fans. With the Country coming out of the COVID pandemic, it’s time for the announcing teams to get back on the road where they belong. For a number of reasons, some not based solely on health and safety, many local broadcast teams are stuck at home. Shortchanging their viewers and listeners.
I know why we had to call games from one location last year. There was a virus infecting and killing people all over the world. So, while it wasn’t ideal, it was necessary. I always felt like the listeners weren’t getting the complete feel when the game was in one location and I was in another. We all chalked it up to “Well, at least we’re playing and working.”
Courtesy: Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images
Truth. No complaints. Now?
It’s time to get back on the road.
It was reported this week that the national broadcasters, like Joe Buck, will be on site for some games in the weeks to come. Fox, ESPN and Turner are all planning to have their people on-site for at least some broadcasts, per the report. But the same accommodations are not being made for many of the local television broadcasts. The decision on the local TV folks is being made by the individual RSN’s.
What makes no sense, is that only some radio broadcasts are traveling. Why radio and not TV? I’m sure some of it is money. Many of the RSN’s took it on the chin last season with a shortened schedule and uncertainty with advertising money coming in. It’s not a great look for any of these companies, especially since baseball is allowing more and more fans to attend games. Now just some of the broadcast booths will be empty.
How is this logical or allowed? Is there a plan in place? Are the players or teams holding up the process? Dodgers TV broadcaster Joe Davis spoke to the Athletic, saying he’s heard many things about why some broadcast teams aren’t traveling.
“I’ve heard, ‘Well, the players don’t want the rights holders back on the plane,’” he said. “Of course, they don’t, I wouldn’t either. But is that their decision? Or is it team by team? Or is it Major League Baseball? I don’t know the answers to those things. So honestly, it’s been so up and down and all over the place on what has to happen for us to travel, I’ve just kind of stopped thinking about it because it feels like wasted energy at this point.”
There is a lot to digest here. Can teams or radio/tv stations say no? For some the answer is yes. One radio company that has many play-by-play rights across the league has a travel ban in place. Audacy stations are preventing their radio broadcasters from traveling. It’s to the point where the company won’t reimburse announcers if they want to travel on their own. Very interesting. There’s no word on how long this “ban” will be in effect, leaving broadcasters to wonder if they’ll get to a road game this season.
As far as the teams, I wouldn’t think an individual club would say no to their broadcasters traveling if the organization meets the 85 percent vaccination threshold. More and more teams are meeting the criteria, once again eliminating another excuse for not sending the announcers along with the team to road games. Especially if the announcer himself/herself is fully vaccinated.
Now in conjunction with that point, the opposing team, the home team in this case may object to visiting broadcasters being in their park. With social distancing, some organizations reconfigured their broadcast booths to allow for the use of multiple monitors in the space. So actual room could be a problem. I say, if the opposing team fit in your press box before the pandemic, they’ll fit in there now.
Baseball broadcasting is not as easy as the folks doing it right now make it look or sound. Trust me, there is a lot that goes into it. The job done last year by these announcing crews should be commended and lauded. It’s hard enough to do the job when the game is front of you, let alone many miles away.
Courtesy: SportsNet
The RSN’s and radio stations not allowing travel are only doing a disservice to themselves, their own product and their audiences. As much as broadcasters try to call a seamless game from half a country away in some cases, it’s not the same as being there. It is just not and you can’t tell me it is. If it’s safe for ballparks to be opened to full capacity there should be no reason not to travel announcers. With most seats in ballparks being filled, empty seats in the broadcast booth are unacceptable.
Developing a great brand that becomes important to an audience and generates ratings involves a few key factors. First, great talent have to be in place. If your brand doesn’t have people in front of the camera or behind the mic who others want to listen to, watch, and spend time with, the rest won’t matter. Personalities with an ability to help an audience laugh and learn while coming across as likeable and interesting are vital.
The next part of the equation involves content choices. Discussing what you had for lunch may sound like an awful content selection but if a gifted storyteller can take that bland piece of content and turn it into something memorable, it could be your brand’s best segment of the day. It could also be your worst. This applies to sports talk too. A host on the air can build content around a team or player that’s most important to listeners but if all they do is state the obvious, it won’t be enough to make a mark. On the other hand, a talent who’s plugged in, processes information differently, and has something to say that makes you think, feel, and react is entirely different. Both types of hosts may have done the right thing focusing their material on the subjects that are supposed to resonate with those listening or watching, but if the opinion and stories told add nothing new, the topic choice alone isn’t enough.
Which leads us to one of radio’s biggest challenges – subjectivity. What one programmer considers spectacular, another may find uninteresting. A talent dubbed as a ‘game changer’ by one executive may be seen as ‘can’t be hired’ by another. One PD may value guests and calls, another wants them nowhere near their airwaves. It’s no different in pro sports too. Coaches, scouts and executives have looked stupid and brilliant picking players who others thought were or weren’t worth investing in.
But building and satisfying an audience depends on much more than just hiring a talented host. You’ve got to feature the right content, market your brand and personalities, connect on multiple platforms, study to learn where your audience is located and what causes them to tune in or out. The deeper you understand your audience and their preferences, the better your chances of reaching them, marketing to them, putting your advertising partners on their radar, and ultimately creating success.
To get a better perspective on the challenges of audience development, and how brands and listening habits were affected by the pandemic, I reached out to my friends at Point to Point Marketing. Their support helped us create the Meet The Market Managers series, which hopefully you read. If not, click here to learn about some of the industry’s top leaders. Given that they specialize in marketing, research, and brand/audience development, their insights should be helpful to programmers and GM’s who are trying to figure out how to better serve their fans and partners. Enjoy.
Tim Bronsil – President
Tim Satterfield – VP, Digital
Susan Bacich – VP Strategy and Audience Insights
Jason Barrett: Before we dive into some of the opportunities and challenges associated with audience development, how did you get started your company?
Tim Bronsil: It started 23 years ago. Mark Heiden, who previously ran Eagle Marketing in Colorado, and Rick Torcasso, who was in charge of programming for Alliance and was kind of the brains behind the young Country format, they became partners. It began with a handful of clients. Now we work in almost all of the PPM markets. I came on board 16 years ago. Susan has been with us for 10 years, and Tim has been involved now for 7 years. The three of us are the face of the company as it relates to our clients. We’re the ones that strategize with them, come up with the different game plans, and then execute it. We have a team of nearly a dozen people that work for us and help with different things such as design, digital, research, etc. but the three of us are who work closest with the client.
JB: We partnered recently on the Meet The Market Manager’s series. There were a lot of different companies and business leaders featured over a 15 week period. What stood out to you from those conversations?
TB: The biggest takeaways for me from the Meet The Market Managers series were learning how business prior to Covid was different, and required adjusting to the present conditions. Brands needed to find ways to connect with their audience, serve their advertisers, and technologically get their talent to continue engaging with their audience whether it was done remotely or in studio. To hear each of these company leaders share how they handled pandemic marketing, programming, and sales was probably the biggest benefit for me.
Susan Bacich: For me, it was learning about the shift in how people are listening. I came to Point to Point from working in radio where you have your morning show and afternoon show as the staples of the radio station. Middays and evenings are obviously important too, but the way the shifting of listening has changed during the last fifteen months was really a big takeaway. The other item that caught my attention was discovering what radio stations and other audio companies are taking away from how listeners consume their audio, when they’re consuming it, and where they’re doing so. All of that has changed, and that stood out.
Tim Satterfield: One of the best things I think is that they now have a higher perception of the value of the digital connection. When the pandemic hit and everybody went to a Zoom call, and the personalities were encouraged to stay in contact with their existing audience thru digital channels, whether thru Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I just think it sealed the deal on their perception of the value of that contact point being digital. The good part for us obviously is that that’s our conduit on social bounce, so I think anyone who had questions about its value or its ability to work and succeed at getting the message in front of those people, I think that was washed away during the pandemic, if there were any of those.
JB: When it comes to developing and connecting with an audience, technology has changed so much about it. In the past it was a combination of radio, print and TV, now you have digital, which can be split into a number of different directions, plus you have email, direct mail, and other means of reaching fans. Is there one medium you value more than others when you’re working on behalf of a radio brand? How do each of you feel about that?
TB: The big thing with any marketing campaign that you’re going to deploy is you need to recognize the relative advantage that you’re trying to display. Once you have that nailed, then you can decide upon the tactics you’re going to use. Many stations will market before they’ve identified what that relative advantage is. So once we’ve done that, the best way we see to give a full three hundred and sixty degree view of that relative advantage is thru social media marketing. We can put up twenty, thirty or forty five second videos of talent, which showcases their humor, expertise, and other unique traits. That video can then live in the ecosystem with paid dollars behind it for a few days. Then we put up another piece of content that once again reinforces that relative advantage. Social gives you the opportunity to drill down to the demographic and key areas that matter, and that is the same whether it’s for broadcast radio or podcasting. We can find that audience and deliver that message on an ongoing basis very cost effectively.
TS: It just mirrors the move to digital marketing that you’ve seen across all brands and verticals. Radio shouldn’t be any different in that it’s very cost effective, very targetable, we can find the audience, and then when you take it and add it as part of a comprehensive marketing plan with the other products we have, we’ve seen that it can be extremely successful.
JB: How does age factor into this because radio and TV tend to skew older, digital younger. Are you able to still see great recall from older audiences on social and younger people on radio?
TS: The answer is yes. In fact, we’ve recently seen some results with people 55-64+ with podcast marketing because that demographic has the time, they’re interested depending on the product and the affinity it has. Those folks are on Facebook where you can generate a lot of click thru’s where that’s the campaign objective. On the radio side, it depends on the brand and what their target is. But if it’s 18-34 and they say ‘nobody is on Facebook’, that’s incorrect. We can see the results. They still have a high level of profiles. They’re on Snapchat, Instagram, and they look at stories, but they’re not off of Facebook, they still sample it. When you take the 18-34’s and the amount of frequency they have with their devices, it still makes them easy to find. Everything in between, really easy.
SB: One thing to add, in the social world it’s not just about casting a wide net. The nice thing about social and any of the marketing tactics we deploy on behalf of our clients is that we use it to grow recognition with compatible listeners. We’re not just throwing that wide net out, we’re looking for those people who are most likely to listen to your product. Whether that’s to your radio station or your podcasts or social media, we’re looking for those people who are most likely to consume your content. And in doing that, we’re helping to reinforce the brand’s position with that person who we’ve reached. Different tactics allow us to grow that audience in different ways.
JB: When it comes to sports fans, they’re very passionate and the platforms they use and the way they use them are very different. For instance, my company expanded into news in September, and I learned quickly that the majority of brands and talent on news radio are conservative. They have less trust in big tech and aren’t as enthusiastic to share content and engage on social media as sports radio folks are. Sports fans love to have conversations and stay informed on Twitter, whereas news is a different deal. When you’re targeting a sports fan on behalf of a client or just doing your own research to figure out what people want, what are some things you’ve noticed that sports fans respond best to?
TB: I would say that it’s not just the specific knowledge about a certain sport or team. You have that base knowledge but then there are other things around it that are about your lifestyle as a sports fan. Showcasing that from a talent standpoint works. It’s important to give that three hundred and sixty degree view of the show and the personalities not just highlight how you might be an expert at a particular thing. Just because you live in a particular market doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a fan of the local team. People move places all the time. Owning a particular team can be a challenge so we try to focus on showcasing the whole part of the show.
JB: I want to ask each of you about the challenges of doing research and marketing during the pandemic. In 2019 we had a pretty good read on where people were, what was growing, what wasn’t, but then 2020 hit and everything changed due to uncontrollable circumstances. That obviously can create some challenges in the way you might go about reaching people. How did you guys pivot in the way you helped brands market themselves and gather information to be able to reach their audience?
TB: Everyone had a cell phone in their hand in mid-March of 2020 and they were constantly checking it. Our marketing is delivering to mobile devices 100%. Wherever they are Jason, either in the car, at the office, in the backyard, by delivering to that device with an immediate call to action we saw great success and engagement rates pick up in the second quarter of last year. Because we had this platform ready to go, brands were still able to reach their audiences even if they were displaced from their normal commuting patterns.
TS: We saw the engagement rates and connection with the audience go up not down because of the pandemic. People were home, they had their device, they were interested in what was going on outside not inside because they were stuck, so we saw everything pick up. The pandemic I believe helped enhance the perception of the value of the digital marketing that we do. The change from the pandemic may have been the use, but it was also the perception of the value.
SB: What’s interesting is that we’re now doing more at work targeting but during the pandemic it was really important to catch them at home. We had their complete attention because they couldn’t go anywhere. Anything coming in from the outside world was great. If we were able to get into those homes and deliver messages that made them excited, made them interested, made them want to look twice, that’s what our goal was, and that’s what we focused on.
JB: You guys work with multiple formats so I’m curious if we went back to March-May of last year, music didn’t stop, news became really important, but sports shut down. When you’re working with sports brands at that time and there’s no new content being created in the sports world, where do you shift a brand’s marketing focus?
TB: In April and May brands started creating original content. All throughout that time there were a lot of sports stories out there – when will sports return, what will open up in the fall, what type of capacity will there be, the hope of sports is where we placed our focus.
JB: Would it be fair to say that the pandemic helped emphasize how important it is for brands to feature sports media personalities not just talent with an ability to create topics built from last night’s events?
SB: Anyone can deliver the news line, the stat, but it’s how you deliver it that counts. You saw a lot of programmers, producers, and personalities, step up their game because they had to. They had to literally reach out and grab that audience and create a reason for people to connect with them. A lot of people grew during that time period especially the hosts.
JB: As a former PD, the one part that I found fascinating was that you can create a strategy, tell talent what to talk more or less about, and image a brand around a team or teams, and that all sounds great, but when sports goes dark and there’s no live events taking place, you better have great personalities or you’re not going to retain an audience. The PD isn’t going to have the answer when an unprecedented event like a pandemic rocks the world and cancels all of sports. There’s no playbook available that says ‘this works, this doesn’t’. Imagine a music radio station staffed by DJ’s who show up one day and have no songs to play. That’s what sports talent dealt with, and the brands that featured on-air talent who were more important than the content, essentially the destination and reason listeners show up, did well. Those dependent on last night’s game, either struggled or wished they could use vacation time.
TS: Connection is key and personalities always make the difference.
SB: What you’re describing are stations and personalities who lost their brand. But they didn’t have to lose their brand position. They could’ve retained their position in the market. That’s what we worked on with our clients. Reinforcing what the brand is to the audience, and retaining that recognition is what we wanted to keep intact whether people were listening live to a show or thru podcasts.
JB: You mentioned podcasting which is one area of the business that many are excited about. Digital listening continues to increase, revenues are climbing, and radio in recent years hasn’t been growing so that factors into why so many are bullish on this space. When you’re studying audience behavior and the way it’s changing, from what you’ve seen so far, what are your takeaways? Is radio making the right call putting a heavier focus on podcasting based on where things are projected to go in the next few years or are we rushing towards it simply because it’s growing and other parts of the industry have been a little flat?
TS: I think it’s additive. Every time we do this, where we’re looking at the new shiny object, I think back to the days when cable was going to kill local television. I still watch my local television station. And I believe that there is no way podcasting or audio consumption on digital only is going to kill radio. Will it have to adjust? Will the audience change? We’ve seen some research that shows it’s having an impact in terms of frequency and how many tune ins, but it’s not going away. A good company with good margins is still going to see good cash flow using good ole fashioned radio to deliver a product to an audience. I know the public companies like to see growth. I see this as an opportunity that helps not hurts in the long term.
SB: I worked for a small company a while ago and they had this legend and it was the original owner talked to Howard Hughes. He was a bellhop at a hotel and he asked Howard ‘How do I provide for my family? What’s the next thing for me to get into?’ Howard told him ‘Buy FM transmitters’. So this bellhop started buying FM signals, and everyone laughed at him, but soon he was the one laughing all the way to the bank. It took some time and changes in formats and programming between AM and FM, but it reminds us that you never know what’s going to happen. It’s wise to move forward and to start going into those digital directions because you don’t know what is going to take off. If we were having this conversation twenty months ago, we wouldn’t have been talking about a pandemic and people’s listening habits changing wildly in such a short period of time but here we are.
TS: We can see the growth in podcasting. It’s genuine and it’s real. We’re out there to help those who have podcasts and want to have significant audience share do just that. We’ve seen it as a product extension if you will that we think is going to pay off for us kind of like FM transmitters paid off for the bellhop.
JB: So you take the podcast audience, the radio audience, the people a brand reaches thru their email newsletter, the video consumption on social media, in some cases brands even have TV simulcasts, and you add it all up and it’s pretty significant. But then the issue becomes, radio has all of this reach and audience, but isn’t getting full credit for it. That’s frustrating inside the building because you can see the brand’s impact but buyers are still making decisions based on certain criteria and it doesn’t always include the things you do well at that go uncredited. For you guys, doesn’t it in some ways become not just about marketing to develop audiences but also educating advertisers on the power of a brand and why they should be associating with it?
TB: Yes. The first step is to remind the advertisers of how big the brands are and show them that reach and engagement. We had clients that used videos of their air talent and then sold a sponsorship of that video. The exposure that that brand received was thru the roof and they saw the power of not only having a mention on the air but also being involved in social. Taking some chances and involving your client in those ways, maybe at no-cost in the beginning, gives you the opportunity to show them down the road when you go and ask for that order. The other part which was interesting, Sam Pines in Cleveland, what he’s doing with the Land on Demand, an on-demand service, that can also bridge some of that where you’re not picking up some of the advertising dollars but that subscription is an innovative way to leverage that content across other platforms.
JB: I want to wrap up by asking each of you to reflect on last year and the challenge of helping brands while the industry dealt with pain caused by the pandemic. As someone who helps stations myself, I saw how it started bad, but fortunately turned around. During that time though, it has to be hard when the strategies you’ve used that you know work have to be quickly adjusted because people’s habits are rapidly changing. Then there’s the reality that some brands who need your help are navigating financial setbacks and are going to pause business, even though you can argue that there’s no more important time to study audience behavior and be in front of people. When you’re going thru something like that, how do you keep your business relationships strong and remind folks of the importance of sticking with a plan and continuing to market to their audience and do research?
TB: In normal times Jason, it is reminding them that ongoing communication with an audience is important because there are so many other audio choices out there. We have to remind them of that unduplicated content and why they need to come to your brand on a regular basis. It’s even more important now because we know listening patterns have changed since the pandemic to go and remind the audience of that. We need to make sure our radio brands are doing this while people return to the roads, return to work, as they return to their normal commuting patterns. Failure to do something is really not an option.
SB: I want to touch on one thing you mentioned Jason about the challenge of dealing with the realities of what everyone was dealing with last year. There were times when our clients told us ‘we’re with you but we’re going to have to hit the pause button because we don’t know what’s going on.’ That was understandable. If I were in their shoes I’d have probably done the same thing. But just because they paused didn’t mean our communication with the client stopped. If anything, our communication with the client picked up. We were coming up with ideas for them to help them with their advertisers and connecting with their audiences. We worked with them on brainstorming to try and help them create solutions to overcome a difficult period. For us, keeping those relationships intact was important.
TS: And Jason, the result of that is that the relationships and communication that we’ve had with these companies and individuals for literally decades, led to them stopping the pause. To their credit, knowing that they needed to get back in front of the audience to get that share back, and taking into account the relationship history and all of that groundwork that we did to help them, paid off in bringing those companies back to a marketing opportunity sooner which was great for both them and us.
They say you never forget your first time. Well, that must be true because I can still remember that hot summer day in Boise in 1985: the day I made my first radio sale.
Courtesy: Universal Pictures
I was fortunate when I started in radio sales. I was replacing Bob Macauley, a salesperson who was moving away from the area. Bob was similar to me in that he was a former linebacker on the Boise State football team and sold radio. I had just finished playing at Boise State myself and took the radio sales job to replace him after a short stint in the Canadien Football League.
Bob took me to meet all of his active accounts, and I had some billing on the books. That right there is rare in that many new salespeople don’t get any active clients. They have to dredge them up themselves. So, I learned how to service the active accounts and get new prospects in the boat.
Then the phone rang at the station. And I was given the call in to close for my first sale. Sales managers, make sure you read my recent article on how to handle call-ins to see why I was the right guy for this sale. The client was nothing special. He ran a summer business down by the pond in the park called Julia Davis Boat Rentals. He rented paddleboats to people looking to kill time in the park. I got the call and went down there immediately flush with the feeling of victory because this was a client who called us!
How rare is that?
I approached the rental shop, which was a shack, and asked for Terry to the owner. Somebody went to get Terry while I waited in the sun with my suit and tie on. It was 36 years ago. I thought the suit and tie bought me some credibility and maturity. Well, I missed the mark with Terry. He emerged from the back of the shack and had a distant look about him. He looked right over my head, and that is hard to do when you stand six foot three. He said, “Jeff Caves? Where are you? “ I was standing right in front of him. Suddenly it dawned on me.
Terry was blind.
He wasn’t able to read my proposal, see my suit, or my sweating. Or anything for that matter. I should have read these nine essential tips for working with people who are blind. Of course, I didn’t and went on with the sale. He knew what he wanted and, much to my relief, was happy to make a verbal contract and trust me with the details. I felt terrible but told him that any new business had to pay in advance to establish credit. He agreed and handed me a brown paper bag stuffed with about $500 in cash.
Courtesy: Dreamsite
I sprinted back to my car and raced into the station to turn over the bag stuffed with cash. It was a first for the business manager at the station. The phone rang again at the station. The WhiteCane bakery wanted to buy some advertising, and this time the owner, a blind woman named Ramona, told the manager she was sight-impaired.
Guess who got that call-in? I was, after all, the station expert at selling to the blind. She became an annual client.
:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/45897268/usa-today-8394804.0.jpg)
