How many times have you started talking about the Portland Trail Blazers and got a blank stare in return? If it hasn’t happened, it will. When it does, that’s the time you convert non-fan into new fan if you’re fan enough. That PBS loving radio listener in front of you is ready for a change.
Give them Dan Patrick, a 58-year-old golden boy with the radio voice and television face, a rare combo and easy listen for new people. His ego seems to adapt to all ages. When you’re the guy on stage handing out Lombardis, it would be easy to go the other way. Instead, he shares his radio show with his listeners and his on air production team. Calls them his Danettes. It could be worse, and they couldn’t be better.
Early in the year, a big radio star called out Dan’s style, said he had it easy. The onetime face of ESPN went away from sport talk when his work ethic took a hit from Colin Cowherd. Work ethic; we’re talking about work ethic? The dean of sport talk uses real life to show how to handle your business. You don’t need high heat when you’ve got a grip on cool. Check out his YouTube if you haven’t seen it. Chilling.
Or give them Jim Rome for a take that doesn’t suck. He’s the Michael Corleone of sports talk. Got the look, the edge, and it’s not going dull anytime soon. When members of the Rome mafia call the show, new listeners knock them hard. Rome stands up for his early callers every time. He’s teaching loyalty. He used to say, “Give me two weeks before you spin the dial.” Snagger knows his audience. They stay.
Radio celebrity on a world scale is one thing, but I like the local guys. My favorite expresses the entire range of sports-emotion from catchy up-talk to deep and somber. His sporty sport talk is clear and correct the way only an NFL insider can do, and he offers just enough extra to keep me locked in. The following two examples go beyond the letter of sport talk, but not the spirit. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
How To Slow Cook Ribs In A Crock Pot.
Pick up two racks of ribs, each about two feet long. They’re pink and reptilian looking in the vacuum packed plastic. Don’t get frozen if you can avoid it.
Cut the ribs into three bone sections and push some rib rub into them.
Stack the ribs upright along the edge of the crock and fill toward the center. Put a second layer on top.
Set the slow cooker at 300. Come back in two hours and switch top ribs to bottom.
Come back two hours later and drain off the juices. Pour a bottle of barbeque sauce in a big bowl and dunk the ribs before stacking them back in the crock.
Two hours later? Dinner, and you’re a genius cook. You too can do this. So easy, so delicious. I’ve done it three times since learning how.
Dinner Out With Adult Kids.
Like every other sport talk radio fan, I expect to hear sports. It’s what goes beyond the topic that makes it universal.
My local favorite sports talker explained how he goes to dinner with his eighteen year old daughter. The guy’s been on the air for the last ten years and his audience has followed his family along the way. His little girl grew up and dinners together can get awkward.
Once they’re seated in a restaurant, he said, he lets the wait staff know who he’s with, “I know what I’ll have, but MY DAUGHTER will order first,” or something close.
I’m driving around listening and think, “The same thing happened to me, except I didn’t say anything. There I was, shunned in a restaurant because I didn’t say, “I know what I’ll have, but MY SON will order first.”” We got the cold shoulder, ordered late, didn’t get our food, and left. It took a while before I figured out the problem. Of course my kid disagrees with the creepy conclusion.
After hearing the restaurant story, all I could think to say was, “Thank you, Big Suke, you’re saving the world from bad cooking and over-parenting one listener at a time.”
The right sport talk does that for you, keeps you in the loop.
Credit to SeattlePI who originally published this article
In light of the recent news of Colin Cowherd leaving ESPN, I thought it’d be a good time to take a look at the challenges of replacing a major brand name, why personalities leave and how the process works.
The reality in today’s media world is that any great talent who works for a brand and delivers results is going to be desired by another company at some point. While a GM, PD and Host may start off a relationship with the intent of enjoying a career lasting relationship together, the truth is that people who perform, like to be desired, and those positive feelings get tested when other competitors enter the equation and start throwing larger dollars, more flexibility and more control their way.
For example, if you were a New York sports radio fan, you likely grew up on Mike and the Mad Dog and would never picture them apart, even though they may have had their personal differences. Yet when Sirius XM entered the conversation with a large chunk of money and building a network around Chris’ brand name, Russo’s stay with Mike came to an end after nineteen years.
If you grew up on ESPN and enjoyed watching Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann own SportsCenter and make it must-see sports television, you’d believe they’d be there forever. Well not only did Keith leave to work for Fox Sports, TBS, MSNBC and a few other groups but Dan did as well. Today Dan has rebuilt his brand through multiple outlets. He has a TV deal for the radio show with DirecTV, a radio deal with Premiere Radio Networks, a TV anchor position for NBC’s Sunday Night Football, he appears frequently in Aadm Sandler films and he has a content arrangement with Sports Illustrated.
Remember the powerful sixteen year relationship between Jim Rome and Premiere Radio Networks? It was thought to be unbreakable. Until it was. Jim was courted to head to CBS and he jumped ship to host his radio show for the CBS Sports Network, make television appearances on CBS’ bigger sporting events and host his own television program for Showtime.
In all three cases, the talent were very successful, built a large following with sports fans and other media companies took notice and were prepared to compete to lure them away. When each of these personalities were given more money, more flexibility and more control, they exited the places where they had built their brand name and value. And you can’t blame any of them because most people would do the exact same thing.
Keep in mind, this isn’t only happening on the network levels or in market #1. This happens in many other cities as well. Nobody knows that reality more than myself as I had to go through a number of changes with 95.7 The Game in San Francisco plus a few in St. Louis too.
When I was overseeing The Game, we launched with an afternoon show hosted by Brandon Tierney and Eric Davis. Like with any new relationship, they had their fair share of challenges but they also had a lot of talent and a strong sound. It was easy to see pretty quickly that if they could stick it out together they had the potential to have a lot of success.
However, one year into the relationship Eric was pursued by the NFL Network and they were offering morning drive, major exposure across the country and a lot of money. Given Eric’s background as a former NFL player this made all the sense in the world for him to explore and while it personally sucked for myself, Brandon and our company, if any of us had been in that same situation we’d have done the same exact thing and left. While the intent wasn’t to leave, the opportunity was too great for E.D to pass up.
One thing I’ve learned as a manager is that as hard as it may be at the moment to see the solution and while it may be personally exhausting dealing with the backlash of losing a popular personality from a passionate audience, eventually the show does go on, another great personality joins the team and fills the void, and you can still have success.
What’s important when going through one of these situations is to not let your emotions get in the way of decision making. Those in my inner circle will learn of my passion and opinions on the situation but once it’s time to get down to business and move forward, that becomes the focus. When you let your personal feelings get in the way of business it’s usually a bad omen. While decisions may not always be popular, it’s about growing an audience and being profitable – not just satisfying the audience! People often forget that this is a business and the last time I checked, nobody stays in business long if they’re not making money.
Once I know a personality has made a choice to move on and I know the company has done everything it can to retain them, it’s on to the next plan. I don’t have time to waste and my employer, our clients and our audience are expecting a solution. I’ll normally take a few hours to clear my head and let the emotions of the situation subside, think about what could be potentially exciting and great if we could pull it off, start compiling a list of potential targets, and then begin making phone calls and sending emails to see what’s possible.
The second I knew Eric was gone, my focus turned towards how to surround Brandon with a strong partner, who to target for the audition process and what the timeline should be for filling the vacancy. Over the next 4-6 weeks I’d bring in Ric Bucher, Mychael Urban, Gary Payton, Rod Woodson, Jon Ritchie and Lincoln Kennedy for tryouts and we ultimately felt Bucher was the best fit of the bunch to fit with Brandon and replace Eric.
Unfortunately I had to go through that same process a couple of other times over the next two years as a number of high profile personalities were either sought out for their abilities by larger networks or they wanted to explore a change in their careers and while we got through it and put the brand in a strong position, it was very challenging and not a lot of fun.
I can go on and on about a number of these situations because they’re more common than you realize. In St. Louis, Bernie Miklasz left his radio show which was a giant void for 101 ESPN. My understudy and current PD Chris Neupert came out of that situation with flying colors though as he moved Chris Duncan from the afternoon show and paired him with Anthony Stalter while replacing Duncan’s Cardinals presence on the afternoon show with Brad Thompson. While I’m sure he’d have preferred to have Bernie stay and continue dominating the market in middays, he found another way to succeed once it was understood that Bernie wasn’t going to continue.
If there’s one positive going through a process like this, it’s that it really does test your resolve and allow you to find out what you’re made of. I look at it as a personal challenge and opportunity to do something big. Word of advice to those in hiring positions – if you don’t like pressure, do something else. The process will cause you to lose sleep, tear your insides apart and you’ll have every set of eyes inside and outside of your building watching you and waiting to see how you adapt. One sign of weakness and you can lose the confidence of the room. If you can’t perform with your back to the wall there are many other jobs with less stress.
One of the fun parts of this process is allowing yourself to think outside the box. Let’s be honest, high profile athletes, broadcasters and entertainers aren’t browsing your company’s website checking the jobs section to find you, so if you have an idea, it’s your job to find them, explain your idea and get a sense if it’s something worth exploring. I’ve had the pleasure of having discussions with people I’d never have imagined talking with about a local sports radio show but when you open up your mind, anything is possible. The old saying applies, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward so you can never be afraid of being ballsy.
That makes for a perfect segway because I don’t know of any ballsier of a move than replacing Tony Kornheiser at the ESPN Radio network with an unknown commodity named Colin Cowherd but that’s what Bruce Gilbert did in 2006 and here we are ten years later talking about Colin’s upcoming departure and how it’ll be a major blow to ESPN.
So that leads us to the obvious question “how does ESPN survive without him“? The answer is simple – the same way they have before when they’ve lost Tony Bruno, Tony Kornheiser, Dan Patrick and Scott Van Pelt. But this time they’ll have to do it with shackles around their ankles due to Disney’s mandate to reduce expenses.
Does it suck to lose Colin? Yes. He’s a dynamite talent and one of the industry’s best. Does it make you question what’s happening at the four letter network when you see Scott Van Pelt and Colin both leave radio shows within a few months in addition to the television staff losing Bill Simmons and Keith Olbermann? Yes. But they’re still the largest sports media company in the world and they’re always going to have talent options to consider so do I expect them to come out of this and make a solid hire? I do.
That doesn’t mean the show will be as good as Colin’s or a good fit for the markets where his show aired but they will have options. For example, internally they have Dan Le Batard who could be moved up, they’ve got Max Kellerman and Marcellus Wiley in Los Angeles who they could consider and they’ve got every other sports broadcaster on the planet looking at Colin’s vacancy as the launching pad for their career much like Colin saw it that way when he replaced Kornheiser.
What I do think is a bigger concern for ESPN at this time isn’t whether they’ll fill Colin’s void. It’s how do they keep their revenue stable when advertisers are losing the high profile personality brands they’ve associated their products with. Usually when a major change is made, clients take a wait and see approach or invest less during the interim period.
One other challenge for ESPN will be, how many of their radio affiliates will continue clearing Colin’s timeslot if Colin isn’t there? Let’s face it, stations who clear network programming are doing it because it reduces expenses for hiring talent and because it offers a high profile name that the audience will be familiar with. If the radio station clearing the show doesn’t see the replacement as a strong option (ex: Tirico replacing Patrick) they’ll pull the plug and put in a local show. This just happened yesterday as Arizona Sports 98.7FM struck immediately by naming former NFL superstar Bertrand Berry to replace Colin’s spot in Phoenix.
The other factor that plays into this is how does Colin’s replacement fit the market where the show is being cleared? One of the positives that Colin brought was that he had a strong west coast style which was an alternative to the network’s east coast heavy presentation. If his replacement though is heavily invested in Yankees-Red Sox talk or things that don’t have appeal beyond the east coast, and you’re a station clearing the show in California, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona or Washington, that may cause stations to battle the network and force change with their programming options.
And if that wasn’t enough to consider, if you run a station who has a relationship with ESPN Radio and you’ve carried Colin’s program and received solid ratings or revenue from it, what will you do when his program is pitched by Fox Sports and you have to choose between adding Colin and losing your ESPN brand affiliation or keeping the affiliation and losing access to his show?
Those are the types of decisions that keep programmers and executives up at night and while they’re not fun or easy to tackle, the great ones find a way to navigate through the difficulty. Nobody has done that better in sports radio circles than Mark Chernoff who had to overcome losing Don Imus and Chris Russo at WFAN and both times wound up with higher performing programs (Boomer & Carton and Mike Francesa). That’s the task that awaits ESPN and it’ll be interesting to see how they respond since this is unfamiliar territory.
While I’m sure today is a difficult day for the ESPN brass, a lot can be fixed by making a series of strong programming decisions. On the other hand, they can’t afford to make any move similar to the one CBS made years ago when they replaced the departing Howard Stern with David Lee Roth. Too much is at stake. Given the recent PR facing ESPN due to the departures of Olbermann, Simmons and Cowherd, now would be a good time to hit a homerun and remind people why they are the biggest brand in sports entertainment.
What can I say? Owing to vacation, a vehicular mishap during the Memorial Day flood, Astros stories, other news updates and general ennui, I’ve gotten way behind on radio ratings updates. Sorry about that.
Let’s catch up with the Nielsen Audio ratings for Houston radio for the period April 23-May 20 and for May 21-June 17.
As always, we start with 6 a.m. to midnight (Monday through Sunday) among men 25-54, which is the key demographic for sports radio. For the first time I can remember, KBME (790 AM) led in the weeklong numbers over KILT (610 AM) for June. As you’ll see later, the Astros accounted for a big part of that improvement.
Earlier this week, at the new studios of 105.3 FM The Fan, Ben and Skin were critiquing a top-10 ranking of the best space movies of all time.
Inside 103.3 FM ESPN’s studio, Steve Dennis and Mark Friedman were discussing how they consume more than one sporting event at the same time.
At 1310 AM and 96.7 FM The Ticket, the guys from BaD Radio we’re doing a hypothetical on whether 10,000 zombie-like fans could come down from the stands and overwhelm 50 professional hockey players.
It’s July. Cowboys training camp is still three weeks away. The NBA and NHL seasons are over. If you try to fill an entire show with only sports talk, it’s going to be a struggle.
“This is the tough time of year, where you start to run out of those things,” said Ben Rogers, co-host of the Ben and Skin show, on 105.3. “But the thing I love about the playbook here at 105.3 The Fan, they allow us to do non-sports.”
“I think it really lets some of the things shine that we’re really good at,” said Dan McDowell from BaD Radio on The Ticket.
In sports radio, each hour is divided into segments, and every radio host knows how many segments he needs to fill, every day. For BaD Radio, it’s eight. For longer shows, like Dennis and Friedo and Ben and Skin, it’s 16.
How to fill those segments is something that consumes these guys every waking moment.
“24-7,” said Mark Friedman, co-host on ESPN’s new midday show, Dennis and Friedo. “But it’s not hard. It’s not like you dread having to think about the show. It’s a great thing to have to have to deal with.”
“All the time, we’re always thinking about something to do for the next day’s show,” McDowell said. “If you think of something, you might write it down in your phone: ‘This might be a good segment.'”
“You never turn off what you’re going to do for the show,” said Jeff “Skin” Wade from the Ben and Skin show. “You think about it constantly, which is one of the reasons why my wife hates my job. I can never put the phone down, I can never stop reading the internet.”
Filling those segments is exponentially harder this time of year, when the only major professional team in-season is the Texas Rangers. Some of the segments that make the cut in July would never be considered during football season.
“I love it way more this time of year, because you can be creative, you can have fun,” said Bob Sturm of BaD Radio. “You can train a chicken – a really talented chicken – but a chicken to do Cowboys talk the day after a game.”
The real challenge is the worst sports week of the year, the week of the Major League Baseball All-Star game. After that game ends Tuesday night, there are no more games, at all, until Friday. Sports talk radio hosts either have to get even more creative, or just go on vacation.
“Absolutely,” Rogers said. “Planning your vacation around the All-Star break is the most coveted time you can get.”
“Here, there’s always something in play. There’s never a down time,” Sturm said. “My wife tells me when I say, ‘I’ll do it in the off-season.’ She says, ‘There is no off-season! You know that!’
“It’s great to be in a four-sport city.”
It gets even greater when the Cowboys get going again.
“Oh, I’m already counting down, late in July,” said Landry Locker, who produces the Dennis and Friedo show. “Two more weeks, training camp starts. It’s perfect.”
Credit to WFAA.com who originally published this article
I was reading Richard Deitsch’s column on Sports Illustrated when I stumbled onto something that got my juices flowing. It was a response from Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski as told to Jason Smith on Fox Sports Radio about his approach on why he puts out information on draft night before the actual announcements are made on television.
Wojnarowski said “Nobody allows me to do it, I’m going to do it. No one is going to tell me what to do. I’m not going to ever work at a place where I could be told [otherwise]. Listen, this is what it is. When I have news, I’m going to report it. I don’t care about ESPN’s television show, I could care less about it. The draft is a ceremony; the decision to draft a player has already been made. Should I sit around a wait for teams to send out press releases when they’ve traded for a player or signed a free agent? I’d be out of work. So I just look at the draft as an extension of free agency or the trade deadline. When I have the information and it’s accurate, that’s when I’m going to report it, whether or not they’ve had their ceremony where they announce it. I can’t even imagine not reporting news when you have it or being told by somebody. I don’t know how they do in the NFL, but come on, if you have news, you report it.”
Anyone who follows Wojnarowski on Twitter knows that he is hands down one of the best reporters in the sports business and his information on the NBA dwarfs his competitors. He clearly works hard to develop relationships and trust and gather information inside NBA circles that is accurate, and he’s built up a connection with his followers where they trust him.
From where I sit, I respect his view and approach and I think we need more of it in today’s media world. What Adrian is saying and doing is right, and as a consumer of content, fans appreciate this and want more of it which is why he has over one million followers despite not having the promotional power of the ESPN machine. Adrian’s main objective is to inform his audience and because he makes serving them his number one priority, they reward him by reading, posting, commenting and promoting his work. That’s the ultimate relationship between a content generator and a consumer of content.
The reason his words stand out to me are because I’ve watched our industry make a number of giant mistakes in dealing with professional sports franchises, leagues and athletes. For example, when multiple media outlets surrendered power to the NFL on draft night to not release draft information on Twitter, that was wrong. Not only did they cut their own reporters legs out from under them, but more importantly they failed to superserve their fans. If someone doesn’t want to know what’s happening, they’ll simply not follow along on Twitter and stick to watching the television show. But if they’re on Twitter during the NFL Draft, they’re there because they want to learn more information about what’s happening.
If a television network or radio company is going to partner with a team or league to air games on its channel, one of the first things that should be understood is that the media company can not and will not compromise its integrity to break news and deliver accurate information. Issuing policies to deny reporters the ability to do their jobs or sending down mandates to prevent personalities from talking candidly about their feelings on specific subjects that might not be comfortable, only creates a bigger divide and strains the relationship. We are in the business of entertaining and informing and nothing should compromise our ability to do that.
Secondly, if a media outlet is going to pay large sums of money to carry these games and give up massive amounts of inventory, shouldn’t they have the right and the ability to decide what they do inside the remainder of their own programming? When did the league or team become the program director of the rest of the media company’s programming? They didn’t but because our business is reliant on delivering ad dollars and making budgets each month, those who are battling to keep our companies profitable on the business end, often don’t want to take on the challenge of dealing with a frustrated franchise owner and risk the possibility of losing a team’s rights or bruising the relationship. While I understand the trepidation, there are sometimes where you’ve got to defend the lifeblood of your company’s existence.
Somewhere along the way, media groups began giving back too much power to those who they are supposed to be business partners with and if it doesn’t change down the road, quality talent will be lost and audiences will eventually go elsewhere where the content isn’t compromised. Think that’s rubbish? ESPN has the most powerful sports platforms on the planet yet when it comes to the NBA they get beaten by TNT on the television side and by Adrian Wojnarowski on the news breaking side. You can have the platform but if the content isn’t as strong, audiences will go elsewhere to find it.
Take for example what Apple is about to do to the music industry. It’s exciting, refreshing and based on the company’s track record, likely to be a smashing success. On Monday the company announced they wouldn’t accept traditional advertising and instead would focus on weaving sponsors in through the use of spoken word sponsorships. Think that might be keeping a few CEO’s up late tonight?
What a novel concept – hire great talent, deliver high quality programming, limit the amount of interruptions, connect the sponsors in ways that make them sound part of the brand through the use of DJ endorsements and created content, and keep the focus on serving the listener. By standing up to the advertising community and setting a tone for what will and won’t be permitted, Apple has placed a huge focus on the audience and I’m willing to bet that they’ll be rewarded for that approach in very large numbers.
Currently, Spotify has seventy five million people using their service, Pandora has eighty five million and YouTube has over one billion. Why are people flocking to these services? Because they’re content rich and focused on serving the user. They’re not forcing fifteen to twenty minutes of spots per hour on listeners and they’re putting the advertising in places where it sounds natural and does minimal damage. They’re also not letting others dictate their content offerings or company’s policies. Coincidentally they continue to grow their audiences.
This is no different than why sports fans who love the NBA rely on Adrian Wojnarowski. They enjoy reading his columns because they’re packed with information and insight and they read, favorite and retweet his tweets because they get fast accurate information about their favorite players and teams and in turn that leads them to seek out more of it. They also know that they can get this quality content without it being compromised with ads or forced agendas from outside forces.
As the media world turns over the next few years it’s going to be interesting to see how media outlets respond to these increasing pressures from teams, organizations and advertisers while the audience grows even more interested in digital, mobile and social programming. A brand is only as strong as the talent it employs and the content it delivers, and fans today want exceptional content from dynamic personalities and they expect it in rapid fashion. If you’re not clicking on all cylinders consistently, then be prepared to watch your fan base decrease in the weeks, months and years ahead.
If you saw the movie “The Social Network” you may remember the scene where Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin meet with Sean Parker to discuss the future of Facebook. In the scene, Saverin talks about Facebook’s early growth and how he wants to explore taking advertising while Zuckerberg is against it. They ask Parker’s opinion of who’s right and he tells them that ads aren’t cool and based on where they are as a company, it would be a bad move. In the future when they’ve built a great product that people love and support then you can explore that option but concentrate first on the product.
Now ask yourself this, does your operation approach things this way? I’ve been in four different buildings over the past nine years and while some definitely put a stronger focus on content and appeasing the audience than others, most are focused first and foremost on advertising dollars and minimizing expenses. That’s just the way the business operates.
While those problems are worrisome, there are some ways to be ahead of the curve. The first step starts with doing a brand analysis and creating a gameplan to make sure you’re doing things to create strong engagement with your audience. By doing so you develop fans, and when you gain a strong level of loyalty from your listeners, they usually stick around for a long time. Long lasting connections between a brand and its audience is critical to having sustained success. If you don’t come out of your brand analysis with the understanding that the listener is your top priority, re-do the exercise. You will not be relevant, important and profitable for the long term without them.
You can concentrate your efforts on satisfying advertisers and partnerships first and they’ll appreciate it but when audiences begin to flock to other outlets in the future, those good feelings will vanish because in the world of business, it’s about results, and advertisers want their messages heard in places where they can reach the largest amount of people for the best possible price. You can decrease rates, offer more spots, take them to games or jump through other hoops but if your audience isn’t strong and with you for the long haul, neither will be your clients or bottom line.
The second part that we need to do a stronger job with, is standing up to those who we partner with. There’s power in the word “No” and sometimes you’ve got to use it. Broadcast companies are spending millions on signals, licenses, operating space, employee salaries, state of the art equipment and lord knows what else so the least we can do to justify their investment is stand up and support our talent and programming decisions even when it’s not comfortable. If you’re willing to give away content time on your platforms for things that don’t appeal to the audience, it will cost you. Content options are stronger than ever and people don’t want to their time listening to things that don’t serve their needs.
I once heard Oakland Raiders play by play voice and 95.7 The Game host Greg Papa say something that really stuck with me. He said “At the end of the day, my boss isn’t Jason Barrett, our GM or even Entercom Communications – it’s the audience. If they don’t like what I’m doing it then it’s my job to change it. They’re the ones that matter“. That type of thinking is very true and vital to any organization’s success.
Your local teams aren’t wrong in asking for you to give them more positive content or encouraging you to avoid talking about their competitors or criticizing them. It’s your job though to know when to say no and do what’s best for your station and most importantly, your audience. Adrian Wojnarowski has taken that approach in his career and judging by the results, it seems to be working pretty well. When you deliver high quality content and focus on serving your audience it’s impossible to lose! That’s not rocket science. It’s just good business!
Congratulations is in order for former Detroit Sports 105.1 Program Director Jason Dixon who’s been hired by Sirius XM as their Director of Sports Programming for their College Sports Nation channel in Washington DC. Dixon announced the news earlier today on his Facebook page.
Because I know all of you have been on pins and needles wondering where we are going to go next, I figured it was time to let the cat out of the bag. I will be joining SiriusXM Radio as the Director of Sports Programming for the Washington, D.C. based channels. Stacy Eichmann and the boys are thrilled to be moving to our nation’s capital (technically Arlington, VA). I can’t wait to get to work with the team of incredibly creative and talented people at SiriusXM. So you deadbeats who only use SiriusXM during the free trials, it’s time to get off your wallet and subscribe! A brother needs to feed his family!
In every radio station across America, I’d bet everything I own that an optimist, pessimist and realist can be found inside each building. And despite what your personal feelings might be towards each of them individually, every one of them is necessary to their team’s success.
By definition, an Optimist is someone who usually expects a favorable outcome. A Pessimist is a person who habitually sees or anticipates the worst or is disposed to be gloomy. And the Realist is a person who tends to view or represent things as they really are.
One of the hardest things to do in this business is recognize how much better you become by being surrounded by people who think and act differently and challenge your thoughts process. Is it annoying at times? Yes. Is your instinct to be around people who operate the same way that you do? Yes! But when you step back and allow yourself to be tested, you realize that different viewpoints from your teammates are essential to your own growth.
One common mistake that a lot of programmers and personalities make is trying to hire their friends or colleagues who they know won’t challenge them. Sure it might be more comforting and less challenging but does it bring out the best in you? The question I try to answer when hiring someone is “will this person challenge us to be better or just blend in and go with the flow“?
I believe you get better by adding smart talented people who have your best interests in mind yet aren’t afraid to tell you when you have a bad idea or have executed poorly. As a matter of fact, some of the best radio shows and television sitcoms in our lifetime have happened as a result of people from very different backgrounds with very different ideas coming together to create one unified presentation.
As it applies to a radio station’s setup, I think all three types of these people matter because they provide a great blend and allow you to better understand your listeners. Let’s face it, the audience is very diverse and they have a wide variety of thoughts on the subjects you’re talking about so the more input you have from your colleagues, and the more open minded you are to the different levels of a conversation, the more prepared you’ll be for what you’ll encounter during the course of a show.
Those who have worked with me know that I’m passionate and I want to win. I make no apologies for pushing my teams to deliver results. However, while I’m busy offering my views in an intense and realistic way, it’s equally important for me to have my producers and Assistant Program Director offer something opposite of my personality. If there were four or five of me inside the building at the same time, people would likely struggle.
Knowing yourself and how you’re seen by others is very important, especially when you’re managing or hosting a show. If you’re a light hearted personality, you’re going to want a producer, board operator or other contributing member on the show to provide a little more edge so there’s a good understanding of when it’s time to have fun and when it’s time to be serious. If you’re a manager who’s seen as too tough or soft, understanding that perception allows you to play to your strengths while working on ways to improve your weaknesses. It also helps you with figuring out which approach is needed for the different members of your team.
As for myself, I’d like to think of myself as a realist because I’m not the glass half full guy who never sees the negatives but I’m also not a glass half empty guy who thinks the radio station is going to come up short. I want to hear the truth when we perform poorly and then I want to place my focus on the solution to helping us win. If the news is positive, I want to know what we did to make it happen and then I want to get back to work to try and duplicate that feeling.
To add to that, I believe it’s important to deliver honest messages to your team. Some folks in our industry fear sharing the truth because they worry that the room will get dejected or advertisers will spend less but based on my experiences, most professional people can handle it. They want to know where they stand so they can continue making improvements. If you only share the positives or negatives with an individual, you’re unlikely to see them continue making adjustments and pushing harder to deliver better results.
To bring this to a close, if you really want to see a team come together and find out what its made of, put a bunch of talented people together who come from different backgrounds inside of a room, and listen to them share their views on how to make your radio station stronger. You’ll see the positive, negative and realistic points of views emerge and you’ll be thankful to have three different points of view to consider.
In today’s world where we’re faced with a constant pressure to succeed, there’s a huge benefit to adding different perspectives. The more people feel valued in the communication process and the more you surround yourself with different ideas and opinions, the better your operation becomes. So open your mind, take it all in and appreciate the variety of options you have around you. They often lead to a thriving work environment and results that an entire team can be proud of.
This is it. The final day has arrived. When the work day comes to a close, I’ll be walking out of the offices of 95.7 The Game for the very last time. That doesn’t mean I won’t visit in the future, because this place has been a huge part of my life for the past 4 years. I have a deep respect, admiration, and love for many people inside these walls, but like with many things in life, all good things must eventually come to an end.
It’s funny how when you know you’re leaving somewhere, you start to pay closer attention to some things that you might have taken for granted previously. For example, I love taking BART each morning and grabbing a coffee at Peet’s at the Montgomery Street exit. Sean, Chris and the rest of the crew are always in a good mood, they treat their customers right and they make it a point to get to know you. It’s hard not to see that group of upbeat friendly people working together as a team each day, and not recognize how important that is in what we do as a radio station.
I also started to realize recently how much I enjoyed driving into work and parking in our garage on Hawthorne during my first 3 years here. The reason why, KNBR was right next door (they’ve since moved to another location). I don’t need much to motivate me, but walking out of our garage and seeing that KNBR sign stare me right in the face each day absolutely fired me up and got me ready to go to work and try to make an impact.
There are a number of great things about this place that I’m going to miss. From walking the Embarcadero, to dining out and shopping in Walnut Creek, to experiencing the views of San Francisco from the top of the Fairmont Hotel and the hills above the Golden Gate Bridge. Wine tasting in Livermore and Napa Valley was also a personal highlight. But as great as all of those perks are, it’s the people you work with who occupy most of your time, and I’ve been fortunate to form a few relationships that will always matter a great deal to me.
When I reflect back, I can’t say that it’s gone according to plan from start to finish. Yes there are things I would do differently, but when I think of my entire tenure and everything I’ve learned, gained and experienced here, I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished as a team. To go from 27th to 3rd in less than 4 years is a remarkable feat in the #4 market in the country. That’s a tribute to everybody who’s ever worked here, and to every local person who listened, supported, connected and rooted for us to succeed. Thanks for sticking with us!
It may seem simple but as someone who’s done it a number of times, I can tell you that adjusting to a new city is not easy. It takes a good amount of time to get up to speed with local teams, players, media people and fans and that’s not even taking into account which pieces of content connect best and which ones have a lesser importance.
Next, you have the challenge of learning the area and how local people think and live and if you’re not fully willing to embrace your new surroundings and learn from those you work with, it won’t end well. I didn’t even mention the pressure you feel to perform immediately because the company is depending on you or the internal and external criticisms you have to put up with because of the fact that you were born and raised someplace else.
I didn’t come to the Bay Area trying to change people, but I did try to teach, coach and push them to become better at creating strong, compelling and entertaining radio. While there was a previous standard in place for how sports radio was done in San Francisco, I also believed that there were other ways to create interest in the format too. Some of it worked and some of it didn’t, but we created our own path and did it our way. Bill Parcells and Tony Dungy can both win you a Super Bowl! You’ve just got to decide which identity suits you best.
I will always remember this time fondly and I’m honored to have had the opportunity to build this radio station from scratch and work with a number of amazing and talented people. To see people like Damon Bruce, Guy Haberman, John Middlekauff, John Lund, Greg Papa, Flight 957, and every other member of this team, have the success they’re having is very rewarding and well deserved. My successor Don Kollins is walking into a great situation, and I will be rooting for him and everyone inside this building from 3,000 miles away.
I wanted to touch on a few things I’ve learned that have made it interesting, unique, enjoyable and challenging to work here the past few years. The Bay Area is a 2-team market which can be hard to navigate at times because you’re always going to piss off at least one fan base. For what it’s worth, these are my views on the local dynamics, and some will disagree, but isn’t that part of what makes sports radio great in the first place?
Giants vs. A’s – The Giants fan doesn’t care or mind if you talk about the A’s but when the situation is reversed, the A’s fan views it as the biggest slap in the face. On the field, the A’s have been a great story the past 3 years. The only problem is that the Giants have stolen their thunder every single time. 3 World Series championships in 5 years is impressive and yes I’m aware that the A’s have won more titles in their franchise’s history but we live in a “what have you done for me lately” world and right now, the market belongs to the Giants. Yes they’ve created a number of silly gimmicks and slogans, and maybe if you don’t have kids you could care less about the oversized Coke bottle in left field, but Larry Baer and his group are phenomenal marketers and they run their business well.
On the other hand, Billy Beane is one of the best in baseball at his job and as long as he’s in Oakland, the A’s will always be in the mix to contend. His decisions may not be popular but he’s great at his job. He’s also pretty great on the radio too! There are three areas though where I disconnect from the A’s. The first is when Lew Wolff speaks about stadium situations and spending money to win. The second is when A’s fans invade Twitter or Facebook with negativity because the Giants were talked about on our radio station. I understand their passion for wanting more, but just because one station only talks about the Giants, doesn’t mean the other one is going to only talk about the As. Third, the stadium is awful. The fans in the stands are great, and they provide some extremely funny and clever chants and comments throughout the game, but the limited space in the concourse, the Mount Davis backdrop, and the troughs in the bathrooms, make for a less enjoyable experience. MLB wake up – the A’s and their fans need a new stadium! Get it done!
Raiders Misconceptions – When you watch TV, you’d assume every convict who ever escaped prison showed up at a Raider game wearing face paint and carrying a ball and chain. It’s not true and it’s unfair. Are their some bad apples in the crowd? Yes. But what football fan base in America doesn’t have some? What I learned about most Raiders fans is that they’re knowledgeable, passionate and hungry to win. The one negative, they drink the kool aid way too quickly. One sign of hope and they’re ready to print off Super Bowl tickets. However, for all the negative things I heard before I moved here, I’ve never once not had a great experience at a Raiders game.
While it’s fair to criticize the team for their win-loss record over the past decade, their fans do care deeply. Just because someone puts on face paint on Sunday, does not mean they possess a rap sheet. I’ve have had a tremendous relationship with a number of people who work for the organization and I’ve found them to be fair, objective and easy to work with. That wasn’t always the case in the past. My only area of concern for the future is the black cloud that hangs above their head with regards to staying in Oakland or heading to Los Angeles. I’m really hoping they remain in Oakland for a long time. It’s where they belong.
49ers Misconceptions – I know Levi’s Stadium has its fair share of critics but I’m not one of them. My game day experiences there were very good. I will though point out that the parking situation is frustrating and closing the museum on game day makes no sense. The food choices are excellent, the space on the concourses are great and the video boards and audio quality is outstanding. If there’s one other item though that bugs me, it’s how the TV networks present the team and where they are. If you’re watching a game you’ll see pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Napa Valley, Lombard Street, etc. None of that is even remotely close to where the Niners are.
That said, while Jed York and Trent Baalke are under the gun right now for running Jim Harbaugh out of town, they have built a very successful franchise which has played meaningful games for 3 of the past 4 years. I also have a high level of respect and admiration for a number of people who work for the 49ers organization and they’ve been one of the better local teams to work with for most of my time in the Bay Area.
Golden State Warriors – I’ve never been in a louder NBA arena in my life and the way Joe Lacob and Peter Guber operate their organization is extremely impressive. They want to win and will do anything it takes to be successful. The only criticism is that they can be overly confident and smug with their comments (especially about Mark Jackson). I’d rather have a brash owner though who puts it all on the line to win, than someone who treats the team like a personal trust fund.
I’ve had the pleasure of doing business deals with David Lee, Klay Thompson and Bob Meyers and all three were excellent to work with and as the past few years have passed by, I’ve legitimately become a fan of the team. The people in the organization on the court and behind the scenes are first-class, which makes it even more enjoyable to root for them to succeed. Now go take down King James and bring that trophy home!
Sharks/Hockey Talk – You won’t find a better person, broadcaster or promoter of the sport than Dan Rusanowsky, the voice of the Sharks. His passion and love for hockey is impossible to ignore and I enjoy hearing him call Sharks radio broadcasts. The “Shark Tank” is an awesome place to watch a game and it was the first venue I saw a game at when I was being recruited to work here. I loved it then and I love it now. The only negative surrounding the Sharks for our business is something beyond their control. Hockey as a whole, generates less sports radio listening.
That doesn’t mean the radio station couldn’t do a better job talking about bigger stories that take place, but when you’re in a market like this with the Giants, 49ers, A’s and Warriors all experiencing massive success, it becomes harder to discuss what the Sharks are doing. If the job is to entertain the most people possible, and those other stories generate higher interest, then you’ve got to provide the content that interests the largest available audience. However, when it comes to model franchises in the NHL, they’re at the top of the list in my book.
As I get ready to exit stage left, it’s well documented how much my son Dylan means to me. I can’t wait to return to New York and be closer to him on a regular basis. I’ve been on more than 400 flights during the past 9 years to make sure I stayed active in his life while balancing my professional aspirations. Now though it’s time to go home, and I’m very excited about it.
Equally as important in my life is my girlfriend Stephanie. She’s experienced every up and down with me over the past 9 years, and she too has had to live in my world and endure 7-8 days alone per month while I’ve gone back and forth to NY. That’s not including the countless times when I’ve come home from work, had a quick bite and then went back to work to finish other things. For every professional decision I’ve made, she’s been my sounding board and moral compass and kept me sane. To say that I’ve been exhausting at times would be a giant understatement.
Although my departure from San Francisco and relocation to New York is aimed at being closer to my son, I’m also gaining the addition of more time with her which she very well may regret in the next month or two! Sometimes in this business I can’t enjoy the wins because I’m so focused and driven by what has to be done next. Luckily I’ve had her by my side to slow me down and remind me of what’s been accomplished. I’m thankful for her support, love and trust because without her, this would have been impossible to execute by myself.
It’s been one hell of a roller coaster ride. Far from perfect, but definitely interesting. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way!
Entercom Communications announced today the hiring of Don Kollins as Program Director for 95.7 The Game. Don joins Entercom as a proven leader in the sports radio field with many years of programming success and a track record of innovation. He succeeds Jason Barrett who is relocating to New York.
“After an exhaustive search, the best choice was north of us – way north – in Canada” said Steve DiNardo, Market Manager of Entercom San Francisco. “We are excited to have Don join the Entercom San Francisco Programming team. He brings a wealth of experience to Entercom as a proven leader in the sports radio field, having lead Sportsnet 590 to its present status as Canada’s number one sports radio station. Under Don’s leadership I am confident that he will continue to build on the successes that Jason Barrett has achieved during his four-year tenure as Program Director” added DiNardo.
“I am thrilled to join the team at Entercom San Francisco” said Kollins. “Jason has built a great radio station and I am honored to pick up the programming torch for 95.7 The Game and continue the winning tradition. See you soon”.
Kollins will begin his new position at Entercom on June 12th!
