I’m often asked by fellow colleagues in the broadcasting industry for my thoughts on what makes an effective programming clock. I usually offer my feedback and go over strategies that I feel confident in but truth be told, there really is no magical clock that is going to help a station deliver ratings. Are there certain games to play in the ratings game to give your brand an advantage? Absolutely. But let’s not lose sight of what really makes an audience respond, great content from great talent.
Recently I had a discussion with someone who does research about the differences in setting up an hourly clock. When I explained how I have some shows operate with a 4-break per hour system and some manage with a 3-break per hour system, I was asked immediately if I’d consider changing my setup to reflect a 3-breaks per hour system on all shows. I wasn’t asked who the shows were hosted by, when the breaks were happening or how long each break was, instead it was the typical analysis “less commercial breaks means better ratings”.
Too many times I have heard the same exact thing “Nielsen (much like Arbitron) highly recommends to take as few breaks as possible“. I’ve heard this in multiple markets, various sports radio conferences and I do believe that there’s some merit to it however what researchers don’t take into account during these conversations are how it actually works on the programming end. You can play math equations all day long if you want but listeners (even those with meters) don’t listen based on quarter hour measurements and there’s much more to keeping people interested in consuming your product than just eliminating commercials.
I can argue that a show has much better pace, energy and stronger focus on delivering content inside of a 10-minute window than it does when offering up a 20-25 minute segment. Listen around the country to numerous talk shows on various stations who deliver longer segments and find me the program that is consistently fast paced, energetic, content rich and moving from Point A to Point B to Point C inside of a 20-25 minute window. It doesn’t happen often.
Why might you ask? Because when hosts are delivering content for that length of time, most lose focus and ramble. They don’t view their 20-25 minute segment as a combination of four 5-minute segments and they don’t stay aware of timing. Usually phone calls flood the segment or a guest who’s great for 5-6 minutes gets stretched out to 10-15 minutes and it becomes more about filling time than maximizing content time.
I like to look at a 20-25 minute segment as an opportunity to deliver four to five mini-segments. When you approach it that way, you continue moving forward with good momentum. In a perfect world, your host is coming out of the gate with strong opinions on the most popular local topic for anywhere between 5-10 minutes. If it’s well crafted, it’ll be a captivating 10-minute ride. If not, 5-minutes can still be accomplished and if it’s emotionally charged from your host, the audience should respond by wanting to engage in discussion on it.
After the opinion and supporting facts are offered, you have the option to either include a guest who can add further insight and/or opinion on the story or you can utilize the audience to weigh in on the topic too. There’s also the possibility of adding sound, a feature or production to paint the story. Having different ways to make the story sound fresh and interesting is important.
If you deliver 5-10 minutes of opinion, 5-10 minutes of a guest and 5-minutes of audience reaction, you’ve now presented three different ways to keep that one particular topic interesting. That’s how a 20-25 minute segment stays compelling. It takes multiple layers, multiple voices, multiple sounds and multiple twists and turns inside the content to keep it interesting to the audience.
Search the country and find any show that has longer content segments and see if you remember how the segment started and whether or not you could stay mentally excited and engaged in the content for longer than 5 minutes. Remember, Nielsen ratings are about securing 5-minutes of listening inside each quarter hour and if you’re going to offer 20-25 minutes of straight content with no focused destination, people’s attention spans will become smaller and they will tune you out faster.
I bring up this example for a reason. If you take fewer breaks per hour inside of a show, you’re going to end up with at least one real long stretch of content at some point and I find that most shows and hosts don’t own those opportunities as much as those who perform shorter segments. While someone from Nielsen or a research company can suggest breaking as little as possible, they don’t take into account who your talent is, how you strategically match up against your in-market competitor and if your station’s style of content is geared for longer or shorter stretches.
For stations on FM, one of the reasons why radio operators starting moving to the frequency is to attract younger people and build tomorrow’s way of doing sports radio. Do younger people listen for 30 minutes straight to content or do they like faster impressions that they can digest in 5-10 minutes? You know as well as I do, they want it quickly and they’re not staying with you for long periods of time. They are more likely to tune in 5-6 times per show than they are to give you 2 straight quarter hours of listening time.
As it applies to breaks, based on Nielsen’s recommendations, your ratings should go thru the roof if you only break 1x per hour since after all, it’s mostly about eliminating interruptions. As I once told a former host at one of my previous stations, unless your name is Chris Rock, I don’t want to hear you talk for 30-40 minutes straight without a break. Here’s why, most people can’t be highly entertaining consistently for 30-40 minutes straight.
Remember this too, when Chris Rock does a standup show, he’s got his act in place to entertain for 60-minutes. He knows the start, the middle and the end of his routine. But what if he was doing a radio show? Could he do that for 3-4 hours per day? Maybe he could but I think you’d find more holes in the presentation.
On the other hand, give a host 10-12 minutes and ask them to stay crisp, focused and in control of the pace and it absolutely can be done. When a researcher explains to me how 3-breaks per hour is better than 4-breaks, I remind him that my station’s best ratings are during the two shows that deliver 4-breaks, not the ones that do 3-breaks. Does that mean they wouldn’t be successful going with 3-breaks? No. But when people are good at certain styles of execution and the audience is responding to the way it’s laid out, isn’t that what’s supposed to matter?
In the grand scheme of things, some hosts can be great for 5-minutes, some for 10, some for 15 and even a select few for 20-25. You can give them 2 commercial breaks, 3 commercial breaks or 4-5 commercial breaks and some shows will stand out and perform strongly and others won’t. It still comes down to talent, selecting the right content, delivering it in an entertaining way and making sure the momentum keeps going forward and the pace feels fast.
I’m not going to suggest that Nielsen’s ideas of breaking less don’t make sense. They do. In a perfect world we’d take 1-2 breaks and have talent execute amazing content for 20-30 minutes straight every time but the reality is that it’s not as easy as some may think. To be outstanding for that period of time is difficult and I want personalities on the air making sure that every minute they spend talking is leading somewhere, not just filling up air space to avoid an extra break.
The other part not being considered is the business side of the operation. Face it, we’re in the business of selling ad time, content association and branding partnerships. Like it or not, commercials are going to be a part of our system. We can try to limit break times and unit counts all we want but our business requires buy in from advertisers too. You sit there and tell a client who wants to spend six figures on your radio station that you’re not going to sell them a fifteen second commercial because you only want sixty second spots since you’re trying to keep unit counts low.
Here’s the deal, I’ve gained great ratings in my career with shows that have taken breaks 4-5x per hour and I’ve gained the same from shows who have broken 3x per hour. The bottom line, there’s no perfect way to do it and commercials need to be in place to assure that we have a profitable business. All you can do is focus on maximizing your content time while making your interruptions as short as possible. Under both scenarios, the companies I worked for made money.
When I program a 4-break per hour clock I try to keep breaks to 3 minutes or less so our shows have a chance to deliver 11-12 minutes for content inside of a 15-minute window. If I’m going with a 3-breaks per hour system, we’re likely going to run 4-4:30 of ads so we fulfill our business obligations and still give our talent a chance to spend 45-48 minutes per hour delivering content. I believe in delivering a content rich experience and don’t want hours cluttered with a plethora of ads and pointless benchmarks which encourage listeners to leave. Striking a happy balance though is the key.
If quarter hours are :00-:15, :15-:30, :30-:45 and :45-60 and you need 5-minutes of listening spent in those windows, your goal as a PD, Host and Producer is to play the percentages and try to offer as much content time as possible. That doesn’t mean you’ll get ratings credit, it just means you’re giving yourself the best chance to gain credit.
All of this comes down to one thing – content! If the personality is not informative and entertaining and talking about the topics with the broadest appeal to the local audience, then I don’t care if you’ve done 60-minutes straight with no interruptions. People only listen to stations and hosts that mentally distract them or emotionally excite or frustrate them. If the content isn’t great, neither will be your ratings. It doesn’t take a whole lot of research to figure that out.
As the sports radio business grows and revenues for the format increase, the same can’t be said for the commitment of radio stations to broadcast LIVE from big events. I’m not talking about individual games or personality driven agendas that don’t move the ratings needle. I’m talking about the moments in sports that a broadcaster is supposed to live for being at. You know, the events that your audience plan their day or week around because they can’t miss it!
From the Super Bowl to the World Series to the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup, those are major events. The College Football Playoff and NCAA Tournament qualify as well. Certainly others could invade that conversation too such as a popular player from a local market going into the Hall of Fame, Mayweather fighting Pacquiao (if it ever happens) or depending on your market, a trip to Spring Training or NFL Training Camp to cover a popular local team.
So if these events matter to your hosts as well as to your audience, then why would sports stations not be broadcasting from them? The answer is simple – costs!
I’ve watched the amount of stations at radio row during the Super Bowl decrease every year and it baffles me. The one thing worth talking about on a sports radio station in late January/early February is the Super Bowl and yet radio operators have to be talked into heading to the host city to broadcast from it. Is there a lack of interest from the audience? No. What it comes down to is operators wanting to save money rather than thinking about the benefit for the audience, the impression it gives of the brand and challenging their sales departments to step up and activate sponsors.
Is it easy to turn a profit in one week? No. But there are certain things in sports radio that you do for profit and certain things you do to build credibility, trust and loyalty with your audience. Depending on a station’s approach, five to fifteen thousand dollars is a small expense for something as big as the Super Bowl, especially when it will cost you a lot more than that if you don’t have access to great content during an otherwise dead week. It’s even worse if your competitor goes and you don’t.
Secondly, rather than waving the white flag and assuming your clients won’t spend additional money, how about having some confidence in the fact that they’ll want to have a bigger presence during the hottest event of the year, one which your brand has incredible access to. Business owners make irrational decisions when they are passionate and emotionally connected to big events and there’s no better time to test that theory than when your station commits to broadcasting from them. You’d be amazed at what some advertisers do to make sure they own the branding around a signature sporting event.
I raise this point not because I want to get ahead on discussion about the Super Bowl but rather because we’re in the midst of the World Series and it’s an event that sports radio should be all over yet isn’t. I’m fortunate to work for a company that gets it. We could sit back, not send anyone and just rely on local people being interested in the story since the Giants are in it but rather than do that, we’re sending our afternoon show to Kansas City to broadcast LIVE from it. We’re also adding post-game shows with our host Damon Bruce as well as created post-game shows after each home game from a local venue.
Why do we do that? Because stations are expected to step up their game and treat the situation with the proper respect that it deserves and when a World Series takes place, it’s the biggest event in baseball for the year and you rally around it. Many of my guys probably get tired of me asking them to spend 2-3 hours hosting watch parties at local bars, taking photos with fans and heading to games to track down interviews but I believe that the bigger the moment, the bigger your station should look, feel and sound.
Today, many of the biggest events in sports have turned into great television productions but radio has been losing sight of what made it special. Being live and local and around teams, players and the key people of interest, is what keeps our format important to our audience. Why would we provide less coverage when bigger opportunities arise? That makes no sense.
Sure it might require spending a few extra dollars or shifting things around in your budget but those sacrifices are needed when big situations pop up because it’s what the audience deserves. Staying in your studio and hamstringing your talent and audience by providing little to no special access or coverage is not worth the praise you’ll get for winning the battle on paper with your higher ups.
I do recognize that this is a business and certain bottom lines must be met. While we may want to send our crews everywhere, that isn’t reality but I also don’t think that it’s acceptable to be absent from the key sports events of the year, especially if the team in your own backyard is involved. For national networks, it makes sense to be at a lot more locations than local stations since they serve more people. For local stations though, if a team from your town is in the World Series or NBA Finals, you should be there. A case could be made for the Stanley Cup and College Football Playoff too but it depends on your market’s appetite for those stories.
One event that should not require a battle is the Super Bowl. First of all, the #1 piece of content that moves our entire format is football. Secondly, audiences today are not split 90%/10% in favor of local team content. There are TONS of people in your respective areas who have interest in the entire NFL. That includes transplants who move to your town and continue following their hometown teams. Add to that increased interest in fantasy football and sports betting and it’s baffling to me why any programmer or host would have to make a case for being present at the biggest event in professional sports.
I’ve heard the argument in the past that it’s the same people doing interviews all over the place, it turns into a guest-fest, if the local team isn’t involved then it’s not important and I’m sure in some cases there’s a degree of relevance to it. I still though don’t buy that having too many high profile quality people on your radio station is a bad thing or that two teams which are playing for the ultimate prize in all of sports are any less of a story because they don’t happen to share the same zip code as my current radio station. Peyton Manning vs. Russell Wilson, Tom Brady vs. Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers vs. Ben Roethlisberger – those are storylines local people will be talking about all week long and the next few days after the Super Bowl has been played. If they care enough about it, you should too.
Funny enough I had this debate two years ago with a former colleague and he asked me why I felt a station needed to be there and I explained the points above that I’ve already laid out but he still didn’t agree. I then reminded him that my brand’s slogan for 4 months had been “Fueled by Football” and nowhere in that position did it say “Fueled by Local Football” or “Fueled by Football…until the biggest football event of the year occurs and we bail on it“. That seemed to connect with him because he saw the value in being consistent with the approach and hitching a brand’s wagon to the NFL, the most powerful brand in sports.
One final note on this subject. If you’re a talent and you don’t want to be there for these kind of events, shame on you. We are fortunate to do what we do and have the access that we have. If you don’t have the personal joy to talk about these events and get emotionally invested in them, then why are you on the air doing this brand of talk? Sports is fun and it provides emotional highs and lows for the audience and ourselves and being a storyteller who can take people on the journey through key events is something you should live for. If talking about the biggest events that matter to our listeners and being present and interacting with the key people involved in these storylines doesn’t appeal to you, it might be time to do a self-analysis and ask yourself whether or not this is the right format for you.
Some PD’s and Hosts will agree with me on this and others won’t. I’m sure everyone has valid reasons for why they do it the way they do and I respect that. I do believe that our industry can do a much better job of investing in the moments that matter most and rather than boxing ourselves in with the same negative views, we’ve got to start asking “how can we do it better, how can we own it and how can we give our audience a memorable content experience“?
Sure, you can choose not to cover big events and that’ll help your brand save some money. It may also help you win a short-term budget battle and make you look good on paper. I just wonder if that’s worth it, when the next piece of paper shows your ratings down during a time when they should easily go up. When that happens, is winning the battle still worth it if it means losing the war?
In today’s radio word there are brands with a heavy focus on branding and imaging and others which put a lesser importance on it. Many have different strategies on why they execute the way they do and I respect that tremendously. Since though I tell my hosts to always have an opinion and not ride the fence on the subjects they’re discussing, I can’t be a hypocrite and not offer my own personal point of view on this topic.
Take a listen around the country and you’re going to hear some stations overly produced and some with little to no imaging creativity. Those which don’t put a lot of focus into their promos, rejoins, on-air branding campaigns, etc. instead use production to air generic station liners and sales supported promotional messages. Is that wrong? Not necessarily but I always wonder why that’s acceptable. We’re in the entertainment business and expected to be creative thinkers with unique ideas yet for some stations they choose to steer clear of that approach.
A friend of mine in the industry told me a few months ago that one of the leaders in his company asked “Why do we need imaging and production? We put too much emphasis on it“! He responded by letting this person know that he was nuts to discount its importance. As I thought about their discussion I wondered why one would think its value in what we do wasn’t critical. One of the true strengths of sports radio is the ability to make our format entertaining so when one suggests making it less of a focus it surprises me. Not that it’s wrong because it’s just an opinion but I believe in making a product more entertaining not more homogenized.
As a programmer, one of the real joys for me is when I get to spend time with my Imaging Director and Assistant Program Director and talk through the various ways we want to message things or strengthen the focus of our brand. We’ll sometimes spend hours brainstorming things especially if it’s a specific event or campaign and once that position is identified and we roll it out, it becomes really cool when you can see it and hear it communicated back through the audience.
For example, when we launched 95.7 The Game, we made a decision to be aggressive and utilize the Apple vs. Mac strategy with our promos opposite our local competitor. Similar to a political campaign, we knew there would be people who would rally behind the message and some who would dislike it but regardless, we knew it would get people talking. We utilized our current imaging voice Steve Stone as the voice of the FM radio station and we hired Sean King, the former voice of our competitor to play the old and out of touch AM station. The contrast between Steve and Sean was excellent and to this day I still have people ask me about the campaign.
The full credit for the campaign’s brilliance goes to Jeff Schmidt our Imaging Director who not only knew certain intricacies about the market and our competition but also had a vision for how to bring it to life. To this day it’s one of the most fun campaigns I’ve ever been associated with. Here’s one example for you to enjoy.
While on the air it sounded cool, it more importantly got people inside our own building to recognize that we would be fearless in establishing our position in the marketplace. It also fired up local fans who were hungry for a new choice. One of the funniest and best examples of seeing the branding come to life took place a few months later when we held a contest to reward a local fan with an opportunity to host their own show on the station. At our very first audition, one guy showed up 6 hours before the contest wearing a custom made “F KNBR” t-shirt. That my friends is when you know your message has connected.
This subject always gets my juices flowing and lately I’ve wondered, can you imagine how much less interested we might be in television if they took the same approach as some sports radio stations do? How much less would we watch if we weren’t drawn to shows through promos? How much less familiar would we be with brands and their slogan’s if they weren’t pounded into our heads?
Would you know ESPN stood for the “Entertainment and Sports Programming Network” if it wasn’t explained to you? Would you know TBS to be “Very Funny” if they didn’t say they were? How about MTV and their position as “Music Television“? Ok that one we can forget since they hardly offer music anymore but hey they can’t all be grand slams.
Let’s take it beyond television stations for a second. Think about the most popular brands who advertise on many of our radio stations. Bud Light = Here We Go, McDonald’s = I’m Loving It, Geico = 15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance and Papa Johns = Better Ingredients, Better Pizza, Papa Johns. Why do these companies invest so many dollars in advertising and their marketing message? It’s simple…because it works!
Watch the MLB Playoffs, an NFL pre-game show on Sunday or your favorite local channel and how they promote an upcoming program and I guarantee you’re going to receive a strong degree of hype with one main purpose – to peak your curiosity and get you to tune in. These networks understand how to build anticipation and get you interested and they do an excellent job using creative messaging with music that makes you remember what you’re witnessing.
Case in point, check out this promo for the MLB 2014 Playoffs. You’ve likely seen it air during most of the games you’ve watched and by now now you likely have the Fitz and the Tantrums hook permanently implanted inside your brain.
One of my favorite shows on television currently is “Sons of Anarchy” on FX. Each week the shows delivers strong storylines, drama and action that leaves its fans on the edge of their seat. When you look at the way that the show is promoted at the end of each program and throughout the week through promos, it’s no surprise that the show dominates in the ratings. A great show combined with outstanding promotional support and creativity will lead to strong viewership. Here’s a look at one of the show’s promos. See if you can quickly catch on to the events on the show and feel the connection to the drama that’s about to unfold.
http://youtu.be/Ge5AgoPemOQ
Taking a look at a lighter approach, here’s the promo which ran on Tru TV to launch the comedy show “Impractical Jokers“. Watch the clip and see if you can quickly pick up on what the show is about and whether or not you find yourself laughing and curious about what happens. Even if it’s not your cup of tea, I think you’ll agree it’s easy to digest and if you’re into lighter comedy, it should peak your interest.
When you listen to sports radio stations around the country today, ask yourself when you listen if you feel hooked by the creativity and suspense on your favorite brands outside of the main talk show content. I’m not talking about whether or not you remember the name of the station and where it broadcasts from thanks to the top of the hour legal ID. I’m also not talking about liners which lead you back into a segment and remind you of who the host is and the station they’re on. I’m talking about creative production which revolves around big events/games, tune-in opportunities, originality and brand messaging that strikes a chord.
I notice that a number of CBS sports stations in local markets as well as on the national network, utilize a similar sound. CBS sports talkers will traditionally use jingle packages, older music beds and the same imaging voice (Paul Turner) and be very simple with their approach (not all of them, but most I’ve observed). Given their success in numerous markets, you can say their approach works well for them. They focus on less bells and whistles and more on the nuts and bolts.
On the other hand, ESPN local stations and the network itself do some very strong creative production and present more flair for the dramatic while also winning in numerous markets with a very different philosophy. They also tend to utilize the same imaging voice (Jim and Dawn Cutler) and ESPN branded jingles.
When I listen to those two brands, I can tell instantly how they’re different. As a listener I like it because it provides me with a choice which illustrates that there’s more than one way to run a sports radio station. You’re rarely going to hear a thirty second promo hyping up one of CBS’ local talk shows yet on an ESPN station you’ll hear promos highlighting personalities and regular big name guests. On CBS stations they use liners heading into breaks or off of their updates to reinforce their shows, play by play events or sponsorable items whereas ESPN uses liners to introduce shows, segments or more programming centric items.
Both approaches have their pluses and minuses but I tend to lean more towards the ESPN approach because I look at promos as a tool to draw more occasions to a radio station. The goal of a promo is not to fill thirty seconds of air time and showcase how cool you can sound with fancy editing tools, it’s to make people curious and hook them with interesting examples of your programming, personalities and the radio station. When you highlight personalities, guest appointments, play by play and strong campaigns effectively, they can have an impact on people.
Sometimes when we’re working on promos we forget that a promo in the minds of the audience is another commercial. While we separate it internally, those on the outside see it as an interruption and something that is keeping them away from their favorite talk show host for an extra thirty seconds. If it’s fun, suspenseful, entertaining or powerful, it can draw people in. If not, it’s a time filler and one more roadblock for the listener to navigate past.
As an example, if you’re going to promote a game and all you do is have the voice guy mention the two teams, game time and the position of the station, it’s predictable, not very creative and doesn’t generate an emotional response with your fans. But, if you do it like this, I think you fire up your fan base and get them more excited to tune in.
Ultimately, audiences will have different tastes. Some will like brands with a stronger creative delivery and others will prefer the opposite. However I believe that as more stations migrate to FM and new personalities are introduced, the ability to entertain and stand out is going to be more important. Those who wish to stay the current course can certainly do so but as new products continue to emerge, the risk of sounding mundane and trapped in yesteryear could become more problematic.
Today people are using Spotify, iTunes, iHeart, Pandora and YouTube (just to name a few), when it comes to hearing new music. In the old days, you’d have to wait for a certain time of the day for your favorite music station to introduce new songs. If that same mentality was kept in music radio today, stations would die quickly. Audiences have adapted to a new way of consuming music and they have much less patience or tolerance for clutter so it’s important to connect with them instantly or you risk losing them to other outlets.
Think about this. If the newspaper industry had been at the forefront of where new media was headed, would they have suffered as badly as they have? Today people read Twitter and Facebook first thing in the morning, not the local paper. I’m sure many in the print industry previously thought “we’re a dynasty, irreplaceable, we can’t be caught” but when people operate that way and stop evolving, they leave a door open for others to walk through. The way we now consume written content is much different than we did 10-20 years ago and it was created by an entire industry refusing to change.
As it pertains to sports radio or television, the same rules apply. Do you remember what was popular 20-30 years ago? ABC’s Wide World of Sports and ESPN’s SportsCenter were two very strong brands that during their time were seen as acceptable when it came to the studio sets, camera shots, use of video and jingles. Each show was well received by sports audiences. If those same presentations were being delivered today, they’d be rejected quickly because they don’t suit the wants and needs of today’s audience. Clearly ESPN adjusted and continues to do so which is why it’s always among the most powerful brands in America. For all of it’s imperfections, you can’t say they’re not committed to trying new things.
In my view, that’s what sports radio has to do too. Face it, people today can stream stations all over the country and they can download a show via a Podcast and skip interruptions. The goal is to make them want to experience it LIVE and if you employ great talent and enhance your opportunities for tune-ins by reinforcing the cool, dramatic and worthwhile content pieces on your brand through quality imaging, branding and production, you have a puncher’s chance of winning the battle for space inside one’s head.
You also have to write in a way that the audience relates to and make your messaging sound fun, witty and interesting. The days of “get ready for a steady dose of hardcore sports talk with Joe and Jim” are over. If that’s your level of creativity, prepare to be bypassed by those behind you. Whether you’re a PD, APD, Imaging Director, Promotions Director, Host or Producer, if you’ve got any involvement in the messaging on your radio station, put the time into it because it will stand out favorably or negatively with the audience.
Much like we do with the subjects we talk about, we’re trying to grab the most amount of people possible to consume our content, so if your hosts are being paid to talk about the key things which will grab the majority’s attention, the production and branding of a radio station needs to be focused on the most important things too. I believe it’s much better to beat the drum of 3-4 strong messages then to overload an audience with too many things. Rarely does the majority of your material get consumed that way. Trust me, I’ve learned the hard way.
When I look around the country today I find myself impressed by the production work done by a number of stations. Arizona Sports 98.7FM in Phoenix, The Ticket in Dallas, 98.7 ESPN NY, WEEI in Boston, 710 ESPN in Seattle and 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia are some who I think do a really nice job. I also think my current station 95.7 The Game does a strong job but its always harder for me to highlight my own brand because I’m too close to it. That said, credit is easy to give when you’ve got good people doing good work.
To bring this to a close, as I look to the future I hope to see stations in this format put a stronger emphasis on production value and recognize its importance in connecting with people. Listeners = supporters of advertisers and the #1 promotional tool for our radio stations. Why that’s not seen in a bigger light by everyone inside every building is puzzling. Add to that the increased engagement and activity from people through social media and you’ve got thousands each day to help spread your message.
Some companies will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a TV marketing campaign to tell local people they exist and when the commercial production process happens, numerous people from the station will get together, analyze every key detail and make sure there is a clear message presented for the viewer to consume. While that’s smart planning if you’re going to do a TV spot to promote your station, I could easily question why the same focus, energy and commitment of time isn’t given to the messages that are being delivered on your own radio station. Chances are you’ll promote your brand more on your own radio station then you’re going to on a television buy.
Sometimes when we’re in our respective buildings, we become creatures of habit and fall victim to taking the easiest path to get something done. If we concentrated more on our own messaging and creative presentation, similar to how we act when a camera is in the room and a light goes on, imagine what we might be able to offer our listeners. Who knows, maybe we’d surprise ourselves and provide more drama and entertainment value than even television can. I’m allowed to think that’s possible right?
In the broadcasting business, a “flagship station“is the broadcast outlet which originates a television or radio network, or a particular radio or television program. The term itself derives from the naval custom where the commanding officer of a group of naval ships would fly a distinguishing flag. In common parlance, “flagship” is now used to mean the most important or leading member of a group, hence its various uses in broadcasting.
In my world, the phrase “flagship station” is one which seems to carry an expectation that the radio station which broadcasts a local market team’s games, will spend the majority of content time talking about that particular team and do so in a positive fashion. From where I sit, that’s not only inaccurate but it goes against every core belief I have as a programmer.
Sports fans expect honesty, strong opinions and content on the stories that have the greatest local appeal. Whether a station gets paid by a team or pays for its local rights, if the content has lesser appeal or if the story surrounding the team is negative, your job as a personality and programmer is to tell the truth and share how you feel about it. There’s a way to present it without being overly critical but even at times when harsh truths are required, your job as a broadcaster is to serve the audience, not the team.
Two of the biggest issues I see in the broadcasting industry today on this issue are a reflection of poor expectations set on both sides. First, its the radio stations job to inform the team prior to conducting business of how they will approach the relationship outside of game broadcasts. Your team/partner, should not be blind sided and surprised by the tactics you employ on the air to engage a local audience. They don’t have to agree with you but they should know your strategy for approaching the content.
Secondly, the team needs to understand that the station’s credibility gets damaged when truths aren’t told. Furthermore, the radio station’s obligation is to provide the team with clearance for the game (and Pre/Post in most cases), not ownership of the content inside of talk shows. Anything discussed during shows is the station’s call, not a directive from the team.
I’ve seen a ton of these issues pop up across the country and when they do it’s extremely disappointing to me because fans today are not idiots. They know when their teams are bad, players say or do stupid things and when games are worth attending and when they’re not. To suggest otherwise is insulting to the customers who support each of our brands on a daily basis. It becomes even harder for the on-air talent when they’re doing the job they’re paid to do, only to have someone suggest they compromise who they are and how they present their opinion on the air.
I remember when I was in St. Louis, the Rams had started the Steve Spagnuolo era in Seattle with a bad loss. Richie Incognito had taken a personal foul penalty which got him thrown from the game and Josh Brown (who had prior success kicking in Seattle while with the Seahawks) missed two field goals which hurt the Rams and ultimately led them to a loss.
Following the game I spoke with our Rams broadcast crew and we agreed that the two people to talk with would be Incognito and Brown since the Rams had lost and their actions in the game had impacted the result. We got them both on the air, both were candid and excellent interviews and we felt we had served the Rams fan with the information they’d have the most interest in. Or so we thought!
The next day, I received a scathing phone call from a member of the team who was livid that we’d put on Incognito and Brown. They felt the team was presented in a negative light and wanted explanation why we’d go to them under such circumstances. I explained how the result (28-0 loss) was what it was and all we could do was tell the story of how it happened.
That wasn’t what this gentleman wanted to hear. He wanted to know why we wouldn’t have put on Ron Bartell since he had 5 tackles in the game and I reiterated how our job was to tell the story of the game and focus on the most important items which led to the final result. After being berated a few more times I finally exploded and asked “Did you want us to ask Ron Bartell what it was like to be burnt for 3 Touchdowns“? Needless to say, we never agreed on the issue but moved forward.
At the end of the season, we sat down to review the good, bad and in-between and most of everything was excellent but the issue of “partnership expectations” came up and we each made our points. I told the folks I was chatting with “I won’t ever compromise the integrity or credibility of the radio station” and they asked me not to paint the team in a negative light when there were other options to consider. Once again, both sides couldn’t agree but we moved forward.
The point of this is to shed some light on how this issue impacts every sports station across America and why it’s so vital for those involved in this format to protect the brand at all times. Yes we want play by play events on our airwaves and the benefit of a strong association by working with our local teams. But you can’t compromise your talent to obtain that association. I want our business partners to feel proud of being connected to us and I want them to experience a ton of favorable moments on our shows, provided they recognize that there will be other teams discussed too and when stories warrant a negative spin, it’s our job to deliver it.
I was at the Arbitron radio conference in Annapolis, MD in December 2012 when a sports radio panel was conducted and among the panelists was Chris Olivero of CBS Radio. Chris was asked about this exact situation and he said “when making play-by-play deals, make it clear to the team that outside of the games, personalities need the freedom to take the team to task when it’s called for”. I agreed with him then and still do now and that’s the approach I believe is necessary in order to make sure your weekday content is protected.
When you carry a teams games I believe you owe them the benefit of the doubt before you crush them for something bad. That doesn’t mean though that you should refrain from expressing disappointment or embarrassment when a bad situation occurs. Obviously everyone should be pulling for the team to do well but when things don’t work out, it’s our job to tell the truth and express how we feel, not sell the narrative provided to us. I understand that the team wants to limit the damage and negativity because it makes it harder to sell tickets and advertising but there’s a simple solution to that – win games!
One of the other real issues when it comes to this subject isn’t even the teams issue, it’s our own internal issue. Sometimes our own people sell their souls to land a play by play deal and after they do, they can’t handle the pressure that comes from the team bitching when the talent deliver strong on-air takes. Rather than reminding them of the separation between church and state and the fact that in most cases the station is paying for the rights to air their games, people often bend and do whatever it takes to avoid hearing more complaints.
From my chair, complaints aren’t a bad thing. If a personality says something strong enough to make you remember it and reach out to call, email, tweet or text me, chances are it was really good or bad enough to be fired over. Thankfully, more times than not it’s been really good.
The other internal issue I see is that our own people are hesitant to cover topics that are uncomfortable surrounding the team that a station may be affiliated with. Giving the team the benefit of the doubt is fair and shows you’re conscious of the business relationship, but having the ability to do ones job and speak passionately and candidly about a situation should not be something we have to fight for. If a pitcher loses 12 straight starts and a host says “he’s garbage and shouldn’t be on this team“, there’s no evidence to suggest he’s wrong. Even if someone wants to disagree, that’s ok. It’s strictly an opinion and it’s our job to share it.
The other touchy issue that pops up is when local teams expect more coverage time than others in the market. For example, if you listen to WFAN in New York, you’ll hear Mike Francesa during afternoon drive and he’s a proud Yankees fan. Prior to 2014 when the station landed the radio rights to the NY Yankees games, WFAN carried the NY Mets for 26 years.
Anybody who listened to Mike or Mike and the Mad Dog over the years, knew that the Mets games were on the air but the Yankees discussion was going to dominate the majority of the conversation on the afternoon show. Did the Mets like it? Probably not, but the content focus was done that way for one reason, the Yankees have a larger draw in the NY market than the Mets. If you’re playing a game of delivering ratings and trying the attract the most people possible to your business, you give them the content they seek most.
Sure they could have went full throttle with Mets coverage and maybe they could have mixed it in more but it’s hard to argue with the data in the market. I went thru the same thing in St. Louis and am doing so again here in the Bay Area. In St. Louis, the Cardinals drive the bus. You can try to program against it but the reality is, that’s what people want. You either give them a strong dose of it or they’ll find someone else who does.
In the Bay Area, it’s more like the NY situation. There are 2 football teams and 2 baseball teams and the fan bases for them couldn’t be more different. The Giants and 49ers deliver the strongest amount of interest but my station carries the A’s and Raiders. Nobody wants to see the Oakland teams win more than me for selfish reasons but to ignore what 75% of the market likes would be irresponsible and stupid. Our hardcore fans for the teams we carry may not like it or agree with it but we are running a business and trying to serve the largest amount of customers possible.
I’ve told people when asked about this “if you live in an area where people love to eat steak and you open up a restaurant and don’t offer steak, expect them to eat everywhere else besides your place“. I didn’t create the local market interest or geographical dominance for the Giants and 49ers, their results and better venues did. If their business model has the most appeal to the local audience, then it’s my job to serve that brand of content to them. This article by the NY Times shows what some regions face and this becomes really challenging for stations who operate the format in these places. You can ignore the facts and do it differently but I believe in programming to the strengths of a market and I expect my hosts to do the same.
Not everyone who has worked for me has agreed with that philosophy. I have seen guys with hardcore Giants affiliations wish we’d do more Giants and I’ve seen guys with hardcore A’s passions wonder why we’re not doing 100% A’s programming. In St. Louis I had a few guys who thought we should do nothing but Rams/NFL and ignore the Cardinals and others who thought we should focus on the Cardinals exclusively and ignore the Rams altogether. They all had legitimate reasons for their views but once again, you’ve got to make a decision and stick with it and realize that you can’t please everyone.
The bottom line, you’ve got to have a blend. In a market with divided interests, serving both sides of my market is important. In St. Louis, serving the Cardinals fan was critical but so was satisfying the appetite of football fans. Yes the ratings will be higher for the SF teams and the Cardinals but I do believe that there is a responsibility to drive higher interest in the brands you’re affiliated with too. To use my current brand as an example, we’re 4 years into the development of the radio station and the interest in the A’s has grown significantly since we started, even though it still pales in comparison to the Giants. A new ballpark and continued success could eventually see that gap become smaller which is what we’re all hoping for.
People that I work with know that the term “flagship station” doesn’t sit well with me. I prefer “home of“. That tells the audience that we carry the games and are going to promote them as much as possible and you can expect us to talk plenty about the team. What it doesn’t say though is that we’re planting our flag in the ground for the team we carry and promising to deliver only the good news and ignore the bad.
I also believe in doing weekly partnership agreements with local players, coaches, general managers and executives and in most cases everything runs smoothly but there are a few times where it gets bumpy. I’ve told agents and those I do deals with “we’ll be fair, honest and give you the benefit of the doubt but if things don’t work out or the organization has a negative situation on its hands, you’ve got to understand the position of our people and respect that they’re going to ask about it“. Luckily guys like Billy Beane, Trent Baalke, Steven Jackson and Isaac Bruce have understood that over the years and it’s worked out well.
While this is how I see things when it comes to play by play relationships with sports radio stations, there are plenty of others who disagree and win differently. I’ve seen brands only talk positive about the teams they cover and stay away from discussing the other local teams in a market and if that’s the way you prefer to go, more power to you. There’s clearly more than one way to skin the cat.
I firmly believe that honesty, strong opinions and a balance of discussion on local market teams is important and sports radio brands can’t just be spitting the message of what they’ve been told to deliver. It’s easier when you’re wearing the shoes of ESPN and can remind the NBA you spend 1.4 billion per year for the right to carry games and be honest but whether a brand spends 1.4 billion or 1 dollar, honesty and delivering the truth in a passionate way, is something that should never be for sale.
Your job is to play the hits that matter to the audience and speak honestly about how you feel about them. Audiences will respect and appreciate you for that and you’ll see it reflected in your ratings. Anyone who asks you to compromise your core beliefs and ignore the best interests of your listeners, is not thinking about you or your brand, only themselves. No amount of money or affiliation is worth that exchange.
The first time I became aware of Darren “D-Mac” McKee was in the late 2000’s. He was working for AM 950 The Fan in Denver before Lincoln Financial made the decision to put the station on the FM dial. I remember watching a funny video feature which was a spinoff of “Pardon The Interruption” (if memory serves me right, I believe it was called “Pardon Our Low Budget Production” or something close to that) and I was instantly impressed with the creativity that went into the bit. Darren was doing some hosting at night as well on the radio station and you could tell quickly that he understood how to drive a radio show.
As the years have passed, he’s since climbed the ladder in the Denver market and become a major part of 104.3 The Fan’s success. His pairing with former Bronco Alfred Williams has given the radio station a strong presence in afternoon drive and that has earned the respect of others in the industry. In 2012 and 2013, Talkers Magazine ranked the show #53 among the best sports talk radio shows in the country. That was the highest ranking given to a Denver sports talk show.
When I listen to Darren the first couple of things that jump out to me are how he keeps the pace of the show moving. His energy is high and he’s very connected to the content he discusses and that keeps the show from feeling mundane or stuck in a rut. Darren also does an excellent job of listening to his partner, his callers and his guests and he knows when to follow up on things or move on to something else. As the driver of a show this is a necessary skill and you can tell he’s worked hard to develop that part of his game.
I also think his chemistry with Alfred is very good and there’s a genuine respect and interest to work together from each side of the studio. Their combination (radio guy and ex-athlete) has become a formula which is extremely successful in the sports radio format across the country and it works because Darren brings a passionate, voice of the fan approach to what he does and Alfred shares his insights and personal experiences from his professional football career which lets the audience in on how the athlete thinks and what it’s like in the locker room.
You can tell that each guy knows his role on the show and the majority of the discussions I’ve consumed lean Broncos/NFL and in the Denver market, they’re playing the hits that the audience seeks. Darren doesn’t try to get too deep into subjects or show off how much knowledge he has, which for the hardcore sports guy might not be his cup of tea. The reason that works though is because he’s playing to the majority of the audience and making the content easy to relate to.
Having a background in both music radio and sports talk radio has also served him well. With the station being on FM you can tell the music skews younger which is smart and his energy, pacing and ability to entertain make the show a fun listen.
I recently reached out to him to pick his brain on some of the ways he approaches his show and to get an idea of some of the trials and tribulations he’s experienced during his career and I think you’ll enjoy reading his responses. They’re very detailed, informative, candid and interesting and I think they’ll paint a picture which shows you how bumpy the radio business can be when you’re working your way up and how rewarding it can be when you have success.
Q: When did you first become interested in sports radio and which personalities did you listen to?
A: I was a much bigger talk radio and FM morning show guy. My absolute biggest inspiration was in Boston. The irony is that this heritage rock station changed formats and frequencies and is now a sports talk station – 98.5 The Sports Hub!
Growing up as a kid in the 70’s and as a teenager in the 80’s, sports talk was reserved for an hour on Sunday nights. So I was more influenced by Boston sports announcers like Johnny Most, and Ned Martin. I also remember TV guys like Bob Lobel, Bob Neumeier, John Dennis and an incredible sports writing collection of guys from the Globe like Peter Gammons and Bob Ryan. My father actually played college baseball with Will McDonough. Talk show guys like Eddie Adelman were just getting their own shows but political talk guys like Jerry Williams were a bigger deal.
I never thought I would be like any of those guys. I did NOT grow up listening to Howard Stern. I found him WAY later after I was already in professional radio. Charles Laquidara was my main man and I was lucky enough to intern for him one summer. I learned a ton in three months working on the Big Mattress.
Once I got to college all the sports guys were such dorks, I didn’t want anything to do with them. They were all incredibly charged up about high school football and women’s basketball. However at my college station, we had one 1 hour sports talk show on Sundays from 6-7. It was pretty dry and boring until one guy made it sound fun. That was Craig Carton who was a fun troublemaker back in college and is now obviously doing great with Boomer Esiason on the FAN in NYC. Craig was really onto something early. It was a blend of typical FM morning show stuff and sports. He was the only guy to do that in college and it sounded great. I was doing all the typical FM morning show hijinks and was the Program Director for a couple years in college with Craig.
I also was influenced by other sports guys I went to school with like Mike Tirico, Ian Eagle, Howard Deneroff and Scott Cordischi to name a few that people may have ears of. There were a bunch of other great guys that are a little bit anonymous. Syracuse was incredible for the amount of talented and motivated guys that were there in the late 80’s and 90’s.
Mike and I never worked college radio together but did work at a professional FM Classic Rock station – 104.7 KIX-FM. Mike was a superstar. As a senior he was the main TV anchor on the CBS affiliate and he did morning sports from his house on our rock station. On Sunday nights between his TV broadcasts he’d come to the radio station and host a one hour talk show on WFBL – a music of your life (Frank Sinatra) station. Somehow a sales guy convinced a client it would be a great idea to stop playing elevator music for an hour and have Mike talk sports.
I was literally on the other side of the wall playing the Sunday night six pack. We’d take a classic rock classic CD and play the whole thing straight – six of em! I would talk five times in six hours and basically just hit play. So quite often I’d call in as Fred from Solvay and question why Doug Flutie wasn’t in the NFL. Dumb stuff like that. Quite often I was Mike’s only caller.
As dumb as a premise as that show was, I was blown away that Mike at such a young age could sit there and put together an hour of seamless sports talk with no callers, no producers, no nothing. He has an extraordinary memory and such a special gift. It was a HUGE influence.
I would later get advice from a Denver talk show legend – Peter Boyles – who told me, you have to be able to do it on your own. You can’t depend on anybody. That basically goes against all of the typical FM morning show stuff. I love working as a team with Alfred Williams, but I have taken heed to that advice and have also worked hard so that if need be I could do any show on any topic with zero callers at any time.
Q: Your time at Syracuse University helped put you on the path to pursue the broadcasting business. Take me through your start and how it led you next to Buffalo.
A: I worked part time as a DJ and assistant production guy at 104.7 KIX-FM as a junior in college. I also interned for the morning show “The Fatman’s Wake up Service”. Steve Corlett was the host and his co-host was Lois Burns and they had regular comedians on such as Ed Wenck.
Myself, Steve and Ed grew a very tight bond. Lois was insanely jealous and took it out on me. We were a guy oriented show so I started applying for credentials for all of the SU sporting events. It was a great deal because I lived on campus and the station was a half hour away. It gave us presence with the teams and players that other FM stations didn’t have and it gave me floor seats to SU hoops games. I was literally going to class with the guys I was covering. It was a blast.
As a senior, they hired me full time to produce the morning show and cover SU sports. I loved it. I was making a staggering 200 bucks a week but I didn’t care. I was putting in HUGE hours at the station and I would also be the fill in commercial production director when the main guy (Ed LaComb) would go on vacation.
When I graduated college, they wanted me to stick sound and I did too. My girlfriend was a year behind me, so I actually spent an extra year in college without going to school – kind of like the athletes I was covering. The Fat Man got offered a job at a competing station in town. He wanted to bring me and Ed with him, but the station – 95x – wanted him to work with a guy who was already there. It was an awful show because they simply had no chemistry. Had 95x put me, Ed and Steve on the same show, we may still be there today. It was one of a dozen lessons in why chemistry matters more to a show than names.
To that point, the classic rock station offered me and Ed the morning show at KIX, but we had to keep Lois. She HATED me because she thought I was the reason Steve left. It was awful. Anything she could do to screw up the show she did. Terrible experience working with her. However, Ed and I became best friends. I was 22 and he was a few years older and a headlining comedian. I loved working with such a funny guy. We even formed a comedy band – Pig Squeals in Fear – and played a bunch of shows. I played Drums and Ed was the guitar lead singer front man. We had a blast.
At the beginning the radio show was actually a success. We tied for first adults 25-54 in our first book but working with Lois was awful. Then it became apparent why the station hired me as a 22 year morning show host on a station geared towards 40 year olds – they were selling the station and just needed to go as cheap as they could. They sold it and were going Country. We all had a couple of months to find another job. Ed and I desperately looked together as a team. We just didn’t have enough traction under our tires.
I also looked for things on my own and was offered a producers job in Buffalo. One of the hardest things I ever had to do was break up with my best friend. Looking back, I never should’ve taken the job because it knocked me down both financially and in my job title. I was a host going to a producer job. Big mistake.
I was in Buffalo about a month and I was offered a full time morning show job in State College, PA. I turned it down because the market size was tiny and I was pretty impressed with myself that I was now in an NFL city. Another mistake. If I wanted to be an on air person, I needed people to see me as an on air person. I spent more than the next decade of my life trying to shake that producer role. Ironically Ed was offered the State College job. He turned that job into On-Air gigs in Pittsburgh, Indy and San Francisco. I found myself jealous and mad that I didn’t take that State College gig when I had the chance. Ed ended up back in Indy where he is very happy and is a local media legend.
However I loved my time in Buffalo because I became best friends with another comedian – Rob Lederman. The main host of the morning show I worked on at 97 Rock (Larry Norton) was another whack job that I couldn’t stand. I had morphed from a straight producer to the sports guy sidekick. We would end our relationship when he called me a dick on the air. My wife (my previous girlfriend in college) called in to say “don’t call Darren a dick” and he told her to “F-off” in front of me. He later was heard calling her the C-word after the show was over.
I refused to work with him. I thought they would just fire me for not coming back to work but instead they put me to work behind the scenes producing the “Shredd and Ragan” show which I’m proud to say is STILL on the air in Buffalo today! Those guys were great. Love em both. They did a ton of sports stuff too. I thought I would simply do that job for a short period of time and leave Buffalo but I was friends with the President of the Sabres and I ended up getting offered a season long job as the Pre-Game, between periods and Post-Game host. That was an absolute blast and my first real experience doing straight up sports talk.
I also worked for a Program Director – Bob Richards – who was a visionary when it came to what would become FM sports talk. He eventually put myself, Craig Carton and Marc Stout together in Denver. This guy really believed in me. Man, you have to have a guy like that in your corner if you are gonna succeed. Bob has gone through a ton of things in his professional life and anybody who gets him is very lucky.
Q: Following Buffalo, you moved to the nation’s capital. What were your primary job functions in DC and how would you describe the experience there?
A: Ahhh DC! Well, this was a tricky situation. I thought I was going to get a job in Denver but I didn’t. I thought I was going to get renewed for my Sabres job but the guy who hired me (the President of the team – Larry Quinn) got fired so I didn’t get renewed. I was going to do the Sabres gig and then dump them mid season. Instead I was on the beach. This would be the only and longest time I was without a gig since 1987. I was unemployed for 5 months.
It was devastating not getting the Denver job. I had been flown out for a ten day tryout around Thanksgiving and thought I would start in some sort of role January 1st. When it fell through, I was in a heap of trouble. I started applying for everything. I almost ended up in Knoxville. I was blown away by the facilities and the morning guys were terrific but I had an interview with WARW in DC the next week. Knoxville was just too small.
I accepted a job as a producer for the legendary Greaseman. He was clearly on the downward slide. Even though everybody knew him in DC, his shtick was OLD. He didn’t want anything to do with me, but the PD – Phil Locasio (who ironically use to work at my college radio station years before I was there – WJPZ Z89) smartly knew something had to be done. I hated taking a backwards step as a producer but I had little choice. My wife and I were running out of money and this was the largest market and salary I had ever been offered. I just couldn’t turn it down.
Two days before I was supposed to start, the Greaseman was fired for making a racist joke. It was a total shitstorm. The PD told me to come down anyway and I’d be part of whatever was going to happen. I was in a hotel room the night before my first day of work and the guy I’m supposed to work with was on “Night Line with Ted Koppell” apologizing to the nation. Surreal!
For a short period of time I thought this was going to be a HUGE break but in the end they decided not to do a morning show at all. They stuck me on nights where I was absurdly bored. I tried my best to be the sports guy and I covered the Capitals, Wizards and Orioles. I never was there long enough to cover the Redskins.
About a month into my gig, I was offered a producing job with the Regular Guys at 96 Rock in Atlanta. My wife though made me turn that job down. She said she didn’t want to move twice in a month and I didn’t blame her. However I was crazy to turn down such a great gig.
The PD at WARW wanted me to introduce tunes at night but I was a loose canon. Finally he gave me a months notice and incredibly a couple of great jobs opened up. I was offered a job in Denver and Boston at the same time. Both on FM rock stations that leaned heavily towards sports. In fact the station in Boston – WAAF – not as influential to me as WBCN, but great nonetheless, had an Ex-Bruin – Lyndon Byers as a co-host.
Initially I accepted the job at ‘AAF, but KBPI came over the top on salary and health benefits (my wife was pregnant at the time) plus they were going to put my name on the show so finally I was going to be a host. This was tough news on my folks who thought I was coming back to Boston. It’s funny to this day I can’t believe I turned down a chance to work in the city I always dreamed of working in.
But Denver is incredible. I’m a big time skier and I was thrilled to call Denver home and still am!
The next morning WAAF offered me the gig and I took it – didn’t sign a contract but verbally accepted. I was going to give my two weeks notice later that day when I went in. Amazingly, two hours later, the DC PD called to tell me he was firing me that day! This was fantastic because now I was going to receive 6 weeks severance! It was the quickest and easiest firing ever! Incredibly they still needed me to introduce records that night. Can you believe they would fire somebody at noon and trust them to be in the building that night? I didn’t pay much attention to the playlist that night and I think I put the guy who delivered my Chinese food on the air. It was actually a really fun show.
I don’t have any bad things to say about DC. I would’ve fired me too. Square peg round hole sort of deal.
Two days before the moving truck showed up we decided Denver not Boston. The moving company didn’t seem to care. It was ’99, my wife was 5 months pregnant, I was starting a new job on a show whose name I had come up with “The Locker Room” a blend of rock, sports and guy talk. This IS the formula for the VAST majority of successful FM Sports Talk shows in this country today. Just take away the tunes.
Q: So you leave DC to head to Denver and have been there since 1999. Who hired you there and how has your rise in the market come about?
A: I was hired by Bob Richards. Bob teamed me up with another guy from Buffalo Marc Stout and Carton. Craig had also worked in Buffalo at WGR but we didn’t cross paths there. Craig continued to be way before his time in talk radio and was doing an outrageous show on the very sports stodgy AM 950 The Fan. This WAS your grandfathers sports talk station. Old and boring. Craig didn’t see eye to eye with the PD and wanted a change.
Right off the bat the show was different. I loved it, but Stout and Carton didn’t get along. It put me in the middle and that was a bummer. Craig quit after 6 months and they put us on with a guy Willie B who knew nothing about sports but he was a blue collar car guy who fit the format perfectly. We had a terrific run but in the end we were oil and water. Too bad because we had the makings of a twenty year show.
Then Bob Richards left to be the Ops Manager of our Clear Channel cluster in Colorado Springs and Mike O’Connor took over. He once told us that whatever we said on the air had to be better than Godsmack going into Zepplin. What a turd.
He along with Willie (who was trying to become the new PD) would eventually fire me. They blamed me for the morning show ratings decline. Mike thought I shouldn’t be on the air at all! I believe he is now in charge of internet cartoons or something ridiculous for Clear Channel. Believe me when Alfred and I were accepting the personality of the year award at the Colorado Broadcasters Association Awards banquet last spring, I was thinking about good ole Mike.
It’s petty but I’ve been told my entire career I’m not good enough. I’ve been extremely lucky to have a handful of people believe in me especially Bob Richards, Kris Olinger (I did 2 and 1/2 years of straight political talk on a part time basis on KOA, KHOW and AM 760) and Steve Price (General Sales Manager at KKFN). Steve recently had a falling out with management and finds himself on the beach which bums me out. Bob Richards is in flux and Kris has had her ups and downs. I would do anything to help any of these people.
Tim Spence was a great friend too. He offered me my first regular Monday through Friday gig at the Fan in Denver. The only bummer was that he wasn’t in favor of me being hired full time at my current gig with Alfred. I wish he was. It was Steve Price that fought for me. I am also grateful to be supported by our overall station GM Bob Call and our corporate PD John Dimmick. They have shown faith in me and I will always be loyal to them and Lincoln Financial Media which has easily been the best company I have ever worked for.
Since Al and I started five years ago together this October, we have had huge ratings success, local and national recognition, and we have faced many different competitive challenges. The most stunning was when KOA went away from talk altogether to a news and info format. Dave Logan is a guy I look up to who had been doing that show for 20 years. I was shocked, flattered and humbled. It’s one thing to chase away a show or two but to have a station – one I worked for and WANTED to work full time for – change formats, is for me mind blowing.
Q: As someone who is from Massachusetts and has moved to multiple markets, what are some things you have done to blend in and gain the market’s acceptance?
A: Well, I still get told to move back to Massachusetts quite often. However I haven’t lived there since I was 18 I’m now 45. I don’t think there’s anything that can ultimately replace time in a market. That’s not to say a great show couldn’t come into any market and do well. It’s just that I have an inherent advantage of being in the same place for 15 years!
If you were a 17 year old headbanger you are probably a 32 year old Broncos fan. You have literally grown up listening to me. You graduated high school, college, the military and have been through marriage and kids or divorce, disease and death and joy and sorrow and I’ve been there.
You may even hate my guts but deep down you probably love hating my guts. I really am a Denver guy. I haven’t been here as long as others but long enough to earn respect. It would be hard for me to do that in another market and I honestly feel it’s one of the reasons so many national shows fail.
That being said, a funny/entertaining show will always work. So, no long standing show can rest on their laurels or they’ll be thrown out with the trash. I stay hungry and I grind it out every day. When I was fired from KBPI, I worked for Clear Channel in the Springs for 5 and 1/2 years until they fired me again (same idiot GM both times). I commuted over an hour each way 6 times a week! What an exhausting grind. So I don’t take my full time job in Denver for granted. I work my ass off every day to do things most sports talk guys don’t and that is an insane daily beat covering the Broncos. The listeners know it and expect it but you have to earn it every day.
Q: During your time at The Fan, you’ve ascended to PM drive and developed a strong and successful partnership with your co-host and former Bronco Alfred Williams. How would you describe the show to someone who’s not familiar with it and why do you think it’s connected so well in your market?
A: It’s the typical sports talk formula geek/jock. But I actually played competitive sports and continue to coach it. In fact, I along with my wife run our own competitive youth baseball organization. (Creekflashbaseball.org). So Al has a certain respect that I at least know the competitive nature of sports.
The key to the show is the chemistry between me and Al. We couldn’t look more different. I’m 5’8″ 175ish and white. Al is 6’6″ 300 ish and black. But we are the same age 45. We live a mile from each other – total coincidence. We have a ton of the same friends. Our kids go to the same schools. We are kindred spirits.
We have a huge amount of mutual respect for each other and on top of that we have a world class producer/sound manager (I don’t want to say board op because he is WAY above that) in Ryan Edwards who is also a talented talk show host himself!
We have a PD – Nate Lundy – who is extremely supportive of our show and we have a dedicated sales staff that we are always trying to help. It’s the total package that makes it work.
You have to love where you work to have a great show and we are very lucky to have all those things in our favor. It allows us to get along great.
Q: Previously Mark Schlereth was also part of the show before ESPN switched affiliations in the market. How was the show different with Mark and performing as a 3-person show?
A: I hated the 3 person dynamic but I love Mark. I have my own voice and being a traffic cop isn’t much fun. There aren’t many great 3 person shows. Some, but not many. It’s just too many voices and I think it’s confusing for the listeners in terms of roles.
Ryan is the perfect third guy in a chime in producer sort of way but being around Mark was awesome. Just like Al, he is incredibly talented as a media guy. He’s unafraid, intelligent and funny. I wish I could do a whole other show with Mark as long as I wouldn’t have to give up my show with Al. The show broke up because we lost our ESPN affiliation. Ultimately we’ve had better success as a two man show.
Q: Since arriving in Denver you’ve had the opportunity to work for two well accomplished Sports Programmers (Nate Lundy and Tim Spence) – what’s one thing each of them has done to help you improve as a host?
A: The best thing they both have done is allow Al and I a significant amount of freedom. They weren’t over our shoulder nitpicking us on tiny things. If it’s a big deal, sure let’s talk about it. But this is varsity, division one, radio here. You have to accomplish a ton just to get here and most importantly stay here. We have worked as partners not adversaries and overall it’s been terrific. They know they don’t have to be on my ass every day to do my job.
Q: Having worked in rock radio, how has that helped you in transitioning into sports radio? What aspects of that format have you carried over to what you do currently?
A: The dumbest thing anybody has ever said to me is “that is a rock radio thing, this is sports talk”. Moronic. Calling me a shock jock is equally as stupid. The key is to connect with your audience, period. Shows like Francesa or Mad Dog just do not connect with me at all. Jim Rome doesn’t connect with me. Most shows here in Denver don’t connect. But look at long standing FM morning show hosts on rock stations and I guarantee they know the elements that make sense to their target audience. If I was starting a station THOSE are the kind of hosts I would look at first. Nobody wants to listen to an encyclopedia.
Also, if you can’t make me laugh then I don’t have time for you. The FM guys absolutely understand humor or they wouldn’t be around. I would take those guys and stick them with an EX-NFL guy in town who has a solid personality and roll the dice! What a smart FM music jock gets is timing and rhythm. Now trust me there are plenty of crappy guys doing that job but when you find great ones, it’s special.
Guys listening want to laugh so what’s wrong with a funny bit or parody song or goofy contest or any of those other typical FM staples? The snobbery of traditional talk radio is obnoxious and arrogant. You’ve got to put on a show. The show has to be credible so you have to put in the work. I’ve been ultimately successful because most of my competition isn’t funny and they are lazy and they are sports nerds who you would rather poke with an ice pick in the eye rather than sit down and have a beer with.
Q: When it comes to preparing for your show, how much time do you put in each day and what are some ways you help yourself get ready?
A: It never stops!! It’s impossible to put a number on the hours. From the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep, I am gathering info, covering teams, working sources etc. Social media has been gargantuan. Any host who doesn’t fully embrace social media is an idiot. I give out my cell number on the air! I get info from drivers and cooks as well as owners and athletes.
Q: On the subject of interacting with the audience, do you prefer to take calls, texts or tweets? What’s your reasoning for the approach you take and how do you see audiences connecting with shows most in the future?
A: Nothing is black and white so I think you need a blend. But any show that depends on callers is clearly a bad show. I throw a topic out and I may get 30 texts in five minutes compare to 3 calls! They are all people and all listeners right? That being said reading is radio death! Any show that just reads listener texts is boring too! It’s gotta be a blend. This is the artistry in our job. I take pride in having a good feel for the flow. Your driver/host has to be able to find that balance. Most jocks don’t get this and stink in that role.
Q: You’ve been known to do a few interviews in other cities which have fired up other station’s local audiences. How much satisfaction do you get out of getting under their skin? What’s the worst feedback you’ve received as a result of it?
A: I’ve never had any negative feedback except from pissed off fans. I think we all have an obligation to help each other and the key to that is to not be boring! This love affair we have with writers is stupid. Give me an energetic and opinionated talk show host over some egghead any day of the week. I love doing the shows and as long as I’m asked I will gladly say yes no matter the show or market size. My only exception is in Boston where I have an allegiance to 98.5 because of how I grew up. I would never be on another sports station in Boston besides those guys.
Q: How important do you think it is for an On-Air personality to attend games/practices and develop relationships with teams, players, coaches, etc? Why?
A: Well for me it’s all about the Broncos and the NFL. I have found myself staying away from the locker room and spending most of my time at practice and talking to coaches. Here’s why. When I get a player on the air, I don’t want him to think of it like he does all the other sports guys in town. I want to be able to be honest and have fun but I don’t want to be too inside or too friendly.
I have also found that most players have no idea what is going on except for their position. I rely a ton on Ex-Players for perspective. I talk to reporters who ARE friends with players and I have close relationships with coaches. But most talk show hosts are lazy. Just by being there every day I pick up a ton. So I think that effort is critical. I never played the game but I know what’s going on and that gives me a huge daily advantage. Plus via social media I raise my cred.
Q: Some in the industry put a lot of stock in ratings, some don’t and your show has rated well. How important are ratings to you and how much attention do you pay to how the audience uses the show?
A: It’s ALL about ratings! Anybody who says it isn’t doesn’t have any. That being said, if you can generate revenue I suppose it doesn’t matter. But we compete against music stations that have high ratings not other talk shows. In terms of men 25-54 we’ve been so far ahead of ALL other talks shows sports or otherwise that it’s a complete joke. Guess what happens? We are always held to that standard. Is it fair to compare us to a Spanish music station? No, but that doesn’t matter. So even though we’ve crushed our competition for years in terms of delivering the actual content and thus revenue, we are constantly scrutinized for ratings.
But like I said, if you can hoodwink the neighborhood bar that ratings don’t matter – good for you. Eventually, clients get that they are advertising to almost a zero audience.
Q: To someone on the outside looking in, how would you describe the Denver Sports Radio scene? What’s the most underrated aspect of it?
A: The sports talk radio scene here is insane. There are 4 full time sports talk stations. You could call KOA a fifth up until a couple of months ago. In addition there is Spanish sports and several rock stations that talk sports a lot. We’re one of the few markets that has every major league sports team and college too. In addition we have everything from Australian rules football to pro cycling. It’s crazy.
What’s underrated is that people may think of it as a cowtown but there are more media members covering the Broncos on a daily basis than any other NFL team.
Q: If an aspiring broadcaster is reading this and looking for some advice, based on what you’ve gone thru during your career, what can you pass along to help them in trying to be successful?
A: Don’t wait, create! Find a hole and just make it happen. Look for untraditional stations and avenues and just start doing it or suggest doing it. Use social media and become a better writer. It will help you analyze and verbalize things.
Also get in your car and start doing your own talk show. Can you speak for ten straight minutes and be entertaining? If so, you can probably do that a dozen times a day and that’s a talk show. Read a ton too. Even non sports stuff. It helps with finding colorful language. Don’t wait for permission just start doing!
Broadcasting colleges are extremely overrated but go somewhere that has significant competition. Newhouse at Syracuse is WAY overrated but the kind of kids that go to school there are first class! Don’t make it easy on yourself.
Also don’t get into a situation when you’re young where you can’t get out easily to pursue work. Wait as long as you can for marriage, kids, buying a house, etc. If that full time gig is in Fort Wayne, IN and you live in Connecticut – MOVE!
Darren McKee aka D-Mac can be heard weekdays from 3p-6p on 104.3 The Fan in Denver. For more information on his show “The Drive” which he hosts opposite former Denver Bronco Alfred Williams, click here. You can also follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
Look around the country today and you’re sure to find former football players invading your sports talk radio dial. This wasn’t always the case but over the past 10-15 years the list of former athletes doing talk radio has grown leaps and bounds and in most cases, the formula has worked very successfully.
I took a look around in as many markets as I could and I found all of these former professional football players doing local sports radio over the past year. Click here for the list.
I’m sure I missed some so if I didn’t list someone, don’t shoot me. What I think this list shows though is how popular this formula has become for sports talk programmers and listeners alike. It also shows that athletes are more interested in the media business as a second career than ever before.
So why is it attractive? Well as someone who has hired 3 former athletes as weekday hosts (2 of them being former football players) and had success with them, there are a few reasons why I believe it works.
1. They’re instantly identified and liked by listeners in your market – half the battle is getting people to the dial, these guys do that!
2. They’re very coachable – These guys were under the microscope every game and used to receiving coaches feedback; they carry it over to our business and can handle being challenged.
3. They study and know how to relate – Most former athletes study to fill in the blanks where they’re weak. They also try to relate their past experiences to current subjects. It’s not about who knows the most, it’s about who can explain it well, share a well informed opinion and make it easy for the audience to understand.
4. They are extremely marketable and attractive to advertisers – Getting exposure and making $ is a big part of our business. If I walk into a client’s office, they’re not blown away but they may do a deal. If a host who’s won a Super Bowl or World Series ring walks into the room, client’s are instantly engaged and thinking about how they can be closer and more connected to your brand and that particular individual.
I could list many more reasons why I think they’ve connected so well but one thing that often gets lost is how hard some of these guys work. Walking off of a football field and into a radio studio can be intimidating for a lot of guys especially when they’ve only been focused on one particular sport for 10-15 years. Most of the players that I’ve worked with have understood that preparation and being receptive to criticism are an important part of this business and they put the time in to improve.
To every broadcaster who’s spent time learning this craft, there are certain things that are natural and you just pick them up as you go along. That’s what football players think when they take on the best athletes in the world. But introduce a former player to the word re-set or tease or ask them to fill 45-minutes of air time with compelling storytelling, identified headlines and strong payoffs and they’re likely to look at you like you have 5 heads. It’s no different than a broadcaster walking into an NFL locker room and being given a playbook and being asked to run a play.
Today in sports radio, the combination of the local radio personality and the ex-athlete is growing and I believe it’s because athletes draw a large amount of revenue and attention to the show/station, while the radio pro guides the programs and presents the view of the audience. Having a view from the seats and a view from the field creates a unique blend and plenty of differing viewpoints and that leads to numerous content opportunities. The tandems that find their groove, often deliver strong results for their respective brands.
A few guys who have made the transition from professional football into the sports talk radio universe were kind enough to share some thoughts with me on a number of subjects. If you’ve ever wondered about the mindset of an athlete as it applies to working in this medium, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation.
Our 3 Featured Experts:
Ron Wolfley – Arizona Sports 98.7 FM – weekdays 6a-10a
Sean Salisbury – Yahoo Sports Radio – weekdays 4p-8p
Brock Huard – 710 ESPN Seattle – weekdays 7a-10a
Q: What was the hardest part of transitioning from the football field into the broadcast studio?
Sean: The hardest thing was being precise. Hitting your points and moving on and realizing my football career was natural. The studio wasn’t. Double time is needed in preparation.
Brock: Starting over. Having to swallow hard and know that the value of my time and talents was going to start at the ground floor. Even if early media assignments paid less than the babysitter rate at home, you have to humble yourself and start anew.
Wolf: Making sure I didn’t make the game seem easy to play. There seem to be a lot of broadcasters that make player or coach failure sound like it should never happen. I had to remember how tough it was to compete at the highest level our species can generate.
Q: How intimidating or challenging has it been to get into deeper discussion on other sports you haven’t been as familiar with? What have you done to catch up and prepare yourself for those subjects?
Brock: Not that difficult, but you must be curious, willing to ask questions and admit when you do not know. Transparency and honesty pair pretty well with humility too.
Sean: It wasn’t intimidating for me. I didn’t play football until high school. I was into baseball, hoops and hockey first. They came natural to me and I prepared as if it was a weekly game plan. Make sure I know everything about a defense and what’s happening in all sports. My focus is on over preparing and then having an opinion. My biggest asset though has always been my strength in other sports. At times they’re even better than my football material.
Wolf: I was a three sport student-athlete. Although I have to work harder at baseball, basketball and hockey, the commonality of competition remains the baseline no matter what sport you’re talking about.
Q: What’s your approach when it comes to being critical of your former team, teammates and front office friends or acknowledging something you did during your career that might ruffle some feathers?
Wolf: My approach will never change: I speak what I believe to be true – good or bad. It doesn’t make me rught or wrong it just makes it my opinion. There is a way to say a guy isn’t getting it without saying the guy “sucks.” I can have an opinion, but I make sure I don’t editorialize that opinion. And the reason why I don’t editorialize that opinion can be found in never forgetting how difficult it is to compete at the highest level.
Brock: Be willing to say anything on the air right to the face of that former colleague or friend.
Sean: My approach is always honest. Whether I compliment or criticize, players respect a real answer. I’m not worried about being liked. I’m concerned about respect. If you study and speak the truth, players may not like it but they will always respect it. I study the same that they do so they respect the truth and I always make myself available if they want to discuss. I’ve never believed in hiding behind a studio desk and I keep my comments centered around their job not their private lives. Having an opinion is what I get paid to provide. No opinion equals no respect.
Q: How comfortable are you with interviewing former friends, colleagues and/or opponents? Are they easier or tougher to interview than someone you don’t know as well? How do you prepare for those on-air conversations?
Sean: It’s easier because they are more comfortable. Relationships get friends and those you know to open up more because they trust you. I don’t do softball interviews. If you make them laugh early in interview they will always tell you more. Comfort is information and I use the the question why often. They will talk when questions are short and precise. They like being the star.
Brock: Separation is in the preparation. I don’t think it’s difficult at all, and from our first guest (Matt Hasselbeck) to our regular guests (Damon Huard and Drew Bledsoe), you must be able to leverage those relationships for depth, quality and sounding connected and big.
Wolf: Broadcasting starts and ends with being real. Therefore, interviewing somebody that I know has never been a problem. I typically say something early in the conversation that he will recognize and laugh at. That typically sets the table and tone for the conversation.
Q: How comfortable/uncomfortable are you with handling critical listener feedback on the phones, in-person or via social media? How do you deal with it?
Brock: I tend to block a lot of that out, maybe the positive of playing QB where you just can’t be distracted. I have come close to hitting “send” on a few tweets or emails to disgruntled listeners, but I often remind myself, “what’s the upside?” Usually very little.
Sean: Early in my career I was concerned about everyone’s opinion and critics hurt a bit. I learned though that opposition is a golds star in this business. I also learned that many fans are very smart. We never know it all and self deprecation makes fans feel like they know us. It makes them feel as if they are in the room with us. I can take hard criticisms as long as they’re respectful. If it’s presented that way, we may learn something. If the President can win an election 51-49% then far be it for me to ask for more.
Wolf: Ignore it. You can’t please everybody all of the time.
Q: What advice do you want to pass on to other athletes who are retiring and thinking about entering this line of work?
Wolf: Study the English language and, if possible, brush up on history. History can be analogues to many athletic endeavors and it also sets the context for every conversation you will ever have – no matter who you’re talking to. What has been is why things are the way they are and every story/topic has a starting point. Also, I would tell them to make sure they pull every story through the prism of their personality. Don’t be afraid to show listeners who you are. Authenticity is the great mediator of broadcast brilliance.
Brock: Humble yourself, get up earlier and work harder than you ever have before
Sean: The biggest piece of advice I can give is to call on your strength. You made it in sports because you out worked others and this business requires even more because it’s not just your own sport. Fans are privy to bullshit. They are too smart. A big piece of advice is to be careful not to alienate the listener by feeding them the “when I played” cycle. Bring them into your career but not every day. And also, tell me something I can’t read in a paper or online. Use your access and connections to get special information.
You can listen to Brock Huard weekday mornings from 7a-10a on the “Brock and Salk Show” on 710 ESPN in Seattle. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here. Ron Wolfley is part of the “Doug and Wolf” show, weekdays from 6a-10a on Arizona Sports 98.7FM in Phoenix. He’s also on Twitter. Click here to follow him. Last but not least, Sean Salisbury is one half of the show “Prime Cut”, weekdays from 4p-8p on Yahoo Sports Radio. He too is on Twitter. Click here to follow him.
Broadcasters are trained to be fair and balanced and provide a neutral point of view to the audience. Whether it’s studying the industry in college or being taught by a mentor in one’s first media job, most people who do this line of work are challenged to check their fandom at the door and report and comment on nothing but the facts. They go as far sometimes as referring to themselves as journalists rather than entertainers and talk show hosts.
The reason I raise this point today is because I believe the lines are blurred and sports radio voices need to understand who they are and what they represent.
First, what television and print media do are very different from sports radio. A television anchor is on-air for a short period of time and the only introduction to their personality comes in the form of a funny line uttered during a highlight or during an actual game. They look to update viewers on what they missed in a timely fashion and providing opinions is frowned upon.
For writers, they absolutely are journalists. There is some divide though because a columnist’s role is different than that of a beat reporter but in either case, they’re on hand to report the story, obtain information from those involved in it and then interject opinion based on what they’ve witnessed. Most who write have no problem with their identity in the sports media universe.
When it comes to sports talk radio, unlike those other two mediums, we struggle with understanding our role and identity. There are a lot of people in this industry who also do television and print and that likely complicates things because it’s hard to turn off one part of yourself and be someone else. The reality is that when an individual hits the airwaves to host a sports talk radio show, they are there to play the role of an entertainer. LL Cool J once said “I’m not a rapper, I’m an entertainer” and the same rules apply to those who host sports radio shows.
The word “entertainer” can be seen as dirty or lacking credibility to some but the word isn’t intended to suggest that we’re there to discuss the latest drama involving the Kardashians. What it means is that your views on sports, the people who play them, social issues and your willingness to discuss the highs and lows of your own personal life while connecting with people are all part of your daily conversation. You are the listener’s companion every day and you spend more time with them then most other media outlets. In some cases you’re with them more than their own family.
What’s been exciting for me to watch the past 5-10 years is how sports radio has ascended while TV sports and the print media have become less relevant. In the past, people in this industry looked at print as the almighty media god and they’d look down at those who worked in the sports radio business. A radio host could walk into a press box and the perception was that they were “less informed and the voice of the idiots“. Now today, the roles have been reversed and sports radio has a stronger bond with its audience than that of most columnists and local TV sports anchors.
The reason for it is simple, everything we say and do is on display and the ability to connect with us is fast and easy, unlike those other platforms. You can call a show, tweet a host, text the station and find that on-air personality every day in the same place. You also learn everything about our people which makes them relatable. When it comes to print or local television, some anchors and columnists aren’t on every day or their work is digested so quickly that it’s forgotten just as fast. Many also hold back who they are which makes them difficult to form a bond with.
Try this. Read your local columnist’s piece today and time how fast you’re done with the story. Chances are you’ll be done in less than 5 minutes. Now put on your favorite talk radio host. You’ll find them delivering 45 minutes per hour of content. That’s the equivalent of 9 columns over the span of 1 hour and you don’t have to wait until the morning and then go another 24 hours before getting your next fix! If content is what you crave, then you’re more likely to choose 45 weekly columns from a radio show over 5 columns in print over the same duration of time.
The point of this piece isn’t to take shots at sports on local TV or local print outlets, it’s to illustrate how the profile of the sports radio star has grown by leaps and bounds and with that increased attention, it’s important for our people to recognize the role they play in the minds of our audiences. We are content generators and entertainers – not journalists. People seek us out for our opinions on the information, not for the information itself. Reporters dig for stories, we explain what the story means.
Listeners want to talk with us on our shows and through social media about the day’s hot topics and the things that impact our lives. They ask us to be their voice and use our access and influence to hold people in the sports world accountable because they can’t. They feel connected to us because we engage with them and acknowledge their existence and that’s an advantage our medium has that the others struggle to duplicate.
Not to be downplayed, radio people are also some of the finest content generators around and our host’s abilities to entertain, enlighten and strike a chord with local people is necessary. Maybe we don’t regularly exhaust history books for six stat examples to help our points and maybe we don’t talk to four or five sources for every opinion we share but we think on our feet, we’re well versed in all subjects we discuss and we have an ability to speak with authority and gain the public’s trust. That’s a skill that’s been undervalued and underappreciated for too long.
Today, I see a number of radio personalities looking at adding television or written assignments to compliment their work, rather than viewing radio as the nice little second job. For a radio lifer like myself, that’s exciting. No longer are we looking at our own business as inferior. We now see it as an impactful platform that can advance dialogue and effect change and that’s true because the public supports it and those who we talk about pay more attention to it, even if they say they don’t.
Where will the future take us? Who knows! I believe social media is going to continue to grow larger and larger and audiences are going to want content on-demand in a much larger fashion and as those trends develop, it’ll be up to us to be one step ahead and ready for all challenges. For now though, it’s nice to see the guys who have always worked hard to connect with people finally getting the credit their due. I guess being a leader of idiots has some benefits after all.
This week I had the privilege of spending a few days in Bristol, CT at ESPN among some of the brightest minds in the sports radio industry. As usual there was a ton of conversation on ways to improve our business but one specific question jumped out to me and it’s something I have a strong passion for – discovering new talent. Everyone has their own ideas on how to find new blood and introduce tomorrow’s sports radio stars to local audiences but for me this is something that I believe is critical for every person who programs a radio station.
More times than not when you look around the industry, stations are quick to take the safest approach possible and hire familiar names and voices to the market rather than introduce someone who requires more explanation. It makes sense most times because familiar names draw quicker reaction from local audiences and when you add advertising dollars into the conversation, it’s easier to sell something familiar than something foreign. What gets lost in that equation though is that sometimes the short-term gain is not as strong as a long-term one and usually it takes a mixture of market proven performers and new exciting personalities to give a radio station a fresh feel.
As a programmer, it’s not easy to tell your bosses, staff and listeners to wait for future success and look at the big picture. We live in a “win now” society where people focus more on the next day than they do on the next year. I remember growing up watching baseball and you’d hear about players spending 5-6 years in the minor leagues before being brought up to the major leagues. Today, once a player shows an ounce of potential, he’s rushed up to the grand stage.
In radio, it’s not much different. We seek broadcasters who can get on the air and make an immediate impact, even if that isn’t always realistic. In a world where ratings are critical to deciding how advertisers invest in your brand, it’s imperative that when you introduce new talent to the marketplace that it works. Sometimes you’ll get some time to let someone develop but usually the leash you’re provided is very short.
I’ve been fortunate twice during my career to build new stations and have a chance to develop people slowly and in each situation, we had success. Once that success is obtained though, it becomes much harder to do that because people become accustomed to success and fearful of losing it as a result of change, especially if it involves unfamiliar personalities.
When I think about the role of a Program Director as it applies to scouting and discovering talent, I compare it to the role of a professional scout in the NFL or MLB. There are tons of roads to navigate and some will work and some won’t but you’ve got to always be looking and planning for the “what if” scenario. Part of that includes consistent evaluating of people inside the industry as well as keeping an eye on those who display potential while climbing up the ladder.
Last week the NY Times published a piece on Derek Jeter which covered how the Yankees Shortstop was discovered in 1991. I found myself thinking of the numerous scenarios that have unfolded in my own career that have led me to finding talented people and putting them on the road to have great success. Clearly they had to have the ability to get the job done but someone also had to recognize their talent, take a chance on hiring them and provide them with the tools, coaching and positive reinforcement necessary to help them.
In this piece, the scout (Dick Groch) talks about how he wasn’t even supposed to attend the camp where he discovered Jeter but yet when he watched him perform, he knew instantly that he had the tools that would translate to the highest level. In my business we call this “having an ear” or an “eye for talent“. There’s no way he could have known for sure that Derek Jeter would play 20 years in the big leagues, win 5 world titles and become a future hall of famer but his instincts told him this was a kid worth going to bat for. By doing so, the Yankees front office performed further evaluations and ultimately agreed with the reports and selected Derek when the chance to draft him was presented.
When you think of sports radio, we don’t get an annual draft but there are plenty of Derek Jeter’s out there. One example comes immediately to mind. Scott Masteller was sharp enough to recognize Colin Cowherd’s talents in Portland and provide him with an opportunity to do local radio. Bruce Gilbert was smart enough to recognize what Scott saw and bring Colin to ESPN Radio. Obviously Colin had to be uniquely talented in order to earn those opportunities but even a great talented individual needs someone who’s willing to take a chance on him.
The problem I see sometimes in our business is that not everyone takes the time to look for new talent or take the risk of hiring someone unproven. Instead there’s a lot of people waiting for their doors to be knocked on or resumes and airchecks to show up in their emails and quite frankly, I don’t believe that you find the world’s best talent that way. Sure there will be some diamonds that come through the system that way but there are plenty of other options to exhaust as well. Unfortunately it’s much more dangerous to risk your own position on the unknown than it is to take the chance on someone who’s familiar.
If you watched the remake of the movie of “The Longest Yard” with Adam Sandler, there’s a scene (see video below) where Sandler goes to the basketball court to try and recruit Michael Irvin who’s seen as an intimidating guy and top notch athlete. When Sandler makes the comment “This guy must be quite the athlete huh“, Irvin responds with “You risked bringing your ass in the jungle because you know I am“. When I think of that scene, I can draw an easy parallel to sports radio because if you want to find great personalities, you’ve got to be willing to look in many different places. The great ones don’t usually apply through your company’s website, they expect you’ll find them when needs arise.
http://youtu.be/de2Rv5eijvA
I was talking with Chris “Hoss” Neupert who programs 101 ESPN in St. Louis (my former station) and this subject came up and he mentioned how former St. Louis Cardinals Pitcher Brad Thompson has done a great job adjusting to the business and has become a strong personality on his station on his afternoon show. If Chris had waited for an application, resume or demo tape from Brad, he’d never have received one. It’s not like former St. Louis Cardinals players are sending in applications on a daily basis.
Chris recognized Brad’s ability to communicate intelligently and passionately, explored a few conversations with him, gave him a few looks filling in and observed that Brad had an ability to do this job. Once he knew Brad was ready to move on from his baseball career and pursue a second career in the sports radio industry and a change took place inside his radio station, a move was made to bring him in. He’s since been rewarded by Brad’s show (which includes Randy Karraker and D’Marco Farr) being rated #1 in the St. Louis market in afternoon drive.
Speaking for myself, I’ve gone about things the same way. My job is to constantly be looking for talented people and think of how to best utilize them on my radio station if a future situation comes up. Major market audiences might not have been treated to the radio talents of Chris Duncan, Aubrey Huff, Eric Davis, Ric Bucher, Rick Venturi, Tony Softli, Zack McCrite, Meredith Marakovits, Rob Ellis, Guy Haberman or many others had I not been looking in various places to find good talent. This is something I take a lot of pride in and actively spend time doing. While I may miss from time to time, I never stop trying.
So when it comes to finding new talent, how does one do it? Where do you go to look? Is there some magical formula available to make it work? The answer of course is no but getting the job done is possible and yet it requires exploring a variety of possibilities. Let me share a few examples of ways I’ve done it that I think can help in the future and if you’re an on-air talent or aspiring broadcaster reading this, I encourage you to pay attention to this too because you never know when that call could be coming your way.
– Develop From Within – Producers, Board Ops, Interns and others inside your building are going to spend more time learning the ins and outs of your product better than anyone else. Most times, guys reach a certain level in their careers and begin thinking about the next challenge. While some aren’t cut out to be on the air, some are and for those who possess a solid voice, good knowledge and a decent idea of what goes into doing a talk show after working on your key shows for a while, they certainly deserve consideration.
For example, in Seattle at 710 ESPN, Program Director and On-Air Host Mike Salk looks for producers who have an ability to help produce shows while also sharing a passion to do on-air work. He’ll reward them with some air time in lesser important time slots and that’s helpful for people having a chance to grow.
One of my current on-air personalities Zakariah spent six months interning for me and working on his delivery, hosting and update skills inside a production room before I gave him his first shot to hit the airwaves. I saw his passion and commitment to improve and I heard progress and he earned my trust to hit the air on a weekend shift and eventually do it consistently. He’s since gone on to host nights, weekends, weekday fill-ins and afternoon updates.
– Search Other Markets – My current 10a-12p host Guy Haberman was doing afternoons in Fresno, CA when I first heard him. The market was small but provided a great opportunity for him to get reps and those reps helped him develop. When I had an opening on our night show pop up, I brought him in for an audition and he did a nice job and it was an easy decision to hire him. Had I not taken the time to listen to him though on my own (and have my APD Jeremiah Crowe do so too), he’d have never been brought in for an audition. Because I believe in scouting, we found ourselves a pretty great on-air host who people enjoy listening to.
It doesn’t always have to be smaller markets either. People who live 60-120 miles away from the big city typically aspire to make it to bigger markets but so do people in other markets. Sometimes there’s a personal connection to a certain city. Sometimes they see a certain city as a great move for their career and other times they’re drawn to your location because of positive feedback they’ve heard about your brand from people they like and respect in the business. I’ve lured guys to work for me due to all three of those scenarios. Regardless, I always keep an eye out on other markets and who performs in them and I try to form my own opinions on who has the style and attributes that fit well with my market.
Additionally, I’ll give my APD Jeremiah out of market listening assignments from time to time and I’ll do some myself too. First it’s helpful because sometimes you get ideas of other cool things people are doing on-air to create good radio. Secondly it’s positive because it allows you to discover who’s extremely talented. Third, it can teach you what you don’t like about certain styles or introduce you to others on a show/station that you might not have been familiar with.
I’ll add one last thing on this for on-air talents, be focused and approach your show with passion and enthusiasm each day. You have no idea who is listening to you or when they’re listening to you and if tomorrow you discovered that your worst segment was the one heard by someone who could have made you rich and successful for the rest of your life, are you going to be able to sleep at night? Probably not. You control your presentation and consistency and you owe it to yourself to make sure you’re on at all times. It can be the difference between landing a major opportunity or being quickly forgotten.
– Creating Promotions – In San Francisco I ran a contest called “Lucky Break” and in other markets similar promotions have been created to find undiscovered talent. These things work great sometimes and other times they don’t but I’ve always said that if American Idol hadn’t existed the entire music business would be without Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson so what do you have to lose?
While those artists aren’t really my cup of tea, they’ve all sold tons of records and if they didn’t perform, the record label could have easily dropped them. Since then we’ve seen other shows become hits such as The Voice and X-Factor and they all had one thing in common, discovering new musical talent.
As it applies to the radio station, you can only benefit by doing this. You have the chance to discover a hidden gem but if that doesn’t happen, you can also cut bait with the winner quickly. It doesn’t exactly have to be done on the air either. The reward can be a one-day talk show, an update anchor shift, a podcast, a produced talk show inside a production room or something else. You’ll be amazed at how much response you get from local people who want to be part of what you do. If luck breaks your way, you’ll find a few new exciting voices to feature.
Take a second and look at how many TV shows today are doing this. Whether it’s Shark Tank, Top Chef, Dancing with the Stars, America’s Got Talent or any other similar program dominating television today, the need for great talent exists in all forms of business. If other outlets see value in looking for undiscovered talent, maybe it makes sense for you to do so too!
– The Power of YouTube – Voice talent Jim Cutler brought this up a few years ago at a Sports Radio conference I was at in Phoenix and he was dead on. First of all, YouTube allows people to get reps and develop their own following and that’s such a great advantage compared to what was available to people 10-20 years ago. If someone has passion, a unique style and an ability to speak, I’m a firm believer that it will stand out regardless of the forum.
When I was paying my dues and trying to get better at hosting talk shows, I had to work in a production room, host a weekly weekend shift or voice commercials just to get reps. The only thing you could do back then was perform play-by-play while playing a video game. Today, people have many more advantages to continue practicing and if they’re willing to put it on display for you to evaluate, why not look at it?
As an example, my current morning update anchor Anna Kagarakis on 95.7 The Game, had a number of local television videos on YouTube. When I had a need for a new anchor, I reviewed her work, watched it, liked her style and energy and reached out to chat. If I hadn’t utilized YouTube, she might not have wound up on my radio station.
An even more unlikely scenario was my discovery of Clayton Miller. I was looking for someone who does sports voices to contribute to my morning show and aside from Frank Caliendo (who’s brilliant but very busy), I knew it would be difficult to find someone who fit the bill. Thanks to YouTube, I landed on Clayton’s page and after laughing at a number of his impressions and running his work by a few of our guys, I reached out to him to discuss doing a few calls to see how things go. We’ve since used him on our morning show a bunch of times and had it not been for YouTube I would not be aware of him.
– Networking – This industry has thousands of people in it and those who are good at it can recognize others who are good at it or on the right track to doing so. When I get a call, email or social media message from someone I know, respect and trust in the industry suggesting that I look at someone for possible future employment, I’ll usually follow up on it. I might not always hire the person and sometimes I may disagree with their evaluation but I will usually check into it. My belief is that a professional person is not going to risk their reputation to send me bad advice because they don’t want their own name soiled.
For those of you reading this who are pursuing opportunities, I encourage you to get to know PD’s other than when you’re pursuing them for a job. I also recommend chatting with other on-air talent, producers and anchors in the industry to pick their brains too. When you become familiar with people, it strengthens your views on them and if you’re going to move for a new job and work for certain people, I always believe it’s better to know what you’re getting into.
– Explore Unconventional Places – Look around the industry today and take a look at how many athletes perform on the air. I’ll bet you 90% of them didn’t apply for a job or show up at the radio station’s door requesting a few minutes with the PD. In most cases the PD paid attention to how the athlete spoke during their career and they got feedback from their own people, the athlete’s agent and gave the athlete a chance to come in, do a few shifts and see how things go.
Why do guys from the sports world matter? Because your audiences already know them and support them and if they have the ability to perform in this medium, they’re likely to command an instant audience. None of that matters though if you don’t keep an ear on them while they’re going through their careers.
Also to be considered is looking for people with unique and interesting backgrounds. For example, Joe Beningo on WFAN was a passionate caller from Saddle River, NJ who was given a chance to do a one time show on the station as a result of winning a contest. That led to him getting some formal training at Connecticut School of Broadcasting and doing a show on a small station in Elizabeth, NJ before WFAN offered him a chance to do overnights. He’s now hosting middays from 10a-1p and has been with WFAN for 20 years. If he doesn’t call the radio station, he’s never discovered.
If you look around our business today you’ll see guys like Jay Mohr who has a background in movies and comedy, Steve Gorman who plays music for the Black Crowes, Dave Dameshek who has done comedy writing and performing plus many other on-air personalities who have transitioned from other radio formats to the sports talk radio scene. Great talent can come from anywhere so whether you’re at the bar, a comedy club or listening to a radio station that doesn’t do sports, never close your mind or your ears to a different possibility.
To sum this up, we work in a business where change is frequent yet new options seem limited. To keep moving forward, we’ve got to keep hunting for great personalities because they are the number one reason why our format works. To suggest people aren’t interested in this line of work or that younger talented people aren’t out there is rubbish. They are but it requires more than waiting for the phone to ring or emails to appear in your inbox. The real question is, are you willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to find them?
When you talk to Kirk McEwen, you can’t help but be in a good mood after the conversation. His energy, love for life and passion for sports, music and fun are very easy to recognize.
The morning man for 98.7 The Fan in Tampa has a radio background that seems to have become a bigger attraction to sports talk radio programmers across the country today. While he currently patrols the airwaves as a sports radio personality, his prior experience and success have come as an air talent in the rock radio format.
Kirk’s career started in Baltimore where he worked for legendary rock station 98 Rock. He was hired to work part-time on the weekends and eventually earned a promotion to host evenings. While doing radio for 98 Rock was exciting, when DC 101 in Washington DC came calling, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
For the next 3 years Kirk established himself on the DC 101 airwaves and became a fixture in the market but soon he found himself being pulled back home to 98 Rock. He hosted nights, afternoons and finally mornings, where he’d become one third of the highly successful “Kirk, Mark and Lopez Show“. KML was instrumental in launching the career of Larry the Cable Guy and was voted “Best Morning Radio Show” in 2004 by Baltimore Magazine.
While the show became a mainstream success in the Baltimore market, it would suffer a crushing blow in 2005 when Kirk’s on-air partner (Lopez) would lose his battle with cancer. Kirk and Mark would remain on 98 Rock until 2006 but then they’d make a move across town to WHFS where they’d take over mornings.
The opportunity at WHFS would be short-lived but Kirk would rebound, landing on his feet at 105.9 The Edge where he’d return to hosting mornings, this time alongside Mike O’Meara. The show had enjoyed a solid 23-month run when a format change occurred and Kirk was once again left on the outside looking in.
As many in the industry know, sometimes a short-term setback can lead to a better long-term situation and after a 10-month break, Kirk was hired by CBS to head south to Tampa to help launch a brand new sports radio station, 98.7 The Fan! Upon arriving in the sunshine state, Kirk was paired with former NHL player Chris Dingman to form the “Kirk and Dinger” show and he’s been a fixture on the Tampa sports radio scene ever since.
On the personal side, Kirk is a self-proclaimed “military brat,” whose father served in the U.S. Air Force. He was born in Berlin – the youngest of six kids and is the younger brother of former CBS “This Morning” personality Mark McEwen. He is also multi-talented, with a side career in stand-up comedy and music. He’s opened up for comedians Daniel Tosh, Tommy Davidson and Larry the Cable Guy and his band (The Kirk McEwen Band) have opened up for groups such as Cinderella, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Matchbox 20.
I reached out to Kirk to pick his brain on his radio career, the transition into sports talk radio and to understand how he blends his various backgrounds into his daily show and I found him to be very engaging, upbeat and interesting. I think you’ll enjoy reading the conversation.
Q: Prior to entering radio, who were some of the personalities you enjoyed listening to who led you to want to explore this medium?
A: My brother was instrumental in leading me down this path. He loved his job and was good at it and had a lot of success on a number of great stations all over the country as well as on television. He worked on CBS This Morning and the Early Show and there’s no question he was a strong influence. Another guy who I liked a lot was Tony Colter. He’s on Sirius now but was on 98 Rock in Baltimore and DC 101 (stations I also worked at) and he was a friend of the family and someone who knew how to have fun playing rock and roll.
Q: What was your first job and what responsibilities did you have?
A: Chuck DuCoty gave me my first job at WMUC which was a college radio station in Maryland. I went in for an internship and one of the DJ’s had broken some albums after learning that he was only getting 38 hours per week instead of 40 (which back then meant you weren’t considered full-time) so my internship quickly became a job. I started out doing some weekend work and climbed up the ladder from there.
Q: In addition to being a radio personality, you also possess a background as a stand up comedian and musician. How do those experiences help you in what you do each day on the radio?
A: Humor is good in any format and when you can make people laugh that keeps an audience interested. When I first started out doing radio I’d be thinking about which of my friends or family were listening and what they might say to me afterwards. When I’m performing comedy or music, I’m usually in front of people that I don’t know and that helps because I’m not worried as much about what they might think. If I’m being heckled or if the lights on stage don’t work, that forces me to have to pull my act together and prove to the audience that I’m a strong entertainer even when the situation is challenging and the same thing applies to doing morning radio!
Q: Your brother Mark was very successful in the media industry. Did his achievements make it easier or more difficult for you to establish yourself?
A: It made it easier for me to get noticed because people would want to talk to me because of who my brother was. He’s no longer in the public eye and I miss that because he was great at what he did. I gained a lot of opportunities that I might not have received if I wasn’t Mark McEwen’s brother. The challenge though was getting people to remember who I was because half the time they’d be like “Oh your Mark’s brother“.
Q: Some of your biggest career success came in Baltimore and Washington DC where you worked for rock stations DC 101 and 98 Rock. What do you attribute your success to in each of those places?
A: My passion for music and love for people played a big part in helping me succeed there. Growing up, my brother had one of the coolest jobs in the world to me and so I thought it would be great to do the same thing. When you’re on the radio and you’re talking to people, they don’t care what you look like, they just want to be part of the conversation with you. I think my ability to relate and connect with people helped me a lot in those two places.
Q: In 2012 you moved to Tampa and entered the sports radio format, joining 98.7 The Fan. Why did you think this format would be a good fit for you?
A: I’ve always loved sports. I used to play stratomatic baseball and go to games and it’s always been a part of my life. In 1988 Ken Singleton played baseball and was doing part time work on the weekends in Baltimore on Channel 13. When he left to go to NY they held a contest to replace him and I finished 2nd because the station thought I would become good and leave since my brother was a known broadcaster. They were right about that but it allowed me to get some experience on tape doing sports and I thought it was something I could do really well. After my situation in Baltimore ended, I had heard that the story on me was that I was lazy and it was the furthest thing from the truth. I went up to NY and told my agent that I’d like to have a chat with Chris Olivero and Scott Herman to clear the air. I showed up in my Len Dawson jersey and we talked for a while and everyone agreed to start with a clean slate. A few months later my agent called me and asked if I’d entertain moving to Tampa and I said yes and I’ve been here ever since.
Q: As you began your run with 98.7 The Fan, you were initially paired with former NHL player Chris Dingman on the “Kirk and Dinger” show. How would you summarize that show and what led to it being changed?
A: It was interesting. You had a black guy from the mid-Atlantic and a Canadian hockey player and we were thrown into a room and told “go”! We had to create the image of the show and get a feel for each other and we ended up having some success but it was a challenge for us to find that groove. I was new to the market and Chris had never done radio before, let alone a morning show and so we made it the best we could given the circumstances.
Q: With Dinger gone, you’ve added Jesse Kage to the show, who like yourself, has a background in rock radio. Why does his addition to the show excite you?
A: I get a feel for people really fast. When you hear Jesse talk, he’s very educated. The dude has a bald head, tattoos and a huge goatee and he’s friends with everyone. He’s younger than me and we come from different backgrounds yet have a lot in common so we’re able to bring good balance to one another. There are times during the year when you can’t over analyze a game and you need to be able to entertain people and it’s easy to do that with Jesse. This pairing feels really natural.
Q: What do you tell a Tampa sports radio listener who might be concerned that the show will have too much guy talk and not enough sports talk?
A: We will talk sports and have good guests on and the goal for us is to make people think and interact. We’re also guys though who like a number of different things and we want to be able to let people in on our lives. There will be a good mix for everyone to enjoy and it will be built around our personalities. The hardcore stuff such as doing game breakdowns isn’t what we do. There’s another local outlet available that can give people that style of show.
Q: On the show you also include Roxanne Wilder and Special Ed Grube. Why do you believe it’s important to utilize a supporting cast on a radio show?
A: When you can include different people in a show it provides more interesting viewpoints. Roxanne for example is very sports savvy and brings things to the table that are different than what Jesse and I do. When the whole Ray Rice thing happened we wanted a female perspective on it and she can do that and do it really well. Special Ed on the other hand is crafty at writing songs and creating bits for the show and having that mix of people contributing to the success of the show keeps it fun and loose.
Q: When you guys step back and look at the “Kirk and Kage” show, what is the mission statement for the program?
A: It’s sports with a jagged edge. There might be some similarities to what Toucher and Rich do in Boston but we have our own style. We’re not a hardcore sports show but we know there are times to be serious and times to be funny and we want to provide a good mix.
Q: When it comes to improving your show, how do you measure improvement? How often does your show meet and what do you look to accomplish in that meeting?
A: We call my boss (PD John McConnell) “Johnny Sports Guy” and he’ll get in and listen and we’ll chat in his office about the show but it’s a feel thing. We’re always thinking of things we can do to make it better and we’ll text a lot or talk in person and point out things that have to be stronger. It’s really about regular communication and everyone feeling they’ve got a say in the show.
Q: To someone on the outside who isn’t familiar with the Tampa sports radio market, how would you describe it?
A: It’s challenging because there are beaches, good concerts, families with pools who want to relax and enjoy the sunshine and to get their attention you need to put a winner on the field. Even if you do, people may still not check it out. But I like it because the challenge makes it fun. Football is king here even though the stands may not reflect it. The Lightning sell out all the time and the Rays have great TV ratings even though the in stadium attendance isn’t high. There are also a ton of transplants here so fan allegiances are diverse and that allows us to branch out from time to time.
Q: As you reflect on your career and all you have accomplished, what is some of the best advice you were given that you still utilize today? Who gave it to you?
A: My brother told me “when you talk, if you smile, you can’t help but be in a good mood”. People don’t want to wake up and hear someone on the radio who’s miserable. I love being able to talk and have fun and I pride myself on being a brother in rock and roll. There aren’t a lot of black guys doing this format who haven’t played professional sports and I think that helps me in standing out.
Q: What is one area where you believe sports radio needs to evolve?
A: People doing this need to have more fun. This ain’t your dad’s Buick. Most of us didn’t play the game and we don’t need to apologize for that. It’s about guys having fun, sharing opinions and not worrying about being wrong. There’s too much emphasis on hard hitting information in some places and I think shows can hit on issues that guys like and enjoy themselves a little more.
Q: If there’s anything you can offer to someone who’s just entering this industry and trying to develop a career in it, what would it be?
A: Years ago I would have advised people to get into radio. I’m not sure today if I would. People aren’t listening to radio as heavily as they used to. Now they’re podcasting and doing social media. However, if you’re passionate about it and really want it, work hard at learning as much as you can, find a mentor, and work on developing your own style. Trying to be someone else doesn’t work. Be yourself and be comfortable with it.
Kirk McEwen can be heard weekday mornings in Tampa from 6am-9am on 98.7 The Fan. You can also follow his show “Kirk and Kage” on Twitter by clicking here.
Defining success for a sports radio station can be measured in many different ways. There’s laying out guidelines and goals for what you expect from each individual. There’s bottom line revenue. There’s digital and mobile growth, social media engagement, connection in the community, content strategy and execution and of course the almighty ratings book.
Yes it’s true, the ratings game isn’t an exact science and of course most programmers complain about the lack of meters in each individual market but whether it’s fair or unfair, every single station in every market deals with the same system and your job is to deliver numbers that your sales team can use to generate more revenue for your company. Nobody complains when the numbers are good but we all piss and moan when they’re lower than expected.
I’ve had my share of ups and downs with numbers but I do believe they matter. As long as advertisers seek them and decide future ad buys on the station I operate based on them, they’ll remain a heavy focus for me. While it’s easy to make excuses and complain about the systems flaws (trust me they have plenty), everyone is playing the same game.
How many times have you seen the following “My station doesn’t subscribe to Arbitron/Nielsen because they don’t show our brand’s true audience. We remain focused on super serving our audience and advertisers“. When I hear that I start to chuckle because the real translation is “our numbers suck and we can’t convince anyone we have an audience so we’ll go on the offensive to defend our position so advertisers don’t pull their business from us”.
Then there’s the talent side of things “I don’t believe in ratings. I’ve never seen a meter. I know when the show is good and we have a big audience because people see me and tell me they listen“. I’ve run 4 different radio stations in 3 different markets over the past 8 years and there’s always someone taking that position. What they mean to say is “I need an excuse to fall back on in case my numbers aren’t good because otherwise I’ll have a hard time asking for a raise in the future. Besides, I have a strong following on social media and that shows that I have a huge audience”.
In both cases I understand the skepticism due to what’s been created by Nielsen as a result of weak measurement but what I’ve yet to see is a radio station not reward an on-air talent or PD who was delivering strong ratings. Excuses come up when audience numbers are low but when they’re high, everyone brags and wants a pat on the back and companies usually reward you for it. Ratings are needed to justify the companies ability to command higher ad rates and your ability to deliver them is a critical part of your job. Without them as a host or programmer, your position could be in jeopardy.
Ask yourself this, how can we make money in this business if it’s based on subjective opinion of what we think of our own shows? Is a talent really going to walk into an office and say to a PD “My show isn’t as good as I thought it would be or what you hoped it would be and I sense the audience has checked out, maybe you should pull the plug on it“? Of course not.
On-Air talent are conditioned to pump themselves up by telling you “I have a huge audience, I know what works” but can they really prove that? Have they gone out and personally counted every listener who interacted with them in public, on social or through the station text account? Of course not. When a talent tells me they had 200-1000 people attend or send them a message on social media as evidence of having a big audience, I remind them that 200-1,000 people in a market made up of 7 million is not a number to brag about.
About 15-months ago I listened to Mike Francesa from WFAN in NY talk about the way he looks at ratings. Many would agree that Mike has been one of the most influential and dominant sports radio personalities of our lifetime and as I heard him share his views on this subject I found myself intrigued. First consider that he’s been on the air with WFAN for over 25 years and during that time he has delivered more than 80 #1 ratings performances with Men 25-54. That is incredibly impressive especially in the country’s largest market.
Some will say his success is due to being on WFAN which has a great signal, strong heritage and was the nation’s first true all-sports format and while that deserves consideration, you’d be doing him a disservice if you assumed that’s why he’s succeeded. Mike spends 5.5 hours per day on the air and he’s seen as the authority on NY sports. He’s won alongside Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo as well as on his own. His station lost major players such as Russo and Don Imus yet Mike has continued to dominate the market.
What really impressed me most about Mike’s speech was when he discussed the value he places on his ratings performance. To learn that the #1 guy in the top US market meets every Monday with his PD to see how he’s stacking up against the competition was impressive. How many on-air talent do you know who even ask a question about their own performance at the end of a month let alone on a weekly basis?
WFAN makes a lot of money and Mike does extremely well for himself and nobody at his company is going to tell an advertiser they can’t demonstrate performance when ratings are requested. He considers it to be his report card and when you’re delivering straight A’s, you’re not embarrassed to show off your grades. To get a sense of Mike’s views on the ratings game check out this video.
While I’ve spent the first part of this piece on the mindset of ratings, the next level of what I want to discuss has to do with the demographic for which sports radio is analyzed. Anyone who works in this format knows that your success or failure is determined by how you perform with Men 25-54. You can create neat little stories with Men 18+, Men 18-34, P6, 12+ or Adults 25-54 but the number that matters when all is said and done are Men 25-54.
This is the demographic that advertisers expect sports radio stations to be strongest in and and it’s what on-air personalities and programmers get bonused on. It’s also what your company looks at to determine if the investment in a sports radio station is paying off. Every month when my ratings come out I’ll look at P6 to see what our overall cume for the station is and I’ll check out the Adults 25-54 demo to see if I can provide any stories for sales to help with some other possible buys but the main focus for myself and all involved in my group (and every station I’ve ever worked at) is always Men 25-54.
I enjoy getting the ratings report each month and I’ve found that when you create a great product and surround yourself with talented people, getting an audience to listen and reward you with proof of performance isn’t hard. While in St. Louis, my former brand 101 ESPN started 33rd and was consistently in the Top 5 in ratings within 12-18 months, including reaching #1.
When I built 95.7 The Game in SF, we started in 27th place and in under 4 years climbed to as high as 3rd with Men 25-54. It took a lot of luck, hard work, personnel changes and loss of sleep and none of it would’ve happened without a great staff performing day in and day out to entertain listeners.
While the focus for ratings success is Men 25-54, Francesa raised an interesting point about what the demographic should be. He says the format should be measured by Men 35-69. He argues that Men over 60 years old have more money whereas younger male adults can barely pay rent and if advertisers are seeking people with wealth to purchase their products, then they should put a heavier emphasis on the older demographic.
The logic makes sense but I don’t agree that Men 35-69 should be the focus. If it’s only about money then I’d give it stronger consideration but ratings are also supposed to be about listenership and I think the reason sports stations are migrating to the FM dial are because Men 25-34 have a stronger interest in the product than ever before. It’s during these years of a man’s life that he usually starts listening and forming a bond with the sports radio format and I don’t think that can be dismissed and not measured.
Whether it’s Men 25-54, Men 25-64, Men 25-69 or another demographic, is subjective and while I don’t have the perfect answer, I do think that as our business grows, all options should be explored. If we can change the way radio gets measured from diary to PPM and we can see stations switch to FM and begin to deliver huge numbers on mobile and online, then we owe it to our industry to make sure that we get the best measurement possible to showcase the brand’s strength.
I think it’s silly that mobile listening and web streaming are rarely accounted for when we can see the amount of listening sessions that take place on our brands. I understand that it’s still about the over the air listening activity but with the future changing rapidly, the industry will have to evolve and put a stronger focus on “audio measurement“, not just radio measurement.
To help paint a better picture of the importance of ratings and the way people in our business see them, I asked 3 questions to some of the best minds in the sports radio business today. Taking part in the panel are the following people:
Jason Dixon – Program Director of Detroit Sports 105.1 FM
Jeff Austin – Program Director of 1080 The Fan in Portland
Tim Spence – Station Manager of 102.3/105.5 ESPN Denver
Ryan Hatch – VP of News and Sports at 92.3 KTAR and Arizona Sports 98.7 FM
Brian Long – Program Director of XTRA 1360 and Newsradio AM 600 KOGO in San Diego
What demographic matters most to your radio station in determining whether or not it’s been a successful month in the ratings?
Dixon: I spend most of my time looking at Men 25-54 because that’s the number that matters most to our sales department. From there I dissect the big number to see what we are doing in the various cells to find the station’s strengths and weaknesses.
Austin: Men 25-54. It’s a wide demo but the one that the vast majority of our buys are predicated upon. We need to score with the older half of this demo as a sweet spot, and continually develop listeners in the younger half, so attention to the entire demo is a must.
Spence: What’s our job? Men. Where’s the money? 25-54. Once you are established in that demo of Men 25-54 then most stations start expanding and developing P25-54.
Hatch: Men 25-54 is always the primary demo that sports radio stations target and evaluate, and it is ours as well but we have raised our expectations. Now on FM, our goal is to drive a male number that rolls up into a Top 10 Persons 25-54 number with the primary new audience driver coming from the younger 25-34 male demo that was almost completely inaccessible on AM. If we don’t deliver Top 3 Men 25-54 and Top 10 Persons 25-54 performance in the Fall, we’re not delivering the radioaudience we need to.
Long: Men 25-54. This demo is the sweet spot for us and our targeted clients.
JB NOTE: Every single programmer here has the same mentality of capturing Men 25-54. While there are some interesting variations such as what Ryan is looking to capture in Phoenix with his brand’s migration to FM, the conversation starts with Men 25-54.
What do you think should be the demographic to measure sports talk radio’s success?
Dixon:The most important demo to me is the one where the money is. If tomorrow, agencies and clients start placing buys based on men 35-49 or men 18-24, that will be my target. As programmers in a narrow format, we have to keep our eyes on the prize. We all want great ratings so we can pat ourselves on the back, collect ratings bonuses etc. but the fact is that they are sales tools.
Austin: Men 25-54. If you want to avoid being a “niche” station, which healthy sports stations should make a goal of, and get more listeners under your tent, you have to be a great “male listen.” If you focus on a smaller demo, you risk becoming less-relevant with large portions of your audience. If you widen your focus to consider males outside of that demo, or females, you become bland and non-exclusive to the majority of your audience.
Spence: Well, first as I mention above, it’s Men 25-54. That said, the heart of the demo is what MAKES the demo. If I own/control/kill it with Men 35-44, I’ll p/u both ends of the demo. If I focus too much towards either end, I potentially skew the other side of the demo.
Hatch: Our job will always be to deliver the most valuable audience that we can connect to our advertising partners, which will continue to be affluent men with purchase power and influence. If you’re only talking about radio ratings, it’s simple. As long as the ad agencies and buyers continue to determine Men 25-54 and Persons 25-54 are the most important demos to them, it’s going to remain that way for us.
Long:Men 25-64. People are living longer and putting off having children until later in life. Ultimately, delaying retirement . 60 is the new 50 and people’s spending habits have changed.
JB NOTE: There’s some great stuff here. First, Brian raises some excellent points about people living longer, retiring later and having children later. That makes a lot of sense in explaining why adding to the back end of the demographic could make sense in the future. I also love what Jason and Ryan had to say about satisfying the demand of agencies and clients. Until advertisers change their views, Men 25-54 will remain the format’s key focus.
How important are ratings to your business and the way you position your radio station?
Dixon: Personally I love ratings. They can provide validation for your hard work and they can be a big warning sign for something that is not working. That being said, they are not the “be all , end all” of the sports radio business. One of my go to lines is, “I’ve never seen a Sports Radio PD with average ratings and great billing fired.” The 6 plus number that’s published in the trades does not create the narrative of your radio station. Your content, your presentation and the stories that your sales people share on the street is what defines your radio station.
Austin: We don’t position on-air based upon ratings, but we do in the field (sales). The key for us is to be the top sports station in our market. Without a major local play-by-play property, we especially need to own Prime. As for sharing the common goal, I think it registers more clearly with the sales force.
Spence: The bottom line, ratings are important. They’re what takes the average sports station that sells just spots/dots and relationships to the next level. Eventually, if you don’t have ratings, sales will suffer.
Hatch: We pride ourselves on telling the entire Arizona Sports audience story and it’s incredible influence in the market. We absolutely will not allow the radio ratings alone to define success. Granted, ratings are still the most important metric as increased radio audience is still by far the quickest way to increase revenue, especially with transactional business. The difficult part is with longtime radio talent who have been trained and bonused over the years to solely let the radio ratings dictate success. It’s still a tough putt to break that habit. The reality is that while we watch significant growth among so many of our platforms, if the ratings don’t correspond, it’s tough on the guys because that’s still their biggest badge of honor.
Long: Ratings are very important. Having ratings on a station allows both (sales and programming) the advantage of being more discerning about the type of business you are willing to take or walk from which ultimately affects the overall sound of the station.
JB NOTE: There’s one key point made here by the group. Positioning your brand internally is equally as important as positioning it externally. If every aspect of an organization isn’t pulling in the same direction and singing the same tune then further discussion is needed to develop one unified message. The ratings absolutely matter but there’s multiple ways to sell that message and the benefits of the brand. Whichever direction you go, all departments must be on board and share in the same vision.
Too many times I have heard the same exact thing “Nielsen (much like Arbitron) highly recommends to take as few breaks as possible“. I’ve heard this in multiple markets, various sports radio conferences and I do believe that there’s some merit to it however what researchers don’t take into account during these conversations are how it actually works on the programming end. You can play math equations all day long if you want but listeners (even those with meters) don’t listen based on quarter hour measurements and there’s much more to keeping people interested in consuming your product than just eliminating commercials.
Why might you ask? Because when hosts are delivering content for that length of time, most lose focus and ramble. They don’t view their 20-25 minute segment as a combination of four 5-minute segments and they don’t stay aware of timing. Usually phone calls flood the segment or a guest who’s great for 5-6 minutes gets stretched out to 10-15 minutes and it becomes more about filling time than maximizing content time.
If you deliver 5-10 minutes of opinion, 5-10 minutes of a guest and 5-minutes of audience reaction, you’ve now presented three different ways to keep that one particular topic interesting. That’s how a 20-25 minute segment stays compelling. It takes multiple layers, multiple voices, multiple sounds and multiple twists and turns inside the content to keep it interesting to the audience.
I bring up this example for a reason. If you take fewer breaks per hour inside of a show, you’re going to end up with at least one real long stretch of content at some point and I find that most shows and hosts don’t own those opportunities as much as those who perform shorter segments. While someone from Nielsen or a research company can suggest breaking as little as possible, they don’t take into account who your talent is, how you strategically match up against your in-market competitor and if your station’s style of content is geared for longer or shorter stretches.
Remember this too, when Chris Rock does a standup show, he’s got his act in place to entertain for 60-minutes. He knows the start, the middle and the end of his routine. But what if he was doing a radio show? Could he do that for 3-4 hours per day? Maybe he could but I think you’d find more holes in the presentation.
In the grand scheme of things, some hosts can be great for 5-minutes, some for 10, some for 15 and even a select few for 20-25. You can give them 2 commercial breaks, 3 commercial breaks or 4-5 commercial breaks and some shows will stand out and perform strongly and others won’t. It still comes down to talent, selecting the right content, delivering it in an entertaining way and making sure the momentum keeps going forward and the pace feels fast.
Here’s the deal, I’ve gained great ratings in my career with shows that have taken breaks 4-5x per hour and I’ve gained the same from shows who have broken 3x per hour. The bottom line, there’s no perfect way to do it and commercials need to be in place to assure that we have a profitable business. All you can do is focus on maximizing your content time while making your interruptions as short as possible. Under both scenarios, the companies I worked for made money.
If quarter hours are :00-:15, :15-:30, :30-:45 and :45-60 and you need 5-minutes of listening spent in those windows, your goal as a PD, Host and Producer is to play the percentages and try to offer as much content time as possible. That doesn’t mean you’ll get ratings credit, it just means you’re giving yourself the best chance to gain credit.
