A huge story broke this afternoon if you like sports on radio (yeah, yeah).
First, the current situation in radio sports.
Who runs sports talk stations?
+---------------+-------------------------+ | station_count | Parent Company | +---------------+-------------------------+ | 294 | Small Owners | | 73 | Clear Channel | | 66 | Cumulus | | 18 | Entercom | | 16 | CBS | | 10 | Townsquare Media | | 5 | Galaxy | | 4 | Nassau | | 4 | Lincoln Financial Media | | 4 | Alt/Confer Trusts | +---------------+-------------------------+ and focusing on the big 3 radio owners left: +---------------+---------------------+------------+ | parent | Name | synd_count | +---------------+---------------------+------------+ | Clear Channel | Fox Sports | 45 | | Clear Channel | Mix/Unknown | 16 | | Clear Channel | ESPN | 10 | | Clear Channel | Yahoo! Sports Radio | 2 | | Cumulus | ESPN | 38 | | Cumulus | Fox Sports | 15 | | Cumulus | Mix/unknown | 10 | | Cumulus | Yahoo! Sports Radio | 3 | | CBS | None | 12 | | CBS | Fox Sports | 2 | | CBS | ESPN | 2 | +---------------+---------------------+------------+
ESPN (still owned by Disney) is the big guy on the block. They have the Cable TV franchise and many of the big ticket sports contracts, which gives them access to audio, access to players and coaches, reporters at the games, and a solid reputation. If you start a syndicated sports station, you probably want ESPN as your first round draft choice.
Fox Sports is pretending to be a sports network. They are (or were) fairly closely tied to Clear Channel and a few years ago, Clear Channel decided to cut back on their participation – they have gone through one host after another and mostly do shows from KLAC out in Los Angeles. They don’t have the access or money that ESPN has, so they mostly sit around and just talk about how fun sports is.
Yahoo! sports was named Sporting News until maybe 6 months ago – targeted at hard core gamblers – more focused on point spreads and betting on fantasy football leagues than the actual sports (other than how it would affect the point spread)
CBS has gone down a very different path – in all their major market sports stations, they are 24/7 local sports, and have done extremely well at that – drawing very high ratings and making money.
+------------+------------+-------------------+--------+ |Station | Syndicator | City Name | State | +------------+------------+-------------------+--------+ | WFAN AM/HD | None | NEW YORK | NY | | WSCR AM/HD | None | CHICAGO | IL | | KRLD FM/HD | Fox Sports | DALLAS | TX | | WIP AM/HD | None | PHILADELPHIA | PA | | KILT AM | None | HOUSTON | TX | | WJFK FM/HD | None | MANASSAS | VA | | WXYT FM/HD | None | DETROIT | MI | | WBZ FM/HD | None | BOSTON | MA | | WJZ FM/HD | None | CATONSVILLE | MD | | WJZ AM | ESPN | BALTIMORE | MD | | KDKA FM/HD | None | PITTSBURGH | PA | | WKRK FM/HD | None | CLEVELAND HEIGHTS | OH | | KHTK AM/HD | Fox Sports | SACRAMENTO | CA | | WFNZ AM/HD | None | CHARLOTTE | NC | | KRAK AM | ESPN | HESPERIA | CA | | WQYK AM | None | SEFFNER | FL | +------------+------------+-------------------+--------+
People in Pittsburgh want to talk about the Pirates and the Steelers, not hear some guy in Los Angeles talk about some thing that happened with an assistant coach in New York City. CBS has a few sports stations that do carry non-CBS sports, a legacy of the still unhealed Infinity Radio days. CBS is the one big radio operator with direct ties to their TV network – NBC left the radio business when GE bought them, and ABC Radio is now part of Cumulus and only indirectly connected to ABC.
So the big news is: CBS and Cumulus are forming a new Sports Radio Network starting in January 2013. The hosts that are currently working for CBS will be the content for the network. Cumulus Media will be handling the syndication with CBS producing the content. The 64 Cumulus sports stations currently carrying syndicated sports will switch to the new network. That likely means that as the existing syndication agreements end, ESPN and Fox Sports will be picked up by other independent station owners.
There are a couple rumors floating around that may well be related – one is that CBS might be looking to sell some or all of its radio stations. Could the Big 3 of radio become the Big 2 soon?
The motive here is pretty clear, at least for Lew Dickey, CEO of Cumulus – to lay off employees at his stations and cut costs.
CBS’s motives are less clear – they have a format that is working and making money. Taking the local sports guy in Pittsburgh and making him do a national show and talk about the new stadium in Seattle is going to turn off the local audience, or if the local Pittsburgh guy does a national show talking as a “homer” about his Pirates will kick your team’s butt, that won’t sell in other markets.
For the big picture, I suspect what is underlying all of this is an expectation that more and more stations on FM won’t be playing music and having only 2 major options (ESPN and Fox) isn’t enough. Some stations will end up having 4 or 5 sports talk stations. Enjoy!
I remember reading this blog and predictions of
FM radio moving to mostly ALL TALK. I was happy since I mostly
listen to talk radio, night and early morning.. Sometimes I
do like to turn on some rock music, new/alternative/classic.
I get bored of my cd’s and podcast it is nice sometimes someone doing all the work and picking
what songs are being played for me to listen too..
Well, now the prediction
is coming true..
In the past year in the tampa/orlando market
three AM talk stations have taken over FM music stations.
Needless to say there is no more classic rock in the area.
102.5 the bone REAL RAW RADIO from tampa was a classic rock station,
now has turned to ALL TALK
to compete with REAL RADIO 104.1 orlando’s ALL talk format..
With this news, I bet some of those dying country stations on FM
in the area will be turning to sports..
To add 102.5 FM in the bone TAMPA is the station Bubba the love sponge has been on
since he finally was allowed back on terrestrial radio and left howard stern’s sister station on sirius-xm
My prediction was a while ago 🙂
One thing that has also changed is an explosion in AM stations adding FM translators (limited to 250 watts).
This has several benefits to an AM station:
– for daytime only or very low power they get a viable 24 hr/day signal
– while the FM translator signal is typically smaller than the AM footprint, it still usually covers the bulk of the people living in the area advertisers want to reach
– younger people don’t even know why there is an AM on their radio – if you aren’t on FM, you don’t exist.
This won’t be easy to pull off, but I think the FCC at some point will give priority for new FM translators to AM stations that never had an FM companion granted to them with the goal of turning off AM radio and turning this FM translators to full power FM stations.
I am in my early 20’s and have been listening
to talk radio for about 6 years..
There was a tropical storm, power was out,
and was looking for weather updates and information
on my crank radio… NOTHING on FM was giving me information
so I turned it to AM got the information I needed and now FM has
been my secondary go to listening…. I got even more hooked working
at a factory being able to listen to the radio any station of my choice.
Now, I stream all day and night different programs, even if I am not working
or in the car… Were a new breed art =).. Well old breed new technology??
Still not all that into the radio sports talk but I suspect that there will be more
sports getting on FM with this information
“Listening” to sports is like listening to a woman pose nude.
Oh baby!
I don’t know about ‘needing ‘ more sports?
Hell after Sporting News Radio went away, ‘ Bob & Bob’ and Arnie Spanier, that was about it with sporting news for me.
That’s a shame that music is going away from FM. Back when I was younger I always liked trying the big FM Rock stations of a city when visiting, DC101 or WRXL Richmond.
each sounded different.
Parrott