April 1st was the launch date for the full 24 hour/day NBC sports Talk being produced by Dial Global. Dial Global is also the distributor of CBS sports radio, carried on more Cumulus radio stations than CBS Owned stations.
As stations drop Fox or ESPN to pick up CBS or NBC, the pressure increases to dump news/talk on other stations that want to pick up Fox or ESPN
Let’s play musical chairs – when the music stops, someone loses an affiliate.
Does anyone listen to that crap? Low information or more specifically an
‘No’ information voter is the target audience on sports talk.
Yeah they will be surprised when the NK’s launch, or if they quit making yankee jerseys all of a sudden.
It might as well be ‘Telemundo’ talk.
oh well
Parrott
ESPN Deportes – de radio en español
http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/espndeportesradio/
LOL !
CBS sold all of its stations that weren’t in top-20 markets about five years ago, so there’s a lot of shady action happening regarding their sports programming. Some stations carry the complete menu of all of their shows, some put in their own morning show, etc. I noticed that Cumulus 105.1/105.3/105.7 (“Love105”) in Minneapolis/St. Paul just flipped to CBS Sports yesterday. The move to sports is a predictable one as many stations flee political talk, but it’s just going to evolve back into male-oriented “hot talk” again given time.
The general pattern is if they have an established all AM/FM simulcast, they move their network sports on the AM and keep the local sports talk on FM. They’re now a backfilling the network in smaller markets – one consideration is probably if Cumukus has a station in the market they might switch to CBS sports talk.
There are persistent rumors CBS wants to get out of the radio business, other than maybe their all news stations. The problem is the folks who might be interested can’t buy the stations because of the FCC ownership caps. Those who don’t already have a presence in big cities (Townsquare comes to mind) are looking for bargains, not paying top prices. They aren’t interested in spending billions more on radio. They just swapped stations with Cumulus, taking over a bunch of non viable small market stations
It is an interesting idea. There was actually a station with that explicit focus in Toronto, “Mojo Radio” it was called and it had Phil Hendrie, Coast to Coast AM, the John Batchelor show and local talk. That format was from 2001 – 2004, then according to Wikipedia “In 2004, due to low ratings (MOJO was typically hovering around a 1.4 share) the station moved away from the male-oriented imaging to a more general news and talk format as AM640 Toronto Radio.”
I remember the “male-oriented imaging”. It was mostly the local hosts and it was a bit like listening to junior high school boys discovering their first swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.
A lot of the US stations try to block their streams from listeners without an US IP address. CFMU 640 Toronto does not and is an interesting talk alternative – it reaches Buffalo and Rochester with a strong daytime signal and still has Coast to Coast AM and other US programming: http://www.640toronto.com/
BTW- Referencing the recent mentions if ISDN and remote talkers in other recent threads here, the wikipedia entry for CFMJ 640 AM Toronto (correct call letters, not CFMU in my typo above) says the following:
“On January 7th, 2013 Arlene Bynon’s afternoon program was replaced by Bill Carroll (broadcaster). Arlene stayed on as cohost for the following three weeks. Her last day was Tuesday, January 29th 2013. Bill Carroll hosts the 4-7pm weekday slot in Toronto in addition to his Noon-3pm weekday slot on talk radio station KFI in Los Angeles, California (which is also located at 640 on the AM dial)”
Clear Channel loves to spread its hosts around. A host will do a morning show in one city and afternoon drive in another, and you never know exactly where they are. Joe Pags hosts daily shows in Houston and San Antonio, does a weekend show in Denver, and has a syndicated program (The Weekend) that shows up everywhere else. Remember the 60 Minutes piece from the mid-’80s about Tom Joyner, when he hosted radio shows in Dallas and Chicago…and every day commuted by plane to both cities?
It’s just a matter of time before all these high-paying radio jobs are farmed out to foreign talk hosts making $2 an hour. With ISDN and the internet, all is possible.
This Bill Carroll had had a show on CMFJ for quite some time, then got hired by KFI in Los Angeles. After while, he managed to keep that job AND get his old job back at CMFJ, presumably because his replacement bombed.
This instance is particularly interesting because CMFJ is owned by Corus Entertainment, with a 3/4 billion dollar annual revenue steam and headquarters in Canada while KFI is owned by Clear Channel in the USA.
Remember Art Bell? He did his shows for an extended period of time from The Philippines.
His first few weeks were problematic – he kept losing his connections every few minutes, and let’s just say the local phone company isn’t AT&T.
We Americans have this idea you tell the phone company you want phone service, and you expect that within a few days, you have a phone (unless you’re in a house or area that doesn’t have service yet). In many countries, getting a phone takes months and then only after you realize someone wants a bribe. It’s not surprising why cell phone use has exploded, and an entire generation is now growing up with no notion that phones plug into a wall jack
TV might not be far behind cutting the jack… if it weren’t for the licensing by zip code. This brings us one step closer to this century:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/cord-cutters-rejoice/
BTW- Ever donate to PBS? They spent more than you have ever donated to stop you from watching their shows on your computer with this Aereo service…. but not to worry they get tax money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting money flow.
NPR especially has a problem – the affiliates produce almost no programming of their own (there are some exceptions). They exist only to raise money to pay people huge salaries to raise money.
When the widow of Ray Kroc (founder of McDonalds) died, she had been courted by the guy running NPR, and talked her into leaving about $200 million to NPR, but with lots of strings to keep the local NPR affiliates from sucking up the money. While some money was available for things like buying new transmitters, the bulk of the money was designated to expand NPR as an online portal for downloading content on demand, unrelated to your local NPR affiliate – remember that NPR is a generator of content, not the operator of radio stations.
The phones stopped ringing during the begathons. NPR listeners were downloading podcasts and no longer listening to their radio, with the exception of Morning Edition and to a lesser degree All Things Considered.
The stations went on the warpath – they kicked out the guy who talked Mrs Krok into giving them that money. They forced the NPR web site to only cough up content and schedules that applied to your station. Streaming of live NPR programs was forced to be delayed by around 8 hours so it wasn’t a direct competitor to streaming from your local station.
Interestingly, there are markets where the NPR station has the #1 market share. There are probably others also where they don’t subscribe to Arbitron so are invisible in the ratings except to people who pay the subscription fee
About the AM to FM thing — I listened to ESPN Radio somewhat regularly on my radios around the house before they made the switch to FM here in the New York market. Most of the stations I listen to are on AM and I don’t feel like picking up the radio, finding the band slider switch and moving it to FM just to listen to one station and then have to reverse the process when a commercial comes on. It’s easier to go from AM to FM in the car. But if Canada is any guide, I should probably get used to finding stations on FM.
I hope Art will forgive me for this product category endorsement but I have several of these in my home and have bought them as gifts. There are several models available from this vendor and from half a dozen different vendors- it is a WIFI radio. Mine is battery powered – I take it into the bathroom when I am showering, into the garage, out on the deck, it follows me around the house.
My presents are stations I like and have found from this web site. Not only am I one button away from an AM t0 FM switch, but I can switch from NYC to LA just as easily and the AM streams sound better than FM on my car stereo.
Again, not to endorse any particular manufacturer or model, but to endorse the product category.
http://reviews.cnet.com/portable-audio-devices/logitech-ue-smart-radio/4505-6450_7-35419331.html
You’re still a little on the cultural leading edge, but that’s going to pick up momentum.
I listen to radio solely on my iPhone (and iPad). I have one “real” radio, but I haven’t turned it on since August. My phone wakes me up with its alarm.
I’ve thoroughly broken the radio habit in the car, on the occasions I drive. I might listen on the phone, but most of the time I just focus on driving or thinking about work or the web site, etc
I was in a meeting today – and we couldn’t remember the name of a town in North Dakota where we have a warehouse. I clicked Siri and asked for the names of the biggest cities in north Dakota. In maybe five seconds, I had the list. Now my friend wants an iPhone.
When I am on vacation and traveling in and out of different hotels, I use my phone for that as well, rather than take the radio. I prefer my Logitech radio because it is decent sound and I don’t have to mess with ear buds. It fills the room with that is quite good and with earbuds would provide great stereo sound.
People ask me why I would want a portable radio over just using a PC and portability is the answer.
The third reason I prefer this device is the UI. It is a radio an on/off button, presets and the volume control, headset jack, alarm clock and everything you expect in a portable radio. Can my PC do the same functions? Yes, but I have to log in and play with my mouse and have the PC UI to deal with. I can hear a coffee cup full of water by popping my hood and setting it on the top of my car’s hot engine when I get home from work, but that it not my preferred method for heating water.
Is it safe to drink it again or bathe in it yet ?