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Limbaugh losing ground in key demos on WBEN
- Thread starter Rob Piotrowski
- Start date
Had he not purchased the Bills, there was talk of the team leaving Buffalo, right? There had been talk of forcing any new owner to keep the team in Buffalo, right? Jon Bon Jovi is not a popular guy in Buffalo, right? So that part of my story is correct.
And how are the Bills and Sabres doing in the free agent market? Are big name players rushing to Buffalo for big salaries and championships? As I said, the pool of money in a shrinking market is finite. Local radio is competing with the teams for that same pool of money for sponsorships and marketing.
Your words. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you wrote in present tense.
You need to do more research, A. Here's a primer http://espn.go.com/nfl/team/_/name/buf/buffalo-bills
Free agency and acquisitions? There have been many, from head coach to running back, tight end and other name players. Charles Clay, Mario Williams, LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins... you'll be reading about Marcell Dareu$ very soon... that is, presuming you pay as much attention to sports as you spend time on these boards. Buffalo Bills season ticket sales are and have been consistently in the top ten of the NFL. This despite 15 seasons out of the playoffs. The team set a season ticket sales record for the coming season. All but two games have been sold out, and of those two games, a limited number of seats remain. Buffalo consistently sells out more games with more fans in the seats, playing in a larger stadium than teams in far larger markets with smaller stadiums, having "better" weather.
The Sabres? The team is on track to sell out more home games again this season, this despite tanking last season. Same thing here. The Sabres also have a new coach, who signed a generous contract, and the prospect of the #2 selection in the NHL draft who promises to be a significant contributor to the team this season.
Be gracious. Admit it. On this one, you were wide right.
Maybe badminton is your sport.
I didn't mention it to get into a discussion about Buffalo sports, but rather point out that local radio is competing for marketing money with sports teams and everything else that seeks local sponsorships. Agree?
Betcha all thought you were gonna finally get a big fat mea culpa from the BigA this time, didn't ya'?
Ha!
You should know better than that. lol
I know that we'll never reach agreement on "smart operators", but this might be informative for some of the regular interlopers who view radio only from the corporate suite...
http://dicktaylorblog.com/2015/08/02/what-if/
http://dicktaylorblog.com/2015/08/02/what-if/
The problem is it's based on a false premise that the 96 Act ruined radio. Anyone who lives in Buffalo knows that there were big corporate owners in radio long before 1996, and that the 7-7-7 concept was dead before 1996. It ignores all the changes that happened in radio during the 1980s, including the growth of group ownership. Consider the Cap Cities purchase of ABC and how that changed the face of broadcasting. Consider the forced divestiture of radio stations owned by newspapers. Consider Docket 80-90 and all the new FM stations it created. All these things had far more impact on radio than the 96 Act. As I've said many times, this point of view puts radio at a forced disadvantage in a world that isn't small business.
Getting back to the original subject, the Rush Limbaugh Show was born when 7-7-7 was still the law of the land. He wasn't syndicated by a big national company that owned hundreds of radio stations. He depended on individual stations to turn over their mid-day show to him. And somehow, stations were willing to do something they'd never done before, which is turn over 3 hours of daytime airtime to a nationally syndicated radio show. This wasn't done by corporate edict, but by "smart operators." How did this happen?
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In 1989, the station group in Puerto Rico that I was directing had hit the market caps on the Island, and we wanted to expand into Florida. The first acquisition included an AM in Lake City, FL, WDSR. Soon after, we decided to add more talk to the station and approached the EIB Network about carrying Rush. We struck a deal, and began broadcasting the show on this little 1 kw station at 1340 in a county of 40 thousand.
Within the year, there was a restaurant that had a large private room for meetings that converted the area into the "Rush Room" where folks could go and have lunch and hear Rush on speakers. A coffee shop had a Rush section. Several stores had signs that said something like "Shh. We're listening to Rush". The show was a hit, with a waiting list of local accounts. And there were regional "Rush buys" out of nearby big cities that had agencies.
This was a grassroots phenomenon, not related to consolidation or big, rich owners. It was, as you say, done by smart owners in markets of all sizes.
I stopped looking at that blog when he wrote that the PPM was currency in Philadelphia in 2002. He was only off by 6 years, a fact that anyone with a "professed" position in broadcasting should know.
Here's the thing. You brought sports, particularly the Buffalo Bills, into the discussion when you made the team and free agency an integral part of your argument. It's there in black and blue. It was, I thought, interesting that you asked a question (in the form of a pronounced statement, actually) regarding free agency as it related to present day conditions (in Buffalo). Considering an earlier post of yours in which you admonished a poster for bringing up the past and not dealing with the present, I found your reference to free agency curious. Yes, the Buffalo Bills, as do most professional (major league) sports teams, fish in the same waters as local radio, TV and newspapers. So I concur. And yes, in the present, high quality players do want to come to Buffalo to play football or hockey, because the owner can and will pay a quality player commensurate with his abilities and potential, on par with any major league NFL franchise.
But what they can't deliver is the same kind of national attention that player would get in Dallas, for example. Money is one thing, but fame is another. The fame leads to more money, and it's hard to get that when you go to a smaller market. In the baseball world, Robinson Cano discovered that when he left the Yankees for the Mariners. So he got the big paycheck, but you never see him any more. A player might get the money to PLAY in Buffalo, but it's unlikely he'll get the national commercial endorsements he might get some place else. How often do you see the Bills on Monday Night Football?
Bringing this back to radio, a local host like Bauerle gets paid good money to do his local show. But it's not what Rush makes, and he doesn't have the fame or the recognition that Rush has. For some hosts, that's an issue. Quite often, posters here will bring up the farm system. No question that a place like Buffalo or Rochester could be a great testing ground for a national host, in the way Sacramento was for Rush. But would what he does translate to other markets? Is what is being done locally in Buffalo that universal that it could work on a national scale the way Rush did? Those are the kinds of questions to ask.
Buffalo has been a declining TV and Radio market for many years.
The bleeding has finally slowed recently.
NFL markets like Buffalo, Oakland and Jacksonville are rarely featured in
Sunday night or nationally televised games. They get regional coverage.
The Bills are huge in Buffalo, but not relevant in the NFL big picture.
Big TV markets = Big money. A is correct on that point.
I recall that none of the Buffalo Radio groups were terribly interested in
broadcasting Bills games. They fell to WGR by default...
The bleeding has finally slowed recently.
NFL markets like Buffalo, Oakland and Jacksonville are rarely featured in
Sunday night or nationally televised games. They get regional coverage.
The Bills are huge in Buffalo, but not relevant in the NFL big picture.
Big TV markets = Big money. A is correct on that point.
I recall that none of the Buffalo Radio groups were terribly interested in
broadcasting Bills games. They fell to WGR by default...
The Bills may have had reservations about going to WGR, where Chuck Dickerson and other hosts poisoned the well water years ago, but the deal seems to be working well for the team which gets 24-7 pub, good and bad. That's far more than 97 Rock gave the Bills, mostly company line. But sure, the WGR is the big beneficiary in that marriage of necessity. Its ratings have dramatically improved. It's maintained consistency. It's knocked 97 Rock out of first place in men in morning and afternoon drive. Those are big wins in the ratings and revenue columns.
True, but the major market theory is far from air tight. Peyton Manning played for Indianapolis before going to Denver. Indy is at best a large medium market. Manning became the spokes person for Buick and Nationwide before going to Denver.
Aaron Rodgers plays for Green Bay, the smallest market in the NFL. The "Discount Doublecheck" State Farm commercials are all over the place, in and out of football games.
Championship wins increase the potential for endorsements, regardless of market size.
No doubt, there's more money for endorsements available in the major markets, but not every major league player qualifies for the cash. The athlete has to be highly likeable with men and women. No client in a major market wants a wife beater or a juicer as a spokes person.
As to Buffalo, there is endorsement money here, although not as much as NY or LA. But more than that, players realize it's a strong franchise and a good place to raise kids. A million dollars buys a lot in Western New York, to say nothing of the small market adulation given to players. Jim Kelly and Fred Jackson could be mayor and county executive.
One more thing about the major market theory: LA has been without pro football for years. Most LA residents aren't rabid sports fans as much as they're tailgaters who cheer for winners only. They have beaches, the surf... and USC and UCLA, which might as well be pro teams.
OK, so who from Buffalo sports is nationally known?
Here's someone you may have heard of in passing: O.J. Simpson!
How about lately? Since Jim Kelly.
LA residents have plenty of entertainment options.
It's amusing how some folks think that blind loyalty to a pro team is
somehow honourable. The Bills haven't had a playoff appearance since 2000.
The franchise makes money because sports fans are easily duped.
Change coaches every 3 years and say "rebuilding" & the masses lap it up.
They're laughing at you not with you...
It's amusing how some folks think that blind loyalty to a pro team is
somehow honourable. The Bills haven't had a playoff appearance since 2000.
The franchise makes money because sports fans are easily duped.
Change coaches every 3 years and say "rebuilding" & the masses lap it up.
They're laughing at you not with you...
Model citizen.
Somehow, I don't think this thread was intended to stay on the topic of a host, but on the type of programming someone would prefer. Kind of like, "I didn't say it was you, I just blamed you.".
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