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Are Two Hosts on a SportsTalk Show Necessary?
- Thread starter BruceNYC
- Start date
Do you prefer a lecture or a conversation? The ratings show a conversation is preferable. Particularly to younger demos. To them, it's more like a chat group in social media than a radio show. The callers are only useful when they bring something different & unique to the conversation. Most callers don't.
Radio companies are cutting staffs, primarily in music shows, not talk or sports. If two hosts are hurting ratings, they would be cut. So far, they're not.
Radio companies are cutting staffs, primarily in music shows, not talk or sports. If two hosts are hurting ratings, they would be cut. So far, they're not.
Callers can severely drag down a sportstalk format, especially when their takes are boring, rambling, idiotic, pointless, or simply pulling stuff out of their butts. Good producers/screeners can mitigate some of that, but are not always as effective as needed.
Here in Houston the usually top rated sportstalker almost never takes any calls, instead encouraging texts to the station where the most interesting and insightful are read and referenced on the air by the hosts.
It is extremely rare to have a host that has the encyclopedic knowledge and intelligence to pull off a solo show, a situation that demands some caller input.
Another way to handle it is with concurrent social media conversations along with on-air. If something unique is said, its referred to by the hosts. Listeners can participate that way. It's more interactive that way, and less dead air.
Outside of New York and a handful of other large markets, Sports radio does not rely on callers. Research showed that very few want to hear the poor takes from callers.
Audio quality on most cell phones is horrible
What we find is it's not the phone, but the line. If the caller is connected to wifi, it can be as good as a 5K line. Especially if it's a good internet connection. But if they're on cell, and it's a long way out passing through a million COs, it can sound like it's coming from the moon.
Don't tell that to Jim Rome; Or even David Samson in the podcast world. They clearly are proof no multi-hosts work.
Well sports fans like to listen to gossip about their favorite stars especially during the playoffs like the NBA is facing right now. I seen this on the TV side there are 3 to 4 sports pundits especially before NBA games in the Western Conference 1st rounds they would spend some time about Luka Doncic and how he was removed from the Mavericks to Lakers. Also the other one being discussed is how Jimmy Butler III save the Warriors from regular season elimination. The NBA pundits (all the ones I seen are ex-Players) especially put lots of time with Warriors or Lakers when I am watching even though the top NBA Western Conference team is the Oklahoma City Thunder.
www.espn.com
Likewise on the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs the Gossip is on the Celtics and Cavs.
Firings, dysfunction and chaos: Inside Dallas' lost season and the end of the Luka Doncic era
Doncic's time in Dallas ended with a shocking trade on Feb. 2, but the beginning of the end dates to the summer of 2023.
Likewise on the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs the Gossip is on the Celtics and Cavs.
Cell phone audio is quite good now that virtually everything is VoLTE and “HD Voice”. It’s rather the interface with the landline networks stations use that wreck the quality. If there was a way for the station audio board to directly interface with cell networks things would greatly improve.
It doesn’t help that many people are in noisy environments, refuse to speak directly into their cell phones, or even wave them around while talking.
Those are examples of top quality hosts that are knowledgeable and can carry a show by themselves. But those shows are interview heavy, which fills a lot of time. Also at a national level calls are very carefully screened and selected as not to drag things down.
Depends on when the show is on. Multi-host talk sports talk segments becomes a bigger deal before or at halftime during the game.
I will try not to get too technical: most phone
a calls are "digitaltize" at the neighborhood "box" if it is landline or at the receiver at the cell site. What often seems a bad connection is either cutout from a crappy rf cell, environmental noise the phone is picking up. The PSC had a "standard by definition" that used to be 300 to a severe rollout at 3.5 khz max. If you make a request on a music station app, it will sound better because there is no "limit" on the bandwidth. It will sound as good as the hand set mic was manufactured to or the bandwidth allowed by the download device or site.
The "content" of some of the callins is questionable.
a calls are "digitaltize" at the neighborhood "box" if it is landline or at the receiver at the cell site. What often seems a bad connection is either cutout from a crappy rf cell, environmental noise the phone is picking up. The PSC had a "standard by definition" that used to be 300 to a severe rollout at 3.5 khz max. If you make a request on a music station app, it will sound better because there is no "limit" on the bandwidth. It will sound as good as the hand set mic was manufactured to or the bandwidth allowed by the download device or site.
The "content" of some of the callins is questionable.
Rome mainly uses tweets, emails and texts from listeners and doesn't take as many calls as he did in the past.
Last I checked he wasn't heard on as many stations as he once was.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure I remember the last time I heard a caller on our main sports talker. I must not have missed them.
I believe the midday show has a few calls on Friday.
Sure the audience and pool of callers is bigger especially in passionate sports cities. And Rome has a handful of callers who are funny/interesting too and he is always begging for them to call, but it is rare and a lot of the callers are not great at all.
Pick some smaller market sports station with a local show. Many of them lean heavily on callers and the callers are just awful.
I listen to a small market sports talk show and often the callers have to tell one of the cohosts (who covers the teams) what time and against which opposing school the games are, it's both funny and sad. The cohost can name any character from a 50 year old TV show like it's nothing.
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