• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Madden To Rtn?? The X?

Biz Listener said:
Pratte4Life said:
Maybe this is because I am heavily interested in sports, but I've always felt sportscasters were the most popular broadcasters.

Play-by-play men become icons and sports talk show hosts often advance their locale's culture.

Madden's style was completely different than Cope's, so I can understand why you wouldn't listen.
Click to expand...

It wasn't so much Madden's style being different from Cope's. It was that Madden was simply nasty. There are lots of people on the air with styles different from Myron's. There is no one with the same style as Myron Cope. But I can handle listening to talk hosts who are argumentative, smooth, rustic, annoying, condescending, and a dozen other adjectives. But the one I can't abide is pure and simple nastiness. Madden is the only media figure in town who I would really like hear had the stuffing beat out of him in a bar. And that's based on only hearing a few samples of his show, and reading some of the things he wrote when he was trying to pass himself off as the "only true journalist covering professional wrestling".
Click to expand...

But isn't that just human nature? The things that I find to be appealing might annoy the heck out of someone else, and so on, and so on...
I personally don't like Howard Stern and Don Imus, but they have obviously done very well for themselves.

Madden was very successful here. A lot of people liked hearing him bash the listeners, the Steelers, the Pirates, etc. I remember a piece in Sports Illustrated years ago that talked about the sports talk industry and his show was mentioned prominently. I believe they quoted him as saying that "Darryl Strawberry was the waste of a cancer cure."

Not my cup of tea personally, but he obviously found his niche and ran with it.
 
Interested Observer said:
But isn't that just human nature? The things that I find to be appealing might annoy the heck out of someone else, and so on, and so on...
I personally don't like Howard Stern and Don Imus, but they have obviously done very well for themselves.

Madden was very successful here. A lot of people liked hearing him bash the listeners, the Steelers, the Pirates, etc. I remember a piece in Sports Illustrated years ago that talked about the sports talk industry and his show was mentioned prominently. I believe they quoted him as saying that "Darryl Strawberry was the waste of a cancer cure."

Not my cup of tea personally, but he obviously found his niche and ran with it.
Click to expand...

One more piece of evidence proving that H.L. Mencken was correct. If Madden does go to the X, it might not only help their ratings, it creates a natural tie-in for a sponsor -- any company that sells bath soap. Listening to Madden for any length of time is bound to make people feel dirty and to want to use a bar of soap.
 
Anybody notice that we're two weeks down the road from the Bob Smizik trial balloon on this matter with no action and not a word being said on Fleet Street? Think maybe John Rhom got the answer he was looking for and the answer was no?
 
:) Mark will be back... Probably soon.

His impact is underrated by 'yunz' at this board. He makes money for the station(s). I understand that he's still being paid by ESPN.
 
pfa said:
His impact is underrated by 'yunz' at this board. He makes money for the station(s).
Click to expand...

As long as they sell a few spots, they could put any yokel on the air and make some money. The object of the game is to find people to put on the air who can make you lots and lots of money. Mark Madden on the air will make you some money. If you're content with some instead of lots & lots, then Madden is your man.

Personally, I don't much care how many people listen to Mark Madden, or how good of an audience he draws, if I ran a local car dealership, sporting goods store, auto parts store, or other business that might buy radio advertising, I wouldn't want my business associated with that <INSERT PERJORATIVE TERM OF YOUR CHOICE HERE>.

Sure, you'll still make sales to the media buyers who only go by the raw numbers. That's the "some money". But with someone who's not a total <INSERT PERJORATIVE TERM OF YOUR CHOICE HERE> there a better chance of also selling local spots to local businesses where the person making the decisions looks at more than just Arbitron numbers.

Listening to Mark Madden is a lot like watching strippers at the local "gentlemen's club". Lots of men go to watch the strippers, but few want to be seen doing it.
 
He made a lot of money for ESPN Biz, hence the huge contract that he received. Do you honestly believe that they would pay him so much if they weren't making them so much?

He was dismissed by ESPN corporate because they are Disney and are very, very self-conscious about their image. 1250 wanted to sweep it under the rug because he is a money maker.

The "gentleman's club" analogy doesn't apply here. As you said, the name of the game is making money. When prospective clients look at the numbers, they see that a ton of people will hear their ad on his show, which in turn will make them money. Do you honestly believe that your average listener would not go to...let's say a car dealership because they advertised on the Mark Madden show? Advertisers know that the average listener who would buy their product don't care whose show they hear it on, just that they heard it period. Not to mention if they're listening to the show, they must like him.
 
On the contrary, there were advertisers who wouldn't touch his show because of the content. There are agencies that wouldn't even consider buying time on Madden's show because they didn't want to get caught in the middle of the kind of dungstorm that developed after his Ted Kennedy comment.

A lot of the advertisers on Madden's show were direct contacts, and a lot of the money that generated came from selling remotes to bars.
 
I couldn't pick out Mark Madden in a lineup, and I am pretty sure I've never even heard his voice, let alone his show.

But even I knew he was big in that market. Pittsburgh is a sports town, and he ruled the sports talk radio roost. It's not like he was some also-ran on a low-watt daytimer...whether you like the guy or not.

Does this rumored move actually (as someone suggested) tab X as a new sports talk station?

For the hue and cry above about "spoken word formats on FM", CC has a very big example in its own building about doing well with talk on FM...and I find it easy to imagine them expecting an FM sports talk station to do well, with a popular, proven host as anchor of the lineup, and another host with a sports background already there. Heck, they could theoretically simulcast the Steelers there, no?
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
I couldn't pick out Mark Madden in a lineup, and I am pretty sure I've never even heard his voice, let alone his show.

But even I knew he was big in that market. Pittsburgh is a sports town, and he ruled the sports talk radio roost. It's not like he was some also-ran on a low-watt daytimer...whether you like the guy or not.

Does this rumored move actually (as someone suggested) tab X as a new sports talk station?

For the hue and cry above about "spoken word formats on FM", CC has a very big example in its own building about doing well with talk on FM...and I find it easy to imagine them expecting an FM sports talk station to do well, with a popular, proven host as anchor of the lineup, and another host with a sports background already there. Heck, they could theoretically simulcast the Steelers there, no?
Click to expand...

That's a perfect example of the difference between an "objective" perspective and actually knowing what's really happening in a market. ESPN Radio got good ratings, and Madden was on the air. Chances are ESPN Radio would have gotten good ratings with anyone half-way competant sitting behind the mic. For all anyone knows, ESPN Radio could have doubled their success with someone other than Madden. There are a lot of people in the business (which leaves me out) who are convinced that ESPN's success was despite Madden, not because of Madden.

When prospective clients look at the numbers, they see that a ton of people will hear their ad on his show, which in turn will make them money. Do you honestly believe that your average listener would not go to...let's say a car dealership because they advertised on the Mark Madden show?
Click to expand...

I can honestly tell you that there are some things too low even for a used car dealer. Having yourself associated with Mark Madden is one of them. Not every decision made by local business owners is totally based on balance sheets. Believe it or not, some local business owners have personal ethics, and establish lines for themselves that they just won't cross. Maybe that's why they're content to run a reasonably successful local business instead of some vast business empire.
 
Biz Listener said:
That's a perfect example of the difference between an "objective" perspective and actually knowing what's really happening in a market. ESPN Radio got good ratings, and Madden was on the air. Chances are ESPN Radio would have gotten good ratings with anyone half-way competant sitting behind the mic. For all anyone knows, ESPN Radio could have doubled their success with someone other than Madden.
Click to expand...

Or, maybe they couldn't have. I freely admit I'm working with very little "inside" information, but I was under the impression the afternoon drive slot outperformed the rest of the station by some margin.

Biz Listener said:
There are a lot of people in the business (which leaves me out) who are convinced that ESPN's success was despite Madden, not because of Madden.
Click to expand...

That, I don't know.

Biz Listener said:
I can honestly tell you that there are some things too low even for a used car dealer. Having yourself associated with Mark Madden is one of them. Not every decision made by local business owners is totally based on balance sheets. Believe it or not, some local business owners have personal ethics, and establish lines for themselves that they just won't cross. Maybe that's why they're content to run a reasonably successful local business instead of some vast business empire.
Click to expand...

And herein lies the bottom line...if WXDX/Clear Channel believes they'll be able to get advertisers to line up with Madden, they'll put him on. ABC/Citadel went through similar with Don Imus, ya know.

Whether you and I think Madden is "damaged goods" or not is not relevant here. What's relevant is if Clear Channel can drum up business around Madden. Stations take chances on controversial personalities all the time, even after they say stupid things, and very few of them are drummed out of the business for putting foot into mouth (see Imus, above).

Even the Greaseman, who got exiled to buying time on Vietnamese-format AM stations after his high-profile racist comments, is back doing Saturday mornings in the same market (Washington, DC) on a full-power Clear Channel FM.

I think my comments are a little more objective not because of any inherent knowledge of the Pittsburgh market, but because I bring no baggage into the Madden discussion. I don't know him, like him or hate him, and only know what I've read and heard from others. I'm aware of the comments which got him fired from WEAE, but that's about it.
 
Isn't Mark doing something for the NFL Network now?

Question two- The article says that Mark's contract is what is basically keeping him off the air.

Would such a contract allow him to move to another market?
 
Pratte4Life said:
Question two- The article says that Mark's contract is what is basically keeping him off the air.

Would such a contract allow him to move to another market?
Click to expand...

Not normally, but each contract is unique.
 
I heard he was working as a free-lance sportswriter. I wonder if that pays very well.
 
And anyone can write anything on here, too.

I'm not trying to defend the legitimacy of Wikipedia, mind you. I was asking for clarification.

However, one point of contention. Madden was a hockey writer for the PG.

Of course, that's a broad term. I don't remember if he ever covered the Pens or not (I believe he did briefly for the PG, but I could be wrong). I do know he covered high schools and the like for many years.

So technically, that part of the entry was correct.
 
He never covered the Penguins on a regular basis for the P-G, which is what that implies. Most of his P-G work was in the weekly suburban sections.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom