No Bucs on KDKA

[Snafu]

Well then CC is sneaking them on because the weekend games in particular have been awful.

A note to the out of towners. You have two choices this season to hear Pirate games on the radio. Unfortunately they both cost. Both XM and MLB.com carry all of the Pirate broadcasts but you are going to have to pony up (on a positive note the money goes into the revenue sharing that winds up back in the Nutting family pocket at the end of the year).

Not sure that you would be hearing the games on 1020 anyway. KD's signal still isn't back to 100% between their continuing transmitter issues and the side channel splatter from WBZ. The days of hearing the station on your car radio in far away places like Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City are long gone.

 

[Pratte4Life]

That's not true. I recently heard KDKA in Atlanta.

Orlando- no. I can't get it in Orlando. But I can't get many 50KWs in Florida to tell you the truth. WWL out of New Orleans, WBT from Charlotte, and 650 from Nashville (I can't remember the call letters) I can get. That's about it.

I've never been able to pull in KDKA in Orlando. I'm talking the 80s or 90s.

In Jacksonville, yes. Orlando, no.

Now, WHY you'd want to tune in is another matter.

 

[Radio_Realist]

Now, WHY you'd want to tune in is another matter.

At the risk of offending the Managing Board Editor, I believe that the reason why anyone would want to listen to a Pirate broadcast is because one is a Pirates fan. If one is a Pirates fan, one will listen to the games regardless of how bad the promos, theme music, etc., sounds. If one is not a Pirates fan, then one won't listen to a Pirates broadcast, regardless of how good the promos, theme music, etc., sounds.

But, if someone can show me a significant number of people who decide whether or not they will listen to a Pirates game on the radio because of promos, theme music, etc., then I shall stand corrected.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Realist- What I'm saying is I would listen to KDKA if they still had the Pirates.

My point is why anyone would listen now, without the Bucs.

 

[radiogeek07]

As far as WWVA is concerned, I don't think they would air pirates games. MLB is loving the fact that a lot of these games are being taken off of major flamethrowers. Baseball fans now have to resort to MLB.TV or XM which means money out of their pockets. I really think the goal of the MLB is to regionalize these broadcasts so that they cover the immediate and surrounding markets, but nothing more than that.

 

[Parttimer]

The religious brokered stuff at night on WWVA is their prime revenue stream, more than the daytime format generates. No night baseball games, ever.

 

[Snafu]

Major league baseball doesn't really care where the teams broadcast games but they also realize that XM and MLB.com fees are making revenue sharing work to a greater degree (the Pirates share of that part of the pie was in excess of $3 million last year). Baseball realizes, however, that AM is a fading trend in the sports business for a million reasons and is happy to reap the windfall from that.

CC isn't going to take money out of its pockets to broadcast baseball games out of Pittsburgh so WWVA was never a consideration and won't be as long as they own it.

Atlanta?? Really?? The skip must have been monumental that night because KD has trouble hitting the central part of PA most nights anymore.

And yes, KD would come storming into Central Florida before Fidel started screwing up the AM band to get even with Radio Marti. Were loud and clear into the mid 90s.

 

[Parttimer]

For a while there was an outfit running a blowtorch on 1020 at night out of the Turks and Caicos islands called "Carribbean Christian Radio." They said they had studios in Florida and even gave a 904 area code phone # on the air, which I'm sure helped the FCC find them.....

 

[Pratte4Life]

Snafu- I don't want to get into "Did-Not, Did-Too" arguement with you, but I do remember trying to pull in Pirates games on KDKA in Lake Wales, Florida (about 30 miles south of Orlando) in 1987 and I could not pull them in.

And I remember thinking- "I could never live in Florida because I would be out of touch with the Pirates."

Times change. One thing I will say, though. It would seem taking the broadcasts off the air and onto the 'net for baseball is a move akin to boxing going all to pay-per-view.

 

[fromtheinsideout]

Now, WHY you'd want to tune in is another matter.

At the risk of offending the Managing Board Editor, I believe that the reason why anyone would want to listen to a Pirate broadcast is because one is a Pirates fan. If one is a Pirates fan, one will listen to the games regardless of how bad the promos, theme music, etc., sounds. If one is not a Pirates fan, then one won't listen to a Pirates broadcast, regardless of how good the promos, theme music, etc., sounds.

But, if someone can show me a significant number of people who decide whether or not they will listen to a Pirates game on the radio because of promos, theme music, etc., then I shall stand corrected.

While I will not suggest people will or will not listen to a broadcast based on promos or bumpers, the quality of the broadcast comes into play when the radio signal no longer outreaches the TV signal, so if the radio product sounds bad, it is easier to just go to TV instead, a notion that not all of KDKA's Pirate listeners had. The other reason you do not want you broadcasts sounding like crap is plain and simple, advertisers walk away. Why would I buy time on a broadcast where my spots may not be played properly because of the lack of technical expertise running the broadcast, or worse, the technical expertise is chasing people to the TV broadcast instead, in which case I would be further ahead buying the TV time than the radio time. The Pirate rights may not command the money of the Steelers, but it is still a profit making venture for those who opt to broadcast the games so you want to leave as few reasons as possible for listeners to tune out your broadcast.

 

[Radio_Realist]

if the radio product sounds bad, it is easier to just go to TV instead

Do you (or anyone else) actually know someone alive in the year 2007 who would choose to listen to a baseball game on the radio if he could watch it on television? How many people who could choose to watch a game on TV over hearing it on the radio would pick the radio? Sure, if you're driving in your car, you'll listen to the game on the radio. If you're working outdoors in your yard. One of the guys in my office puts the Pirate games on the radio at work. But when he retires (which will be soon), he'll watch them on television if they're on. Fans will settle for listening to the radio if the game isn't on television.

Does anyone still believe that people will sit around the old Atwater-Kent to hear a ball game when it's on television?

Why would I buy time on a broadcast where my spots may not be played properly because of the lack of technical expertise running the broadcast,

Beats me. This isn't about why an advertiser would buy a spot, it's about why a baseball fan would tune in.

it is still a profit making venture for those who opt to broadcast the games so you want to leave as few reasons as possible for listeners to tune out your broadcast.

Income minus expenses equals profits. One increases profits by inreasing income or by decreasing expenses. One needs to compare the risk of losing listeners because of technical flaws that only radio professionals will notice or care about with the profit increases that come from using the cheapest talent possible.

The simple fact is that there is a far greater risk of losing listeners because the Pirates are losing in the late innings than there is from losing listeners because someone missed a commercial cue.

The three most important things in any radio broadcast of a sporting event are the game, the game, and the game.

 

[fromtheinsideout]

Yes, it is about advertisers as much, if not more so than listeners. Your notion seemed to be who cares if they get it right, it won't affect listeners, which is a questionable prospect at best and certainly moreso now that almost all of the radio listeners will have a TV option, which some of KDKA's listeners didn't have just because outside of Pittsburgh, the Pirates have little to no national appeal, therefore will get no national TV coverage. Since the signal no longer gets out of the market, selling radio spots means you are going directly against TV.

If a program I am thinking about buying time in has problems getting my spots on the air, that is certainly going to weigh into my decision to buy time. If I am listenening to hear if my spots air and they are not or they are being clipped or otherwise distorted, again I am less likely to buy future time on the broadcasts and will spend my advertising dollars elsewhere.

The listeners are important, but at the end of the day if you have 1 million listeners and they don't hear my spot, it doesn't do me any good. Numbers are not everything if they can't generate revenue.

 

[kenhawk1160]

if the radio product sounds bad, it is easier to just go to TV instead

Do you (or anyone else) actually know someone alive in the year 2007 who would choose to listen to a baseball game on the radio if he could watch it on television?

I do. Anyone who wants to hear the game details but doesn't want to dedicate their full attention to blobbing out in front of the tube. TV PBP is much different from Radio PBP. You get more with radio. If I'm cleaning out my basement or garage, or doing a project on the computer, but I still want to get the game, I'll turn on the radio. I'm not the only who does this.

More than that, there's lots of game listeners on the job who simply can't watch TV. Thus they can pick up that day game on the radio while they're working. Radio does not need your undivided attention like TV does.

 

[Radio_Realist]

Anyone who wants to hear the game details but doesn't want to dedicate their full attention to blobbing out in front of the tube.

In other words, I should have listed more chores than just "If you're working outdoors in your yard". I assumed people could extrapolate from that example other, similar examples. My bad for not being even more verbose.

If I am listenening to hear if my spots air and they are not or they are being clipped or otherwise distorted, again I am less likely to buy future time on the broadcasts and will spend my advertising dollars elsewhere.

Isn't it really a question of degree? Some people in here seem to regard minor little glitches as whopping big problems. From what I've heard of Pirate broadcasts (and granted, they're nothing more to me than annoying background noise) the problems being described are only minor things. I don't see having a :30 commercial chopped off at :29 as being all that big a deal. Chopping a :30 off at :15 would be.

Is anyone saying that Pirate games have technical errors along the lines of cutting commercials in half?

 

[Parttimer]

While I haven't personally observed this, I'm reading between the lines here and guessing that it's more along the lines of playing a spot with two out and a 2-2 count....

 

[Snafu]

Its promos for Rush popping up in the middle of an inning. Its audio quality so bad that it is painful to listen to. Its the crowd mike getting so loud in the middle of an at bat that the sound of a fastball hitting the catchers mitt sounds like the ballpark had just been bombed. Its the color guy's mike not working for an entire half inning. I could go on, but its not "radio geek" stuff, its serious failures that any listener would immediately notice and know that something had gone wrong. While they've gotten better, especially in the last road trip there are still some issues that need to be resolved. And again what is more astounding is that this is the same radio group that pulls off flawless Steeler broadcasts without exception game after game after game.