Why are the Red Sox on WEEI tonight? Entercom supposedly spent millions to make WRKO into the Red Sox' flagship station, then they pull the "musical stations" routine. Again.
Please tell me: what sense does this make? All it does is confuse the listeners. Why switch flagship stations? Talk about an inability to establish a brand identity - why bother to put them on WRKO at all? Not to mention that WEEI was always the better fit for the Sox anyhow.
Honestly, I think that someone at Entercom needs to have their head examined. In fact, maybe everyone in a management position there needs to be tested for lead poisoning or some other thing that causes chronic brain damage. [/color]
Hey, BRNout, congrats. You made the SaveWRKO board today as a guest expert, Before you get too excited, though, remember that that distinction is a little like winning the Whiner-of-the-Day Award on the WEEI 'whiner line', only without the intellectual gravitas.
As a public service, I'll print the rest of Maloney's post. It will make you look like Mel Karmazin by comparison.
Why kill your cash cow?
So you can have TWO cash cows. This, in the radio biz, is considered preferable to having only one cash cow.
With the release of station revenue totals for 2006,
You mean the totals that were released months ago, and actually discussed on your blog? Ya know, if we take the time to read your blog, shouldn't you?
Entercom's bizarre decision to move most of the Red Sox games from sports talker WEEI to issues- based WRKO makes less sense than ever. Why dilute WEEI's previously strong brand name?
Good point. Folks won't think of WEEI as 'The Sports Station' anymore. They'll think of it as ethnic radio for people who like athletic contests played by professionals from many different nations. And they'll think that Finneran, Feinburg, Limbaugh, and Carr are now sports talkers who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time going off on non-sports tangents.
Underscoring the incredible power of the Red Sox,
Well, you've just answered your own question. WRKO needed help, not WEEI. The Sox were not going to be doing anything for WEEI that WEEI can't do for itself, except for the billing, which Entercom keeps.
WEEI was the second- highest billing station in the country, according to the Houston Chronicle:[/color]
( inserts article mentioning that WEEI billed around 36 mil in 2006)
Now, the company is paying somewhere between 15 and 20 million annually (based on conflicting trade and media reports) and the games are spread out between two stations in what has got to be confusing for the average listener.
Actually, it is only confusing for the below average listener, which both this board and SaveWRKO have amply demonstrated. So far, I've found one other person (other than Maloney), who actually has a problem remembering that the Wednesday games air on WEEI.
Try this...WEEI - Wednesday - Sox - WEEI - Wednesday - Sox, Hari Krishna, hari Krishna, hari hari, Krishna Krishna.
Here's a comment I found on the Internet today that surely speaks for many out there:
(this is where you come in, BRNout)
Jeepers, you even write like Maloney, the same strawmen, the same overwrought, forelock- tugging BS, the same red herrings, same non-sequiturs etc.
Now, WRKO has been destroyed
Ummm...a couple of paragraphs ago, you were writing about "the incredible power of the Red Sox", and now the station with those 'incredible' broadcast rights has been 'destroyed'?
Does the expression cognitive dissonance ring a bell?
WEEI has for the most part lost its major draw and listeners are left scratching their heads.
Who are these headscratchers, Masked Man? I haven't met many, but then I don't spend as much time on the planet Zoltron as you.
What a mess.
The big question: is Entercom at war with itself? Somebody sure seems to be undermining the company from within.
Okay, enough fooling around here. Let's just cut to the chase and explain something you should have learned during the first month you were in the business...
You have two radio stations, both of whose billing goes into your pocket.
One station, WEEI, is doing gangbusters, setting revenue records, and is running short of advertising avails, partly because they are losing three to four hours of live, sellable, inexpensive to produce programming on an almost daily basis.
Another station, WRKO, is underperforming both revenue- and ratings-wise, and has mostly syndicated crap running every night which doesn't sell and doesn't turn decent audience numbers.
The Red Sox broadcasts draw lots of listeners, many of whom may not be regular listeners to your station. Of course, they are much more likely, as Sox fans, to already be listeners to WEEI, rather than listeners to WRKO.
Therefore, the smart move is to put the Sox on WRKO because:
WRKO turns non-revenue and non-audience producing time into megabucks and megalistener producing time.
WEEI frees up those evening hours for running live programming and frees up lots of avails for ads, while keeping all their other ads.
WRKO gets to promote it's talk programming to folks who normally don't listen to WRKO.
If the promotion and carryover from the Sox drives up WRKO numbers across the board, revenue goes up across the board, also.
WEEI still keeps its hand in the Sox by running regularly scheduled games, and obviously gets the listeners who want to hear discussions about the Sox, who aren't going to be topics of conversation on WRKO.
So:
WEEI makes more money than ever from regular programming, but loses most of the Sox revenue.
WRKO makes most of the revenue generated by the sox, picks up audience, and makes more money than before on their regular programming
More money goes into the Entercom pocket than would have if WEEI was the Sox flagship and WRKO was still underperforming in billing and audience.
Yep, those Entercom folks are sure screwing up the company.
Now, I know what some people are saying...that I made all this up just to make Maloney look like a moron.
Regards,
TSB
