• 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

Wait, They Carry Football?

T

The Sigon

Guest
I don't know how I missed this but do you mean to tell me 107 broadcasts Eagles football? How does this work? Are they getting a boatload of money to carry those games? Would anybody except someone without access to a TV listen to an NFL game on the radio? I mean, it's not like it's a home team or something. I could see maybe a Philly station carrying it but why are they? Not that I'm dying to hear Captain Jack or...what was the other song Billy Joel did? Oh yeah, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant tonight, I can wait until tomorrow night. But talk about shooting yourself in the foot. And it must kill them to have someone sit there and babysit the game instead of the usual voicetrack. Just kind of sad. Better them than us I suppose.
 
I think the audience for this is potentially as large as every car on the road while the team is playing....football is huge....especially the Eagles in these parts....in the past 10 years rock stations carrying the major football franchise in their area is a win....I listened while driving tonight.....

Ben
WGMF
 
I agree with you Ben, football is definitely huge on radio. Whether it's high school, college or pro.

Depending on what type of music - oriented formatted station that's out there; sports can work, even on FM. But, it would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
 
Blind people who drive cars...now there's a sub-demo. I don't know, I'm sure there are listeners but who listens if they can watch?
 
There are tons of people who can't be parked in front of a TV when football's on. The thousands of people driving at any given time are your target demo...and some people at work...I'll bet if you had a snapshot of the ratings when the games are on, Rock 107 is rated number 1 at that time. It's the most mass appeal thing going on on radio at that point in time...even more mass appeal than country or dance music.

Ben
WGMF
 
wirelessinnepa said:
There are tons of people who can't be parked in front of a TV when football's on. The thousands of people driving at any given time are your target demo...and some people at work...I'll bet if you had a snapshot of the ratings when the games are on, Rock 107 is rated number 1 at that time. It's the most mass appeal thing going on on radio at that point in time...even more mass appeal than country or dance music.

Ben
WGMF
Click to expand...

"Tons of people"? Is that an Arbitron quantitative expression?

Football is on Sunday afternoon, night, and Monday night. There are "tons" of people who CAN and ARE parked in front of a TV when football's on. People who can't get in front of a TV on a Sunday afternoon or a Monday night HAVE to be a minority since most people don't work Sunday afternoon or Monday night and if they care at all about whoever their team is, they're watching not looking for someplace on the radio where they can listen. That's just commonsense.

And while there are plenty of football fans, the amount, even in nepa of those who are Eagles fans must be a smaller set of the football fans unless you believe everyone who likes football is an Eagles fan.

You'd need to show me Arbitron numbers (as flawed as they are but the only game in town) to convince me that a heritage station with no reputation for anything related to sports ever is doing themselves any good by dropping the music that brought 'em to the dance for, what is it, twenty years or more, to be the fallback media for A team in the NFL in a market where the team does not reside.
 
Might "revenue generation" be a worthy consideration?

What MUSIC-intensive station (rookie or veteran) has ANY business
deviating from its format for ANY sports franchise?
Remember the l-e-n-g-t-h of a Major League baseball schedule with spring training, regular season, and playoff potential.
Hockey and basketball can cross over three seasons on the calendar.
Professional football starts in August and can extend until the first week of February.
Collegiate football can take you from Labor Day to New Year's Day and early January.

Considering just these factors NO MUSIC-intensive station should carry play-by-play sports.
EVER.

Unless, with confidence, you can compute the "revenue generation" will SURPASS what you
normally would make by routinely demonstrating your regular format.
If you made $100,000 by carrying a sports schedule, would you NOT have made that same amount
of revenue in "regular format?" Or, could a sports schedule deliver EXTRA dollars?
What about the promotional opportunities? Could they help enhance the station image?
Will a popular team benefit an already winning station and provide EXTRA "stuff" to point to and talk about?
BUT!!! At what COST?!!

Seems the basic question is ... if you walk into Burger King seeking a Whopper,
but the kid behind the counter says, "We're only serving liver and onions for the next five hours,"
would you leave angry and vow never to come back? Or, would you accept the menu change?

Tough call. Insist on an instant-replay rule if it's a unilateral, sales department decision.
 
Most radio stations are concerned with M-F 6a-7p. That's when the real revenue is made.

Football is primarily off hours and the weekend. Stations can sell this time at a premium and possibly get some clients on who may not normally advertise.

It can help regular programming as well if the PD is savvy enough to run promos for what the station does the rest of the week. The thought being you may have some people tuning in who don't normally listen to the station.

This has proven to work for rock and classic rock stations.

Baseball, Hockey, and basketball seasons are to disruptive though for music stations.

NASCAR works too, if you're able to just run the NASCAR race and not all the other peripheral programming.
 
Watching cars ride around in a circle is fascinating enough, I can only imagine listening to 'em do that! WOW!
 
Considering just these factors NO MUSIC-intensive station should carry play-by-play sports.
EVER.
Click to expand...

Amen. Alleluia. Bingo. The code has been broken. Caving to the mistress of easy money in carrying PBP has ruined a lot of radio stations.

There is no doubt in my mind that the seeds of WARM's early death were sown with PSU football in the mid to late 70s.
 
107 got the Eagles because Citadel dropped it. It was a money thing. Loftus sold Bobby Lynett a bill of goods and got a lot of money. It was a payback for Loftus because of the way Bill Lynett treated him.
 
maines said:
107 got the Eagles because Citadel dropped it. It was a money thing. Loftus sold Bobby Lynett a bill of goods and got a lot of money. It was a payback for Loftus because of the way Bill Lynett treated him.
Click to expand...

And so, a spade IS a spade.
 
Wait..

Bill Lynett would never treat anyone poorly. You must have your facts wrong, Bill Lynett is a fair and balanced type of guy who would never make a rash or irresponsible decision....


Alright..Now you can all insert the laughter...right.................... here...........


Now!..................
 
>>>Watching cars ride around in a circle is fascinating enough, I can only imagine listening to 'em do that! WOW!<<<

WEMR carried the Motor Sports Network at one time. Spike Jones did the same thing with his parody on "Dance of the Hours," but his was funny; this was borrrrring.
 
Football and Nascar work well on male oriented stations. Sunday afternoon, sunday night, and monday night are the least sold times on radio....Football and nascar allow you to sell this at a premium. Many stations have done this successfully for many many years.....not just in major markets......WZZO runs Nascar....WKSB runs Penn state.....WAAL runs the Giants....all with great success. The goal of a COMMERCIAL radio station is to generate a net profit. These events generate a net profit at a time (Sunday, etc.) that they minimally damage any ratings the station is seeking.
 
Kevin Fitzgerald said:
...Sunday afternoon, sunday night, and monday night are the least sold times on radio....Football and nascar allow you to sell this at a premium.
Click to expand...

I guess the question is "How do you sell, at a premium, something that attracts a smaller amount of listeners than the station might otherwise draw just airing regular, normal programming?"

Particularly when most fans, in this case Eagles fans, have the option and opportunity to watch versus listen to the game? How do you sell the third best way to experience the game at a premium?

I suppose if you have no listeners to speak of to begin with, anything is better than nothing but I have a hard time believing a heritage classic rock station is attracting more listeners to Eagles football than would normally just be listening anyway, Sunday afternoon, night, Monday night, whenever.
 
The Penguins contributed the the overall success of WQFM just as the Phillies contributed to the success of WARM. The Eagles can only do the same for Rock 107.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom