Way too much coverage of high school sports in NWA, radio & media....

[DIZ Guy]

Am I the only person out there that is annoyed by this?????

Last Friday, I was listening to Jon Williams on 933 The Eagle and he spent a good 15 minutes talking about high school football..You look at the NWA times and they always have some picture of a high school football player on the last page....

There is an actual BOOK about Springdale High School's 2005 football season (I am not kidding).

I cannot be the only person out there that finds this strange. There are at least 10 million things out there that are more important...Hell, it almost seems like there is more coverage of high school sports than the Razorbacks around here!!!!!!

 

[justgohogs]

With all due respect, your radio has at least 2 controls--1 to adjust the voume and 1 to change the channel. Why not use one of them?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Let me start with a disclaimer: "I am NOT a sports fan."

Now that we have that out of the way: What DO you expect from your radio? Is sports content actually driving out the content you want? A radio station has to find ways to keep a "good book of business" as my insurance friends would phrase it. Maybe that sports talk is helping drive the revenue so that the station can afford to to keep other things on the air that you DO like.

As I tune across the dial I hear a lot of stations that apparently can't afford to do any of the things I like. I would gladly endure a bit of sports talk thrown in the middle of things... if they would throw a few of the things in that I do listen for.

 

[Kent]

Not to mention that I hear a lot of complaints that radio has no local presence, a faceless voice pumped in from out-of-town. It's kinda funny that, when stations actually do local programming, people complain about that, too!

 

[TVJunkie12]

Let's be realistic here. Radio is a business and there's money in High School sports-otherwise there would be little point in covering them. At least there's money being made in this business somewhere.

 

[DIZ Guy]

You guys are missing the point. I have no problems with coverage of the NFL, College, but High School in my own personal opinion is for the kiddies. I do not think that the average classic rock fan wants to hear how The Bentonville Willies or whatever did against Fayetteville. The only adults that I can think of that care about this stuff are people that waste their time playing fantasy football or still want to relive past glories on the football field from high school. I just find it very odd that coverage of high school sports is SO POPULAR around here....

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Diz... I don't know your age or circumstances. As I posted earlier, I AM NOT A SPORTS FAN. I do not talk sports in a social setting. AND... I often feel like the "odd man out".

Lister for the "water cooler chat" in the workplace, listen to the chatter when men cluster between Sunday School and the worship service at church, ride the shuttle bus from the airport terminal to the car rental place. Where ever you go the man-chatter will be sports, sports and more sports. If it is a gathering of "locals" (as opposed to the airport shuttle in some distant city) the talk will likely include a lot of HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS.

The female species does not appear to be caught up as much in this sports chatter.

Talk to a salesman of radio advertising. Ask how often a prospect says: "IF, if I were going to buy any of your advertising it would probably be in a sports broadcast. See me next season.) Then ask: How many prospects say: "Come back and see me when you have a 'music special' to broadcast. I will probably want some of that."

 

[radioaircheck]

Advertisers seem to find the money to advertise on local Highschool Sports when they say their budgest are being cut. They want to support and be a part of the community. Also family, sucha s grandparents can listen on line to hear how thier grandsons team is doing via the net. I have no Highschool roots here, but I beleive in the broadcasts on Saturday night. Around here that is all you have. The Razorbacks are doing anything this year.

 

[Rich Moellers]

High School sports is great live, local programming, and it's very profitable. What other type of programming could bring in that kind of buck$ on a Friday night?

 

[xdjproductions]

Rich has hit it on the head. Making money in a time slot that usually does not sounds like a great idea to me!

 

[firepoint525]

I'm not sure I understand the gripe here. If you are in a small town, high school football is about all there is on a Friday night. And if you are referring to AM stations (especially), it's almost a given that the station will be carrying the local high school's football team in action. Some stations have so many schools in their listening area that it is a dilemma to decide which teams' games that the station will carry. In my county, the AM station here carries a game on Friday evening, then tape-delays another game on Saturday morning. (I haven't listened closely, so it may be a re-air of the same game.)

Increasingly, high school football is migrating over to FM as well, due to limited coverage of the AMs, especially at night, and because the listenership is also migrating over to FM, and maybe even because there are enough teams out there that they can carry separate games over both their AM and FM, rather than simulcast one game.

Now if your station is an FM rocker that does not carry high school football games, and the jock went on for 15 minutes about high school football, then that would indeed be unusual. That guy should probably be doing play-by-play for a game somewhere. However, during station breaks, they should mention the games, give scores, and say how well the teams are doing. But that should not take more than a couple of minutes at each break.

 

[DIZ Guy]

The explanation of my gripe is in your comment....

You mean to tell me that they TAPE DELAY a game and play it Saturday Morning!!!!!!

Gimme A BREAK!!!!!

The funny thing is that there are actually adults that LISTEN to the game on Saturday mornings (when they are not too busy playing fantasy football)..

 

[firepoint525]

The explanation of my gripe is in your comment....
You mean to tell me that they TAPE DELAY a game and play it Saturday Morning!!!!!!
Gimme A BREAK!!!!!
The funny thing is that there are actually adults that LISTEN to the game on Saturday mornings (when they are not too busy playing fantasy football)..

My first station used to air tape-delayed games on Saturday mornings, but that was mainly because they HAD to. They were, at that time, a daytime-only station. I remember the GM complaining because sponsors were dropping the broadcasts. But since the outcome was already a foregone conclusion by Saturday morning, there was no point in listening. (Of course, it didn't help that the team was 0-and however many games they had played that season up to that point.)

I never replayed any high school football games on that station, but that was only because I never worked a weekend there. But I remember re-airing a couple of junior high games there on weekday afternoons! This was a very small station, I'm telling you!

 

[kudzooter]

You mean to tell me that they TAPE DELAY a game...

1961 KBIX/Muskogee carried one game live, meanwhile taping another, using 1-7/8ips speed, to DB after the first one. One night I got a call from the taping crew, saying "end of 3rd qtr, we messed up bad. While your spots are playing, fast-forward a little, OK?" Did you ever try to fast-forward A LITTLE at 1-7/8? That was my only time, too -- which explains why we went from the 3rd quarter of that game, to halfway through the SECOND PERIOD of a game 2 or 3 weeks earlier. ((Whaddaya mean, erase the tape before you start?))

 

[DouglasB]

You guys are missing the point. I have no problems with coverage of the NFL, College, but High School in my own personal opinion is for the kiddies. I do not think that the average classic rock fan wants to hear how The Bentonville Willies or whatever did against Fayetteville. The only adults that I can think of that care about this stuff are people that waste their time playing fantasy football or still want to relive past glories on the football field from high school. I just find it very odd that coverage of high school sports is SO POPULAR around here....

Someone has probably mentioned that radio is a business, and sports, especially local sports can bring in a good revenue stream.
You say that HS sports "is for the kiddies". Keep in mind that those "kiddies" have parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, great grandparents. All of whom follow the "kiddies" and represent a loyal audience for advertisers.
So, you don't like HS sports on the radio....that's OK. But at a time when we all piss and moan about radio being non-local and uninvolved, HS sports not only offers local compelling content, it represents revenue. In some cases, lots of revenue.

 

[Rich Moellers]

Many of us have caught flak over the years for the bidding wars and high fees we pay for exclusive rights to particular high schools. I can't speak for everyone, but I wouldn't pay for the rights if I couldn't get at least a 4:1 ROI.

 

[DIZ Guy]

Hey Douglas B, you wanna know what else offers local compelling content...

A good local talk show that talks about things going on in the area that is professional and very insightful!!!!


WHAT A CONCEPT!!!!!!

But I guess that people would rather listen to some lame High School football game and relive the past glories on the football field...

Just to bring in revenue...

On the other hand, a perfect example of ridiculous media coverage of high school sports is represented today in the NWA Times. Just check out the last page. There is a picture of some high school kid that almost makes you think that it is a picture of Tony Romo or something....Totally ridiculous..

I CANNOT be the only person out there that finds this strange...

 

[justgohogs]

...A good local talk show that talks about things going on in the area that is professional and very insightful...
I CANNOT be the only person out there that finds this strange...

Gee, what a crisis for local radio, talking about what listeners want to talk about. It would appear that you are, in fact, the only person who "finds this strange".

Bottom line, ratings will determine whether or not the topics covered are compelling to a majority of listeners or not. Ranting because you don't care for it won't. It's kinda like those folks who find a particular TeeVee show offensive and send out emails asking people to contact the network on which the show airs. For example, I recently received one targeting "The Modern Family" on ABC. The best way to influence what's on radio or tv is not tuning in--period.

 

[Rich Moellers]

But I guess that people would rather listen to some lame High School football game and relive the past glories on the football field...

Just to bring in revenue...

Dude, you're never going to win this argument. People who NEVER listen to my stations will tune in for high school football. And advertisers who would routinely chase my salespeople out the door of their business any other time of the year will sponsor a football game. And an announcer who ever says anything out of line during a football broadcast will NEVER hear the end of it, because tons of people heard him say it. And I don't think that the listenership has anything to do with living vicariously through 17 year old kids playing the game. Football is America's game (everyone, start humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," please) and Americans routinely plan their weekend around watching games on TV. It's an obsession. NFL football has been a ratings champ for as long as there have been ratings. Yet while only 7% of NFL fans have ever stepped foot into an NFL stadium, they'll still purchase jerseys and agonize more over a reciever's broken thumb than their own mother's death. College football occupies a prize prime time spot on network television on Saturday nights. The Hootens, Vype, 360 have made high school football a cottage industry in publishing. And in every town across this great country of ours, people roll up the sidewalks and head to the local stadium every Friday night for football. We in radio hitch our wagons to popular music, politics, you name it - isn't it logical that we'd want to have a connection to such a popular sport? I'm sorry that you don't like it. And I, for one, think ranking high school teams before conference races even start is disparaging to the kids - they take way too much stock in that (in my years of broadcasting high school football, I never participated in the rankings, because I was only able to watch one team play on Friday nights and I didn't think I could fairly rank them). But as long as high school football exists, radio will be there.

 

[radioaircheck]

Rich, I could not agree with you more. When I sold radio, I could put advertisers on there that I would not be able to get any other time. These advertisers wanted to support the broadcast, and the school. It also made money for the station where we would have no advertising at night. Rock on Friday Night Football!! Revenues would always be up for that period of time in the fall.