The Affari Edge Blog

You know the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for”? That saying is coming down hard on broadcast radio stations and the companies that own them in the form of Arbitron’s “portable people meter” (PPM). And I say, GOOD! This is what the money-grubbing robber-barons of the radio industry deserve! At this time I should point out after seven hard years of work at the Tampa Bay cluster of Clear Channel Radio, I was fired last September due to “budget cuts” so this post may be ripe with sarcasm. Less than two months after I was released because my paltry salary was dragging down the company’s line, Clear Channel agreed to go private with a $26.7 billion sale to Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

In the never-ending search for more money, the radio industry (not just Clear Channel) demanded a new way of accounting for its listeners. For decades the industry had been using paper diaries from Arbitron to create ratings reports four times a year (two times a year in smaller markets). Several years ago I felt the diary method was extremely outdated, and that belief continues to this day simply because people are too busy with their lives to write down every station they listen to at all hours of the day. So several years ago Arbitron came up with the PPM, a beeper-like device that detects hidden tones in a station’s signal. The PPM basically is a live, as-is ratings report. Whether a person listens to one station for eight hours, or eight stations in one hour, the ratings can be accurately reported instead of hoping the diary holder can accurately recall which stations he/she listened to at the end of the day.

There’s no doubt about the real, underlying reason why stations wanted the PPM– MONEY! With accurate, real-time ratings stations would not only know the age and gender of the listener but the listener’s habits too. How many hours does a person listen to the radio? Exactly where are they listening at? Why does a person change the station or turn off the radio? By digging deeper in to ratings, stations could adjust their rate cards and charge more to advertisers because they would know precisely how long a listener is listening. But then an interesting thing happened… radio found out how long people were listening to the radio. And the news wasn’t all good.

In the first PPM report from Houston, Texas, the most shocking revelation was that fewer people listening to radio during the morning drive (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) as opposed to ratings derived from diaries. The data also showed just as many people listened to nights (7 p.m. to midnight) as they did morning drive. Afternoon drive (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) was the highest-rated drive time, while weekends were listened to more than indicated in paper diaries. If this data remains accurate, it will turn the radio world upside down in that it was commonly thought that the order of most listeners (from highest to lowest) was mornings, afternoons, evenings (weekends were typically “thrown out”, never really considered as viable data in determining rates).

In New York City, stations that ranked in the top 10 during diary days have slipped 10 to 15 spots in the rankings with the PPM. Some stations say a lack of representation in minority listeners is to blame for this. But as evidenced in an article from the New York Times, Arbitron senior vice president Tom Mocarsky cites radio listening among minorities has actually gone up 67% with use of the PPM over the diary. So what does this mean?

Well first of all, Arbitron needs to make sure they properly fill the quota for minority listeners. This is something I’m sure they will do since the future of the PPM requires extremely accurate data from all demographics. Second, it means the radio industry HAS to wake up sooner or later and realize people don’t listen to one station for a long time like they used to. With competition from the Internet, mp3 players, and CDs, radio has to give the average person a compelling reason to listen in the first place and to listen longer. Radio could also help itself out by not having so many similar formats. With so many crossover artists and tight playlists it’s hard to tell one station from another. Finally, you have to have live, local, and entertaining talent to get people to listen and to listen longer.

But these are bean counters we’re talking about, and they’ll ignore good programming while counting their beans and blaming the PPM results on some outside force. But by keeping their blinders on the bean counters are merely getting their just desserts.

* A follow-up to a previous entry of mine regarding casual dining outlets. Following Applebee’s new logo it appears other chains are also trying to pump up business in the sagging industry… with coupons! One analyst calls the move one of the worst things she’s seen in 14 years in the business. Check out the story from USA Today.

This summer, the sports talk radio format turns 20, practically a baby since broadcast radio’s first “official” station signed on 87 years ago. What was just an experiment by what is now WFAN-AM in New York City in that summer of ‘87 has since blossomed into one of the most lucrative and popular formats in the world. But in the past few years, the actual discussion of sports on sports talk radio has decreased. Oh sure, there’s still plenty of discussion about the biggest sports stories in national and local sports talk, but the keen ear will notice an increasing number of “guy talk” taking over the airwaves. And I hate to break this to you die-hard sports fans, but the trend will continue as long as radio continues to operate under the corporate structure it is in now.

Since the birth of the format, sports talk has become one of the most lucrative formats in radio. Some markets have THREE sports talkers competing against each other for slim ratings, but huge dividends when it comes to advertisers. Much like traditional news talk, sports talk draws a typically white male, age 25-54, who has a lot of disposable income for big-ticket items such as luxury cars, home mortgages, and investment banking. You don’t often hear commercials for “Bob’s Used Car Depot” on a sports talker, as it typically features car spots for Lexus, Cadillac, BMW, etc. Advertisers know sports talk fans have this money, because sports talk fans will buy anything representative of his or her favorite team or player. I dare you to walk into a grocery store and try NOT to find at least five people wearing SOMETHING with a sports logo on it.

With all of this money getting poured into sports talk stations, you would think sports talk would be at its best to bring in more listeners. But today, that is not the case as “guy talk” has started to take over the format.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Matt, a lot of guys listen to sports talk, so what’s wrong with guy talk?” My response is, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with guy talk. But guy talk only has a small part in the world of sports talk. There’s a time and place for discussion of boobs, beer, and fart jokes, but the last time I checked the name of the format was “sports” talk. Think of it like alcohol: there’s a time and place to have a few stiff drinks, but when you have too much all the time you tend to become less of a social butterfly and more of a pain in the ass. So why the shift to “guy talk” and is it bad for the industry and those who advertise in it?

There are several culprits to this guy talk takeover, but there are two in particular that stand out in my opinion. First, the corporate nature of radio (and broadcasting in general) has forced stations to make decisions based on money and not quality of programming. It’s not cheap to field a mostly live and local cast of talent, especially if you’re in a top 25 market. If you do the math, five hosts for weekday programming from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. at $50,000 each (on average) will cost you $250,000 a year… and that’s just to cover the cost of the talent. Once you add an engineer, producers, a sales staff, and equipment purchases and maintenance, you’re looking at upwards of $500,000 just to stay on the air! With major corporations such as Clear Channel, CBS Radio, and others riding the wave of Wall Street with these stations, you just can’t sink so much money into a station. So corners get cut by having only two live shows a day, two part-time producers, and no remote broadcasts since it costs a lot of money to purchase and maintain station vehicles and broadcast equipment.

By trimming down the budget, the quality of the prgramming typically gets cut. With only two live and local shows, you have only six or seven hours of local programming while the remainder of the day is filled with satellite programming based in Bristol, Connecticut (ESPN), or Los Angeles (Fox Sports). It’s pretty safe to say whatever is considered big news in L.A. most likely isn’t that big in Tampa, or Baltimore, or even Atlanta. But a primarily satellite-run station saves money, and the owner of a station can save even more by hiring sub-par talent, the second big culprit in this guy talk mess.

It seems today the top qualifications of a sports talk host is a) say the dumbest thing first, and b) say it the loudest. Sports talk radio is filled with windbags who like to speak first and ask questions later. Gone are the days of research, confidential sources, and an understanding knowledge of certain sports and the people who participate in them. It is so much easier to say, “Alex Rodriguez sucks!”, then to explain why he sucks or why the people who says he sucks actually suck themselves. Too many sports talk hosts now walk in to a studio literally 15 minutes before a show, read the headlines in the local paper, and try to make a three or four-hour show out of that. Such a lack of preparation devolves into “poll question radio”. Instead of discussing how Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter together make the Yankees a force to be reckoned with, the unprepared host simply asks, “Who’s better: Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter?”, and waits for the phone calls to come in. Once the host gets some responses, then the real talking out of one’s behind begins. Instead of backing up statements and opinions with facts, the host spits out his or her thoughts on a subject simply to shoot down a listener. This is most evidenced in the discussion of steroids in sports, when hosts accuse athletes of using steroids simply because “he has a big head” or ” he gained 30 pounds in 10 years”. No medical research, no doctors or scientists as guests, just a shot in the dark with the hope of a target getting hit.

The lack of show prep in sports devolves to “guy talk”. Not everybody can break down why the Kansas City Royals are a trainwreck or why the acquisition of Randy Moss by the New England Patriots is a good deal for the Pats and his former team, the Oakland Raiders. But ANYONE can have an opinion on American Idol results, who should win an Oscar, or which NFL team has the hottest cheerleaders. Why do hours of homework on an upcoming league draft or dissecting the NHL playoffs when you can just talk about your favorite HBO show or throw out some hot-button issues like racism or politics? Call this the trickle-down theory of sports talk if you want. Cheap station owners hire cheap talent who in turn don’t want to invest his or her time in hosting an entertaining sports-based show. Despite the criticism of sports fans such as myself, the format is far from hurting.

Sports talk stations are putting up huge numbers in some markets, and even in the markets where three stations fight for the same audience, they still earn enough of a presence in the ratings to justify their existence and charge big rates for advertising. But does big ratings equal good radio? In my opinion, no. In fact, the flawed ratings system that is Arbitron actually HURTS radio. It all goes back to the corporate structure of radio, as most program directors in charge of these sports stations have never hosted a sports talk show ever. In fact, some sports talk program directors have been handed the job title because they can program a rock station or a country station– two formats that also grab the typically wealthier male. Some radio stations owners, in the interest of saving a big salary for a sports-minded program director, instead give the title of PD to a rock station or a country station because he or she has successfully pulled decent numbers from the same demo. While a male in the 25-54 demo may seem to be the same person to these PD’s, there’s a big difference between a sports talk listener and someone who listens to a rock station, country station, or even a news talk station.

The difference is the knowledge and the passion of sports fans. I’m not saying someone who listens to Metallica, Toby Keith, or Sean Hannity more often than not can’t be a sports fan. What I am saying though is people who listen to sports talk on a regular basis are a different breed than the others. These people know sports inside and out, as opposed to someone who casually watches sports while spending a lot of time in the pickup truck listening to Nirvana, the Dixie Chicks, or Glenn Beck. With the radio stations hiring cheap talent that half-asses its way through a daily show, the die-hard sports fans are getting kicked aside for the lowest common denominatior. Sure, the sports talkers are getting the big numbers, but the numbers are people who don’t live, eat, breathe, drink, and sleep sports. That in turn hurts the advertisers.

The message an advertiser sends is reaching more people, but not necessarily the right people. A format that is supposed to aim to the educated, passionate, and somewhat wealthy is now being inundated by the common man due to the common programming. Discussions about hot women, reality shows, and getting drunk in Costa Rica on your most recent vacation draws the younger crowd– a crowd that may not have the financial means to buy that Lexus or lock in that fixed-rate home mortgage. By watering down the talent, who then waters down the content, the once rich sports talk audience is now watered down with a lot of common people who probably can’t afford or don’t want to buy what advertisers are selling.

While this trend, and I hope it’s only a trend, is ruining sports talk radio now, it is really helping online sports discussions. Daily blogs such as Mike Florio’s Pro Football Talk or in-depth analysis from ESPN’s Insider or Fox Sports’ talented writers offer so much more in one column than most sports talk hosts can in one show. Even sports story posting boards such as Ben Maller’s or Drew Curtis’ FARK boards can offer more insight into a topic than the poll questions from hosts like, “Who’s better: Shaq or Kobe?” With the digital age in full swing, and more and more advertisers getting more bang for their buck in targeting sports junkies online, one can only wonder how much longer sports talk radio stations can maintain the charade of providing the right type of audience to big-spending national and regional clients.

You also have to wonder when the talent will get better on these stations, answering tough questions about why my favorite team didn’t go far in the playoffs instead of asking who should have been voted off American Idol last night. Until the stations make those changes, and I won’t hold my breath, I’ll just keep getting my info from trusty online sources.

And so will the next generation of well-to-do sports fans.