Sports Radio News
CBS Going Big on Thursday Nights

Published
9 years agoon

For a new show on the CBS schedule for the 2014-15 season, network executives are promising advertisers and viewers that it will be intensely dramatic, although it is not a drama series; offer compelling competitive matchups, although it is not a reality competition series; and feature famous faces, though its stars belong to no actors’ union.
The show is “Thursday Night Football,” which joins the CBS prime-time lineup on Sept. 11, the result of a deal CBS made with the National Football League for a package of games that would complement the network’s Sunday football programming. “Thursday Night Football,” presented in partnership with the league’s own NFL Network, is getting a huge promotional push from CBS.
“I don’t think the CBS Corporation has ever mounted a larger promotional campaign,” Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, said on Monday at a “media day” event for reporters at the CBS Broadcast Center on the Manhattan’s West Side. “We’re determined to work with the N.F.L. to make sure this is a success.”
In a phone interview, George F. Schweitzer, president of the CBS Marketing Group, called the effort “the biggest promotional and marketing event we’ve had at the network.”
“No stone will be unturned, from radio, outdoor, cable, digital and interactive guides to good old TV commercials,” he said. “It’s literally around the clock,” he added, “a lot of firepower.”
On the air, CBS has, for the last two months, been running an energetic spot with the theme “Football starts here,” featuring stars of CBS entertainment series like “The Big Bang Theory,” “Elementary” and “Two and a Half Men.” Some wear eye black inscribed with the words “Thurs” and “Night” while others strip off outerwear to reveal they are wearing “Thursday Night Football” jerseys. There are also versions for local stations that are owned by CBS, among them KCBS in Los Angeles and WCBS in New York.
The network’s 200 affiliated local stations have received materials so they may produce their own versions, Mr. Schweitzer said, in which “they can cut to their weather guy taking off his shirt” to reveal the jersey.
Last week, episodes of “Big Brother,” the CBS summer reality competition series, featured a contest with a “Thursday Night Football” theme. The three winners got to leave the Big Brother house to meet members of the Dallas Cowboys and the team’s owner, Jerry Jones, at the Cowboys’ training camp in Oxnard, Calif.
Reminders about “Thursday Night Football” will also be woven into episodes of CBS’s scripted series, Mr. Schweitzer said. For instance, Boomer Esiason, an analyst on “NFL on CBS,” is to appear in an episode of “Blue Bloods,” he said, and another “NFL on CBS” analyst, Phil Simms, will get a guest spot on “Elementary.”
Viewers of CBS’s daytime lineup will find “Thursday Night Football” promoted during “The Talk” as well as during the game shows “Let’s Make a Deal” and “The Price Is Right.” And rather than tap an actor from a CBS entertainment program to host the 2014-15 edition of the network’s annual fall preview show, Mr. Schweitzer said, the host will be Jim Nantz, who will handle the play-by-play duties during “Thursday Night Football”; the preview show is to be broadcast at 8:30 p.m. (Eastern time) on Sept. 1.
The focus of the campaign is to marry “the world of sports and the world of entertainment,” Mr. Schweitzer said, to help signal that “Thursday Night Football” will be broadcast during prime-time hours normally devoted to entertainment programming rather than on Sunday afternoons.
In that regard, CBS follows in the footsteps of “Monday Night Football,” a ratings powerhouse for decades for ABC before being shifted to a sibling cable channel, ESPN, and “Sunday Night Football,” tremendously popular since it joined the NBC prime-time lineup in 2006. “Sunday Night Football” was the most-watched program for the 2013-14 season, topping all the scripted and unscripted entertainment offerings on broadcast television.
According to Nielsen data, “Sunday Night Football” drew a 12.8 rating for 2013-14, meaning that 12.8 percent of all television households watched the show. The runner-up, the CBS entertainment series “NCIS,” has a 12.5 rating, Nielsen reported, followed by “The Big Bang Theory,” also on CBS, at 12.0. An average of about 22 million viewers watched each Sunday-night game, according to Nielsen, followed by about 20 million for “NCIS” and 20 million for “The Big Bang Theory.”
The sales of commercial time during the eight games that will appear on CBS under the “Thursday Night Football” banner are being handled by CBS Sports, which has been promising potential advertisers a 12.0 rating.
“The response has been very, very positive,” John Bogusz, executive vice president for sales at CBS Sports, said in an interview after the media day presentation, partly because Thursday leads “into the all-important weekend” for marketers in categories like “automobiles, movies and fast food.”
Four major marketers have signed as sponsors of “Thursday Night Football” segments, Mr. Bogusz added: Lowe’s and Verizon, for the pregame show; Lexus, for halftime; and Mazda, for the postgame show. In total, “we’ve written a good amount” of business for Thursday, he said, and “still have availability.” (Operators are standing by. Just kidding. Sort of.)
At the NFL Network, said Brian Matthews, senior vice president for media sales at the N.F.L., Lexus will also be the halftime sponsor and Mazda the postgame sponsor, with the jewelry retailer Zales as the pregame sponsor. The NFL Network will simulcast the CBS games, he added, which run through Oct. 23; the NFL Network will carry eight subsequent games on its own starting Oct. 30.
Credit to the NY Times who originally published this article

Jason Barrett is the owner and operator of Barrett Sports Media. Prior to launching BSM he served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He has also produced national shows for ESPN Radio including GameNight and the Dan Patrick Show. You can find him on Twitter @SportsRadioPD or reach him by email at [email protected].
Sports Radio News
Kurt Warner to Join Parkins & Spiegel on 670 The Score Every Monday
“So we replaced Dilfer and Boomer with Chase Daniel and Kurt Warner. Pretty damn good!”

Published
9 hours agoon
September 25, 2023
Despite the already top-notch coverage of the Chicago Bears and the NFL as a whole, 670 The Score hosts Danny Parkins and Matt Spiegel felt there were a few things missing that would take the station and Parkins & Spiegel to the next level.
Enter Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion Kurt Warner.
On Friday’s edition of the show, Parkins announced that the Westwood One Monday Night Football analyst would be a recurring guest from the site of the Monday night game every week starting this week.
This was in addition to them announcing that Peter King of NBC Sports would also be a weekly guest on the show on Tuesdays at 4:30.
“We’ve still been looking for a couple other things,” Spiegel said of the areas of their show they could add featured interviews. “There’s some slots that have been kind of open – and peeling back the curtain – you start talking about this stuff over the summer and even in August. And then you really kind of get to chasing. And you have certain dreams. Like national news maker, news breaker. National football analyst of note is one of the spots we’ve been looking for and kind of wanting someone to slot in like on a Tuesday.”
So King will appear in addition to former Bears QB Chase Daniel on Tuesdays. Daniel does film breakdowns for the show.
Kurt will appear in addition to Bears reporter Mark Grote and Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who do their weekly check-ins with the show on Mondays.
Both Parkins and Spiegel jokingly viewed the addition of Warner as an upgrade compared to Trent Dilfer and Boomer Esiason, who used to be regulars on the show in the past.
“So we replaced Dilfer and Boomer with Chase Daniel and Kurt Warner,” Parkins said. “Pretty damn good!”
Danny added that he didn’t think it was possible that they would be able to land someone of Warner’s caliber as a regular, but they’re thankful for the opportunity because they noted that Dilfer told them that the only person he trusts more to talk the quarterback position than him is Warner.
They played a clip of Warner breaking down a Justin Fields play, and Parkins said how thrilled he was to have someone with that kind of analytical mind on the program.
“He’s so good. So good!” he said. “So the idea that he’s decided to come on the show every week from the site of Monday Night Football is just so exciting.”

Jordan Bondurant is a features reporter for Barrett Sports Media. He’s a multimedia journalist and communicator who works at the Virginia State Corporation Commission in Richmond. Jordan also contributes occasional coverage of the Washington Capitals for the blog NoVa Caps. His prior media experiences include working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Danville Register & Bee, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, WRIC-TV 8News and Audacy Richmond. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @J__Bondurant.
Sports Radio News
‘The Dan Patrick Show’ Criticizes Sound on ‘Thursday Night Football’
“You pay all this money for that game [and] you can’t hear that it sounds like crap.”

Published
3 days agoon
September 22, 2023By
BSM Staff
Thursday night’s matchup between the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers ended up being a compelling game to watch throughout the first several quarters and was enhanced by the stellar images and presentation from Amazon Prime Video. The Thursday Night Football property recently garnered record-setting streaming numbers from its season premiere, according to a custom integrated streaming report by Nielsen Media Research.
Even so, there was critical feedback from many fans watching regarding the sonic experience of watching the game. Viewers complained that there was an inherent lack of crowd noise and field-level sound, making it more difficult to fully immerse themselves in the atmosphere.
“You pay all this money for that game [and] you can’t hear that it sounds like crap,” Patrick “Seton” O’Connor, an executive producer of The Dan Patrick Show, said on Friday. “There’s no atmosphere – you’ve got no crowd sound; the mics are all over the place. It’s terrible.”
Show host Dan Patrick concurred with this point, relaying that his wife walked by the television and thought something was amiss with the sound. When she asked Patrick what was happening, he replied that it was due to the presentation from Prime Video. Although most viewers ended up watching the game anyway, the inadequate soundscape detracted from the aura of the contest and dampened the viewing experience.
“I love [Kirk] Herbstreit [and] I love Al Michaels, but when I have the game on, do you ever have your stereo in your car and you have the bass and the treble set and somehow it gets reset – and everything’s reset to medium?,” Paul Pabst, an executive producer of The Dan Patrick Show, said. “You’re like, ‘Where’s the highs? Where’s the lows? It has that feeling.’”
The lack of dynamic contrast and aggregate timbre caused some viewers to connote that the broadcast sounds flat despite the stellar, highly-experienced commentary team. Improving on the sound and other customer feedback will be critical in incentivizing non-ardent fans to return to the property or try it altogether.
“We’ve created the atmosphere that is so good that you don’t even have to go to a game,” Patrick said. “With the sound of it, the TVs, [and] the quality… it’s almost a better experience sometimes when you’re sitting at home.”
In addition to watching the National Football League, Pabst frequently consumes college football on Saturdays, including the prime-time presentations. When he is viewing those games, he can feel the noise of the crowd permeating through the speakers and be part of the crowd.
“It’s thunderous,” Pabst said. “The crowd noise almost overwhelms [Chris] Fowler, sometimes in a good way, and it’s hard to tell what’s going on there.”
Finding games on Amazon Prime Video has been a difficult proposition for some users, evidenced by O’Connor describing how it took him 10 minutes to begin watching the Giants-49ers game last night. The game was broadcast regionally on FOX for those in the New York metropolitan area, but for O’Connor, he noticed that the network had the baseball contest between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies on instead.
“I look and I’m like, ‘I swear there was a game tonight,’ and I see it’s in the first quarter.’ What the hell is going on?,” thought O’Connor. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot Amazon was a thing; it’s just not a TV destination all the time for me.”
Sports Radio News
Gregg Giannotti on Taylor Rooks: ‘Send in a 10’ to Get Players Talking
“I also thought, ‘Why don’t we use more attractive women in interrogation scenarios?'”

Published
3 days agoon
September 22, 2023By
BSM Staff
This week’s Thursday Night Football matchup between the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers came off a record-setting week for Prime Video, according to an integrated streaming report by Nielsen Media Research. There were questions surrounding the impending contest off the field pertaining to injuries, and the TNF Tonight pregame show did its best to address pertinent information.
New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley headlined the team’s injury report after suffering an ankle injury last week, something the team publicly called a sprain. New information was divulged on Thursday night from Barkley himself after features reporter Taylor Rooks asked him about his injury. He then proceeded to reveal that he was dealing with a mild high ankle sprain, an impediment more serious than originally thought.
WFAN host Gregg Giannotti watched the entire pregame show and watched the desk discuss the state of New York football, including New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson. The report from Rooks, a reputable source of information who formerly worked for SportsNet New York (SNY) occurred shortly thereafter. While she has a network of contacts and insider information about the league, Giannotti believes there was another reason she got the exclusive story.
“It’s funny because all we heard was, ‘It’s a regular ankle sprain; not a high ankle sprain,’” Giannotti explained Friday morning on WFAN. “Then Taylor Rooks gets over there and finds out it’s a high ankle sprain. I was thinking, ‘You know what? I’d tell her anything too. Whatever you need to know, Taylor, about me, I will tell you.’”
Giannotti watched the Giants lose the contest 30-12 and fall to a 1-2 overall record, but he also began to ponder over the manner in which Rooks was able to effectively do her job. It led him to make a proposition on the air that challenges the effectiveness of the team’s beat writers because of their collective age and appearance.
“I also thought, ‘Why don’t we use more attractive women in interrogation scenarios?,’” Giannotti said. “This is what I was thinking about after I saw this last night. Art Stapleton couldn’t get that out of Saquon Barkley – I love Art Stapleton, but there’s no way. Taylor Rooks got it out of him right away, so why don’t we send in some of these interrogation scenarios where people are just totally zipped up – send in a ‘10’ in there, [and the] next thing you know, ‘Yeah, it was him. He did it, and I did it. We did it together!’”
Giannotti’s co-host Boomer Esiason was surprised to hear Rooks get that information from Barkley, and has not seen anyone in the media react to the occurrence. The injury update changes the way in which people consider his timeline for a return and was a part of the Prime Video broadcast that Giannotti valued.
“Yeah, of course, great reporting,” Giannotti said. “I’m just thinking about all the Giants beat writers sitting around – old guys who look like me just stewing and trying to hide farts in the locker room.”