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The Fan Reigns Supreme In Dallas

Jason Barrett

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Oh how the tide has turned in Dallas!

For years, Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket has dominated the market and had competitors questioning whether or not they had made a smart decision to enter the sports talk space.

And rightfully so.

The brand has been highly entertaining, the personalities are authentic, funny, larger than life and the competition was minimal.

But over the past few years, competition has improved, signals carrying sports talk programming have gotten stronger, and the once thought to be untouchable and iconic Ticket, now faces a challenge they’ve not had to deal with before.

Enter 105.3 The Fan.

fanOwned and operated by CBS, the station launched into the sports talk format in 2008, and has since undergone a few lineup and Program Director changes.

Currently led by Gavin Spittle and featuring Shan & RJ, G-Bag Nation, Ben & Skin and K&C Masterpiece, the station has experienced some bumps and bruises along the way but is now starting to catch fire and become a force with Dallas sports radio listeners.

The Fan started its climb in 2009 when it acquired the rights to the Dallas Cowboys. While the addition of America’s team put the radio station on the map in a bigger way, the ratings were not to the level they are now.

Part of that is due to consistency with the lineup, which deserves credit for being very entertaining. Some of it stems from having further developed the Cowboys association on their airwaves and carried a few seasons worth of games. The other part of the growth comes from making a critical decision to acquire the rights to Texas Rangers baseball in November 2014.

By offering Dallas sports fans a number of great weekday shows, plus every Texas Rangers and Dallas Cowboys game, on a strong FM signal, it’s no surprise that local listeners are changing their habits and rewarding The Fan.

For the July ratings book, The Fan was ahead of The Ticket and ESPN 103.3 in the Dallas sports radio race in most categories. Here’s how the numbers stack up:

STATION TIMESLOT/SHOWS RATING
Morning Drive – 6A-10A
105.3 THE FAN Shan & RJ 4.2
THE TICKET The Musers 7.9
ESPN 103.3 Mike & Mike + 1-hr of Colin Cowherd 3.2
Mid-days – 10A-3P
105.3 THE FAN G-Bag Nation 5.2
THE TICKET Norm Hitzges/Bad Radio 3.5
ESPN 103.3 1-hr of Colin Cowherd/Dennis & Friedo 1.6
Afternoon Drive – 3P-7P
105.3 THE FAN Ben & Skin 5.2
THE TICKET The Hardline 4.5
ESPN 103.3 Cowlishaw & Mosley 2.3
Evenings – 7P-12A
105.3 THE FAN Texas Rangers/K&C Masterpiece 8.3
THE TICKET The Ticket Top 10/Scott Ferrall 2.5
ESPN 103.3 ESPN Radio 1.6
Monday-Sunday 6A-Midnight
105.3 THE FAN All Shows, Ancillary Programming and Play by Play 4.6
THE TICKET All Shows and Ancillary Programming 4.1
ESPN 103.3 All Shows and Ancillary Programming 2.1
Monday-Friday 6A-7P
105.3 THE FAN Shan & RJ, G-Bag Nation, Ben & Skin 4.9
THE TICKET The Musers, Norm Hitzges, Bad Radio, Hardline 5.2
ESPN 103.3 M&M, Cowherd, D&F, C&M, ESPN Radio 2.3

For those of you reading who don’t understand the differences of ratings and categories, let me keep it simple for you. Men 25-54 represents male listeners between those ages and Persons 25-54 represents men AND women in between those ages.

For example, in July, The Fan was 6th with a 4.1 in the Persons 25-54 demographic. This is for the Monday-Friday 6a-7p time period. That’s a really strong number. For The Ticket, they were 14th with a 3.1 and ESPN 103.3 was 30th with a 1.3.

In the category of Persons 12+ (all male/female listeners older than 12 years old), Monday-Sunday 6a-Midnight, The Fan placed 13th with a 3.0, The Ticket finished 21st with a 1.9 and ESPN 103.3 was 31st with a 1.2.

You can attribute some of those stronger weekend numbers to Texas Rangers baseball airing on The Fan.

In addition to those stories above, what really caught my attention were the differences between all three stations when you look at their performance over a 12-month period. In the radio industry we call this the “year to year” analysis.

musersStarting with morning drive in the Men 25-54 category (sports radio’s target demo), it’s clear that this is the show that drives The Ticket. The Musers are excellent, and have been for a long time, and they remain the market’s top choice. Year to year their ratings haven’t changed much either.

During that period they’ve gone from an 8.2 to 7.9 which is very strong. They did have a little bit of a lull between November 2014 and April 2015 where the show rated between a 4.8 and 5.9 but they are prisoners of their own success. Most morning shows would take a 4.8-5.9 to the bank every time. This is clearly where The Ticket can paint a great local story with their fans, and more importantly their advertisers.

When you look at The Fan during mornings, while they’re not beating The Ticket, they are making major strides. Year to year, Shan & RJ have climbed from a 2.3 to 4.2 and currently rank 5th. Stations can make a lot of money with a Top 5 morning show. The uptick began last September (football season) when the show grew from 2.3 to 3.7 and they’ve been consistent and climbing ever since.

For ESPN 103.3, the story is built around consistency too. They’ve gone year to year from a 3.1 to 3.2, which puts them in 11th place. Considering that the programming is national and they’re competing against two other powerful local sports stations, that’s actually a very healthy number and one they can use to drive business to the radio station, especially when advertisers have to pay a king’s ransom on the other two brands.

Digging into the 10a-3p section with Men 25-54, this is where The Fan has really caught fire. G-Bag Nation led by Gavin Dawson has risen in 12 months from a 1.7 to a 5.2. That growth is massive and shows that the station has stumbled onto something big which local listeners are really enjoying.

During the same period of time, The Ticket has dropped from a 6.0 to 3.5. Think some of those listeners might have jumped ship over to The Fan?

For ESPN 103.3 this is the area where they’re getting hurt. They’ve been consistent during the past 12 months, but their numbers are a significant drop off from what they deliver in mornings. They’ve gone from a 1.7 last year to 1.6 this year. That means they lose half their ratings between morning drive and midday.

bsNext up is afternoons with Men 25-54 and there’s a real strong battle taking place here between Ben & Skin and The Hardline. While B&S won for the month of July, placing 2nd with a 5.2, the Ticket wasn’t far behind, finishing 7th with a 4.5.

When you dive deeper into the numbers you find that this is the first month Ben & Skin have beaten The Ticket since March, but even in the months where they’ve finished second, it’s been a neck and neck race. That’s drastically different than a year ago when The Ticket was hammering The Fan 6.3 to 2.1.

If you’re looking at it from The Ticket’s point of view, you’d highlight the fact that you’re winning in morning drive, have won five of the seven ratings books this year in afternoons and overall you’re ahead Monday-Friday 6a-7p with Men 25-54.

You would be pretty concerned about your margin for error because it’s very small and with your competitor having a play by play advantage, that makes things tougher when having to answer questions from clients about why you’re no longer dominating everyone.

None the less, you should still feel pretty good about your brand because your shows still have a great connection in the marketplace, especially The Musers, and despite no play by play, you’re very much in the thick of the race.

For ESPN 103.3 the afternoon story is better than the 10a-3p situation but given the large levels of listening taking place on The Fan and The Ticket, it becomes harder to deliver an impact. Cowlishaw and Mosley have been very consistent for the past year, slightly dipping from a 2.7 to 2.3, but they’ve placed as high as 6th with a 3.8 in January, so it’s clear that there’s room for three strong local afternoon shows. Given that their show provides a different approach than their competitors, that’s a positive in the market.

Wrapping up the ratings breakdowns we have nights, 7p-12a with Men 25-54. This is an area where you’d expect The Fan to take charge given their association with the Rangers and the other two stations not having play by play during that time, and sure enough, they do.

The Fan was dominant in this category, finishing 1st with an 8.3. This marks the third consecutive month where the station was #1 during evenings, and since baseball started, the numbers have grown from a 4.0 to 8.3. Clearly the baseball team is delivering more listeners and longer listening times, which is good news for the station’s weekday shows which should receive more sampling.

For The Ticket and ESPN 103.3, it’s a tougher road to hoe without live sports during the evening. While the numbers aren’t very high, what is interesting is that during the past year The Ticket has gone from a 1.7 to 2.5 while ESPN 103.3 has gone from a 3.0 to 1.6. ESPN’s dip though I’m guessing is due to having the Rangers last year and being without them this year.

1053Overall the Dallas market has three different stations, presenting three different approaches, and the real winners are the local listening audience who have great options. Based on the numbers, the overall leading choice this month is The Fan, and considering where they were a year ago, the tide seems to be turning in their favor. They should be applauded for making adjustments and further investments because it’s starting to pay dividends.

The Ticket however remains a powerful brand with a great lineup and based on their drive time numbers, they’re not far off. Their morning show remains dominant, and if they regain the top spot in afternoons, they can easily position themselves as the lead dog with advertisers because clients want their messages heard during prime time hours.

The real interesting story to follow going forward will be how The Fan capitalizes on their play by play advantage. What they’re doing right now is working, and they’re only into the first year of their agreement with the Rangers.

If the Cowboys are good again, which many expect them to be, and the Rangers compete down the stretch, especially now that they’ve added Cole Hamels and made themselves even more compelling, those listeners will be visiting The Fan’s weekday programs more frequently. It’s then the job of the radio station’s on-air talent to convert those samplers into loyal listeners.

Based on what I saw in July, The Fan is on the right track.

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Chase McCabe Named Director of Operations & Sports Programming at Cromwell

“Our owner, Bud Walters, opened the door for me almost 12 years ago as an intern and I’m honored to continue to be a key member of the Nashville leadership team.”

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Congratulations are in order for Chase McCabe. He is adding a new title to his already full plate at Cromwell Media in Nashville. He has been promoted to Director of Operations & Sports Programming at the company.

“I’m very fortunate to have been to be able to grow into this opportunity under one roof,” McCabe said in a press release. “Our owner, Bud Walters, opened the door for me almost 12 years ago as an intern and I’m honored to continue to be a key member of the Nashville leadership team. I am forever grateful, but none of this could have happened without the great group of people we have here at Cromwell Media.”

McCabe has spent his whole career with 102.5 The Game and its sister station, now called 94.9 The Fan. He was named Program Director and Brand Manager of the stations in January of last year. He has maintained an on-air presence as well. He hosts Chase & Michelle weekdays at 9 AM on The Game.

In his new role, Chase McCabe becomes the number two man in Cromwell’s Nashville building. Shawn Fort was recently named the cluster’s general manager.

“Chase and I have developed a great working relationship in the two and half years since I’ve joined Cromwell Media,” Fort said. “We share similar visions on how to create compelling sports programming all while driving revenue growth. I’m excited to have Chase as my right-hand man as we move forward together with this new chapter of leadership at Cromwell Media Nashville.”

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Mark Schlereth: People Outside of Denver Aren’t Paying Attention to NBA Finals

“There was not one group of people – they’re all in there together – that was paying attention to the NBA Finals.”

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The Denver Nuggets took to the National Basketball Association’s largest stage on Thursday night as they defeated the Miami Heat for the organization’s first-ever NBA Finals victory. Early reports reveal that the game had a 2.21 demographic rating between people ages 18-49, attracting a total of 7.62 million viewers on ABC. The figure is considerably lower than the audience for Game 1 between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors last year – which averaged 11.9 million figures across ABC and ESPN2. Ratings for the alternate NBA in Stephen A’s World broadcast Thursday night on ESPN2 have not yet been released by Nielsen Media Research.

Sports fans in the Denver market have felt as if the play of the Nuggets was largely being neglected by the national media throughout these playoffs. Now that the team is the last one standing in the Western Conference, there is no one else to focus on and their play is beginning to be realized by basketball fans throughout the country. It is a narrative that Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan’s Mark Schlereth and Mike Evans felt was especially obvious by watching the press conferences after the game. The duo was able to deduce as such through the questions posed to Nuggets players and head coach Michael Malone by members of the media cohort.

“The national media – it’s like, ‘Oh, wow. We’re just kind of becoming aware of how these guys play,’ and they keep asking the Nuggets about their unselfishness and how everybody is willing to share the ball,” Evans said. “Nikola Jokić [is] being asked about not taking a lot of shots, and they’re all just kind of shrugging their shoulders like, ‘Yeah, this is who we are. We’ve been doing this for a long time.’

Schlereth was curious to find out the ratings from the game last night because he watched the game from a sports bar in Chicago. He is away from Denver, Colo. to help his son’s family move there for the summer and surmises there were about 50 people in the bar with him. What he noticed was that their interest was fixated elsewhere.

“I’m the only person that was watching the Nuggets,” Schlereth said. “There was not one group of people – they’re all in there together – that was paying attention to the NBA Finals.”

“Their loss,” Evans pithily replied.

Denver ranks 19th on Nielsen Media Research’s metropolitan market size list, but the Nuggets have been a contending team for the last five seasons. Most media analysts expect diminished ratings for the NBA Finals this year because of the lack of a storied franchise, even with the Miami Heat as the team’s opponent.

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Nielsen Releases List of Markets Where Most People Use AM Radio

“In a recent survey, Nielsen Media Research found that AM radio still reaches over 82.3 million Americans on a monthly basis”

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Amid concerns regarding the future of AM radio, Nielsen Media Research has unveiled a list of 141 markets where at least 20% of consumers regularly listen to programming on the medium. The list is reflective of the percentage of monthly total radio listening being funneled to AM as opposed to total radio listening as a whole. The top three markets are all in the Great Lakes region, and Westwood One has found large proportions of these listeners are derived from the upper Midwest. 

Buffalo-Niagara Falls leads the list with 56% of its audience tuning into AM radio in a month. It is a figure that makes sense based on the variety of AM stations, including leading news talk outlet WBEN and leading sports outlet WGR. The city of Chicago is ranked second, complete with 670 The Score, WGN and WLS. Nearby Milwaukee, Wis. ranks third on the list, another city with various AM stations such as WTMJ and WISN.

In a recent survey, Nielsen Media Research found that AM radio still reaches over 82.3 million Americans on a monthly basis – a measurement that equates to one-third of AM/FM radio listeners as a whole. Fifty-seven percent of the audience listens to stations in the news and/or talk format, utilizing the public service the outlets provide to learn of breaking news and other concerns.

There is a wide variety in market size represented throughout the list, but a trend of markets with undulating topographies tends to have larger shares of AM listeners because of the challenges the landscape presents to FM signals.

The full list compiled by Nielsen Media Research can be found below:

Metro market rankMarket namePercentage of radio audience that listens to AM radio
59Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY56%
3Chicago, IL [PPM]48%
43Milwaukee-Racine, WI [PPM]48%
245Sheboygan, WI45%
253Grand Forks, ND-MN45%
241Bismarck, ND44%
39San Jose, CA [PPM]43%
33Cincinnati, OH [PPM]42%
11Seattle-Tacoma, WA [PPM]42%
192Fargo-Moorhead, ND-MN41%
187St. Cloud, MN41%
160Lincoln, NE40%
130Macon, GA40%
196Danbury, CT39%
75Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA39%
4San Francisco, CA [PPM]39%
137Youngstown-Warren, OH38%
244Sioux City, IA38%
83Boise, ID38%
25San Antonio, TX [PPM]38%
7Atlanta, GA [PPM]38%
60Rochester, NY37%
186Columbus, GA36%
65Dayton, OH36%
176Wausau-Stevens Pt (Centrl WI), WI36%
114Johnson City-Kingspt-Brstl, TN-VA36%
62Tucson, AZ36%
159Rockford, IL36%
55Louisville, KY36%
27Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo [PPM]36%
202Cedar Rapids, IA35%
34Kansas City, KS-MO [PPM]35%
70Albuquerque, NM35%
88Spokane, WA35%
16Puerto Rico35%
67Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY34%
124Morristown, NJ34%
204Duluth-Superior, MN-WI34%
71Des Moines, IA34%
53Richmond, VA33%
145Eugene-Springfield, OR33%
252Jackson, TN33%
149Shreveport, LA33%
52Monmouth-Ocean, NJ33%
73Metro Fairfield County, CT33%
231Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA32%
13Phoenix, AZ [PPM]32%
12Miami-Ft Lauderdale-Hollywood [PPM]32%
9Philadelphia, PA [PPM]32%
96Reno, NV32%
28Sacramento, CA [PPM]32%
209Rochester, MN32%
15Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN [PPM]31%
178Anchorage, AK31%
199Salina-Manhattan, KS31%
2Los Angeles, CA [PPM]31%
89Madison, WI31%
5Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX [PPM]31%
68Grand Rapids, MI31%
223Eau Claire, WI30%
74Allentown-Bethlehem, PA30%
86Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, PA30%
20Nassau-Suffolk (Long Island) [PPM]30%
249Brunswick, GA30%
139Appleton-Oshkosh, WI29%
14Detroit, MI [PPM]29%
239Harrisonburg, VA29%
30Orlando, FL [PPM]29%
10Boston, MA [PPM]29%
189Bryan-College Station, TX29%
106Lexington-Fayette, KY28%
154Montgomery, AL28%
136Reading, PA28%
18Denver-Boulder, CO [PPM]28%
188Kalamazoo, MI28%
41Hudson Valley, NY28%
17Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater [PPM]28%
228Pueblo, CO27%
230Monroe, LA27%
116Ft. Wayne, IN27%
35Cleveland, OH [PPM]27%
22Portland, OR [PPM]27%
183Green Bay, WI27%
227Bloomington, IL26%
190Waco, TX26%
6Houston-Galveston, TX [PPM]26%
193Binghamton, NY26%
201Topeka, KS26%
81Stockton, CA26%
54Hartford-New Britain-Middletown [PPM]26%
200Tuscaloosa, AL26%
175Sioux Falls, SD25%
100Syracuse, NY25%
44Providence-Warwick-Pawtucket [PPM]25%
195Manchester, NH25%
180Lima-Van Wert, OH25%
1New York, NY [PPM]25%
119Corpus Christi, TX25%
237Grand Island-Kearney-Hastngs, NE25%
51Memphis, TN [PPM]25%
142Canton, OH25%
151Ann Arbor, MI24%
90Columbia, SC24%
208Las Cruces-Deming, NM24%
178Traverse City-Petoskey, MI24%
111York, PA24%
87Colorado Springs, CO24%
218Columbia, MO24%
140Savannah, GA23%
163Evansville, IN23%
121Portsmouth-Dover-Rochester, NH23%
247Williamsport, PA23%
221Joplin, MO22%
197Charleston, WV22%
126New Haven, CT22%
120Modesto, CA22%
234Sussex, NJ22%
69Sarasota-Bradenton, FL22%
79Wilkes Barre-Scranton, PA22%
29Austin, TX [PPM]22%
24St. Louis, MO [PPM]22%
23Baltimore, MD [PPM]22%
127Jackson, MS22%
77Baton Rouge, LA21%
66Fresno, CA21%
206Chico, CA21%
104Huntsville, AL21%
205Santa Barbara, CA21%
166Poughkeepsie, NY21%
157Peoria, IL21%
224Muskegon, MI20%
63Honolulu, HI20%
50New Orleans, LA20%
19San Diego, CA [PPM]20%
236Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH20%
32Las Vegas, NV [PPM]20%
37Raleigh-Durham, NC [PPM]20%
115Worcester, MA20%
207Laurel-Hattiesburg, MS20%
95Akron, OH20%
117Lancaster, PA20%
Source: Nielsen Nationwide Fall 2022 Metro, P12+, Monday – Sunday 12m-12m

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