BSM Writers
Meet The Market Managers: Dan Bennett, Cumulus Dallas
“If you want a big job, you better be able to handle the big responsibility. And it’s not just me. It’s all of my department heads. A ton is expected of us. That’s just the way it is.”
Published
3 years agoon
I think most people in radio wish their career could look at least a little bit like Dan Bennett’s. The man has worked in the same city and same cluster, working his way up for the past 37 years.
Since 1999, he has served as the vice president and market manager for Cumulus Dallas. His cluster includes some of the company’s most valuable brands including three music stations, two news talkers, and the well known Sports Radio 1310/96.7 The Ticket, a sports radio station every bit as important to the history of the sports talk format as WFAN, WIP or any other station in the Northeast.
The well respected Dallas leader cleared some time from his schedule to connect with me to discuss the challenges of building a bench behind legendary talent, the pressures that come with being a company’s top revenue generator, and why you’ll never hear a host on The Ticket talk about a third string running back at SMU. With nearly four decades of success under his belt, when this man speaks, industry people are wise to listen.
Demetri Ravanos: You’ve been involved with The Ticket for a long time and I’ll get into the specifics of that brand, your talent, and lineup later, but I want to start by focusing on program directors. Not just at The Ticket, but all of your stations. You have six brands to look after. When it comes to filling a key role and determining who to place your faith in to lead a brand forward, what do you look for? Does the desire to be in Dallas for the long haul factor into your decision making?
Dan Bennett: I think that’s really important, and I realize sometimes that people have other opportunities they may want to go and pursue. I think one of the advantages we have is that this is a top five market. Just the other day, they released new market sizes. We’re now number four. Once you get to a top 10 market, you don’t run into the same issues with people wanting to move up and up the way you might in some other places.
I originally came from the programing side. So I tell all of our PDs up front that I listen to all of our stations a lot. I talk to the PDs all the time about product and content and everything else, because it’s real simple, we’re the company’s biggest market for revenue and the only way we’re going to get there is if we get ratings. You can only do so much with mediocre ratings.
I meet with our PD’s every week. I also oversee Houston, KRBE there. I mean, I’m really in tune. When I hear outdated promos or outdated commercials or whatever, I’m texting them. When PD’s come here they know and understand that they’re working for a guy who came from the programing side. And you know, I’m really lucky because my team embraces it. I’d imagine that maybe some people out there wouldn’t like that situation, because most market managers come from sales. I’m fortunate in my career that I’ve been involved in both.
We’re here to win and I’m here to help them do that. I always tell them that I just have one rule. That is when I hear a mistake or something that isn’t right, I’ll let you know about it and don’t ever say it came from me. I don’t want the PD to call somebody and say, “Hey, Dan heard you mispronounce this guy’s name” or “Dan heard you with the date of the promotion being wrong”. What I try to do with the PD’s is I try to empower them.
DR: So is that the way you feel you need to run the building so that you’re comfortable doing the best job that you can? Or if you had a talented programmer at any station who said, “Dan, this is one of the reasons I’m looking for something different is I need to be able to do this on my own”. Is that something you’re open to pulling back on at all?
DB: Look, every department head, including me, has to be accountable to somebody. What you’re describing is “I don’t want to be accountable to anybody”. And that wouldn’t work.
DR: That’s fair.
DB: Even the best PD’s in the country cannot listen to their station 24/7. What I’m here to do is maybe catch something that you didn’t know about and then you can pick up the phone and deal with it. Again, I’m here to be your wingman, not to play a game of gotcha.
DR: So going back to the idea that people stay with your stations for a long time, let’s talk specifically about The Ticket. I’m sure you saw not just in your city, but across the sports broadcasting landscape the emotional reaction towards Mike Rhyner deciding to call it a career. I believe we’re coming up on two years, right?
DB: Yeah. You know, when Mike told me he wanted to hang it up, it was right around Christmas. I told him to take two weeks and think about it because I didn’t want him to have a knee jerk reaction. Rhyner is such character that he came into my office, and in that gruff voice of his, he started out by saying “Dan, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I’ve lost my fastball.” That was his way of telling me it’s time to hang it up.
I believe we’re fair to the air talent. We’ll pay you a good salary, but you’ve got to show up and put points on the board. You know, there’s a lot of people out there that want to go to a big station and make big money. And that’s fine. But you have to do your part and deliver ratings.
DR: Some of those guys that have delivered ratings for you, The Musers, Norm Hitzges, are going to reach a point sometime down the road where they too knock on your office door and say, “Dan, I think it’s time”. You’ve grown with these guys for so long at the radio station, does that make it harder to think about that day or do you sort of fall back on the old college athletic director stereotype of always having a list of five names available because you never know when you’re going to need to pull it out?
DB: This is why we’re always developing people, whether that be a producer that gets to pop on the air every once in a while and next thing you know, they’re on the air or more and more and more. I mean, Corby Davidson came up that way. Danny Balis came up that way.
Shoot, Donovan Lewis, who does the noon show with Norm, he was a board operator who worked for me on KLIF. I’ll tell you how that happened, how we put him on the air. Donovan is one of the best guys in the world and he’s funny. One day I was in the kitchen in the break room and he had about five people around him. He was telling stories and had everybody laughing hysterically. I just sat there and watched this guy who’s a board op, and I remember going to Bruce Gilbert, who didn’t want to do it at the time, and when Bruce left and Jeff Catlin came in as PD, I said “We ought to try this guy, because I think he’s got something. He does stand up in the company kitchen. Plus, he really knows and loves sports. We ought to start just putting him in”. He’s the greatest guy in the world. Everybody loves him. He’s funny and he’s smart about sports.
So we’re constantly looking, whether it is in the break room or in a producer booth or a part time guy on the weekend. Who are we developing for that day when these long term guys decide they don’t want to do it anymore?
DR: I want to circle back on something you said earlier about being the primary market for revenue generation within the company. Last year, every company, every business went through the challenges of the pandemic. When you have the company’s spotlight on your performance, is there added pressure when the whole industry is facing challenges and everyone is trying to figure this thing out on the fly?
DB: Well, I mean we’re the company’s number one market for revenue and cash flow. Yeah, it becomes a lot of responsibility. I’ve been the market manager since 1999. I have been here since 1984. That’s 37 years. I mean, I’m used to the pressure. If you want a big job, then you better be able to handle the big responsibility. And it’s not just me. It’s all of my department heads. A ton is expected of us. That’s just the way it is.
I think this is a really good recent example. I needed another sales manager and felt that I needed to make a change on the music side for reasons I won’t go into. I hired Dawn Girocco, she was our market manager in Los Angeles. When we sold KLOS to the Meruelo group, they didn’t keep her. My belief is when you hire department heads, do not hire beneath you. Hire at your level or somebody who is good at something that you’re not.
Dawn had been a market manager in Los Angeles and I hired her to be the director of music sales. I think that that’s how you deal with the pressure, by having really incredible department heads all around you. People fail at this when they hire beneath themselves. That’s absolutely a fact.
DR: Do you have a vision or blueprint in your mind of what works for an advertising partner in 2021? Do you have a set of trends you can point to, whether it’s Ticket clients or clients at any of your other stations, that you can say “This is what our most successful advertisers are doing. So I know it works across the board”?
DB: Yeah, I do. It’s the association with our talent who have been there many, many years. I mean, the average person on The Ticket has been there for like 22, 23 years.
Getting an endorsement now is way more than a live spot on the air. Now it’s social media and many times it’s a video. It’s a pre-roll video. It’s all these other things that your business can align itself to thru a personality. It isn’t any different than a GEICO ad. Look at all the different famous people that do GEICO ads. We have really well known local people. I will tell you, our music stations have more endorsements by the talent than any music station in town.
I think our talent is the number one asset that we can offer our clients, whether it be through an endorsement, an appearance, or due to the ratings they generate on the radio station. Even if you don’t have a Norm or Donovan doing your endorsement, the fact that your spot is on during our show gives you a better shot at making sure that the commercial works. I just think our best asset is our on-air talent. I really do.
DR: So you talked in there about the idea of an endorsement not just being the live read anymore. And that sort of dovetails into something that I’ve been thinking about a lot across the board, not just with The Ticket or your cluster. Is there any sort of consistency that has developed in terms of trying to get a new client on air? Before it was very much about the personal approach. But now I wonder how much of it is just selling the idea of radio as opposed to all digital or any sort of other new media that there are always deals and plenty of options to get in on?
DB: Well, we sell the concept of radio, your base buy and why. It really is involved in selling it in combination with digital. We try every time we go out to combine the two. Some people buy it on that. Some people don’t. When you can take two different mediums like digital and radio and even some of the podcasts that our guys do and combine them all together, then you have a consistent message, which is important. Then you can make it all work in concert with one another, and have a better chance of being successful. I think radio is doing a better job of embracing this thing called digital, but not by selling it and abandoning radio, but by making them run in concert with one another.
DR: Let me ask you about the social side for a minute, because part of my job with Barrett Sports Media is studying brands all over the country. I would say, looking at social, The Ticket is a little less active than most major market stations. I wonder, is that something you want to see improve or is that a strategic choice on your part?
DB: Do you mean in terms of the advertiser and being incorporated into our social media?
DR: Not just that. I mean just the amount of content you guys put out on social.
DB: Well, yeah. Quite frankly, Jeff Catlin and I have talked a lot about this. I think we need to do more of it.
We’ve got a guy that we hired on The Wolf, Jason Pulman, to do afternoon drive. It’s a heavy personality show. The guy is just entrenched in social and the amount of ratings he’s been able to generate in four months has been unbelievable. So I think that’s probably an area that we can improve and do more of. I think you’re going to see that elevated over the next three to six months.
We’re always looking at ourselves and asking, “if you were a competitor to us, how would you come at us?”. You know, we can’t get so full of ourselves that we think we can’t get beat. Everybody can get beat somehow.
DR: Honestly, that’s why the question was, is it a strategic choice? Because I’m not even sure that it is incorrect necessarily, because one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last year is that not everybody in the industry has had success selling digital products. Maybe they’ve had success selling it as part of a package with on air. But I’ve often found myself wondering if, as an industry radio has put more focus on digital than it is ready to at this point.
DB: You’ve got to be careful. I’ll give you a perfect start. Believe me, we are focused on digital. We’re focused on selling it. However, in the last Miller Kaplan in the market, this is the whole market, 83 percent of all the revenue was still spot revenue. So, the careful thing there is don’t take your eye off 83 percent chasing some other shiny object.
That’s why any sales presentation really needs to incorporate both. Look, social and all that, that’s great. Whatever the air talent do, that’s great, but if the content that comes through the speakers isn’t good, I mean, you can promote on social media crappy content and they’re not going to listen to it. That’s why you’ve got to watch all of it, because it’s not just one thing. It never is.
DR: I’d love your insights on the growth of Dallas as a sports radio market. You guys have remained this behemoth even as challengers have arisen. 105.3 The Fan has tightened the race, but you’re no stranger to local sports radio competition. There’s never been a moment where another sports/talk station could say ‘we’ve firmly put The Ticket in the rearview mirror’. What do you attribute that to?
DB: One of the most important things is to always keep your feet firmly on the ground and not get full of yourself. We’ve all had bad books or books where there was a hiccup or whatever.
I do think one of the things that is dramatically changing, and I think Covid had a big effect on this, is the way people consume radio and sports radio. Many times you are listening through your phone. Most guys nowadays don’t have a clock radio on their nightstand. They get up in the morning and they stream The Ticket. The last book, 50 percent of The Ticket’s ratings were coming from streaming. A contact of mine at Nielsen said that there is no radio station in America that comes close to that.
So many of these men that listen to us had to work from home. And here we are a year later and still 50 percent is being consumed on stream. I mean, that’s changed dramatically. That’s why a station like The Ticket is total line reporting. We did that in October and it’s been a big help.
DR: What’s funny is you talked about most guys not having a clock radio in their house anymore. I’ve got an 11 year old daughter and we have just sort of gone through the fight of you cannot sleep with your iPad and phone in your room anymore. We went out to buy her a clock radio and found very few clocks include a radio anymore. I mean, it’s so crazy that alarm clocks, it seems, are very much embracing the idea that this is not where people listen anymore.
DB: You’re right. That’s why we’ve got to be accessible. Any of the platforms like Alexa that we’re available on, we have to be sure that we’re able to count those ratings. Before we went to total line reporting, we weren’t able to do that.
Here we had a whole bunch of listening sitting over on our stream, but we weren’t able to count any of it. Of course, when you go to do that, you know Nielsen is going to charge more money. But we made that decision and it was the right one for us.
DR: We recently ran this piece on the strategy of selling news stations and sports stations as a combo, and received a lot of feedback from all over the country that it’s now harder than ever before because there are so many advertisers that view news talk radio as the the shining example of the divide in this country. Some feel being associated with it, whether you mean to or not, means that you’re choosing sides. Are you seeing that in Dallas?
DB: Yeah. The thing is when we had Rush Limbaugh, we would have certain, mainly national advertisers that wouldn’t want to run on his show. We have two teams. We have a news, talk and sports team, and we have a music team on our sales staff. However, if a music seller has somebody that wants The Ticket and there’s nobody calling on that account on the news/talk/sports side, they can go over and sell it.
There is a bit of that with conservative talk radio. There’s always going to be, but I think it was more of a national issue and more about Rush Limbaugh than anybody else.
DR: Really? I’ve been critical of of news talk because I think one of the format’s failings is that for so long, programmers were just looking for the next Rush. Even though he’s no longer with us, there are still plenty of clones doing a similar show. It’s interesting to hear that for the most part, what you saw was specifically with Limbaugh.
DB: Most of the pushback that we have gotten is from national accounts. Now, I am not going to tell you who, but we have a car dealer in this town. It’s a big one. They won’t advertise on The Ticket because of the content.
DR: Interesting.
DB: Yeah, they think there’s too much innuendo and guy talk and discussion about the sophomoric things that oftentimes get brought up on a sports station. They just won’t do it, and they’re a big advertiser. So, it can happen on the sports side, too, when somebody doesn’t want to be associated with something that they deem not appropriate.
I think on the news talk side, and boy, we’ve really worked at this, the biggest problem is that so many of the talent want to get on the air and jam their agenda down your throat rather than playing the hits. We had to have some pretty intense meetings with a couple of people on the air on our news talk stations. I said, “you’re jamming your agenda down people’s throats and you’re trying to change their minds”. When people are 40 or 45 or 50 or 55 years old, you’re not going to change their political sway in one way or the other. The best thing you can do to attract a bigger audience is play the hits.
Just like in sports radio, when Dak Prescott blew out his leg, that was the story. If you’re on the air in this town and you aren’t talking about what happened in yesterday’s game to Dak, you’re not playing the hits. I think a lot of these news talk shows just totally quit playing the hits, and they wanted every day to jam a political agenda, that’s part of why I think news talk struggled.
We had to make some real fundamental changes with a few of our talent to start playing the hits or this wasn’t going to work anymore. Fortunately, we’ve made a lot of progress.
DR: You brought up the advertiser that objects to what you called the sophomore nature of The Ticket. I do feel like I need to ask you, you’ve got this great bit on The Musers of the Fake Jerry Jones that sometimes performs better than the real Jerry Jones calling into the competition. You have been with the station through its whole run. There has to be a moment that you can point to and say “that is when I knew our approach to sports radio was perfect for this market”.
DB: I was at Susquehanna. We bought The Ticket in 1996. I’ll just say somebody in the company said, “well, we need to change those guys and talk about real sports”. And I said, “no, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. They’re on to something, and what we’ve got to do is we have to champion it, encourage it, support it”.
Look, if you’ve ever gone to a game with a group of guys, just think back in your life. One time we took a group of clients to a Mavericks game in San Antonio. And at the time, I was probably in my mid 40s. You know, it’s a bunch of guys and everybody’s married and we’re on this trip and it was just clients. It was everything from a discussion about the game, to who’s going to go get the next beer, to “Oh my God, look at what just walked right outside of the arena!” and they’re pointing at some attractive woman.
Guys don’t sit around and just talk about sports statistics all day. They talk about every aspect of sports, which includes the camaraderie, the game, the crazy people in the stands, the next beer. I think what The Ticket tapped into is the mindset of the ideal listener. They’re not so myopic in their view about sports. The people who fail at this or the people that, get on the air and want to talk about the third team running back for SMU. Well, I’m sorry, but nobody cares. I think what our guys have done is they’ve tapped into what men really talk about.
Kind of an interesting example is my wife. She grew up with four brothers. She was the only girl. She loves The Ticket, is a P1, listens every morning. Okay, so why is that? Well, because she grew up with four brothers and understands brother humor and gets it. You know what’s interesting? When I run into women who don’t like it, many times they are women didn’t grow up with brothers.
The Ticket tapped into how guys think, how guys act, what guys want to talk about, and they’re just really in tune with the demo. That’s why The Ticket has been a success. We aren’t so myopic that all we do is talk about serious sports, but a lot of these sports stations, that’s what they do. They don’t get it.
What they do is they go out and hire a sports writer. Well, I can tell you, I’ve tried that. I’ll tell you, most of the time it doesn’t work. You’d be better off hiring a guy at the end of the bar who holds court every night and and talks sports. Hire somebody like that.
Demetri Ravanos is the Assistant Content Director for Barrett Sports Media. He hosts the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas. Previous stops include WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC. You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos and reach him by email at [email protected].
BSM Writers
The 2024 BSM Summit Was a Great Success But The Advertising Industry Needs to Step Up in 2025
“I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.”
Published
21 hours agoon
March 18, 2024The BSM Summit is in the books. I’m physically and mentally exhausted from it but that’s the price to pay to deliver a successful event. I want to thank all who attended, supported, and spoke at the show. We’ve done six of these conferences and they get better each year. I can always find things to improve but last week’s show was a great success. We now have to decide if we’ll head to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco in 2025. To vote, click here.
Before you ask, we recorded the entire show and will make all sessions available via on-demand. Those who were in NYC will receive a free login to the show. Those who didn’t attend and wish to see what they missed will be able to purchase on-demand tickets for $99.99. Once everything is ready, I’ll alert the masses.
Looking back, we had a strong mix of sessions. The Power Panel, Game Changers, Strictly Business, Riding The Revenue Train and Experts on the Digital Expressway all offered great insight on what executives are dealing with and where growth is coming from. We also had Annie Agar, Andrew Marchand, Damon Amendolara, Bonnie Bernstein, Maggie Gray, Kevin Clark, Dave Greene, Mike McVay and Bruce Gilbert host sessions, which kept the show fresh and interesting. Bringing together Nick Wright, Danny Parkins, Andrew Fillipponi and Damon Amendolara together was another highlight for the show.
I hosted a number of sessions too with some incredible industry titans. Caroline Beasley was excellent, offering honest feedback from the CEO’s chair. She was the first radio CEO to appear and speak at the BSM Summit. David Field, Bob Pittman, Mary Berner, Bill Wilson, Jennifer Witz and others, I’ll see you down the road.
Caroline explained why the radio business is viable despite what Bell Media said, however she reminded folks that the industry has been healthier. We’ve got to work to get back to that level. Her insights on how she manages Boston and Philadelphia differently, Beasley’s approach to diversity, the challenges with measurement, and the rise of artificial intelligence were all valuable. It was great talking business with someone as accomplished as Caroline.
I was also blessed to reconnect with John Skipper. We had a blast talking business in 2022 and this time was even better. Whether we got into Meadowlark Media’s progress, industry layoffs, the state of podcasting, the ESPN-FOX-WBD streaming deal or artificial intelligence, John was ready to share insightful answers. My favorite line though was when I asked him about AI. In classic John fashion he said, ‘I’m 68. By the time this takes off, hopefully someone else can deal with this shit.’ I know many who feel the same way.
Among the talent talks I hosted, Michael Kay and Peter Rosenberg were tremendous. Michael admitted that going through GM and PD changes has been hard, and the move away from the FM dial and Nielsen will take time to get used to. At the same time, he’s impressed with Good Karma Brands and wouldn’t have signed another contract with the company if he didn’t have complete trust in their people and approach. Given how many GKB folks were in the room, Michael could have given politically correct answers. Instead, he was honest. We need more of that. Playing it safe doesn’t address issues. Honest dialogue does.
Last but certainly not least, Stephen A. Smith and Paul Heyman were simply outstanding. I’ll start with Stephen A.. I’ve been looking to sit down and chat with him at the Summit for six years. The timing worked out, and I’m glad it did. He was electric. Having Stephen A. and Paul cross paths backstage too was great. The tweet they put out blew up.
Before going on stage with Stephen A., I was ready to do 35-minutes. I know he has a ton on his plate, so I didn’t want to abuse his time. As we’re heading out, he says ‘Let’s do 45. I’m good with 45.’ I said, ’45 it is’. We took the stage, discussed his schedule and prep, knowing when First Take needs to pivot, the rise of his digital show, his future plans, management diversity, etc., and as I’m about to wrap with questions, he says ‘I’ve got time for 3 more questions.’ An hour later, we end day one. That was awesome. It’s easy to see why he’s the best in the game.
What a treat it was to have Paul Heyman with us. His insight on creating promos, and writing shows as both a leader and underdog were outstanding. Even better was his feedback on the Tribal Chief character of Roman Reigns being born from Marlon Brando’s Apocalypse Now. I could’ve talked business with Paul for another hour. He also promoted his appearance prior to the Summit, sharing posts with millions of followers and getting the WWE behind it. I never expect that but when it happens, it says a lot about an individual. The WWE has to get ‘The Wiseman’ at more industry conferences. He gets the business and makes the room smarter.
The session I received the best feedback on that wasn’t tied to stars was ‘Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube‘. Make sure to read Dave Greene’s column today about it. I knew the session was going to be a hit as soon as I saw Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona’s slides. They did a great job showing what does and doesn’t work on YouTube and how to monetize the platform. When I said last month that the mid-market voters screwed up leaving Moscona off the BSM Top 20 PD list, this was why. What these guys are doing in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge should be paid attention to. They’re crushing it and doing so without a large corporate push.
Another session that was popular was ‘Secrets to Social Success‘. Annie Agar, Omar Raja, Steve Braband and Josh Fendrick know the social space and were excellent sharing thoughts on how to create impact on specific platforms. I also love how the session ended with Logan Swaim of The Volume asking the group to draft their top 2 platforms from a group of X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The one surprise, no one picked Facebook.
This Summit had stronger attendance from GM’s than ever before, almost 300 total people registered, and a ton of different companies were in attendance. One of those groups, Good Karma Brands continues to impress me by how they use the event to unite their teams and use the gathering to make their local markets better. I was thrilled to be back at the Ailey Theater, the home of our 2020 show. The stage and screen are huge, and the seating is great. The only challenge was getting people back into the room after they flocked to the hallway to network.
There was though one thing missing at the Summit that I want to see change in the future; stronger representation from the advertising industry.
This conference isn’t just for radio hosts and program directors. It’s for everyone and anyone who works in the media business. We explore ways to make money, grow audience, deliver impact for partners, examine and excel on new platforms, and explore new technology and key changes affecting the media business. These are relevant issues for advertisers/media buyers not just content creators/managers. I tried to offer tickets and speaking opportunities to get media buyers and marketers involved and the response was light. I’m calling on advertising professionals to step it up in 2025. This conference and room benefits you too.
As I drove home with my son, Dylan, he asked ‘how do you even come close to matching this one? Is there anyone left?’ Without hesitating I said, ‘Did you see Dave Portnoy there? Big Cat and PFT? Bill Simmons? Joe Buck? Troy Aikman? Mr. Beast? Mark Cuban? Jim Nantz? Dan Le Batard? David Berson? Adam Silver? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? Daniel Ek? Tim Cook? The Kelce Brothers? Peyton & Eli? Shaq? Charles Barkley? Bob Costas? Dan Patrick? Gary Vee? He looked at me, cracked a smile and said, ‘I guess there’s always more you can do.’
My next challenge, building the 2024 BNM Summit in Washington D.C. this September. Thanks again to everyone who made time to join us, speak and sponsor the show. It really means a lot.
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Thumbs Up:
Andrew Salciunas: It’s great to see 97.5 The Fanatic giving ‘Choonis’ a bigger opportunity. Andrew did a nice job alongside Anthony Gargano, he was ready to be elevated, and he’s respected by the local competition. Adding him to mornings with John Kincade gives the morning show new energy while adding a new wrinkle to middays. WIP remains the dominant brand in Philadelphia, and these moves don’t guarantee anything changing. However, putting a talented broadcaster with a bright future in a bigger role is a good start.
The Kelce Brothers and Shannon Sharpe: The iHeart Podcast Awards took place last week and two award winners couldn’t have been more deserving. The Kelce Brothers earned the honor for podcast of the year. Shannon Sharpe won Sports Podcast of the Year for his show Club Shay Shay. The Kelce’s and Shannon are blowing up in the digital audio space. iHeart nailed it with these two recipients. Congrats to both. The more they each succeed, the more it’s going to make the athlete creator economy an even bigger part of sports media’s future.
Travis Hancock: Mark Baker from Gastonia, NC is a dedicated listener of WFNZ in Charlotte. The longtime caller and Charlotte sports radio consumer has been in a hospital battling serious health issues which have included needing surgery for a stomach problem, treatment for a heart condition to survive the surgery, and a large, cancerous tumor that could end his life soon.
Rather than offering prayers and hoping for the best, Travis has called on the Charlotte sports community to offer encouragement to lift Mark’s spirits. Tons of current and former Panthers, Hornets, and media personalities have shared uplifting messages for Mr. Baker. One scroll through his feed on X and you’ll see tons of messages from Greg Olsen, Paul Finebaum, Luke Kuechly and many others.
Mark from Gastonia’s road ahead remains unclear. Travis is doing his part to provide words of encouragement to help him get through the day, and raising awareness of his GoFundMe to help cover medical expenses. Here’s to hoping Mark recovers and is able to listen to and call his favorite sports radio station, WFNZ, one more time.
Thumbs Down:
Deadspin: The brand was sold last week by Gizmodo Media Group to a European firm, which plans to take a different approach to content. Deadspin was once a take-no-prisoners brand, stepping on anyone and everyone in their way. But those who fueled that fire to make the brand respected and feared departed. The crew that followed had some of that venom but not as much. Crushing people and reputations may generate attention but eventually flames burn out. When the ones responsible for financing chaos pull the plug, it’s harder to find others hungry to do business with those who made a living trying to take them down.
Diversity Zealots: For 8 years, I’ve written columns about sports media’s diversity challenges. I believe the industry can be better in this area especially in management. It’s a subject I’ve put focus on at Summit’s in three different cities with multiple executives including our latest in NYC. In fact, Jeff Rickard remarked last week how this year’s event had the strongest female representation we’ve ever had, something I’m proud of because we’ve worked hard on it.
More importantly, I continue to help women, and Black and Hispanic professionals get hired in key roles in sports media. Yet there are uninformed people in our business and some who are now on the outside looking in who like to flock to social media when the diversity issue comes up or when they see a poster or panel about our show promoting white people involved in it.
First, rather than running your mouth and sounding stupid, how about doing your homework? A simple look at the show schedule would’ve shown you there were a lot of women taking part. Secondly, how about actually making a difference yourself? Who have you hired? Who have you featured on stage at an industry event or welcomed on to your show to explore the issue further? What exactly are you doing to make things better in the industry besides sitting behind a computer complaining on X or Facebook? It’s easy to spew nonsense but harder to actually solve problems. Stop talking, start doing.
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].
BSM Writers
Stephen A. Smith & Paul Heyman Were Headliners; Phil Mackey & Matt Moscona Steal Headlines
Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit.
Published
21 hours agoon
March 18, 2024By
Dave GreeneComing in to the 2024 BSM Summit in New York it was clear who the headliners were going to be. WWE’s Paul Heyman and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith hit it out of the park with their sessions on Wednesday afternoon. I could listen to the two of them speak for hours.
The way Heyman described feeling a crowd and where to take a promo. The connection you have to have with an audience and the way he can make everyone in a large arena and the millions watching on television feel like he is talking to them, individually. He truly is one of the best television characters of all time.
Stephen A. and his passion for what he does is incredible. Love him or hate him, you watch him, and you are interested in what he has to say. His delivery is part of what makes him so special and on this day, he really captured the room as he talked a lot about what he still feels he wants and needs to do in this business. His confidence and his work ethic can never be questioned.
The keynote conversations with Caroline Beasley and John Skipper were both excellent and Skipper may have had the thought of the week when he said, regarding Artificial Intelligence, “It’s going to create a lot of disruption. I’m still more fond of intelligence that walks with two legs. I am 68 and thinking maybe I can get through life without this sh**”
However, it was the session that came about 35 minutes after Skipper’s conversation with Barrett Media president Jason Barrett, which stole the headlines. This is where SKOR Noth’s Phil Mackey and Matt Moscona of 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge did a panel entitled, Making Sports Radio Work on YouTube.
Based on the response most everyone I talked to had about this session, this was the “light bulb moment” for most during the Summit. I know everyone that was in that room to hear the session took something they could use immediately back to their stations, if they were someone who is in a market without a video/YouTube strategy or even for those that already do.
Now, there is a couple of things to dissect here. The first thing is for those without a video/YouTube strategy in 2024, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? This has been my biggest pet peeve for a long time in that the industry is so slow to react rather than step up and be the leader. You have the content, you have the audience, you have the talent, the talent has the relationships and trust with the audience. Meanwhile, digital content creators came along and built better, stronger relationships with audiences with attribution right on the screen and took millions and millions of dollars in advertising along the way. Then, and only then, did most respond and by then it was too late and it was time to play catch up.
Sorry, that just needed to be said. Don’t even get me started on Podcasting and the missed opportunities there.
I digress. This is why the BSM Summit is held, to share ideas and to learn new things you can implement.
What Phil and Matt did in this panel was break it down very simply. Phil shared five things they have learned since launching on YouTube which included: producing for YouTube, knowing “niches get the riches,” using SEO-friendly headlines, having great thumbnails, and using product placement which has great value for local direct advertisers.
Matt laid out two things very clearly that can make a gigantic difference when it comes to YouTube. The first being a great thumbnail and the other being a great title. He pointed out that YouTube is a search engine, and it is second only to Google in that regard. Therefore, you must think about what your audience is searching for when they are using the platform.
This session was equal parts valuable information and presented in a very simple way for folks to understand and take back for their teams to implement. Many of you will be having YouTube strategy meetings soon (trust me) and my suggestion to you is to do a couple of things. First, if you were not at the BSM Summit I know a replay opportunity will be out soon for you to view on-demand. I highly suggest you do so, not just for this session, but if you do not have a video strategy, this is 35 minutes you need to see.
Secondly, Matt Moscona noted in the presentation that they spent time looking at what the best stations around the country were doing and other digital outlets and how they looked and how they engaged with the audiences, etc. This is important because you should be doing the same thing. So many others have tried, adjusted, tried again, pivoted, tried again and you have the luxury of going to YouTube.com today and seeing where they landed. That would be a suggestion for a first step, go take a look and see what can be done, relatively inexpensively, to create an entirely new revenue stream and the best way possible to engage with and super-serve your audience.
I would highly suggest you start by taking a look at what Phil Mackey and his team at SKOR North are doing as well as what Matt Moscona and his team at 104.5 ESPN in Baton Rouge are doing.
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The Best Thing I Heard This Week
Being in New York most of the week, I wasn’t able to listen to or watch much sports programming. However, I did spend time with several of the brightest minds in our industry. The best thing I heard this week was the amount of positivity around sports radio, sports television and digital sports coverage and conversation.
Yes, there are problems. Oy, are there problems. But there is so much to be looking forward to in this space.
I talked with several young content creators at the BSM Summit, and it was energizing. It was great to hear their enthusiasm for what is going on and I think, frankly, a lot of that has to do with the new companies that have come into the space. These people didn’t spend time in a tired, old radio or television environment where they are content trying to teach old dog’s new tricks. They are working for forward-thinking companies who are allowing them the space, time and resources to create.
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In Case You Missed It
On Friday morning as I was traveling back from New York, I had the chance to read a terrific piece from John Molori, Sports Media is in its Golden Age for Women. John’s column centers on just a few of the women who are succeeding, big time, in sports media today. John highlights Erin Andrews, Pam Oliver, Hannah Storm and Cari Champion while mentioning several others. I am sure John felt like he could go on and on with this column.
John writes, “March is Women’s History Month, and at no time in the history of television have there been more talented and capable women in the sports media field. Viewers are blessed to enjoy the work of time-tested and experienced personalities, and equally fortunate to see an endless stream of young and driven women who want to make a mark in the industry.
“The once male-dominated field has been plowed down like the cornfield in Field of Dreams. In its place is a wide-open and diverse roster of broadcasters whose gifts transcend any gender labels.”
You can read John’s full column by clicking here.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting.
BSM Writers
Field Yates Goes Beyond the Numbers for ESPN NFL Coverage
“No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way.”
Published
22 hours agoon
March 18, 2024With just over one month to go until the 2024 NFL Draft, Field Yates is entering the final stages of his year-round preparation process. Amid an NFL season that concluded with a thrilling Super Bowl resulting in a second-consecutive championship for the Kansas City Chiefs, Yates was balancing real-time coverage with shrewd prognostication and evaluation of the next generation of stars. There has been anticipation regarding who the Chicago Bears will select with the first-overall draft pick and the other franchises thereafter to welcome a new class to the league. For this draft alone, Yates has compiled projections for 322 players that has involved meticulous film study, analyzing quantitative data and interviews with the athletes and their surrounding personnel.
As an NFL insider for ESPN, Yates consistently remains in the know on all things pertaining to the game of football. The new league year begins just after the Super Bowl, and he ensures to enter its confines ready to tackle free agency and the NFL Draft before offseason workouts lead to training camp.
During the season, Yates is in conversation with relevant sources from around the NFL to gather information about additional qualitative considerations that could impact the draft position of a player. He periodically authors mock drafts in articles that outline how he believes the three-day event will play out as well. While Yates and other NFL insiders help fans become more informed and engaged with tentpole events throughout the season, there is a different kind of ambiguity surrounding the NFL Draft that can lead to unexpected outcomes.
“I compare it to studying for – not that I ever took this – but I would say it feels like studying for the LSAT,” Yates explained. “You could study every hour of every day, but ultimately once the actual event begins, there’s specific problems that you have to solve; or in the case of the Draft, I’m going to study more players than are actually drafted, and I’m going to have players in my mind going in certain ranges.”
There are unpredictable occurrences that take place over the course of the NFL and collegiate seasons with the potential to alter the overall draft order. For example, Yates emphasized that most people did not expect LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels to project as a top-five selection entering the season. Yet after a breakout year in which Daniels led college football in quarterback rating and threw for 40 touchdowns and 3,812 yards, he caught the attention of several teams in the early first round.
“He had a remarkable season, so there is this balancing act of sort of taking all the information you had going into a year, but making sure you’re not married to it,” Yates said. “You’ve got to be mindful of how things can change once the season begins, and you sort of have to adjust your board accordingly.”
More than 54 million fans watched last year’s NFL Draft with an average audience equating to 6 million consumers per day. The average viewership figure was up 12% year-over-year, which was a harbinger of things to come for the league’s regular season and playoff slate of games.
Yates was involved in this coverage throughout the year, which included television hosting and analysis, two original podcasts, writing and reporting. Although his endeavors in these media center around football, he brings a different approach as to how he presents the information, imagining the cluster of platforms as if it were an accordion. Writing provides Yates the ability to start and stop, whereas his radio appearances generally last eight to 15 minutes and lead to real-time dissemination of his findings and opinions.
“I always think about every topic through a couple of different prisms, but generally speaking if you have one initial thought that comes to mind, you better have that one ready for TV,” Yates said, “because in TV, sometimes you get 30 seconds on a topic and sometimes you get more, but you better be prepared to have a truncated answer on TV because it’s the one medium where you have this finite period of time that is usually just one show window.”
During the previous summer, Yates hosted ESPN’s daily studio program, NFL Live, while Laura Rutledge was on maternity leave. Being able to fill in for Rutledge, someone who Yates considers a close friend and as good a host in all of television, was a task for which he was honored to take on. While he generally displays his football acumen on this program in a contributing role outside of its main cast, he suddenly found himself responsible for setting up the deep roster of analysts and also delivering his own opinions over the course of a show.
“NFL Live is one of those shows that when I was there, my mindset was, ‘Let the stars of the show do their thing,’” Yates said. “As far as the analysis role, we weren’t as reactionary to the news of yesterday because there weren’t that many games that you’re reacting to.”
Before he started covering football on a regular basis, Yates was a tight end and linebacker for his high school football team and was named to the All-Independent School League. From there, he attended Wesleyan University where he played on the football and lacrosse teams while majoring in psychology. For parts of high school and college, Yates interned with the New England Patriots and ultimately narrowed his focus to coaching and scouting, ultimately trying to prove his worth to remain in the NFL. In the end, he was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs as a member of its scouting and coaching department where he spent games in the coaching box and eventually helped chart defensive plays.
Experience working in the NFL is not a necessary prerequisite in order to serve as an effective analyst or commentator, Yates affirmed, but he is cognizant of the fact that it did give him an inherent advantage to decipher nuances of the sport. In fact, he refers to his time in the league as his “football Rosetta Stone,” carving a stele from which he decodes different facets of the sport.
“It allowed me to understand a little bit deeper some of the things that I probably was aware of but was able to kind of crystallize,” Yates said, “like what specifically I was looking for in players and kind of what went into the process of scouting a player at a very, very, very basic level, sort of understanding what went into a game plan.”
Yates enjoyed his work at the NFL level, but he quickly realized that the outline of events made it difficult to attend events such as weddings and his five-year high school reunion. He was making sacrifices to work in football, and while he knows that he may have felt differently about it at another time in his life, he began to ponder over making a change.
“It’s a schedule that does not work around you; you work around it, and I just sort of felt like there was a little bit more balance for me out there in the world of sports media, which all these years later I feel validated in saying,” Yates conveyed, “because while I absolutely 100% love everything that goes into the scouting process in so many ways, I do have some balance in my life that I’m not sure would have been afforded if I stayed in that world of scouting.”
After moving on from his job in football, Yates earned his real-estate license and thought that the field would serve him better in a career. Six months later though, he felt a yearning for sports and was looking to find a way back into the industry in a role that would better serve his aspirations.
Once he realized that sports media could prove to be optimal, he began sending emails to Mike Reiss, an NFL reporter for ESPN who covers the New England Patriots that became a mentor who accepted him early on in the business. After freelance writing for several football blogs and websites, he was hired by ESPN and worked on its Boston coverage, covering his first NFL Draft at the age of 24 from Gillette Stadium.
“I kind of point to that to where it sort of began,” Yates said. “It was the first opportunity for me to be inside of a professional media setting amongst a bunch of people that I either had grown up reading or had followed on social media; things of that nature. Mike really kind of helped me get my first sort of stepping stone into the world of sports media.”
When he was working in Boston, Yates was the co-host of two ESPN Radio shows centered around football while also writing articles for the outlet’s official website. He gradually made the transition towards covering the league nationally and started to contribute to both NFL coverage and fantasy football content.
Seth Markman, who serves as a vice president of production for ESPN, assisted Yates in understanding the means of comparison and contrast within the dichotomy of these two subject matters. As a result, he discerned what aspects of the sport were applicable between these focuses and began to further excel in his work. Before he was named the host of Fantasy Football Now, Yates was an NFL insider on the show and would cogently fuse these two areas together.
“I can’t say that every single thing that I learned in scouting I have used to this day in fantasy football, but there’s definitely a lot of stuff that I feel has been useful when you’re trying to evaluate sort of the real or not real nature of player performance,” Yates said. “A guy has a monster game in Week 1 and you’re sitting there wondering, ‘Alright, I haven’t really thought about this player that much,’ or, ‘I hadn’t really thought about this player that much. What do we see in this player and how real is or is it not?’”
Yates monitors metrics in real time on Sunday afternoons when he is situated in the ESPN War Room watching games around the league with his colleagues. Located within the network’s Bristol headquarters, he views the action alongside Chris Berman, Adam Schefter and other ESPN personalities, monitoring the latest developments and building camaraderie.
Over the years in the War Room, Yates has vivid memories watching games with ESPN NFL reporter Chris Mortensen, who worked at the network for over three decades. Mortensen stepped down from ESPN last April, but throughout his time at the network he built relationships with his colleagues and was always accessible to them. Earlier this month, Mortensen passed away at the age of 72, news that saddened his colleagues, competitors and sports fans around the world.
“I remember whenever I talked to Mort on the phone, it was always a lot longer than I anticipated or he anticipated it might be, so a call that began with a text that said, ‘Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to catch up?,’ usually turned into about an hour or so,” Yates recalled. “We already do miss Mort a lot, and I think it’s going to feel that much different in the fall on Sundays.”
Although ESPN no longer airs Fantasy Football Now, he continues to share his insights regarding the space on several ESPN television programs and the Fantasy Focus Football podcast. Yates co-hosts the audio offering with Daniel Dopp, Mike Clay and Stephania Bell, all of whom bring unique concentrations to the air that help create a compelling, engaging final product. There are a plethora of outlets producing fantasy football content, but Yates believes that the rapport between the on-air talent ultimately sets them apart.
“If Christian McCaffrey has four touchdowns on Sunday, we’re going to talk about it on Monday, and probably every other podcast will as well,” Yates hypothesized. “What’s going to hopefully make us different is the entertainment value and the camaraderie and the chemistry that makes you say, ‘Yeah, I know I can hear about Christian McCaffrey anywhere, but I really want to hear from the Fantasy Focus crew.’”
With the NFL Draft rapidly approaching, Yates is continuing to extrapolate his insights in that niche of coverage on the twice-weekly First Draft podcast with ESPN senior NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. The show allows them to deliberate topics at length, satiating the appetite for more detail and protracted discussion for those looking for such content. These podcasts, along with his radio appearances, television responsibilities and the written word, excite Yates and keep him enthused about football coverage going forward.
“While I feel like we have near around-the-clock coverage for football, I just feel like we’re going to have even more and more and more going forward,” Yates said. “The digital space is so great, but it’s an opportunity for all of us to continue to grow, and that league has become must-see TV, 365 days a year.”
From the moment Yates arrived at ESPN, he immediately felt welcomed by people at the company who emitted a sense of gratitude and thoughtfulness. Looking back, he acknowledges that they could have told him to “go kick rocks,” but they did the opposite instead and forged meaningful relationships that have helped enhance the quality and breadth of programming.
With the whirlwind of free agency slowly winding down, Yates is beginning to see the illuminating lights of the NFL Draft stage glowing in downtown Detroit. The filled-in draft board will resemble an answer key of sorts for Yates to review before he moves on to studying the next iteration of the event. Through it all, he will watch as the league receives a new class of budding stars looking to contribute to teams around the league as they work to realize championship aspirations.
“I find pure joy in being a part of the ESPN family and covering football like I do,” Yates said. “No day feels like work for me, and it’s something that has allowed me to meet some incredible people along the way. I’ve been at ESPN for over a decade now, and I feel real camaraderie and feel a real loyalty and bond at the company, and that to me is motivation enough to want to continue to do it for a long, long time.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Sports Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @derekfutterman.