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What Do PDs Want From A Fill-In?

“This is an important time for young voices in the building with aspirations to be a show host. In fact, it may be the biggest opportunity of the entire year.”

Tyler McComas

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M4th5 CC BY-SA 3.0

It’s the holiday season, which means hosts across the country are probably looking at their remaining vacation days and making plans to use all of them before the end of the year. That leaves PDs in the position where they’re usually looking for fill-in talent to help fill shows. Some PDs will look outside the building, while others look at it as an opportunity to get a better look at some of the other voices that are employed as board ops, podcast hosts, etc. 

This is an important time for young voices in the building with aspirations to be a show host. In fact, it may be the biggest opportunity of the entire year. It’s the perfect time for someone to develop who they are behind the mic and identify the strengths and weaknesses they may possess. 

But what exactly are PD’s looking for and where do they normally go for fill-in talent? Those were the questions I posed to three PDs across the country. 

Armen Williams – Brand Manager at SportsRadio 610 and CBS Sports Radio 650

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How did you come across the fill-in hosts you use?

AW: A lot of times fill-in hosts are inherited – let’s first investigate the voices that have been used over the years at the radio station.  Who are the listeners most familiar with? Then, it’s always healthy to look internally to see if there are other individuals who are on the support staff that would be interested in the opportunity or perhaps could be groomed for future roles. Next, it’s a search between other media members or notable individuals inside the market.

What are you looking for from these folks? 

AW: It depends. In a perfect world, there are at least a few people that you’re grooming for potential roles on the station one day. Who’s good enough to possibly do this thing on a regular basis? Building a depth chart on the station is one of the harder things to do but can pay off in dividends long-term.

Then, sometimes you’re just looking for others who might have another job but can provide a unique perspective and can be available on occasion.

Do you coach them the same way you do your regular hosts? 

AW: Well, most fill-ins are only in your building for a small amount of time out of the year, so it’s not a situation where you’re doing regular aircheck sessions with them, no. But it is important that they get communication as to what the minimum expectations are and a general feel/direction of the brand and content. Regular fill-ins will likely get more feedback than someone that’s only called on a few days out of the year.  

Tye Richardson – PD of ESPN Arkansas and Host of The Morning Rush

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How did you come across the fill-in hosts you use?

TR: We’ve found our fill-in hosts at ESPN Arkansas in a number of ways. Some have been former employees. Others have been doing weekly podcasts associated with our radio station. Giving part timers a crack is another route we’ve explored. 

What are you looking for from these folks?

TR: We’re looking for future hosts of the station. Radio is an ever evolving business. I always need to be prepared if someone leaves for another job, quits, etc. Most athletic directors have a shortlist of who they would hire next if needed. We take a similar approach.

Do you coach them the same way you do your regular hosts?

TR: I rarely say anything to our current hosts as the Program Director. Our market manager handles that side of the coaching. I’m more willing to share my opinion to the fill-ins. It’s in my best interest they’re prepared to take a next step. 

John Mamola – PD of 95.3 WDAE, AM 620 and NewsRadio WFLA

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How did you come across the fill-in hosts you use?

JM: During the holidays, we tend to give some of our board ops and producers some air time. We try to cycle it through the staff to try and get some reps in. We want to keep it local with people that the audience is familiar with, as opposed to bringing someone in out of the market. Sometimes we’ll lean on our partners, like if the Rays, Lightning or Bucs want to have some of their on-air personnel do some shows. But we do try to keep it to familiar voices

How valuable is that for you as a PD, to be able to use this time to evaluate talent?

JM: It’s extremely valuable. It’s good to give opportunities to some people that have worked really hard throughout the year and give them some experience behind the mic, instead of just the board. We pull in talent from the other radio stations in the building to give it a different spin, but those are more guest spots as opposed to full shows. We have some options to do more syndication, which we kind of lean on a little bit, but we try not to dive into that too much. 

What advice would you give to a fill-in talent?

JM: I don’t think booking interviews is necessarily a good trait of if you’re going to give an air check to a talent. Can you ask questions? Sure, as long as you’re asking the right questions and framing them correctly, fine. If I’m going to give advice to a talent, I’d rather give them advice on a skill set that defines them. 

If I were to go to North Carolina and ask someone to do a couple of hours in Tampa, the top three things would be, make sure you understand what you’re talking about, because if you don’t research my city and my market, then people aren’t going to listen to you. Work on pronunciations. That’s a big faux pas for a lot of people, unfortunately, when I hear people at other stations with talent that aren’t in those markets. Know how to pronounce Amalie Arena. Three, just be welcoming to being razzed a little bit. If people don’t know who the hell you are, they’re going to ask who the hell do you think you are. You have to be prepared for that, because it’s one thing to dive into how terrible the Bucs were on Sunday but if you can’t remember a certain play or moment in the game, and it’s obvious to the audience you have no idea what you’re talking about, you have to have thick skin. Have fun with it, because it’s a one-off and the biggest thing is can you entertain my audience from afar? If you can do that, you win the day.

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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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