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Study: Sports Radio Provides Most Attentive Audience For Advertisers

“Radio also showed the highest audience retention through commercials.”

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A new study from Cumulus and Westwood One’s Audio Active group shows some good news for radio sales reps to take to their clients. Listeners of sports radio tend to hear the messages stations and advertisers want them to more often than listeners to other formats and users of other platforms.

It should come as no surprise that listeners to spoken word formats tend to be the ones most likely to hear and remember a sponsor’s message. Sports tops all of them with Spanish formats, NPR, news/talk and religious formats rounding out the top 5.

Radio also showed the highest audience retention through commercials. The study asked participants how often they skip or actively avoid ads on a variety of platforms. 35% of listeners to terrestrial radio answered “rarely or never”. 27% of those that regularly consume audio via the online streams of terrestrial stations gave the same answer.

Finally, the study showed that sports radio has a particularly engaged audience. Those that listen to play-by-play on the radio tend to be very aware of who advertisers are and more interested in what is coming through their speakers.

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Brian Murphy: Paul McCaffrey Tried to Make ‘Radio Magic Every Single Segment’

“He was the most consistent, energetic, relentless pro that I, or any of you, would ever want in your life.”

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A photo of Paul McCaffrey and Brian Murphy

During a round of layoffs last week, longtime KNBR morning host Paul McCaffrey exited. His co-host Brian Murphy eulogized the pair’s 18-year morning show in his first appearance on the station since the cuts Monday morning.

While reminiscing about the pair’s original, Murphy said a former executive used to frequently point at the radio and say “magic comes out of that box”.

“Paulie Mac may have been the guy who understood that idea more than anyone I’ve ever met in the business,” Murphy said. “Paulie Mac strived every single segment, every single segment, to make magic come out of the box. And he succeeded wildly. He was the most consistent, energetic, relentless pro that I, or any of you, would ever want in your life. He taught this old newspaper guy that we were doing radio and radio mattered. And bits mattered. And getting people through the morning mattered.

“The show, the show, the show. It was always what was good for the show. Not what’s good for him, not what’s good for me, but what’s good for the show.”

Video of Murphy’s comments and reflection on his time with McCaffrey was posted by the station to social media. Former KNBR Program Director Kevin Graham chimed in, calling Murphy’s farewell a “fitting tribute”.

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Chris Garagiola to Replace Greg Schulte As Arizona Diamondbacks Radio Voice

“I have a few big-ticket things I want to achieve in my life and being the voice of a major league baseball team is one of them.”

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A photo of Chris Garagiola
(Photo: Danielle Cortez/Arizona Diamondbacks)

After 25 years as the only radio voice in the history of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Greg Schulte stepped aside after the 2023 season. Chris Garagiola will step into the team’s broadcast booth moving forward.

Garagiola has spent the past two seasons working as the fill-in voice for the club while Schulte missed time to undergo chemotherapy treatments as he battled cancer. He also served as the pregame and postgame host for the D-backs.

“This is the byproduct of a lot of hoping, a lot of being in the right place at the right time and a lot of hard work,” Garagiola told AZCentral.com. “This was a major life goal. It really was. I have a few big-ticket things I want to achieve in my life and being the voice of a major league baseball team is one of them.”

The 31-year-old previously worked as the voice of the AA Pensacola Blue Wahoos. He said if he had the opportunity to choose any MLB play-by-play job, this was the one he wanted.

“People would ask if you could pick any team what would you pick? My pick would have been Arizona,” Chris Garagiola said. “That was my team. That was my childhood team and some of the best sporting memories I ever had.”

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Chiefs Radio Voice Mitch Holthus Misses 1st Game in 30 Years After COVID Diagnosis

Mitch Holthus claimed he had not missed a Chiefs broadcast in 30 years — calling more than 500 consecutive games for the team.

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A photo of Mitch Holthus
(Photo: Kansas City Chiefs)

Mitch Holthus has been one of the most distinctive NFL radio voices during his 30 years as the play-by-play announcer of the Kansas City Chiefs. His voice was absent Sunday for the franchise’s game after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

In a post to X, Holthus said he tested positive for the virus on Friday, and attempted to find a way to broadcast Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers remotely, before ultimately coming to the realization that it wasn’t feasible.

“I appreciate everyone who spent most of the day Friday trying to figure out how I could broadcast this game 2020 studio style,” Holthus wrote. “If it was (a) home game could maybe have had (an) isolated booth. But no way to pull it off on road, and (I) would never put anyone in that travel party in jeopardy, especially those who are immune compromised.”

He called the situation a “challenging 60+ hours”.

Mitch Holthus claimed he had not missed a Chiefs broadcast in 30 years — calling more than 500 consecutive games for the team. However, he concluded that he would start a new streak of broadcasting the team’s games next week.

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