Taking Ted's Blog to the Woodshed

Ted Leonsis has been blogging again. God bless him.

His latest blog entry shows that he’s mad at my station – and by extension, I assume, ME – by not talking enough about his hockey team. Now, I don’t think he’s mad enough to hunt me down and challenge me to a fight, like he once did with one of his own fans in his own areana. But if he is, well, he knows where to find me.

Truth be told, I don’t want to fight Ted. I don’t want to belittle Ted’s misguided notion of sports talk radio, my home station Sportstalk 980, or why talking hockey on sports radio is a losing proposition.

I like Ted. I really do. And I’ll still like him, even after I take apart his blog entry on us piece by piece. I think Ted is extremely frustrated that Washington, D.C. is not a hockey town, and will never be a hockey town.

Sorry. It is what it is.

Washington is a political town first, and a Redskins town second. And if the Wizards ever get really good, it’ll be a basketball town. But that’s about it. We’re not Philadelphia. We’re not Detroit. We’re not Boston. We’re not Montreal. We’re not New York.

The notion that increased talk about a sport somehow making it more “popular” is a myth that has been pushed by soccer fans for years. No amount of force feeding will make somebody like something. I use an analogy of 7-11 serving broccoli. If the popular convenience store started stocking the vegetable in a serving tin right next to nachos, would sales start soaring because it’s more readily available?

Sports talk radio is not a democracy of equally shared time between all sports. The most popular sports get the most coverage in a variety of ways. In music format radio, it’s called “heavy rotation.” Just like Ashlee Simpson doesn’t get equal coverage of her single as say, Mariah Carey.

Many sports owners pick up a newspaper, and see coverage of their team in the sports section. Perhaps a few column inches, perhaps more. Then they turn on the radio and wonder: “where's the same coverage?”

But covering hockey in the newspaper has no downside. Nobody chooses not to buy a newspaper because it has 8 inches on hockey on page 6. They just read what they want. Radio is not that way. You can only talk about one thing at a time. And people come and go all the time as they get in and out of their car, or flip the dial.

So when we talk hockey, TRUST ME, many people quickly tune out. That’s a luxury no radio show can afford in such a cut-throat environment.

I’m not trying to bash, but it needs to be pointed out that hockey on television is one of the most ardently NOT-watched sports in America. When a typical Stanley Cup Finals game gets a 2.5 rating, it is easily half of what a PGA Golf major gets, and less than a third of NASCAR’s premiere race the Daytona 500.

Imagine NASCAR fans: their sport absolutely DUSTS the NHL in TV ratings, and we talk about THAT even LESS on the Sports Reporters than hockey.

It would be insane of us to talk MORE about a sport with such a niche interest in the local/national landscape. Furthermore, and I’m not rubbing this in, but how about Ted’s hockey team DO SOMETHING for us to talk about!

Now, when it comes to numbers, let me try to enlighten Ted a bit.

Sports talk radio is targeted at one demographic, and one demographic only. MEN, 25-54. Not as Ted asserts as “all persons” in that age range. Of course, if you go “all persons” sports radio is going to be well out of the top 10 in ANY market you look at.

So while it’s technically true that we were 16th in “all persons” 25-54 last ratings period, it doesn’t matter a bit to our business. It would be like saying our “left handed stay-at-home-moms demo” was ranked 30th.

Even if the “all persons” demo mattered (and it doesn’t) our ranking of 16th out of 30, would still comfortably skate past Ted’s ranking of 27th out of 30 in league attendance – something he actually CAN control.

In the most recent rating period, in MEN 25-54, The Sports Reporters were tied for 4th out of 30 stations. Considering the afternoon competition of…

1st: Urban powerhouse WHUR
2nd: Perennial news tool WTOP
3rd: 20-plus year talk veterans in the D.C. Market Don & Mike
4th: Spanish language station WLZL
5th: The Sports Reporters WTEM

… we are thrilled to be where we are. And so is management. For Andy Pollin and myself, we’re happy that in the first full rating book since an utterly ill-fated decision to move our show to 9-12 a.m. – and in the process throw away 6 years of continuity and record ratings with our show in the afternoon – we’ve been able to quickly recapture so much of our audience that had been scattered.

Plus, you must remember the radio dial is very crowded – NOT EVEN counting the 400 plus channels on XM and Sirius Radio. In our market, there are 30 total stations that drew some kind of rating. We were 5th in our demo. We’ll take it.

Our competition, the John Riggins Show on Air Snyder Radio – with over a $1 million dollar promotional campaign last fall, constant cross promotion on Redskins broadcasts, and with additional exposure on MASN – was 18th in M25-54.

Furthermore, our “cume” the last period – or TOTAL number of DIFFERENT listeners – was actually higher than Don & Mike. (58,600 vs. 55,800). Given that I would surrender my left testicle for a career as lucrative and long as D&M in this market, excuse me for being very happy about this.

While I am glad that Ted’s blog on a good day attracts “more” readers than our 15 minute “snapshot” of listeners at times, comparing a blog (with worldwide reach via the internet) to an AM radio show in a single market with a 50 mile effective broadcast radius, is absurd.

If you want to whip out web traffic numbers, fine. This fine little site you are reading now – Czabe.com – averages over 40,000 UNIQUE visitors per day, and has been doing so for over 3 years now.

But hey, I’m not here to brag, haggle over numbers, or to rip the owner of our hockey team that has a bona fide mega-star in Alex Ovetchkin surrounded by a bunch of extras from the movie “Slapshot.”

I’m just trying to put the best quality PRODUCT on the market every single day. If that product is my web page, or a radio show, or a golf tournament, the drive is the same. BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE. Period.

Once you do that, everything takes care of itself, for the most part.

If Ted puts a 1st place hockey team on the ice, the sellouts will come. The buzz in town will come. The coverage, adulation, and celebration of said team on our airwaves will come.

Ted, you are overthinking this, but I still love ya. Come by the studio anytime, we’ll make time for you. I mean that. I really do.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

AND NOW, YOUR PIC O' THE DAY!!