Sports Animal...50/50 airtime

[icecold]

Got in my car at 3:40 and the sports animal was just coming back from commercial, at 3:46 they go back to commercial....come back from commercial at 3:52 then at 3:55they go back to commercial.....so, that was 11 mins of commercials and 9 minutes of airtime. Then not to mention during that 8 mins of airtime Traber told me the job of a hitting coach and that the Thunder will not go after any free agents. A superb 20 mins of radio. The sports radio market is huge in OKC and it just sucks the SA is so bad. Do they have more ad time than any other station?

[bmrsnrou]

ice, I totally agree. The sa has become a huge disappointment. I used to be a regular listener, but the lack of any talk due to all the ads really turned me off. I've started to listen to the ref more for sports talk, but they're almost as bad ad wise. It seems like all of the Citadel stations are nothing but ads with some music or sports talk thrown in, but the animal is definitely the biggest offender.

[RadioOKC]

The numbers keep going up. The content keeps getting pushed back for commercials because content plays second fiddle in today's radio. As traditional radio revenue channels shrink due to competition from digital media they will have to rethink how
they generate income AND how to provide compelling content to compete. When we do our FM weekly show we wont run
over 7 Minutes of commercial content per hour and we don't run any on the stream.


Chris
www.radiookc.com

[bombermwc]

When you can't attract enough ratings, your commercial space isn't as valuable so you have to offer more of it up to pay for things. IE they suck so they are trying to make up the cost of doing business with more commercial time. It's the last ditch effort of a dying show.

[Video Expert]

I won't debate the merits or quality of the SA these days, but have any of you priced their commercials and/or remotes in the past? How about lately? Their commercial time hasn't gotten any cheaper, I can assure you. I would argue that the reason for more commercials is not because their space isn't as valuable, but they actually have sold out their inventory and have added more commercials to increase revenues.

Large sports stations in general have to generate much more revenue than a music station in order to pay the large salaries of some of their on-air talent. That's why they are always doing remotes. Not only does that typically drive up the traffic at the business who has the remote (justifying the high remote price), but the station can also charge an "appearance fee" of several hundred dollars that goes primarily to the on-air talent.

Whether you like them or not, there is a huge demographic (M 25-54) that still listens to that station. Perhaps the added commercial time may start to erode that audience somewhat, but I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon unless a real competitor with a strong signal and big budget arrives on the scene.

[LordGerald]

I won't debate the merits or quality of the SA these days, but have any of you priced their commercials and/or remotes in the past? How about lately? Their commercial time hasn't gotten any cheaper, I can assure you. I would argue that the reason for more commercials is not because their space isn't as valuable, but they actually have sold out their inventory and have added more commercials to increase revenues.

Large sports stations in general have to generate much more revenue than a music station in order to pay the large salaries of some of their on-air talent. That's why they are always doing remotes. Not only does that typically drive up the traffic at the business who has the remote (justifying the high remote price), but the station can also charge an "appearance fee" of several hundred dollars that goes primarily to the on-air talent.

Whether you like them or not, there is a huge demographic (M 25-54) that still listens to that station. Perhaps the added commercial time may start to erode that audience somewhat, but I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon unless a real competitor with a strong signal and big budget arrives on the scene.

Sadly, you are correct and Bomber is dead wrong. The SA is one of the most efficient radio stations in the country at selling its inventory. It's high for a reason: Because it's desired. I know it's frustrating, but they can sell their ads at a high rate because they have a waiting list of advertisers wanting to get in. I know this because I've bought ads from Citadel, and negotiating the SA was always the most difficult.

[cjohnson.405]

Whether you like them or not, there is a huge demographic (M 25-54) that still listens to that station. Perhaps the added commercial time may start to erode that audience somewhat, but I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon unless a real competitor with a strong signal and big budget arrives on the scene.

In the last book, they were not in the top 5 in that demographic and that included football season. As they move into summer, SA will drop to one of the lowest rated stations in the metro.

Sports stations in other markets blow the doors off that demographic but it doesn't happen here.

But, sadly, I agree that they will not be going anywhere. Such as waste of space.

[OKC Heel]

When you can't attract enough ratings, your commercial space isn't as valuable so you have to offer more of it up to pay for things. IE they suck so they are trying to make up the cost of doing business with more commercial time. It's the last ditch effort of a dying show.

Except the ratings arent hurting. They have so many commercials because they have so many listeners ie companies want to advertise on their station bc they KNOW it's going to be heard by the most possible listeners. They're willing to sell more time at the expense of more talk, bc ads pay the bills.

[Bostonfan]

Was in the car today a little after 2:00 and thought what the hell, I'll turn over to the Animal and see what's going on. You would think they would be talking about a number of things such as, the Masters, MLB, the upcoming NBA playoffs, etc. since it is a "sports" station. No, Traber had his wife on the phone talking about a $20,000 dollar wedding dress. Now that is some great "sports" talk! Maybe in a few months I'll turn it back on to hear actual sports talk. Then again, maybe not.

[ou48A]

I would be curious to see a chart showing the WWLS ratings for the past 12 or so years.
I don’t know but I have a feeling that they have fallen rather significantly.