As far as jobs go, I'm lucky. I get to do what many of you would love to do on a daily basis - get paid for talking about sports.
My daily talk show - along with the Clemson and high school play-by-play, plus other network duties all rolled into one - is easily the best job I've ever had. It's the most fun, the most fulfilling, the most rewarding.
It can also be the most frustrating.
There is an extreme lack of understanding on the part of Joe Public about our business, and one area where it comes up usually has to do with a show's popularity. In a market such as ours, at a station such as The Drive - one whose daytime hours are filled mostly with local talk shows - the average listener tends to believe that a show's popularity is determined by the number of phone calls it gets on a daily basis.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Market research shows that very likely less than five percent of our listeners actually call shows on WCCP. The number could even be smaller than that.
The percentages may go up or down a few points depending on the size of the market, but it's usually that way for any sports talk station such as ours.
I could give you specifics, actual numbers, but to do so I'd be violating FCC rules. Our station doesn't subscribe to Arbitron - the ratings company which big companies in this industry use as their Bible for everything from formatting stations to hiring/firing employees.
It's also the service which large advertising agencies use to determine which stations in a particular market will get what percentage of ad money available.
But because they try to hold small stations like ours hostage from a pricing standpoint, we don't subscribe to their service.
In many ways it's liberating because we can actually make common sense decisions about what does and doesn't work for WCCP. And despite message board outcry to the contrary, what we have on the air right now is working.
Our revenues have skyrocketed in the last three years, thanks in large part to a great sales manager. Our relationship with Clemson as its flagship station has never been stronger. We just completed a huge internal upgrade of our studio and offices...
In short, things have never been better at WCCP and continue to move ahead day by day, week by week and month by month.
The downside to telling Arbitron to take a hike is twofold - One, it means our sales folks have to work even harder with ad agencies to get in on the action with the large regional and national corporations.
And two, it means we aren't allowed to speak about what our ratings numbers actually are in the market in our target category - Men ages 25-54.
I know what the numbers are. I've seen them for the station overall, and for my time slot in general. I know for a fact where my three-hours are rated in the Greenville-Spartanburg market, which is the 59th largest media market in the country.
If I were allowed to post those numbers, you would get a better understanding of how my show stacks up daily in a non-drive time slot, as well as how we fare in every other daypart in the market. The numbers, overwhelmingly positive, would surprise most people. Especially if they remember what this station used to pull in the rankings.
But I can't. The FCC says so.
Ratings are subjective anyway. It all depends on who (listeners) gets the survey from Arbitron, when they get it and how many of them get it.
When you're in the position of WCCP, yes ratings are important to a certain extent. But the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. And I can promise you that if a show was causing the station to lose money and/or advertisers, the plug would be pulled before you can say guest host.
No, happily our focus gets to be on trying to do what's best for our listeners and ourselves - in that order.
And while three or four people can drive a seemingly endless thread on a discussion board that rips into our station and hosts, the overwhelming majority of the feedback we get is positive.
Having said that, I welcome legitimate, well-thought out constructive criticism of what I do. You can do it here, via email or whatever your communication tool of choice.
Just remember, regardless of what you may believe, we are constantly trying to find ways to make our shows - our station - better for our audience.
As for the calls?
Heavy, slow. Regulars, newbies. It doesn't matter. Folks will always find something to complain about. It comes with the territory.
And yet, when I said it before I truly meant it.
I love my job. I hope that comes through in my work.
My daily talk show - along with the Clemson and high school play-by-play, plus other network duties all rolled into one - is easily the best job I've ever had. It's the most fun, the most fulfilling, the most rewarding.
It can also be the most frustrating.
There is an extreme lack of understanding on the part of Joe Public about our business, and one area where it comes up usually has to do with a show's popularity. In a market such as ours, at a station such as The Drive - one whose daytime hours are filled mostly with local talk shows - the average listener tends to believe that a show's popularity is determined by the number of phone calls it gets on a daily basis.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Market research shows that very likely less than five percent of our listeners actually call shows on WCCP. The number could even be smaller than that.
The percentages may go up or down a few points depending on the size of the market, but it's usually that way for any sports talk station such as ours.
I could give you specifics, actual numbers, but to do so I'd be violating FCC rules. Our station doesn't subscribe to Arbitron - the ratings company which big companies in this industry use as their Bible for everything from formatting stations to hiring/firing employees.
It's also the service which large advertising agencies use to determine which stations in a particular market will get what percentage of ad money available.
But because they try to hold small stations like ours hostage from a pricing standpoint, we don't subscribe to their service.
In many ways it's liberating because we can actually make common sense decisions about what does and doesn't work for WCCP. And despite message board outcry to the contrary, what we have on the air right now is working.
Our revenues have skyrocketed in the last three years, thanks in large part to a great sales manager. Our relationship with Clemson as its flagship station has never been stronger. We just completed a huge internal upgrade of our studio and offices...
In short, things have never been better at WCCP and continue to move ahead day by day, week by week and month by month.
The downside to telling Arbitron to take a hike is twofold - One, it means our sales folks have to work even harder with ad agencies to get in on the action with the large regional and national corporations.
And two, it means we aren't allowed to speak about what our ratings numbers actually are in the market in our target category - Men ages 25-54.
I know what the numbers are. I've seen them for the station overall, and for my time slot in general. I know for a fact where my three-hours are rated in the Greenville-Spartanburg market, which is the 59th largest media market in the country.
If I were allowed to post those numbers, you would get a better understanding of how my show stacks up daily in a non-drive time slot, as well as how we fare in every other daypart in the market. The numbers, overwhelmingly positive, would surprise most people. Especially if they remember what this station used to pull in the rankings.
But I can't. The FCC says so.
Ratings are subjective anyway. It all depends on who (listeners) gets the survey from Arbitron, when they get it and how many of them get it.
When you're in the position of WCCP, yes ratings are important to a certain extent. But the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. And I can promise you that if a show was causing the station to lose money and/or advertisers, the plug would be pulled before you can say guest host.
No, happily our focus gets to be on trying to do what's best for our listeners and ourselves - in that order.
And while three or four people can drive a seemingly endless thread on a discussion board that rips into our station and hosts, the overwhelming majority of the feedback we get is positive.
Having said that, I welcome legitimate, well-thought out constructive criticism of what I do. You can do it here, via email or whatever your communication tool of choice.
Just remember, regardless of what you may believe, we are constantly trying to find ways to make our shows - our station - better for our audience.
As for the calls?
Heavy, slow. Regulars, newbies. It doesn't matter. Folks will always find something to complain about. It comes with the territory.
And yet, when I said it before I truly meant it.
I love my job. I hope that comes through in my work.
4 comments:
Thanks Dan for having the best show in the upstate.
You actually get paid for replaying and replaying old interviews?
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