If ever there was a brand built on proprietary content, that brand is ESPN. Across all platforms, ESPN Audio offers more than 9,000 hours of talk and event content annually, reaching nearly 24 million listeners per week on more than 450 stations. Traug Keller is ESPN’s Senior Vice President, Production, Business Divisions, and he leads three business units at the company: ESPN Audio, ESPN Local and the ESPN Talent Office. For ESPN Audio, Traug oversees all aspects of the busi

So let’s say you’re a radio station that attracts a male audience, but when play-by-play airs on another station, BOOM – off go listeners from your station to theirs. What do you do when your fans want to hear that play-by-play and they leave your station to hear it? Well, consider this: What if they could get the play-by-play and get it from you – no rights or rights fees necessary? What if they could get the play-by-play and get it from you - no rights or rights fees necess

There’s been lots of attention in the radio industry trades lately about the lack of audience momentum for many broadcasters in the streaming space, even as so-called pure-plays like Pandora and Spotify grow by leaps and bounds. Tom Taylor writes: iHeart’s not the only terrestrial operator with flat or negative growth over the period from February 2013 to October 2014. #3-ranked CBS is down from about 69,000 average domestic streams (6am-8pm weekdays) to a little less than 60

If there’s one book this year that best sums up what the radio industry has to do to compete in a world of infinite choice, it’s this one: Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment I talked with Anita to test some of my own theories about radio’s future in the presence of her research. The result is a clear strategy and plan of action. Now the rest is up to you. Click here to listen to my interview: Download Audio Or here for the sharable So

Why did ESPN acquire Nate Silver and his hugely popular NYT blog FiveThirtyEight.com? Was it just to lay odds on sports events? Or was it for a much bigger play? This past weekend on CNN’s Reliable Sources, ESPN Chief John Skipper spelled out the strategy: …We had launched Grantland, [where we] allowed Bill Simmons to have the freedom to do the kind of site he’s doing so that when we went to Nate and said we’re going to let you range across things other than sports, we’re goi

Why does any consumer behave in the way that she does? It’s because she has a problem and she wants a solution.  And the more effective, convenient, and simple that solution is, the more she will gravitate towards it. A “problem” doesn’t necessarily mean some vexing dilemma.  It could be as simple as the desire to hear a familiar voice on the way to work. The great thing about technology is that it creatively enables a whole host of problems to be solved in clever and powerfu

Recently I was given a slim but potent handbook made for FOX Sports’ TV commentators.  It was created by FOX’s David Hill in 2010. Every one of their commentators gets a copy of this terrific little gem, and I wanted to share some of its highlights with you, since the lessons apply to communicators in radio, too. So I whipped up this handy little presentation to illustrate some of the key themes.  Enjoy! (And if you can’t see the presentation for whatever reason, click on the

Conversation about sports makes great radio because sports is all about sharp, informed opinions.  And God knows there is no shortage of those among fans of whatever game we happen to be talking about. Sports is, after all, an obsession.  It’s why ESPN is the jewel in Disney’s crown. It’s why Sports stations are generally more profitable and impactful than high-rated. But that obsession – those opinions – belong to everyone who has one, not only to the hosts and the handful o

“We’re trying to make it…easy for people to listen on the radio.” With those words, ESPN 980 erected the equivalent of a pay wall when they decided to delay podcasts of on-air content for 24 hours to soak up every second of potential Arbitron credit from this listening.  In other words, the goal was to force people to listen on-air whether they wanted to or not. This assumes, of course, that you can force consumers to do anything in a world of a zillion choices (hint:  You ca