I’ve gotten some criticism from one former Sports Program Director about my sports piece. (I’ve also gotten a bunch of very positive feedback, fyi).
It was along lines of “been there, done that, doesn’t work.”
It was also along the lines of “you need big entertainment a la Opie & Anthony, Howard Stern to draw in the listenership.”
To the first point I can only ask…where, what, how?
To the second, I say this: If you need tons of Male (but not Sports) talent to adequately spike numbers for your sports station, then why bother with a sports format at all? Why not reconfigure yourself as “SPIKE TV RADIO” instead?
If you’re going to be a Sports station but are busy apologizing for your format, then why bother being in it? Go where the grass is greener.
In fact, it might make a lot more sense for SPIKE RADIO to have sports content than for a Sports radio station to sound like SPIKE. And “making sense” means communication is smoother, branding is more powerful, and ratings are maximized.
Maybe the biggest trap facing a sports station is its format label. But if so, why do these stations cling to that label with such tenacity?
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