Fascinating news for Dallas terrestrial sports-guy-talk radio junkies. G-Bag going to 2-7. A bold and smart move by the Fan. In the past I've given GBag a try and didn't care for it, but that was a long time ago. I'll try to check it out and see what I think.
This news is of particular interest in light of the analysis of the last set of ratings. Confessor DA posted an article analyzing them. The big news in that article was that, while in general, The Ticket was still #1 overall, listening to sports radio was way down from the same interval the year before.
However, buried in that article was this statement: "One positive for The Fan, they defeated The Ticket in weekday prime (M-F 6a-7p) with Men 18-34."
That datum should send a shiver down the spine of Dan Bennett and Jeff Catlin.
This sets the stage for a program that attracts a younger demo to go against a Hardline largely believed to have grown stale and complacent (although not so much by me).
I caution that we have seen other programs that were thought at the time to pose a serious threat to The Hardline. That includes Ben & Skin, and remember the hoohah surrounding the entry of the Richie Whitt/Greg Williams into the fray?
But Gbag seems to be a more serious contender, an overall better and more professional presentation than past contenders.
Will Mike R arise from his torpor and reassert control over The Hardline? Will Corby prepare segments in advance of the commercial break preceding said segments?
I would be interested in knowing how streaming factors into the economics of terrestrial radio competition. The Ticket is one of the most-often streamed radio stations in the world -- am I correct in recalling that it comes in at #2 behind the BBC? If Gbag is to be considered a success, will it have to make a dent in that segment of listeners? Beyond my radio expertise, I'm afraid.
Anyway, let's continue the commentary on this. I'll conclude by excerpting a fun comment from the last thread from Anonymous 656:
"Very very interesting stuff, fellow Confessors. Game on, indeed. THL had best step up their game, like, NOW. People, I believe we might be about to experience one of the coolest things a listener can witness, something that hasn't occurred around these here parts since the mid-80s (and really doesn't happen anymore, anywhere): Ladies and Germs, I think we might have a station war on our horizon. If so, buckle up buttercups, because it's gonna be one b-i-t-c-h of a ride. G-BaG has been and continues to be on the rise. Their fanbase keeps growing and growing more and more rabid. VERY reminiscent of the nascent Ticket years--especially with THL. THL, on the other hand, lost its fastball long ago. It's coasted on having damn near zero competition in its time slot. Can they step it up and be the true juggernaut that inspired the masses to walk out on a Rangers game or will they in a few books fade into a perennial second? How will B&S fare v. The Invasion and BaD? Will the CTO offer a counter move? If so, what? And will those (and there are many) who listen to G-BaG and switch to The Ticket once B&S are up now flip flop, leaving THL with less listeners but perhaps giving BaD more (though the final hour of BaD will go against G-BaG)? Whatever happens, best pop ya popcorn, pimps, ladies, and playas, because it's gonna be thrill ride. Bring. It. ON!
"And you were pondering on whether to close up shop or not, Pman..... THIS is what MTC is all about."
I have not heard one second of G-Bag and in fact don't even know who the people are which make up that show. this is mainly because when I have tried tuning into the Fan, at any time of day, I found it unlistenable.
ReplyDeleteI will give them a shot, though, because why not?
I just read the article. Bascik is one of the guys form that show, and he's got something. So now I'm more interested.
ReplyDeleteI had to jog my memory, but as I recall, I didn't like Ben and Skin because I don't like basketball, which is their favorite topic and took up a large portion of their segments. But it seems I recall I just didn't like THEM. I didn't like their banter, their personas, any of it. Hopefully GBag has something and will cause THL to up their game.
@Plainsman,
ReplyDeleteRE:ratings being down from a year ago.
Keep in mind how small the pool of Nielsen households are when it comes to ratings. I was reminded of this fact last week when listening to the "Sports Media with Richard Deitsch" podcast as John Ourand from Sports Business Journal detailed. While discussing the drop in local MLB ratings for teams like the Giants and the Rangers as both are down 31% this season, Ourand mentioned that by changing out just two to five households for new ones can impact the projection. The same can be said for the radio side. Nielsen only has 40,000 households nationally from which they use for national TV. Plus, they have tried to make a greater effort to have their sample size more representative of the local area. Thus, more Latino households were likely added over the last two years.
G-Bag has something, Bascik brings a lot to the table, I am still learning the other guys names but they all seem to have a little something and I think that they are still working on their craft which keeps me interested.
ReplyDeleteHigh potential but still needs to achieve it.
Got it, DA. I assume your analysis might also affect the conclusion that more younger listeners are listening to The Fan. Small sample size could distort that as well, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteInnarestin.
I thought Bascik had something before his late-night drunken tweet fest. I still think that was an overreaction by Cumulus.
ReplyDeleteThe only time my radio goes to 105.3 is for Cowboys play by play and that's it.
Gopher you must be a glutton for punishment if you can handle the full Norm and Donavan show or 90% of the hardline.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that 105.3 is the best(maybe give it a try) but music or podcasts are better than most of those show's content. I am in my early 50's but you sound like my Dad who still enjoys Folgers coffee when there is so much more out there.
I just can't take Ben and Skin with the plugola/payola all over twitter all the time. They're like every white middle-aged housefrau on facebook
ReplyDeleteheh, that was me ^^
ReplyDeleteI agree Ben and Skin are like a Saturday Night Live skit. Only good for 5-10 minutes. That is why they are out of drivetime. Not to big on the morning show but do like the G-Bag.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 8:08
ReplyDeleteMost of my listening time these days is between 9a-4p with most of that from noon-3. I still listen to Norm when I can but I agree, he is starting to slow down considerably and couldn't carry the show without Donnie and Mike. KHYI is one click away.
I have sampled enough of 105.3 to know it's not my cup of tea. I catch enough grief about still listening to Brad and Babe do the radio broadcast.
Nothing wrong with a little Folgers from the Keurig but Black Rifle Coffee Company is better.
There is a reason there is a tuner on the radio.
Gopher if you are on the KHYI train your standing has gone up 10 fold.
ReplyDeleteI tend to listen to the games on the radio more than I can watch them and not to kick too many old people but Brad needs to go the way of Norm. He gets so many things wrong if his name was anyone else he would be fired outright for incompetence.
If Hardline ratings start to slip look for The Ticket to answer by bringing Jake onto Hardline proper to combine with their own G-Bag line up of Rhynes, Corby, Jake and Danny piping in frequently. I actually think this combo would work well for the Hardline as Jake would be a fresh spark for a stagnant show.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that adding Jake to the Hardline makes it better. It would be putting lipstick on Danny's pig. Norm and Mike need to go neither want to put in the work that they used too. corby doesn't put in work so not sure what you do there. Bad radio is good enough to carry drivetime and figure something else out for the other two shifts. I think you have 5 more years of the morning boys at best before they choose to ride off into the sunset and that may come sooner if management starts to move people out.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 1:07
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the Dave South syndrome. :)
As far a the Morning Boys go, nobody is safe with Cumulus at the helm.
They blew up the number one talker in San Franciso a few years ago because of tenure and salaries. If sales at the Ticket start to slip you will see some changes be it for the good or not.
This is a trend all across radio. KLUV did not renew long time, popular Jody Deans contract and last weekend was his last show at the station after being dumped from the morning lineup earlier in the year. We have been lucky to have had the 25 years we have so far. I hope Cumulus and the industry as a whole let us have another decade.
You DO NOT want Corby and Jake on the same show.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the El Paso Eastwood VS Plano High game. I’ve heard Coomb Bye Yeah Corby say 5 times the past 2 days how much he wanted all the players on the field “hold hands and hug”. It’s like he was obsessed with it. Typical symbolism over substance. Doesn’t he understand that things like that happen organically unlike his fake laugh.
ReplyDeleteA while back on his Twitter feed he wrote in regards to all the shootings “I bet all teenagers would like to punch us adults in the face over how much we have screwed up things”. Really Cobra!? All those wise teenagers that take the “Tide pod challenge” by eating one or snorting condoms through their nose...those Einstein’s??
Give GBAG a try. The best talent on that show is Jeff Cavenaugh...that dude knows his cowboy stuff and actually works at it when off the air.
ReplyDeleteWhat does GBAG stand for?
ReplyDeleteThis morning in church, I heard a scripture that started out "Tell us". So my mind goes to Norm screaming it.
ReplyDeleteOut of town for a few days.
ReplyDeleteWas hoping to catch the Gbag drive debut. Probably not all that different from afternoon Gbag, but if anyone has any impressions, let's hear 'em.
Or if you find Mike R getting up on his hind legs and reasserting some control over his show, or Corby's gratuitous swearing abated, or some circumstantial evidence of show preparation, we would be interested in that as well.
First of all Plainsman the Fan has a phone app - Radio.com app. You can drop in whilst out of town.
ReplyDeleteSecondly I disagree with those that say that adding Jake to Hardline proper wouldnt boost the show. Jake prepares, is very knowledgeable on sports and has a good sense of humor.
Oh yeah, I've listened to stream off FAN app. Worked pretty well. "Out of town" means "many planned activities and company that made media listening inappropriate."
ReplyDeletePlainsman - you need the master the technique of the single air pod in the opposite ear of your company. They will never know. I get a lot of Ticket driving in car with wife on right and air pod in left ear. She is no worse for the wear.
ReplyDeleteI listened to the Gbag nation on my drive home tonight from 4-5. I tuned into them when they were in their other time slot and liked them so decided to give them a try on my way home.. They were good and much easier to listen to then the Hardline. That is probably where I will turn my dial to on the drive home going forward. Their football opinions are much more thought through than anything you will hear from the Hardline.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jake to the hardline would be a bad idea for Jake long term. Jake is on the edge of being polarizing and put him next to cobry he would be such a sycophant that his personality would reach is height level off and then decline. He needs to stay with Bad Radio or move to a whole new show.
ReplyDeleteSo, Buckeyes, are you saying that you tuned in twice and have made this decision? How long have you been listening to THL? Seems like two stop bys is a rather small sample size to come to such a conclusion. While I'm not the commenter who accused you of being a FAN operative (I see that comment was taken down), I must say that your comment does read like a paid advert. As the kids say, "just sayin'."
ReplyDeleteI have been listening to the Hardline for 20 plus years. I stream the Gbag nation at work when they were on in the afternoon. I can see how what I wrote makes it seem like I only listened a couple times. I am not a fan of Dan so I would switch it over and listen to the Fan. I would be more then happy to take money from them if they would give it to me. I enjoy listening to a station talk sports, especially during football season. There is not enough of that for my taste from the Hardline or the Ticket for that matter. We all have our own taste in what we like. As I age, my taste in what I listen to has changed. "Just sayin'"
ReplyDeleteA tip o' the old MTC chapeau to sometime dropby Confessor Brad C for acquiring that Mickey-Mantle-crosses-the-plate-into-heaven song that is so bad I've already forgotten the name, purchased on eBay out from under Gordon's nose.
ReplyDeleteIf I am not mistaken, the Ticket had over 10 straight minutes of commercials between 7:15-7:25 this morning (Aug 22). I verified with the Sports Day app (which goes back as much as 60 minutes). So yeah, I really did look it up on my phone. Any idea why this happened? Gordo shortened "Muse in the News" to just a couple of minutes and they got back on schedule.
ReplyDeleteThe app/streaming has been glitching intermittently since they made changes in the last couple of months. The SportsDay app actually played about 20 straight minutes of commercials before coming back to Muse, but it was a normal length segment----not cut short. Then the next couple of commercial breaks on the app only lasted about a minute each and everything got caught up.
ReplyDelete@Buckeyes
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit in the same boat. As I've gotten older, I've found myself less and less interested in guy talk. That's why I really enjoyed last week's Bob and Jake Show. What little guy talk there was, it was relegated to small quips and the 1:30 news. The quality of sports talk was, of course, top notch. Gbag's engagement in guy talk is only negligibly smaller than either BaD's or THL's. As well, while I do share your opinion that Gbag has superior football analysis than THL, I do not vis-a-vis BaD. Indeed, Gbag's football analysis on the whole (esp. re: the Cowboys) is more narrative driven and even homerish (see Cowboys coverage) than not. I tried to switch to DaC on 103.3 for my pm drive time. Alas, that too was a bust. Steve Dennis's voice precludes me from getting anything out of that show: he shouts in lieu of speaking, is monotone, and is incapable of allowing for even one moment of reflective silence within a conversation. As a result of the above, I like many others have gone to pods and audiobooks.
I agree with you regarding Steve Dennis. He's hard to listen to. I didn't get to listen to Bob and Jake unfortunately. They are a pair that I would definitely tune in to.
Deletethat's disappointing
ReplyDeleteDry dock was tough on the little Ticket this month. How much of a bump will 105.3 get from the Cowboys the rest of the year?
ReplyDeletehttps://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb024
Thanks for posting, Gopher. I don't know how to read those "people meter" ratings -- or any other kind of ratings. These are not broken down by demo, if I'm looking at it right, but yeah -- those numbers are startling.
ReplyDeletePerhaps DA can weigh in on these.
Little birdy told me that the ratings drop for TCKT have more to do with demo than drydock. Same avian intimated all the data from the last 4 years play out a FAN takeover. The GBag move, merely another play in the long game CBS has been playing with Cumulus in this market vis a vis sports talk.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 2:46A
ReplyDeleteBefore he resigned, Les Moonves got CBS out of the radio business. Entercom bought their stations and radio.com in a deal completed in November 2017.
Yeah, I think 246's little birdie was drinking go go juice.
ReplyDeleteBig, big thumbs up to Daryl Johnston and his cohort on their Channel 11 tribute to Babe's son who recently passed.
ReplyDeleteI am starting to believe we have entered the beginning of the end of Ticket dominance. Wouldn't be surprised to see the Musers retired in less than 5 years, Mike in next 2 and Norm any month now. When we see the first books where the Fan actually beats the ticket in 18 to 54 overall we will know that The Little one is on its deathbed. I am sad.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 11:06: I hope you're not right, but fear that you are.
ReplyDeleteI hope that management gets some stones and just out-right drops Corby. The dude adds nothing to the show except his Chris-Chris celebrity name dropping and not-so-humble bragging. God, if I have to hear him talk about "Tony" one more time.
When the Musers retire, that will be it. All these people complaining about Corby, guess what...he ain't going nowhere. He's won; he's had that gig 20 freaking years already. What happens to Gordo if Musers retired?
ReplyDeleteI thought that the Musers calling it quits was a real possibility mainly because of a single Junes just losing the will to do it any more.
ReplyDeleteWith George and Gordo having families to support I didn't think that they would give it up.
But with the rumor that Junes is getting married, I don't think that a marriage can handle one person working (35 years old) and the other retired (52 years old). Hell, they may even have kids still, she is at that age of having to decide.
I think that 1310's run will end because kids don't like their parent's music and The Musers have been putting out music for a damn long time.
Yesterday on the air was the first time I've heard Craig mention "the woman I've been sharing a lot of my time and space with," or words to that effect. Nice, hope it all works out for him.
ReplyDeleteI think he realizes the cat is most certainly out of the bag now that his fiancee shared on Insta that she was on her bachelorette weekend
ReplyDeleteSurly,
ReplyDeleteWho is his fiancee? Somebody in media?
Anon 12:16: Reddit has been saying for months that he is involved with Natalie Solis from the local Fox affiliate.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/theticket/comments/cvcizc/our_fearless_leader_one_true_muser_is_headed_down/
Thanks. By checking out her IG account you can readily see she was with Junior last summer on his Alaska trip also. I am very happy for Mr. Junior. Natalie is very smart, attractive, fit and age appropriate in that she passes the half the man's age + 7 test.
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note that, in general, MTC discourages discussions of Ticket personnel's private lives. Exceptions are made where, as here and Norm's wedding, for example, a certain degree of publicity in which the individual has participated is already out there.
ReplyDeleteBut let's keep it civilized. So far, fine.
Thanks.
My thought was to make the ticket better you move Bad Radio to replace the hardline but the more I think about it maybe they should replace the Musers and let the morning boys keep working but at a decent hour. Either middays or afternoon drive. Bring a younger demo to the morning hoping to keep them there all day.
ReplyDeleteBe sure to watch Tony tonight. Oh yea the other dude is on there too but let's gooooo Tones
ReplyDeleteListening to Deion Sanders interview on Musers this morning.
ReplyDeleteHe may not have had a total bag of nothing, but if there was anything in the bag, it was nothingburgers.