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When You Can't Compete On The Fan, Just Give Up
That seems to be the philosophy at 590 Thursday night. Half an hour before the Raptors first playoff game in the final, I heard the announcers on CJCL say they were going to run "the best of the Fan" while Game One was on, and then return live with a post-contest analysis.
I understand the move - the game is airing on TSN 1050 and I can't conceive of anyone who cares about sports listening to anything else. But honestly, wouldn't it be better to go to say, CBS Sports for the time to at least have something live and current?
I can't quite ever remember the Fan giving up so completely and ceding all its listeners to the competition but that's what the Rogers outlet chose to do in the face of the Raptor juggernaut. It makes sense, I suppose, but abandoning your audience with reruns seems like giving up to me.
- Radiowiz
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Re: When You Can't Compete On The Fan, Just Give Up
This sounds like something to do on a Saturday night.
Too bad there's nothing to talk about in any sport when the Raptors play.
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- betaylored
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Re: When You Can't Compete On The Fan, Just Give Up
Radiowiz wrote:
This sounds like something to do on a Saturday night.
Too bad there's nothing to talk about in any sport when the Raptors play.
Don't the St. Louis Blues have something like 16 Canadians playing, including a couple of former Leafs? 590 could've run the latest Steve Dangle podcast for Pete's sake.
There's a whole group of us who aren't basketball fans, and who have not, and just plain can't get invested in the Raptors, even though I would be happy for the fans, team and city of Toronto if they win..so there was an underserved audience last night.
Maybe doing a "Best of" was Rogers management's way of letting the Fan590 family all watch the Raptors game. Well, except for the board op who had to work. There's always that one lone board op manning the fort to keep the station going.
Last edited by betaylored (May 31, 2019 2:08 am)
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Re: When You Can't Compete On The Fan, Just Give Up
This brings up an age old question that I’ve encountered myself over the years – when you’re doing a talk show opposite an event so huge it can’t be ignored, how do you deal with it on air?
I was surprised on Thursday night when Barb DiGiulio started talking about the Raptors after the game had started, putting on her old Fan sports hat and going into detail about what she thought of the team and its chances.
Meanwhile, over on 640, it was even stranger. Charles Adler kept giving the score (“Raptors leading by 10 in the third quarter…”) even going so far as to stop updating the game when he was talking to Toronto lawyer-turned-non-stop-media gadfly Ari Goldkind, who, we were told repeatedly, had the broadcast on hold in his PVR and agreed to come on if there weren’t any spoilers given out during the interview! (What does it say about your show when even your guest isn’t listening to it?)
All of which brings up the question: when there’s a massive event on against you, do you cover it in real time or just ignore it until it’s over? Logic would dictate that if listeners are even remotely interested in the Raptor game, they would be either watching it or listening to it on another station. Those who aren’t are your remaining audience.
So why mention it at all to people who presumably don't care?
On the other hand, it IS a major event that’s happening around you, so can you really ignore it?
It’s a real dilemma and one I never really was able to solve when I was producing talk radio many years ago. And given this is just game one of at least four more, these same talk shows are going to face it again next week.
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