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In the past, I’ve offered my analysis of both ESPN 103.3 and The Ticket. In all fairness, I think it’s time that I offer my assessment of the newest sports talk radio station in Dallas, 105.3 The Fan. I first became aware of The Fan flipping through the stations shortly before the start of baseball season. I heard the familiar voices of Ben & Skin, made famous by their weekend show on The Ticket, and thought I would give it a chance. Though their show lacked some of the comedy from their Ticket days, I still thought the station had potential to serve as an alternative on days when The Ticket was involved in shameless self promotions (i.e. Girls Night Out, Ticket Stock, The Great Game, etc.).
Over the next few months, I had the opportunity to catch some of the other shows, but never found a show that really engaged me. Based on the latest numbers, not many people have. The Ticket continues to dominate the male 25-54 demographic, ESPN is a distant second and The Fan brings up the rear of sports talk radio. Ironically, the Kevin Scott-Greg Hill experiment was the only Fan program not to finish dead last in head-to-head time slot competition with the other two stations, yet The Fan still decided to part ways with them.
They weren’t the only casualty, just ask Ben and Skin. Ben and Skin pulled horrible numbers, but that says less about their appeal and more about the appeal of The Hardline. Look at it this way, a large part of Ben and Skins audience are loyal listeners to The Hardline and when given a choice between the two, the old reliable will win out. It would have been interesting to see what the numbers might have been if The Fan had decided to move the Ben & Skin time slot, say up against Norm Hitzges. Instead, they canceled the show out right.
Why is The Fan in such bad shape and what can they do?
In addition to simply recycling on-air talent thrown away by other stations, The Fan takes their name too seriously. Sure, obnoxious, self-absorbed, know-it all hosts drive listeners away. Most people desire a radio program that engages the listener, not a program where the host spouts his opinions for 3 hours. The secret to good radio is knowing how to engage your audience without using the phone, text or e-mail as a crutch. These mediums should be used to supplement the programming, but never be the main focus of a program or a station.
The Fan throws out several, unrelated, inane topics to their audience over the course of a segment. The on-air personality rarely issues an opinion and as such never develops their on-air persona. We learn more about “Gary in Garland” or “Joe in Prosper” than we do about the actual hosts. Contrast that with the personalities on The Ticket, loyal P1′s can you tell you everything about their favorite hosts. Vanilla hosts create vanilla programming, which in turn will drive down the ratings. In essence this is what plagues The Fan.
The station is not going anywhere. They have deep pockets and just signed contracts to carry both the Rangers and Cowboys, still they will continue to struggle with ratings as long as they continue down this path. What can they do to fix the problem?
First, address their identity problem. What type of radio station do they want to be? From the outside looking in, it appears that they experimented with two different philosophies–the ESPN way and The Ticket way–bringing in personalities from each discipline. Kevin Scott and Ben & Skin got the ax, while Sean Salisbury and Newy Scruggs remain, so it appears that they have opted for generic sports talk, yet their hosts still engage in “man talk”, which can either be awkward or just plain terrible radio.
My best advice to program director at The Fan–talk to David Smoak. As we reported earlier this week, Smoak resigned as sports director and talk host at KTBB radio in Tyler. He brings close to 20 years of on-air experience and is well connected in the Dallas community. Start him in the Noon-3 slot, against BaD Radio and Michael Irvin. Smoaky’s style would appeal more to the Irvin audience, but he might be able to steal a few from BaD Radio occasionally. No one is going to displace Dunham & Miller in morning drive (I still don’t understand the show) and The Hardline and GAC will be 1 & 2 as long as Galloway is still working. The noon-3 slot is the weakest point, relatively speaking, for both stations and is where The Fan should attack first. They can then build around that time slot.
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2 comments
1 ping
DJ Sammy
August 7, 2009 at 12:06 am (UTC -6)
The problem I found with “The Fan” after they changed most of the “new shows” sucked. Jagger is still there, and it is not all sports. That seems to be the problem from 5Am to 10Pm.
By the time we reach noon. or lets say 3pm it’s all been talked about. one of the problems when you do an all sports station.
As for the Fan they did a bad job with their new hosts. just about picked people said start this date. Oh wow that first week was a total train wreck. It never got better at all.
All the shows even Jaggers, got to me. Driving all day for my job, I want to hear a mix. Ben and Skin they was funny for a week. I owe someone ten bucks cause I said they wouldn’t last a month.
I think The Fan needs to go back to normal talk, already a ton of people call it the ticket with a better singal. Alot of The Fan’s …Fans have tuned out cause it is borring. most of their hosts are borring. They took a chance cause a few people liked when Ben and Skin took over for Noon slot. they liked the sports talk.
But We ahem the FANS didn’t want Them to drop all the other talents and Run with that, change the whole station around. I personally think there is nothing The Fan can do bring up their raitings. They took a gamble, they should admit it and go back to Talk. They put them self in this hole by trying to make a hurry up new change station and didnt get ready enough.
Regards
geoausch
August 7, 2009 at 5:29 pm (UTC -6)
Interesting thoughts Sammy. I never listened to The Fan when it was “regular talk,” so I don’t really have much to compare it to.
I love sports and I love sports talk radio, but when sports talk radio talks sports all the time it can be a bit boring.
Baseballbriefs.com
July 19, 2009 at 6:22 am (UTC -6)
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back 105.3 The (Irrelevant) Fan…
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back 105.3 The (Irrelevant) Fan…