Sunday, January 11, 2009

Missing the Score!

If I had a dime for every person who has come up to me over the last 9 months telling me how much they miss the Score, I'd be rich! Every day I run into people who say that they miss the Score and that they used to listen every day which confirms my belief that the "buzz" for the Score far exceeded the quarterly ratings. I truly believe that many more people listened to the Score than the arbitron rating reflected. However, we did a poor job of branding the Score the way EEI has branded their station.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we had the same amout of listeners as EEI. But I believe that most sports fans in southern New England listened to both. In fact, many that have approached me in recent months tell me how they can't listen to EEI for a variety of reasons.

The common theme that I hear from people in RI and southeastern Mass is that the absence of the Score has left a huge void. Local college hoops talk is non-existent during the week. Caller-friendly sportstalk is also non-existent on weekdays. Many sports fans can't stand the constant political discussion in the morning or the shouting over one another in the afternoon. It's too bad because the Score was a nice alternative.

I know that I wrote this in my blog many months ago but it's worth repeating. There were things that EEI did that we could not compete with. Having Schilling, Francona, Bellichick, Cassel, etc. was impossible to compete with. I'm a New England sports fan and I want to hear what those guys have to say many times.

Where I thought we did well was tackling the important local and national sports issues with common sense and in a caller-friendly, easy to listen to manner.

Oh well!

I still believe that a local sports radio station in RI can work. Will it be #1 in the ratings? Probably not. But many people would listen to it and you could operate it at a profit.

Hopefully, there will be one sooner rather than later.

Scott