Padres Are Still Winners on the Radio : Listener Ratings High Despite Poor Season

Broadcasting and baseball executives live and die by the numbers: On-the-field success is determined by the win-loss column, while broadcasters live and die by ratings numbers.

But a last-place team on the field--even this year’s dismal edition of the Padres--won’t necessarily drag a television or radio station to the bottom of the broadcast heap.

“Baseball and radio are a marriage made in heaven,” according to Roy Englebrecht, an Orange County resident who operates sports broadcasting camps around the country. “A radio game becomes part of (fans’) lives, and summer is not summer without Vin Scully doing the Dodgers’ game or Mel Allen doing the Yankees.

“It puts (listeners) to sleep, takes their mind off of a tough day at the office, or helps them forget an argument with their girlfriend.”

As important, radio and television generate a steady stream of advertising dollars, especially in Southern California, where “you can finish 20 games out of first place and the radio ratings are still going to go up,” according to Alan Gottfried, retail sales manager of radio station KMPC (710 on the AM dial), which broadcasts California Angels games.

Radio and television executives declined to discuss specific revenue figures but Gottfried said that radio ratings generally increase for the Southland’s three major league baseball teams, even after a bad season.

New Residents

The Southland’s steady influx of new residents generates most of that upward ratings swing, because new arrivals generally outnumber radio listeners who would rather switch the dial than stay tuned during a losing season.

“You and I should be so lucky to own a professional baseball franchise in Southern California,” Gottfried quipped.

Additionally, Southern Californians show an incredible interest in professional baseball, because a hefty percentage of professional baseball players either grew up in Southern California or attended a college in the Southland.

Seasons spent in the cellar eventually will hurt ratings, industry experts agreed, but one bad year won’t be disastrous.

“Typically, you’ll lose the fringe audience, the part of the audience that wants to support a winner, but that’s not so interested in a loser,” according to Aaron Levy, president of San Francisco-based Field Research Corp., which provides radio audience data to more than two dozen professional sports teams.

Radio has consistently proven its ability to survive slumps that devastate ballpark attendance and television ratings, according to James A. Winters, the Padres’ director of broadcasting, who spent 12 years with the Cincinnati Reds before joining the Padres in 1985.

Winters witnessed that strength when the Reds’ radio audience “held up amazingly well” through back-to-back last-place finishes.

Ticket sales fell apart during that slump but “I remember vividly that I went back to (the radio ratings service) to make sure the numbers were correct,” Winters said. “We equated a box-office slump with what might be a comparable loss in our radio ratings. But, lo and behold, our ratings held up well.

“We don’t have any advance number on what will happen (if the Padres continue their losing ways) but based on what took place in Cincinnati, we expect very little loss of audience.”

Perfect for Summer

Ratings hold during off seasons because the game “is the perfect thing for summer nights,” according to Mark Larson, programming and operations manager at KFMB-AM, which has broadcast the Padres since 1979. “It’s the best sport of all because you can listen to it and do other things. You can fade in or out whenever you want--just like you’d do at the ballpark.”

Padres game broadcasts “mean a lot as far as bringing in listeners” for KFMB, according to Larson. KFMB, which consistently ranks as one of San Diego’s top 10 stations, regularly jumps to first or second place in the ratings during the summer months, according to Larson. He credits the Padres broadcasts with boosting ratings from “adequate to phenomenal.”

“Radio is unobtrusive,” Gottfried observed. “That’s important in Southern California, where you’ve got a mobile society. Games are heard at the beaches, the mountains, the deserts and in cars.”

Television stations also benefit from baseball’s broadcast appeal.

Channel 51 “won’t go to first place” in the ratings game because of the 51 Padres games that the station will broadcast this season, acknowledged KUSI General Manager William Moore.

However, “the games will expose us to audiences that we’d not normally have,” Moore said.

Ratings data suggests that 44% of San Diegans watch Channel 51 for at least 15 minutes each week, Moore said. With its new role as the television home of the Padres, Channel 51 anticipates that it will reach “into the 70s, possibly to 75%,” according to Moore.

For some stations, baseball represents a relatively inexpensive way to broaden its their appeal, Levy said.

“Even when they’re not making money on ads because of the cost of (buying broadcast rights), some stations feel that baseball and football will bring in a larger audience and help to increase overall ratings,” Levy said.

Economic Benefits

The Padres have staked a stronger claim to the economic benefits generated by game broadcasts. Two years ago, the club began producing its own radio broadcasts, and buying time from KFMB. This season the club took over production of its television broadcasts, and began buying blocks of time from KUSI.

“It was a smart move for the team to take (the broadcasts) in-house,” Larson acknowledged. KFMB agreed to sell time to the Padres because “we wanted the games,” Larson said. “That was the important thing, because we’ve built this station to be hand-in-hand with the team.”