Ask the two largest sports radio stations in South Florida what they think of each other and, just like on the air, they don’t hold back.
Veteran WQAM (560-AM) dismisses its newest challenger, 790 The Ticket (WAXY-AM).
“We consider ourselves more authoritative and experienced, and them as silly and … amateurish,” says Greg Reed, WQAM’s vice president and general manager.
He saved his harshest critique for Dan Le Batard’s afternoon show on 790: “Our guys at the station call it sissy-boy radio. It’s a bunch of girlish type topics. It’s not really serious sports talk.”
Le Batard chuckled. “It’s nice to see he’s listening,” he said. “I would say ‘sissy-boy radio’ is preferable to old, white, nursing-home Century Village, fossilized radio.”
Welcome to the sports talk radio wars in South Florida, where 790 The Ticket has launched the first significant challenge to WQAM, the station that has dominated the sports talk landscape for more than a decade.
The battle means South Florida sports talk fans have choices.
Hank Goldberg on 560 or Joe Rose on 790. Howard David or Jon “Boog” Sciambi. Jim Mandich or Le Batard. Old guard or new.
The upstart 790 launched with much fanfare on Sept. 1 with ESPN programming and the promise of more eclectic talk (meaning more than Dolphins chatter) and a challenge to the old guard.
WQAM management called the effort “futile” and compared it to other failed attempts to challenge its supremacy.
Eleven months since launching, however, 790 is making inroads. It dropped ESPN programming, attracted some of WQAM’s former fixture hosts, including Rose and Sciambi, and drew the Dolphins, South Florida’s most popular franchise, away from WQAM, its flagship since 1997.
Still a long way from challenging WQAM in ratings, 790 has attracted enough listeners to appear in Arbitron ratings books. But where WQAM continues to rank in the top 10 overall — often in the top five — for its target audience, men ages 25 to 54, listening between 6 a.m. and midnight, 790 has not cracked the top 20. Before 790 launched, WQAM’s rankings fluctuated but were consistently in the top 10, mainly because of the immense popularity of non-sports host Neil Rogers.
For the first time this spring Rose on WAXY slightly overtook Goldberg on WQAM, but otherwise WQAM’s ratings beat WAXY’s for each daytime show. In the fall, when WQAM had Howard Stern’s popular syndicated show, it ranked second among men 25 to 54 between 6 a.m. and midnight with a 6.6 share, meaning at some point during that time 6.6 percent of radio listeners were tuned to WQAM. The new WAXY was ranked 23rd with a 1.5 share.
By winter, WQAM had dropped Stern, who is headed to satellite radio, and its rank fell to seventh with a 3.9 share; WAXY was up one spot to 22nd with a 1.8 share. In spring, WQAM was up to fourth with a 4.5 share; and WAXY was tied for 21st with a 2.0 share.
Operators of the new station say they’ve accomplished what they set out to do: get noticed, give listeners a choice and reach a younger audience. Besides, 790 says, it’s targeting men 18 to 34. But even in that demographic, WQAM beats 790 in ratings, except in the mornings this spring.
WQAM became a sports radio station in 1993, when it gained the rights to broadcast the inaugural seasons of the Marlins and Panthers, and cemented its reputation as the region’s sports talk leader when it attracted the Dolphins from WIOD (610 AM).
WQAM says the new station will lose money broadcasting the Dolphins and suggests it’s only a matter of time before it decides to call it quits.
“I’d still classify it as a futile effort,” Reed said. “It may take them a little longer for reality to hit. I just don’t think they have the staying power. The sports radio business is a tough business … So far all the king’s horses or all the king’s men haven’t brought ratings results.”
But 790’s founders say they won’t be so easily written off.
“We’re going to be here for a while,” said Capital Real Estate Group founder Joel Feinberg, the 28-year-old millionaire who is financing the bulk of 790. “The goal is to be No. 1, whether we drive them into a format change or into selling the station or overshadow them with sales and ratings…
“I didn’t do this to be a sports radio station, I did it to be No. 1.”
New kids on the dial
The new station was hashed out in public relations executive Alan Brown’s Hollywood home. Jon Weiner, who had worked at WQAM as Goldberg’s producer and then moved to the fledgling 940 Fox Sports Radio (WRFX AM), had been devising a plan for a new station. WRFX tried to challenge WQAM for about two years before switching to liberal talk about a year ago.
“At QAM the hosts were old,” said Weiner, 33, WAXY’s general manager who partners as “Stugotz” on Le Batard’s show. “There was room in this market for a younger, hipper sports marketing station.”
Brown brought together the group to build a station using Feinberg’s capital, his CREG partner Kurt Murphy’s financial expertise, Weiner’s radio experience and the sponsorship background of Scott Becher, president of Sports & Sponsorships.
They formed Primetime Media Group and struck a deal with WAXY’s owner, Jefferson Pilot Communications, to lease the powerful station long-term. Previously the station leased airtime to a variety of programs.
Both WAXY and WQAM have strong signals that blanket Broward and Miami-Dade counties and reach into Palm Beach County.
WAXY’s operators said they were aware of their uphill battle, but felt listeners deserved a choice.
“People never said ‘You’re nuts for taking on QAM,'” Weiner said. “They said, ‘You’re nuts for taking on Neil.'”
Rogers’ biting comedy show airs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and his ratings trounce 790’s opposing lineup, former Dolphin O.J. McDuffie from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the first hour of former Marlins announcer Sciambi’s show.
The Ticket has continued to tweak its programming lineup since launching, dropping ESPN and adding both McDuffie’s and Sciambi’s shows in February. But from its perspective, its biggest haul was landing the Dolphins in March.
The move has been compared by some, including Dolphins Enterprises CEO Joe Bailey, to the Fox Network getting the rights to broadcast NFL games in 1994, which transformed the network into a big-time player in sports broadcasting.
Bailey said the Dolphins saw an opportunity to partner with a station that could market the team aggressively and wouldn’t have conflicts with other game broadcasts. WQAM broadcasts the Marlins and Panthers, both of which recently renewed their deals. Marlins’ and Dolphins’ broadcasts occasionally conflict.
“The natural question is ‘How long are you going to be here?'” Weiner said. “The second we signed the Dolphins, it has never been asked again.”
WQAM’s Old Guard
For listeners, the old guard of morning sports talk is Goldberg on WQAM. Goldberg, 65, mixes his brash style of arguing with callers with interviews with local and national guests.
He’s up against former Dolphin Rose, whom he calls a friend, but says he hasn’t changed his program.
“I’m still doing what I do,” Goldberg said. “I don’t think Joe and I are the same. Joe has a different style.”
Goldberg said he doesn’t consider what the competition is doing. “I don’t know if they’re hipper,” he said. “With a couple of exceptions they sound bad. Maybe I’m older and they don’t appeal to me.”
But then he acknowledges that competition is good: “To me, it’s like having two newspapers in the market. It’s healthy for the listener. They have a choice.”
Meanwhile, Rose at 48 is now among the senior broadcasters at The Ticket: “I’ve gone from the youngest at one station to the oldest at this one.
“It’s made me work harder,” Rose says of competing against Goldberg. “We’re still the underdog. We’re still the new guy on the block.”
Weiner said the lineup of Rose; Sciambi, 35, and Le Batard, 36, offers listeners a younger option. “You’re not getting the same 65-year-old guy after 65-year-old guy after 65-year-old guy,” he said.
Not everyone at WQAM is in his 60s, but the age of the hosts swings higher than at 790, and that’s why the new station is targeting a younger audience.
Le Batard, a Miami Herald columnist, said he was attracted by 790’s “young,” “smart” operators and that hosting his show on the station “is more fun than anything I’ve ever done professionally. Maybe it’s silly and maybe it’s sophomoric, but we spend three hours a day laughing.”
Le Batard isn’t convinced there’s room for two sports talk stations.
“We’re going to have to take everything they have, person by person, sissy boy by sissy boy,” Le Batard said.
Among 560’s older announcers who considered making the switch is former Dolphin Mandich, who for 13 years was the Dolphins’ color commentator, delighting fans with his exuberance and trademark “All right, Miami!”
Mandich, 57, said he almost made an agreement with the new station, but decided to stay at WQAM, where, he said, “It just feels like home.”
The Dolphins, meanwhile, had to choose a new announcing team, settling on former Dolphins teammates Rose and Jimmy Cefalo to replace Mandich and play-by-play announcer Howard David, who has an afternoon talk show on WQAM.
If Mandich is bitter, he isn’t saying.
“Every day when my feet hit the floor in the morning, I thank God for 790,” Mandich says. “Because competition is good.”
Back and forth
If the competition proves anything, it’s that there might be room for two sports talk stations. Sports radio fans might say they’ve chosen one station, but more often they switch between the two, depending on the host or topic.
Listeners might prefer the folksy style of Rose to Goldberg’s brusque, newsy approach, but in the afternoon tune in to WQAM to catch Mandich. Or they might tune in Le Batard’s show when he has on a high-profile guest such as Terrell Owens, but tune out when he and Weiner compare their NCAA brackets to songs from the 1980s.
For the winter quarter, Arbitron ratings show 161,500 people ages 12 and up listened to WQAM at some point during a week, compared with 100,100 for 790. In spring, 177,700 listened to WQAM, compared with 81,200 for 790. While 790’s audience figures declined, time spent listening to the station rose, accounting for the ratings increase.
“It’s like any interesting product. When you have choices you usually end up expanding that particular market,” said Rick Scott of Rick Scott and Associates, Bellevue, Wash.-based sports radio consultants.
Over the years, though, previous challenges, including WAFN (1700 AM) and 940 Fox Sports Radio, tried and failed. And even the owners of 1400 ESPN Radio (WFLL AM), which broadcasts from its weak signal in Fort Lauderdale and has a small, loyal following, admit they never intended to take on the local champion. ESPN Radio 760 (WEFL AM) covers a different market, Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.
Whether 790’s ratings and presence continue to grow remains to be seen.
The station is heavy on marketing. Beyond its edgy billboards — one boasts steroid-free sports radio with urine samples representing its hosts — the station promoted itself even with teams whose games it does not broadcast.
The station broadcast outside Dolphins Stadium before the Marlins’ April home opener and had a location at AmericanAirlines Arena to broadcast before Heat games, which air on WIOD.
Reed isn’t convinced of his competition’s staying power. “There’s not room for two viable sports radio stations,” he said. “Without ratings you can’t get any money. You can’t have two sports stations dominating that demographic [men 25 to 54]. If we split the audience, we win.”
But Sciambi, who has watched others try and fail, was intrigued by the new station. When Weiner first approached him, they discussed 790’s financial backing and prospects for survival.
He said he’s pleased with his station’s commitment.
“They’ve shown they’re willing to do what it takes to really promote the station and push things,” Sciambi said. “They’ve shown that there’s no question that our station is a legitimate threat to QAM. The fact that we’re discussing ratings before a year is up gives you a pretty good idea this station is here to stay — the fact that we’re talking about Joe vs. Hank.”
Sarah Talalay can be reached .
