Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Graeme on the radio

I made my major market radio debut this afternoon on the FAN 590 during Prime Time with Bob McCown. Bob was talking about Monday Night Football moving from ABC (where it's been for 30 35 years) to ESPN. He mentioned that ABC has been losing money over the years, but it was worth it to them because it allowed them to advertise other ABC shows during football. He also mentioned that back in the 70's when there were only a handful of stations to watch, having people fall asleep while the football game was on was good for ABC, in that when they turned the TV back on the next day, it was already on ABC. Anyway, they decided that it was no longer worth it to them, and ESPN decided it was. Bob said that ESPN figures that they have plateau'ed in terms of subscribers, so changing their programming is the only way to get more subscribers. This is where I come in.

I was driving home from work at the time, so I called in on my cell and was very surprised when the phone actually started ringing (I've called in a couple of times before, but always got busy signals). They took my name, then put me on hold for about 10 minutes, then suddenly I heard Bob say "Graeme in Kitchener, go". I asked him how many people does he think watch Monday Night Football with any regularity that don't already have ESPN, and consequently, how many new subscribers do they figure this will get them? I figure that anyone who watches Monday Night Football often enough that they're willing to start paying for it, when they didn't have to before, then they're probably enough of a football fan that they've already got ESPN. <proud>Not only did he say it was an interesting question, but he said he agreed with me.</proud>

Anyway, it was my first time ever on the radio, so that was very cool.

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