“Hello, Philadelphia. It’s your old pal, Jody Mac.”
And with that, Philadelphia sports talk veteran Jody McDonald kicked off a battle for the sports talk audience in Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest radio market.
A host on Infinity Broadcasting’s powerhouse Philadelphia sports station, WIP-AM, throughout the 1990s, and voice of the Philadelphia Eagles pregame show on rock station WYSP-FM for the last five years, McDonald is now the lead personality on the market’s newest entry, WPEN-AM 950.
The station, which hit the air last Monday, is a first stab at the all-sports talk format by Braintree, Mass.-based Greater Media, which owns 17 radio stations.
WIP beat back a challenger 10 years ago and has been largely uncontested since. It ranked third among all Philadelphia stations among men 25-54 in the spring Arbitron survey, and raked in $18 million in ad revenue last year, according to the investment firm BIA Financial Network. That’s as much as the top sports station in Chicago, the nation’s No. 3 market.
Sensing an opening, Greater Media shut down a flagging oldies station to create what WPEN general manager Bob DeBlois said will become the “alternative voice” in the city, providing what he calls “intelligent” sports talk.
“We’re going to be ‘the great debate’ without the hate,” DeBlois said. “A lot of times local sports radio doesn’t give you that much insight.”
That’s a not-so-veiled swipe at WIP and the abrasive personalities of such hosts as Howard Eskin, the drive-time fixture who WIP hypes as the “King of Bling.” WIP’s Web site makes no claims regarding Eskin’s analytical savvy, but it does have a meter tracking how many times he calls a listener a “dope” or “moron” each day.
Infinity Broadcasting executive vice president Scott Herman said Eskin and other WIP personalities are entrenched local favorites who will be difficult to compete against.
“Howard is No. 1 in men in afternoons almost every single book,” Herman said, referring to Arbitron ratings. “I don’t know if there is any local sports station in the country with a lineup that’s been on the air as long as [WIP’s].”
Like most sports talk challengers, WPEN believes fans will hunger for a diet beyond the parochial. The station will rely heavily on syndicated hosts, in contrast to the all-local WIP.
While McDonald is going head-to-head with Eskin in the critical afternoon drive slot, mornings feature Fox Sports Radio’s “First Team with Steve Czaban,” followed by Sporting News Radio’s Tony Bruno — who was one of WIP’s first hosts when it launched in 1987 — and Premiere Radio Network’s Jim Rome.
It will be unfamiliar fare in a city obsessed with its local pro teams. “People in this market don’t have an experience with that,” said Tony Sweeney, vice president/media director of Philadelphia’s LevLane Advertising. “I’m not sure the syndicated shows they picked up are going to be successful.”
Still, Sweeney added that Philly fans might be eager for a “fresh perspective,” and that advertisers believe competition will give them leverage.
There are more than 500 sports stations in America, according to the radio industry newsletter M Street Journal, with smaller cities such as Miami and Kansas City hosting multiple stations.
ESPN Radio general manager Bruce Gilbert said he could think of no markets where a second station has failed recently.
ESPN is so confident that two sports stations can prosper in the same market that it launched a new affiliate in Boston last month, taking on that market’s top-rated station overall, WEEI-AM. In Chicago, ESPN’s 3-year-old WMVP-AM affiliate beat the older WSCR-AM, part of The Sporting News Radio Network, in the spring ratings book. However, WSCR grossed $18 million in 2004, double that of WMVP, an indication of how difficult it can be to knock off a leader.
WPEN will try to boost its chances by signing rights deals with Philadelphia teams. Right now it has only Saint Joseph’s University basketball, but it has its eye on the Philadelphia Flyers, whose deal with WIP expires at the end of this season.
Andy Grossman is a writer living in New York.
