Inside the Park: M's are a radio hit

2003-08-02
by Nathan Fenno
Journal Reporter
 

In radio jargon, the Seattle Mariners are a cume magnet.

``Cume'' is short for cumulative audience and the Mariners draw it as well as anything on the dial. That's why the Mariners have what is reported to be baseball's richest radio contract, in its first year with KOMO.

And according to one study released this week, that popularity is reaching new levels and helped turn around the fortunes of a struggling radio station.

``The Mariners do it by default,'' said Dennis Kelly, the Fisher Communications AM Group Program Director. ``It's a whole new ballgame.''

PNK Media Research delivered a study to KOMO this week that showed fans are listening to the Mariners in record numbers. The study looked at people 12 and older who tuned into Mariners games from April to June.

In 2001, KIRO, the previous rightsholder, had 1.061 million weekly listeners of the Mariners and a 12.6 rating from April to June.

That dropped to 840,000 weekly listeners and a 7.8 rating last year (2002 season), when the team didn't make the playoffs.

But KOMO's numbers so far this year beat even the 2001 season: 1.226 million weekly listeners and 12.9 rating.

``This is the highest audience in the history of Mariners radio for this time,'' Kelly said.

KOMO reportedly paid the Mariners $8-10 million per season for the radio rights through the 2008 season to end KIRO's 18-year stint as the team's broadcaster. That's three times the nearly $3 million per season KIRO paid for the rights in the mid-1990s. Competitors were shocked by KOMO's price and said they couldn't make money on the deal.

It's still early, but KOMO might have the last laugh.

``(This) has changed the listening habits of an entire audience,'' Kelly said. ``We've been able to effectively sell the Mariners. There is a lot of speculation that is very out there about whether we are getting what we paid for.''

Being attached to the Mariners has reversed KOMO's slumping popularity, according to the Arbitron spring ratings that were released last week. Unlike television, radio ratings are released quarterly and the collection methods are decidedly old-fashioned. Arbitron pays listeners $1 per week to jot down what stations they listened to and when in a small notebook.

That's where the Mariners come in -- people are more likely to remember listening to a ballgame than flipping music or talk on for a few moments in the car.

KOMO's average quarter hour listening share for its total audience (12 and older) went from 3.0 in March to 4.6 in April, 5.0 in May and 5.7 in June. During the same four months, KIRO's ratings slipped from 7.2 to 3.9.

Keeping veteran announcers Dave Niehaus and Rick Rizzs and television ads modeled after ones the Mariners run helped KOMO's transition. And the station used the addition of the Mariners to help promote its new all-news format.

``We hoped we could convert the lion's share of the audience to the station,'' Kelly said. ``We have converted 100 percent of the audience to KOMO.''

KIRO issued a press release this week based on the same Arbitron spring ratings. It showed KOMO's ratings from 7 p.m. to midnight, prime time for Mariners games, from Monday through Friday were 25 percent lower than KIRO's were over the same period last year.

How to interpret the numbers is a subject of some contention between the stations.

When the Mariners came off 116 wins in 2001, KIRO's April 2002 ratings were 26.5 for ages 35 to 54. It slipped to 12.8 that May.

KOMO's April ratings this year were 9.8 for the same demographic, then rose to 18.7 and 12.3. Kelly attributes the April drop to the war in Iraq and uncertainty about the team's chances. And he contends KIRO's April 2002 numbers were an anomaly and skew any averages.

The hesitancy was mirrored at Safeco Field this spring, where fans weren't sure what to expect of a team without Lou Piniella. Poor weather and an early schedule that included also-rans like the Rangers and Tigers also hurt attendance.

Mariners attendance dropped 21 percent from 2002 over the first 15 home games this season (488,597 fans for an average of 32,573 per game). Since then attendance is up by almost 10,000 fans per game, but is still about 10 percent behind last year's total.

The ratings for KOMO and for television on Fox Sports Northwest showed equivalent drops over the same period and both have since rebounded. Instead of the Mariners' fan base eroding in April, as was feared, at least on the radio it appears to be growing. The team's television ratings and contract with FSN are among baseball's best.

Either way, KOMO proclaimed itself the Northwest's `most listened to radio station' How those numbers will be affected if fans remain angry the team didn't make a trade at Thursday's deadline or if the Mariners don't make the playoffs remains to be seen.

For now, the Mariners are sitting on a radio gold mine that only seems to be growing.

Nathan Fenno can be reached at 425-453-4257 or nathan.fenno@kcjn.com

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Mariners boost KOMO-AM ratings

By BILL VIRGIN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

How much did winning the Seattle Mariners mean to KOMO-AM?

A lot -- as indicated by the spring ratings issued yesterday for the Seattle-Tacoma market by The Arbitron Co.

In the winter ratings book, for the 7 p.m.-midnight time slot Monday through Friday, KOMO was in a tie for 20th. In the spring book, with the start of baseball, it was first.

And in the overall ratings, KOMO leaped from 18th in winter to third -- tied, coincidentally, with KIRO-AM, from whom KOMO wrested the Mariners broadcast contract.

The overall winner -- for listeners 12 and older, 6 a.m.-midnight, Monday through Sunday -- was country station KMPS-FM, followed by KUBE-FM.

After KIRO and KOMO came KVI-AM, KRWM-FM, KZOK-FM, KBKS-FM, KWJZ-FM, KBSG-FM, KNDD-FM, KMTT-FM and KING-FM (tied for 12th), KCMS-FM, KISW-FM, KIXI-AM and KPLZ-FM (tied for 16th), KJR-FM and KLSY-FM (tied for 18th), KQBZ-FM and KJR-AM (tied for 20th), KYPT-FM, KTTH-AM and KFNK-FM.

KIRO, a perennial leader in mornings, remained the top station in the 6-10 a.m. Monday through Friday segment, but KOMO, which switched to all news last year, climbed from 19th in the winter quarter to seventh in spring.

KMPS-FM won the 10 a.m.-3 p.m. segment (KOMO didn't make much of a move there, going only from 20th in winter to 16th in spring) KMPS also won the 3-7 p.m. segment, but KOMO, perhaps picking up some pre-game Mariners listeners, jumped to third in that time period, ahead of KIRO.

The longtime local radio team Robin & Maynard joined KQBZ-FM midway through the quarter, but the move didn't make an immediate impact on the station's performance. For the 6-10 a.m. segment KQBZ ranked 24th in spring, down from a tie for 21st in winter.

The next big development to watch in ratings, aside from the KOMO-KIRO tussle, will be the move by Rush Limbaugh from KVI to KTTH in October. In the 10 a.m.-3 p.m. segment, which includes two hours of Limbaugh, KVI ranked third in the spring book, while KTTH was in a tie for 21st.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin