IS SPORTS TALK RADIO IN SAN DIEGO BECOMING EXTINCT?

   The good old days of sports talk radio in San Diego in regards to sports was intune to their audience and the their ratings were high. The subjects of the shows were the three major sports teams in town. The Padres, Chargers and Aztecs. Recently, the Chargers have left the city, The Padres have sunk to franchise history lows and the Aztecs are still..well, the Aztecs. Entertaining but in the end it always ends with disappointment. Program directors at these stations that don't have a clue how to run a sports station is making the lineup decisions.

   Dave and Jeff have resorted to doing a podcasts out of a garage now ( Best thing on podcasts or radio). We got Dan Sileo who's ratings in the morning drive accumulated a 0 Nielsen rating in San Diego. That means not even 200 people were tuning in to hear his nonsense in the most popular time slot for sports talk radio. The target market is men ages of 24-54 between the 6-10am hour weekday mornings. Hell, Hacksaw drew more than Dan Sileo. I once had a radio show from Alpine that drew higher ratings than Dan Sileo and the new home the Padres broadcasts 97.3 "The Fan".

    The Nielsen ratings people estimates there are 719,400 men aged 25-54 in the San Diego market. Their May survey says that at any given time during the morning hours, The Fan has an average listenership of 200 men 25-54, which they say averages down to 0.0. In contrast, the English-speaking station with the largest audience in that demographic is KFMB-FM’s Dave Shelley and Chainsaw ensemble who show an average listenership of 6,100 among men 25-54.

    Talk radio was going to shit before the Chargers left for LA in Jan of 2017. But the relocation helped seal the deal and maybe the fate of sports radio in San Diego. We went from shit radio to diarrhea radio with one decision by Mr. Spanos.

   There are 3 main problems as I see it. 

   1. Money is all that matters. Program directors understand one language. $$$$
   It's not about providing quality entertaining radio. It's about how to create the most revenue. If it was about quality we would have Dave and Jeff on the radio in the morning not Dan Sileo and Ben Higgins.

   2. 1090 losing the padres contract has left the station vulnerable. 1090 now has to rely on content instead of listeners who program their radio to the Padres broadcast and listen to whatever is on 1090 at other times. Their signal is the strongest of all 3 stations and the content with Darren Smith and the Scott and BR Show still is better than anything 1360 produces.

   3. With the Chargers move the stations have have been slow to adapt. A big reason is incompetent program directors at all three stations. People don't tune in anymore for updated and breaking news on their teams. They have twitter for that. With the Padres struggling and the Aztecs barely making a dent in this town. Sports talk radio could very well leave a tombstone in the wake of the Chargers leaving this fair weather sports town. 

   1090 KPRS is The Mighty 1090 operated by The Broadcast of the Americas. I I I Heart radio operates Extra Sports KLSD 1360 and Entercom operates 97.3 KWFN The Fan. 1090 still has the best interviewer around in Darren Smith and the man cave show "Scott & BR SHOW". Their format is very anti' Charger and that has separated the audience to choosing what side their preference is on. If you're anti- Chargers then 1090 is your station. If you're pro-Charger then IHeartMedia station 1360 is your preferred format. If you're into abusing yourself the Padres new home station 97.3 "The Fan" is your destination. Espn radio isn't doing much better than the previous two stations mentioned. Three sports talk radio stations in America's 29th largest media market. 1360 frequency begins to fade near the Escondido line to the north and El Cajon to the east.

   San Diego is stuck with the Padres, Aztecs, Xolo's and the Gulls for fulfilling your sports appetite. But is there even a appetite anymore? This was a Charger town and they left for greener pastures. No more Charger rally's at 6am at the House of Blues to gear up for another Charger heartbreaking playoff loss. Don't worry though the Aztecs are still available to give you that annual kick in the balls we have become so accustomed to here in our city.

    The fact is spanish channels have better ratings than the 3 major sports radio channels in San Diego. The Fan which is the Padres home channel had to rebrand before they even kicked off with 97.3 The Machine.  Kevin Klein the morning host tweeted out a improper picture of the Cornando bay bridge. The uproar was massive and angry including the Padres organization. 

   KSON leads the market among the radio stations in San Diego going by June 2018 ratings.  Ranked second is KXSN-FM (branded 98.1 FM) with a rating of 5.7 i.e. 5.7 percent of those listening to the radio in San Diego listened to KXSN-FM for at least five minutes in each 15-minute period. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/693650/popular-radio-stations-san-diego/ …