Chris Russo rant leads to Mad Dog madness on Sirius
Speaking of sports radio (see post below), nothing during my vacation generated more emails than Chris Russo’s rant on Sirius XM, in which he lambasted the hosts on his station and “fired’’ program director Steve Torre.
Was it real? Was it a publicity stunt? Or was it Chris being Chris, only getting a tad more carried away than usual with his shtick?
From what I can tell, it was a little of Plan B and a lot of Plan C.
Here is what I do know: No one has been fired, and despite vowing to ditch his vacation this week and scour the nation for new hosts, Russo has been spotted at the Newport (R.I.) Country Club.
Also, those statistics he cited about how his channel is among the lowest-rated at Sirius? Not based in any reality I have been able to unearth.
Still playing around with new blogging system (which you won't see until next week) every time I post something here.
Learned how to link and embed video, but still haven't taken the big plunge into posting pictures.
The biggest change you will see in the new blog look is the lesser variety of pictures. Our Web gurus have decided to enforce annoying niceties such as copyright laws.
Sigh.
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Comments (13)
"The biggest change you will see in the new blog look is the lesser variety of pictures"
This stinks. I enjoy the pictures with the posts. I hope you can draw Erin Andrews' face freehand.
"Among the lowest-rated at Sirius"? I didn't even know that there was a way to calculate ratings on satellite radio. Perhaps that's why you say that claim is false. (Is there a way to track listenership?)
No way to track listenership (is that a word?) on the satellite side, but they are able to track the number of streams for a given channel over the internet or on apps like iPhone.
Chris mentioned specifically these internet-based channel ratings last week, just not in the clips that have made their way to YouTube. (With Mike off last week, I listened to Mad Dog a lot using a free trial).
Chris Russo rant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x97sx1NLloM
more talk and insight at www.thechrisrusso.com
neil, it's incredibly hard to believe that Sirius XM would not have the ability to inetrnally monitor listenership and rank it's own stations. come on, man. that's like a store not knowing which of it's products are selling more than others. it would be beyond incompetent. it would me Omaresque.
Jeff, it's not that hard to understand. The consumer uses a satellite RECEIVER, kind of like the rabbit-ears on a TV - it only communicates in one direction.. If it had a TRANSMITTER that could send data back to the satellite, that would do the job, but then your radio would weigh 80 pounds and fry your brain with 10,000 watts of radiation.
Neil, you're always welcome to steal photos and videos from my blog. just credit the place where i stole them from.
Scott E,
I mean, are you serious? Do you really think Sirius/XM doesn't conduct listenership polls, at the very least?
Do you have any idea how ratings work?
There's no way in hell that Sirius/XM doesn't know exactly how their products (radio stations) sell. No way.
Sirius sells advertising time on Mad Dog's and all the other talk stations that it has. I find it hard to believe that these advertisers spend all this money without having any idea about how many people will hear its message.
Sirius may indeed conduct polls of their own subscribers. When you said "internally monitor", I figured you meant an electronic way to automatically see what station the radios are tuned to.
In all honesty, I don't quite understand how Arbitron (terrestrial radio) ratings work either, or how reliable they are, but it's been the de facto standard for as long as I can remember. Plus, Arbitron's sample size is much, much larger, and its run by an impartial 3rd party, so its results can be considered more accurate... especially by paying advertisers.
I was listening to Russo's rant. i haven't really heard him since he left. That was awful. All the things he was describing about finding iin a host, all the old stuff younger people aren't interested in. Also if he wants to find someone to go discuss baseball history with, just look at his old pal at wfan.
Arbitron does measure satellite radio. A Mediaweek article 11/7/05 said Arbitron had delayed starting their internet and satellite measurements due to objection from (terrestrial) broadcasters. Not stated, the implication is broadcasters didn't want the competition.
The fact is that the Mad Dog channel has been completely botched from the very start. I love Russo and always have, but the rest of the lineup is terribly weak. Bruce Murray and Bill Pido? Hullo! Andy Gresh who Sirius might have to pay me to actually listen to his garbage program. Larry Kruger? Freddy would have been a better choice. The hosts are awful and the channel outside of Doggy is complete garbage.