The Leafs Management vs NHL

[bustaheims]

As someone who has worked in media marketing for most of 35 years, I can tell you Radio as we know it is dead or next to dead, on life support really, and has been the most fragmented advertising platform forever. Used to be relevant a tiny bit before the TV and then the Net came along.
Sorry but there is nothing to be fixed, except the Priest administering last rites.
Sorry Joe, I love you but da truth is da truth.

That's funny, because a lot of people who work in media research will tell you differently. It's not as strong as it used to be, but it hasn't seen as significant a decline over the last 20 or so years as people lead you to believe. There are still a lot of people who listen to the radio in their cars, a lot of businesses that filter radio in, etc. It's not a great medium for younger audiences, but for something targeted like Leaf broadcasts, the numbers wouldn't have changed all that much. People who listen in their cars are still going to listen in their cars. It's a stagnant medium, but it's not as close to death as you're making it sound.

 

[Kin]

As someone who has worked in media marketing for most of 35 years, I can tell you Radio as we know it is dead or next to dead, on life support really, and has been the most fragmented advertising platform forever. Used to be relevant a tiny bit before the TV and then the Net came along.
Sorry but there is nothing to be fixed, except the Priest administering last rites.
Sorry Joe, I love you but da truth is da truth.

That's funny, because a lot of people who work in media research will tell you differently. It's not as strong as it used to be, but it hasn't seen as significant a decline over the last 20 or so years as people lead you to believe. There are still a lot of people who listen to the radio in their cars, a lot of businesses that filter radio in, etc. It's not a great medium for younger audiences, but for something targeted like Leaf broadcasts, the numbers wouldn't have changed all that much. People who listen in their cars are still going to listen in their cars. It's a stagnant medium, but it's not as close to death as you're making it sound.

I mean, if nothing else it sure seems like Bell and Rogers have invested pretty heavily in trying to push their radio business in recent years.

 

[bustaheims]

I mean, if nothing else it sure seems like Bell and Rogers have invested pretty heavily in trying to push their radio business in recent years.

Not surprising. Of the major media, it's the cheapest to produce, so it has the best opportunity for return on investment.

 

[Highlander]

most people with a few bucks in their pocket do listen to radio, Sirius Radio with virtually few adverts. If your business can identify its direct target market and can identify the station that direct market does listen to then radio could be effective.  Broader spectrum business are better off to use TV or publications suited to folks who would purchase their products based on demographic readership.
I have sold both TV and Radio mediums, and produced, directed in both mediums. As well as a host of other mediums.

 

[Kin]

I mean, if nothing else it sure seems like Bell and Rogers have invested pretty heavily in trying to push their radio business in recent years.

Not surprising. Of the major media, it's the cheapest to produce, so it has the best opportunity for return on investment.

I also have to assume that podcasting has stemmed the tide somewhat, although I don't know how effectively anyone is monetizing that.

 

[Highlander]

In regards to effective advertising is to choose the medium or mediums that directly targets the market they are sellling to.  For example you wouldn't  advertise a chair master on  a cartoon channel, but you may want to advertise it in the Snowbird Association magazine.
Of course Internet and the recession has pounded on print adverting, however print is still a very valid medium.
Budgets constraints are also a huge part of where a company advertises.  I see a lot of companies throwing there money away on where they advertise (or not advertise).  Radio is a very fragmented medium so really only works for business's that have researched the demographic listening to said station.

 

[bustaheims]

I also have to assume that podcasting has stemmed the tide somewhat, although I don't know how effectively anyone is monetizing that.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I'm not super into podcasts, so I don't really know a ton about them, but I don't imagine people would be happy with advertising breaks. I know there are some pay-to-download types, but unless they're fairly cheap and reasonably popular, that's not going to lead to much of a windfall, either. The ideal way to monetize a podcast would be product placement/sponsorship - and, even then, it would take a fairly substantial level of popularity to make it a significant revenue source.

 

[Kin]

I also have to assume that podcasting has stemmed the tide somewhat, although I don't know how effectively anyone is monetizing that.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I'm not super into podcasts, so I don't really know a ton about them, but I don't imagine people would be happy with advertising breaks. I know there are some pay-to-download types, but unless they're fairly cheap and reasonably popular, that's not going to lead to much of a windfall, either. The ideal way to monetize a podcast would be product placement/sponsorship - and, even then, it would take a fairly substantial level of popularity to make it a significant revenue source.

I was more referring to the fact that a station like 590 here in Toronto makes all of their traditional radio shows also available as podcasts. I barely listen to any live radio but I do listen to some of their shows that way.

 

[bustaheims]

I was more referring to the fact that a station like 590 here in Toronto makes all of their traditional radio shows also available as podcasts. I barely listen to any live radio but I do listen to some of their shows that way.

Oh. Well, for those, they likely to factor in that audience when setting advertising rates. It probably doesn't create a significant increase, but it definitely would mean they'd charge sponsors and such a little more, since it does extend their reach.

 

[Kin]

Shockingly enough, some of the executives with the companies that own the Maple Leafs might not be overly thrilled with being out half a million dollars for no real reason.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/lou-lamoriellos-travel-policy-not-the-leafs-final-turbulence-in-toronto/article26595356/

Lamoriello might have won the first round, but in a rare show of unanimity, senior managers at both Bell and Rogers are unhappy with the policy. These are people who have the ears of Rogers Communications Inc. chief executive officer Guy Laurence and BCE Inc. CEO George Cope, who both sit on the board of directors of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

One of those senior executives said Monday the issue of broadcasters riding on the team charter is not going away. He and his colleagues at the other telco do not want to see Lamoriello operate the Leafs the same way he ran the New Jersey Devils from 1987 to 2015, where even the most minor decisions required his stamp of approval. They plan to keep the pressure on the Leafs GM.

And my nostalgia for the Dubas-Hunter era grows.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I'll admit, this probably should have been something discussed in the interviews before Lou got the job. I'm still going to wait for the first hockey-related blunder that we can reasonably pin on Lou, but having ownership squabbling with your GM sure isn't ideal.

 

[Frank E]

Well then, at least we'll have some interesting things to discuss this season.

 

[ZBBM]

Let's see, first a 1970s-era dress and personal appearance code, and then a 1960s-era we-are-a-beleaguered-band-of-brothers mentality that comes right out of the Vince Lombardi playbook.  Predictably, this is going well.

 

[Kin]

Let's see, first a 1970s-era dress and personal appearance code, and then a 1960s-era we-are-a-beleaguered-band-of-brothers mentality that comes right out of the Vince Lombardi playbook.  Predictably, this is going well.

I feel like that's unfair to the 1970's, as evidenced by another loser Lou Lamoriello would have called a dirty hippy:

 

[Kin]

See, I'm really starting to come around to the idea that the plan genuinely was to not hire a GM, or to hire the sort of perfunctory GM in name only sort of guy that we all assumed. Then Lamoriello became available and Shanahan just sort of lost his mind for a while. He heard all of the "no experience" talk and sort of blinked. He went way, way overboard to compensate and took the train off the tracks they'd laid.

 

[Bullfrog]

And my nostalgia for the Dubas-Hunter era grows.

I'm with you on that one. It was great while it lasted.

Admittedly, I'm not too concerned about mustaches and flying Bowens, but it appeared to me as though the Dubas-Hunter team wasn't having any particular troubles.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs rejoiced this week when team owners dropped plans for radio broadcasters Joe Bowen and Jim Ralph to call road games off a television monitor in a Toronto studio.

Riiiiiight.

Media on media on media here.

 

[Kin]

Admittedly, I'm not too concerned about mustaches and flying Bowens, but it appeared to me as though the Dubas-Hunter team wasn't having any particular troubles.

Just to clear it up, I don't think that individually any of these issues represent something that is in and of itself important but rather that it's the inflexibility and lack of open-mindedness they represent. What was great about the Dubas-Hunter(and Babcock, while we're at it) era is that they consistently said things that were smart. That made sense. Things like saying that the best way to alleviate media pressure is for the team to be good or the emphasis on speed and skill.

Now we're hearing a lot of the exact same "culture change" stuff we heard with Burke and seemingly reasonable people are bending over backwards to explain why facial hair or no broadcasters on team flights have anything in the way of logic behind them.

 

[Bullfrog]

I got what you were saying, (and I feel the same way), I just wanted to put "flying Bowens" into a post for some reason.

 

[bustaheims]

I got what you were saying, (and I feel the same way), I just wanted to put "flying Bowens" into a post for some reason.

As in, you don't give a flying Bowen?