It was an absolute pleasure to host The Fanimal on 105.7 The Fan. Miles Goodman was a great co-host, and we shared a common vision for the show. It was easy like “Saturday” morning, despite the regular obstacles thrown our way by the suits at The Fan.
As mentioned in prior chapters, we were brokered programmers – meaning we paid for our on-air time. We offset the costs of the show by selling advertising. It’s a pretty basic concept. But The Fan didn’t always make it that simple.
Upon entering the studio on any given Saturday, we were never sure who our board op would be. For those unaware, the board op keeps us on air. He or she manages the ads that are heard during commercial breaks; makes sure the sound levels are optimized; handles incoming callers and keeps us on time. To run an effective program, it helps to have consistency at the board op position. We never enjoyed that as a brokered programmer. We were the stepchildren. We would walk in at times to a board op who was half asleep and/or hungover from the night before. Through my eyes, that was disrespectful to our audience, to our customers and to us – the people who paid the money to make the show happen.
There were times when the show just before us would run over and that would cut out a few minutes of the airtime we paid for. Other times, as a result of the run-over, we’d fail to air all of our customers’ ads, so we’d have to give them credit. Not airing their ad during any show was less money for us to offset the show’s cost. But it didn’t stop there.
As part of the brokered program, our show would be aired online from The Fan’s website. Not only did that give listeners outside of the Maryland area a chance to listen in, it expanded the reach of our customers’ ads. So that amounted to added value – on paper, anyway.
After our second week on air, one of our customers who was outside the 105.7 The Fan listening area, reached out to me to let me know that he didn’t hear his ad on the online version of our show. And then another customer, and then another. So I reached out to the sales manager at The Fan to find out why our ads weren’t playing on our show during a time slot that we paid $750.00 an hour to air.
Guess what I was told?
You can have all the online ad slots for $5 each.
Unbelievable!
Then our show was to be made available on demand at the 105.7 The Fan website, in the event our audience missed the live presentation. That too was part of the package we sold to our customers. After 3 weeks, The Fan stop posting links to the recorded show. When I asked why they said that there were some technical glitches that they hoped to resolve.
Now keep in mind, this is a communications company – a big time broadcaster, CBS Radio, that didn’t employ people with the skillsets to record and upload a 1 hour show to their website? I was expected to believe that. I didn’t. And they never fixed it. Ever!
So, to recap up to this point, our brokered program was to include online access with our customers’ ads and the program was supposed to be placed on The Fan’s site for on demand access – both features that we promoted to our customers who were essentially financing the show. On top of this, some of our customer ads were lapped off due to board op inefficiencies and we weren’t allowed to play copyrighted music during our show, something that we were told in advance wouldn’t be a problem.
Sounds like we were duped, right?
But we continued, nonetheless. Despite The Fan’s woeful handling of us as their customer, we stayed the course while they continued to take our money and put the screws to us whenever these opportunists spotted an opening.
Several weeks went by. We played by their adjusted, flimflammed rules. We showed up on time, gave our best show while remaining respectful to the station and their employees.
Sometime later during our initial 26-week contract, I was contacted by our sales rep who suggested that I reach out to Chuck Sapienza, the station’s new Program Director. Apparently, Chuck was upset that I was critical of Vinny Cerrato in one of my articles on RSR. I pointed out how Cerrato was constantly riling in on Ravens GM Eric DeCosta for a few of his personnel moves as if Cerrato was some rock-star GM during his days in DC. In the article, I shed light on a few of Cerrato’s egregious mistakes while at the personnel controls for the Redskins. Sapienza didn’t take kindly to that.
When I called Sapienza, he ripped me up one side and down the other with a profanity-laced tirade about being a team player and criticizing another on air talent when we broadcasted from the same station. Nice to meet you too, Chuck!
So, we encountered yet another program director who sought to censor RSR.
For the record, I’ve since spoken to Vinny several times since and we’re good.
The same can’t be said for Sapienza.
A few more weeks went by on The Fanimal and things on the show were moving nicely. Now as part of our gig there, The Fan would air a dozen or so promos throughout the week promoting our show. I wanted to change the ad to include the following language:
“The only Ravens-centric sports talk show in Baltimore to include live in-studio music.”
I wanted the uniqueness of our show to be promoted – to give the promos some added flavor. I sent the copy to the production staff that assembles such things. And then the sales manager came calling…AGAIN.
“Tony, Chuck [Sapienza] wasn’t aware that you had live musicians in studio until he heard your proposed new promos. He said that you can’t do that anymore.”
We had been doing that for about 22 weeks at this point. Twenty. Two. Weeks.
I asked for a meeting with Sapienza and he agreed. During the meeting he explained to me that having musicians play in studio amounted to something called payola. Payola is essentially a contraction that combines “pay” with “Victrola”, which refers to those old vintage record players. Payola is a very dated term. It’s something that was used during the radio heydays when a record company might offer something of value, essentially a bribe, to radio stations to play their artists’ songs.
How having fellas like Rob Fahey, Tony Sciuto, Dennis Schocket, Rob Baier and others like them, all friends of mine mind you, in studio to play music, was on par with Arista Records offering a radio station Program Director a new car in exchange for a number of on-air plays of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, just blew my mind. But it was Sapienza’s sandbox, and I had no choice but to play by his twisted rules.
We were nearing the end of our 26-week arrangement with The Fan and so our sales manager had prepared a new 26-week agreement, which despite all of this drama forced upon us by The Fan, all of the broken promises, we still intended to sign and execute.
It was then April 1 and if you’ve followed me at all during our twenty years here at RSR and formerly, Ravens24x7.com, you know that I annually post April Fools’ pranks. Those pranks typically include twisted facts of current events in the world of sports as well as some fake local news, oftentimes aimed at Baltimore-area sports media members. The staff of The Fan was no exception.
In 2018, April 1 fell on a Sunday. So, on April 2nd, the fake news I delivered on RSR in my April Fools prank started to make its way into water cooler conversations. The Fan was no exception. Targeted on-air personalities included Scott Garceau, Rob Long and Ed Norris, all of whom I’m on friendly terms with. But Sapienza didn’t take too well to the prank.
On Mondays I was a regular participant on the Scott Garceau Show and the person who would reach out to me to let me know what time to expect a call, was none other than Jeremy Conn. I didn’t hear from Jeremy on this particular Monday, so I texted in to see what was up. He called me to let me know that I was suspended by Sapienza and prevented from making any on-air appearances on The Fan other than our own show until further notice. The reason – The April Fools’ prank.
To put a bow on this, I was a paying customer put on timeout by The Fan’s Program Director for doing an April Fools’ prank on our website…AND, I was told that the on-air talent mentioned in the prank thought that the piece was funny. No harm, no foul, right?
Meanwhile, the next to last show of our initial 26-week contract was coming up that Saturday, the same day I had intended to give them a signed extension for another 26 weeks. With great pleasure I tore that contract up in so many ways it looked like confetti on New Year’s Eve.
We won’t get fooled again.
The Fanimal was done on 105.7 The Fan.
And so was I.
(In Chapter 18 The Fanimal takes on a new life-form plus a slight detour from covering sports with a new focus on the good in all of us.)
2 Responses
Another great installment of an interesting story. Proves that you have to be careful of which team of horses you hitch onto your wagon. Situations like this helped build the web as the platform of choice for a multitude of ventures.
I have always wondered why I stopped hearing your thoughts on sports on 105.7 the fan. This person you had to deal with was what my dad referred to as “a man baby”
Now I know.