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37 °F Forecast | Road Cams Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 12, 2005 Trying to make sense of loss of sports radio Prep Notebook By DON HUNT Mail Tribune The fallout continues from Radio Medford pulling the plug on ESPN radio and replacing it with a Spanish music station. Our sports department has received a couple dozen e-mails and voice messages from angry sports fans who were getting their daily sports talk radio fix from KTMT AM-580. People keep asking, how could Radio Medford and its parent company — Mapleton Communications — put the Rogue Valley’s only 24-hour sports station on the chopping block when it’s been on the air for 10 years? The station dropped its sports format on April 4. Radio Medford general manager Ron Hren says that ESPN’s ratings were simply too low and that he believes the new format will earn higher ratings even though the Hispanic population in the Rogue Valley was only 6.6 percent of the population in 2000, the last time a census was taken. Advertisement Former Radio Medford sports director Jay Reese doesn’t buy it. "To say that the Hispanic market is bigger and plays a more important role than sports is hogwash," says Reese, who now serves as sports director at KAJO AM-1270 in Grants Pass. "By no means do I mean any disrespect to the Hispanic people, but I think what’s happened is an insult to the sports community in Medford and the surrounding area." What the change boils down to, Reese believes, is that Radio Medford no longer wants to put forth the energy, effort and money to market sports and reach its potential listeners. The company lopped off a couple of salaries by going to the all-Spanish format that plays "canned" music from a sister station in Monterey, Calif. And it saved some more money when it removed its "on air" personalities from its "Beat-93" FM station that was geared toward young people in favor of MIKE-FM, which plays preprogrammed classic and soft rock music. Reese says Radio Medford has gone from 34 to 16 employees since Los Angeles-based Mapleton Communications bought out Marathon Media in August of 2001. The fact is, the stations that capture the highest ratings are the ones that play classic rock, country music, adult contemporary and news/talk. A station carrying all-sports or all-Spanish is going to be a smaller fish in the pond no matter what, but it’s hard to imagine a group that constitutes less than 10 percent of the population drawing even marginal ratings, especially when there’s already an all-Spanish station on the dial. But Hren and Radio Medford disagree. They have made their move and it’s unlikely they’ll turn back any time soon. It’s also unlikely the Rogue Valley’s other radio groups — Opus and Clear Channel — would consider picking up ESPN. They appear to be locked in on their formats. Short of boycotting Radio Medford’s six stations and their advertisers, there isn’t much a local sports fan can do other than listen on the ESPN Web site or subscribe to satellite radio, which actually isn’t a bad idea at less than $15 per month. Radio Medford will continue to carry local high school football and basketball games and Oregon Ducks football and basketball, but Blazers basketball, Oakland A’s baseball and San Francisco 49ers football are apparently a thing of the past, along with national ESPN programming. Reese, meanwhile, carries a show called "Southern Oregon Sports Talk" on KAJO. The show runs from 4-5 p.m. weekdays and can be heard in parts of Jackson County. Reese, whose "Sportsline" show on ESPN Radio ranked sixth in listenership among 13 local stations in 2003, hopes to have his new show online at sosportstalk.com in a month or so. Reach reporter Don Hunt at 776-4469, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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