ON TV/RADIO
Analyst Spencer Tillman says fans may not give the Texans much of a grace period.
T his year’s Texans season will be a good indicator as to whether absence makes the heart growmore demanding.
Fans who were accustomed to occasional looks at the team when it held camp in Houston have been left in the lurch by the Texans’ decision to train in West Virginia.
Spencer Tillman, who will once again help call preseason games on KTRK (Channel 13) and contribute to team-related programming throughout the year, said the result may be a shorter fuse for fans’ patience if and when the Texans struggle.
“This will remove any mulligans, for lack of a better word, for Bill O’Brien in terms of preparation,” Tillman said. “With everything that has been done to accommodate them in terms of preparation, fans will expect them to get off to a good start. They want early returns.
“If they don’t come, fans will be asking ‘Why did you do this if it wasn’t going to make a difference?’”
‘Mandatory fun’
Spencer Tillman is always good for a good yarn, such as his description of the Texans’ defensive linemen playing foursquare before practice with such intensity that J.J. Watt took a diving lunge in pursuit of a ball, to the consternation of onlookers.
The capper, however, comes not from his days with the Oilers but his stint in San Francisco. The 49ers trained near Sacramento, Calif., but on occasion would have a break for what Tillman’s teammate, Matt Millen, described as “mandatory fun.”
“Mandatory fun,” Tillman said, involved team activities that were designed to be recreational but still required mandatory attendance by players.
“We would go fishing, for example,” he said. “It was catch and release. But one of (coach) George Seifert’s tricks is that they would starve the fish for a week before we got to camp. So when we got there, the fish would jump at anything you put in the water. It was kind of creepy.”
But it also makes for some good stories.
“Bubba Paris, one of our linemen, weighed 325 pounds, which was a lot back then, and he would jump around like a baby when he got one,” Tillman said. “Ronnie Lott would give him a hard time and say, ‘Bubba, if you could protect like you catch fish, we’d be better on offense.”
Ratings still sagging
Winter is coming, which means football is coming, too. Perhaps that will jolt some life into the sagging audience numbers for Houston’s allsports radio stations.
The combined weeklong audience share among men 25-54 for Houston’s four all-sports stations dropped another tenth of a point in the July ratings book to 4 percent, according to Nielsen Audio. That compares to a 5.2 percent share of the audience in July 2016 and 6.6 percent in July 2015.
Once again, the only true positive in the sports realm during the July
ratings period of June 22 through July 19 is the boost that KBME (790 AM) continues to get from Astros games and the degree to which it was competitive during daylight hours as well with KILT (610 AM).
KBME had a narrow lead over KILT in weeklong audience share among men 25-54, the key demo for sports radio, thanks in part to an almost 2-to-1 lead from 7 p.m. until midnight. KBME also led KILT and KFNC (97.5 FM) among persons 12-plus, one of the broad demos in which Nielsen Audio allows the use of exact numbers.
KBME ranked 22nd among all stations with a 1.2 share in persons 12-plus for average weekly audience, compared to 1.0 for KILT and 0.4 for KFNC, which was having signal issues during July.
This is the last book for KBME’s previous lineup before the recent shift that moved Josh Innes to morning drive and Adam Clanton, Jayson Braddock and Sean Jones to afternoon drive. The numbers for the new KBME lineup will be reflected in the August book.
Looking at daypart numbers among men 25-54 for the sports stations, KILT and KBME were tied for 20th place with KFNC in 28th in morning drive (6-10 a.m.). They also were tied in middays (10 a.m.-3 p.m.) in 21st place with KFNC in 24th. KBME was 21st, thanks in part to Astros day games, while KILT was 22nd and KFNC was 26th in afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.).
With the Astros drawing audiences at night, KBME was tied for 15th from 7 p.m. to midnight while KILT was 24th and KFNC was tied for 27th.
In 12-plus, KILT led KBME in morning drive, 1.3 to 1.1, with KFNC at 0.6. KBME led at midday, 1.0 to 0.8, with KFNC at 0.4, KILT led by a tenth of a point, 1.3 to 1.2, in afternoon drive, with KFNC at 0.4. At night, KBME had a 1.9 percent share among persons 12-plus to 0.7 for KILT and 0.3 for KFNC.
Once again, the difference between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston sports radio audiences continues to be striking. Three D-FW stations in July combined for a 6.5 percent audience share among listeners 6-plus. Four Houston stations (KGOW, 1560 AM, had no ratings) combined for a 3.6 percent share. It does bear noting, of course, that all three D-FW stations have an FM presence.
ESPN streaming platform on way
Disney created something of a stir this week with the announcement that it has acquired controlling interest in the technology company BAMTech more quickly than expected and that it will launch streaming services for ESPN-banded games and events in 2018 and for Disney in 2019.
This does not mean, to be clear, that Disney is going to stream ESPN the channel. There’s no mention of “SporsCenter” or of the NBA and “Monday Night Football” as offerings.
It essentially means that customers who do not subscribe to cable, satellite or streaming carriers will have access to a beefed-up version of ESPN3.com, which will be augmented by MLB and NHL services to include about 10,000 events a year.
“It’s a recognition that the industry is evolving and that younger consumers have a preference for streaming platforms and may not be enamored with traditional cable and satellite,” said former NBA executive Ed Desser, president of Desser Sports Media.
“ESPN is establishing a beachhead in a direct-to-consumer streaming platform while keeping its existing business going much the same. It’s similar to the creation of ESPN2 — taking the next step and adding to their array of products and creating a new product by slicing and dicing from a combination of existing inventory.”
Desser said the new ESPN streaming service will include, for example, a lot of Indian cricket matches and other international events that don’t make it onto ESPN3 or the linear networks. Baseball and hockey also will be included, although price points have not been announced yet.
Meanwhile, Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research was initially cautious on the impact of ESPN’s streaming service.
“I think the impact of this product depends on how much premium content normally found on ESPN and ESPN2 appears on the app,”Wieser said. “It doesn’t appear that much will initially, so it’s going to be a hard-core fan who will care, which is likely a small market.
“Of course, at some point they may offer some significant content and that would change things.”
In a note to investors, Wieser said ESPN’s challenges include growing the new product without damaging its relationship with existing distributors and drawing new customers without cannibalizing its existing networks.
Four DVRs, no waiting
Fox Sports 1 and MLB Network will telecast the American League Division Series, Major League Baseball announced this week. I’m guessing that if the Yankees win the AL East and are in the series opposite the Astros, the Astros are going to be spending a lot of time on MLB Network. MLB Network in the past has arranged for free views in participating markets for its playoff games, but it remains to be seen if that will be the case this year. … KFNC (97.5 FM) has weathered another reception issue. Company president David Gow said the Federal Communications Commission shut down a low-power translator in Hockley that was interfering with 97.5’s signal on the west side of Houston. … It’s football season on the other side of the pond, too. NBC begins its Premier League coverage at 1:45 p.m. Friday on NBCSN with Leicester City-Arsenal. NBC’s featured game at 11:30 a.m. Saturday is Manchester City against Brighton and Hove Albion, which was promoted to the Premier League for this season. … Nielsen says viewers through May watched an average of two hours and 37 minutes of sports programming outside the home, the most for any programming category (news was second at 2:02). Nielsen also said ESPN audiences were boosted by 12 percent for college basketball and 10 percent for NBA games through February through out-of-home viewing. … AT&T will add CBS Sports Network to its DirecTV Now streaming service. Meanwhile, CBS chairman Les Moonves said on the company’s earnings call, according to Broadcasting & Cable, that the company plans to launch a separate streaming sports channel later this year. … Assorted outlets speculate that Pete Rose will not return to Fox Sports’ baseball studio telecasts in the wake of documents filed in a Ohio lawsuit claiming that Rose had a sexual relationship in 1975 with a woman before she turned 16, the age of consent in Ohio. Rose acknowledged the relationship, according to court documents, but said he thought the woman was of age.
David Barron is a Houston Chronicle staff writer.