Plan D - Part Two

Putting the cart before the horse

At 10 million dollars a year, the Redskins game broadcasts were homeless, so Dan Snyder decided to build his own home for them. Curly R's series on Dan Snyder's media empire continues.

Part One: Out of Suitors
Part Two: Overestimating
Part Three: Underwhelming
Part Four: If You Can't Beat Em, Buy Em

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Plan B: If those fools won't pay 10 million a year for the Redskins broadcasts then we will create our own outlet for them and reap the rewards for ourselves! Muwahahaha!

At the time of the split with WJFK in December 2005, there were already rumors that Dan Snyder would try and take the Redskins broadcasts and media properties in house. In January 2006, less than a month after WJFK walked away, Dan announced the formation of Red Zebra Broadcasting, a radio, TV and internet media venture founded by Dan and his Redskins owner partner Dwight Schar.

Dan tapped Bennett Zier to head the venture, it so happened that Bennett had been general manager of the brand new Clear Channel WTEM 570 AM The Team sports talk station in 1992 and had negotiated the deal with Jack Kent Cooke to bring the Redskins broadcasts over from WMAL 630 AM where they had been for 41 years.

Less than two weeks later Red Zebra completed (op. cit.) the 33 million dollar purchase of three smaller radio stations from Mega Communications, WBZS 92.7 FM in Frederick Maryland (north of Washington DC), WBPS 94.3 FM in Warrenton Virginia (west of DC) and WKDL 730 AM in Alexandria Virginia (close enough to my house to give me cancer).

The two low power FM stations had been Spanish language broadcasting in the tropical music format and had been self sufficient until Infinity Broadcasting chose to shut down rock station WHFS 99.1 FM and rebirth it as El Zol in the same tropical format. With its much stronger signal, El Zol wiped out the other two, Mega had to retool or get rid of them. The AM station had been music in the 80s and CNN business news as recently as 2000, it was a station that could never get a foothold in the DC area with WMAL, WTOP and the rise of the mixed news talk stations.

Now all three stations would collectively become Triple X ESPN Radio, seriously dude are you that oversexed?, and would broadcast Redskins games, Redskins themed programming and coaching shows and a daily schedule of sports talk, some original and local, including Redskins legend and drunk John Riggins, and some syndicated.

Minor problem, totally nothing to worry about, probably barely came up but ahem er these stations all have weak signals. Here is a coverage map, and from the outset Red Zebra knew they may have to bolster their footprint with partnerships and quote time buys unquote with other area stations, such as Clear Channel competitor and former Bennett Zier employer WTEM, now moved to 980 AM with a much stronger signal and rebranded SportsTalk 980.

Three months later in April 2006, Red Zebra scored a blow against competitor WTEM by landing area rights to broadcast the ESPN slate of radio programming (op. cit.). By adding Colin Cowherd, Mike and Mike and all the rest of that dreck that people listen to and I'm a sports fan here, to Redskins broadcasts and Redskins themed programming, Dan Snyder solidified Triple X as what should have been a legitimate enterprise (op. cit.) in the DC area.

The problem was that there was not much there there. Within weeks of debuting on 18 July 2006, there was static, literally and figuratively.

With three stations on two different dials, Triple X may have had a larger footprint than WJFK in aggregate, as Dan Snyder himself insisted in July 2006, but it did not fit the model for a successful network and the patchwork nature of the stations would force listeners to jump around. I know it seems pedantic, I really think these things matter, having one station to leave the radio on, as long time and former WMAL radio host Chris Core writes in his editorial about getting shitcanned (op. cit.).

Every time a listener loses the signal and changes the station he or she is as likely to change it away from the programming as he or she is to looking for the stronger station. I am guessing Triple X is not a quote sticky unquote network, with a propensity to lose listeners at the edges and in the dead spots of coverage.

When the Redskins season started on 11 September 2006, nobody could already hear it. Coverage was patchy to begin with and the station with the best coverage footprint, 730 AM, by FCC rule had to reduce its signal at night to 25 watts (op. cit.), not even enough to pull a greased string through a rat's ass.

That season opener was a Monday night game. Game two was the following Sunday. Night.

Both the team and the coverage started 0-2.

Less than two weeks after the season opener, the Washington Post was running with the story of disgruntled fans with no reception, flooding the team's phones and websites with complaints. For the team's part, they spent that first part of the season steadfastly denying there was a spike in complaints or even that they had ever heard a complaint of any kind from a Redskins fan at any time. Evar.

There was another complication, varying broadcasts being out of sync (op. cit.), with differing delays between the live radio, over the air TV, cable and satellite broadcasts. Back in the day we used to shush the TV and whatever crap team CBS or Fox had calling the game and turn on Sonny Sam & Frank, they were always in sync, that was of course before they shitcanned Frank Herzog. Now even if you could get the game on the radio, you could not engage in a time honored Redskins fan tradition.

But wait it gets worse. It was in January of that year that I had gotten Sirius satellite radio, so I never needed to listen to the terrestrial broadcast, I could get Sonny Sam & Frank Larry off satellite in crystal clear (if also delayed against the game and various broadcasts). I know nothing scientific though anecdotally I know of a few Redskins fans that used troubles with the Triple X broadcasts as the excuse to take the Sirius plunge. And whereas we Redskins fans listening on satellite radio would still be exposed to all the pitches and in game sponsorship of the core broadcast, all the ads piped in at the station breaks are missed in favor of the ads Sirius has sold for the game, after all Sirius paid 220 million for the NFL and they need to make it up somewhere.

So while Sirius listeners still get the game, we miss much of what local advertisers pay for. Which is the money that Dan Snyder was trying to get. When he built his radio empire on three stations with signals so weak no one could hear them. Bit awkward.

As a matter of dollars and sense, in 2005 WTEM, Triple X's largest competitor, pulled in 7.7 million dollars in revenue (op. cit.). While we do not know the exact numbers for Triple X to this point, I cannot believe they outearned WTEM, the established player with the strong signal, forget pulled in enough to pay expenses and still make what the Redskins would have made if they had just made a deal with WJFK. All that lost money, that's Dan Snyder's opportunity cost of creating The Radio Empire No One Could Hear.

And all of this to avoid a middleman and pull in all that advertising and sponsorship revenue that WJFK was getting when they had the broadcasts. WJFK pulled out for a reason, they were not making money on the deal. Dan could could have knocked a couple mil off the deal, kept WJFK happy and raked in his millions and let someone else deal with the hassle of running a broadcast operation, while building a radio empire on the side, then bringing in the Redskins broadcasts when he had the appropriate facility.

Dan severely overestimated the value of the combined radio network as well as of the Redskins broadcast itself, all his projections were all off by a mile. Like dropping an anvil on your foot.


Curses! Foiled again!


Dan Snyder's Plan D continues tomorrow with part three, Underwhelming.


Curly R has previously covered Bennett Zier and Red Zebra here. It is of note that since this post on 27 March 2007, Red Zebra's website now points to Triple X's website.



Image from here.