Pandora For Sports Radio

This is one of those times when I wish I attended a conference. I see this story in the Radio Ink Buzz Feed, and I just want to scream:

"While Pandora has become a thorn in the side of music radio stations, the Sports Talk Radio has skated free from any similar type attack. As part of his presentation at the 2014 Radio Ink Sports Radio conference Edison Research President Larry Rosin said, compared to Television, Radio has been slow to provide consumers with On Demand products and that's something that needs to change, before someone else figures out how to do it."

First of all, several years ago, Pandora suggested it might enter the news, talk, and sports radio area. But then the company went public, and everyone became billionaires. So they haven't revisited the area of new products since then.

Second of all, what kind of On Demand products are we talking about? On Demand coverage of sports events? Sorry, those rights are owned by the various leagues and teams, and they aren't offering them to outside parties. If you want On Demand coverage of the Yankees-Red Sox, you watch it on mlb.com.

Sure, Pandora offers on demand music. To do so, it spends over 50% of its revenues for digital music royalties. Does anyone in broadcasting want to pay that kind of royalty for the privilege of offering on demand sports on radio web sites? How dumb are we?

The way I read it, Rosin is talking about sports talk radio, not play-by-play. Maybe he envisions a Pandora-like operation that will provide every national and local sports talk show in the U.S., or North America, or the world, either live or at a convenient time for the listener. It doesn't sound like a cash cow to me, since national sports talk is basically filler programming and local sports talk has little appeal outside its home market. Besides, isn't every sports talk station with a web stream already available via tunein.com? Is there really that much value to being able to hear what two local-yokel hosts in Miami said about last night's Heat game on their morning show while you're getting ready for supper nine hours later?

CTListener said:

Is there really that much value to being able to hear what two local-yokel hosts in Miami said about last night's Heat game on their morning show while you're getting ready for supper nine hours later?

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That's what I'm trying to figure out. The talk shows are all disposable content. The aspect that's comparable to music on Pandora is play-by-play. Other than that, what in particular would you "demand?"

ESPN has unified its platforms through it's web site. So you can get their radio reports, their TV reports, local coverage, and exclusive online content at any time. The various sports radio networks (CBS, NBC, and Fox) are all trying to build an online brand as strong as ESPN's, but it will take time. It will have to be done at the network level to make it work cost wise.

There's already too much gabbing about sports on the air now anyway. Most serve as extensions to established sports networks. I see little, if any, interest by consumers for on demand sports gab. The same for radio delivered on demand events, although, via an app, if they could be obtained overseas, expats might be a market, but then, how much revenue could we be talking about there?

Not a viable idea IMO.