February 9, 2021, remains a “Day of Infamy” for sports talk radio in Vancouver and several other Canadian cities.
But as audiences and advertisers shift their focus to online platforms, it may also become celebrated as the birth date of a new ecosystem for the industry in urban centres like Metro Vancouver.
The date was when Bell Media – part of conglomerate BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE) – abruptly shuttered sports talk radio stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Hamilton, much to the chagrin of sports fans fiercely loyal to their favourite hosts and programs.
But while many observers feared the move signalled an inevitable slow death of the Lower Mainland’s sports talk scene, many independent and online-driven efforts have sprung up in the wake of February 9, and many are now flourishing in a new media market landscape that could become the business model for future sports radio.
“It’s a career-saver,” said Matt Sekeres, former C host in Vancouver and now co-host of the Sekeres & Price Show at Sekeresandprice.com. “Let’s call it what it is. In the old days, when you got fired from a sports talk show...
“You waited for the next one to call,” continued Blake Price, Sekeres’ co-host.
“Yes, and this sort of entrepreneurship – doing things yourself, owning your own content, being your own boss, having your own means of production, which is now cheaper than the decades preceding – basically allowed us to continue our partnership and the career that we know,” Sekeres concluded.
Sekeres & Price is one of several shows launched by former TSN 1040 hosts and others in cities like Winnipeg ,where media personalities are now using readily available online platforms – streaming, YouTube and podcasts through Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL), Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) or TuneIn Radio – to return to the airwaves and fulfil demand left vacant by the radio station’s reformatting.
Others who have risen from the Bell sports station ashes include Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal’s Donnie and Dhali – The Team, which airs on CHEK TV and online in B.C., and Winnipeg Sports Talk with Andrew “Hustler” Paterson in Manitoba.
And business is good.
For Sekeres and Price, their show, which is co-owned by the hosts and local media production firm Go Goat Sports, is moving into a new 700-square-foot studio at Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre off Hornby Street.
When asked if this was the plan when the pair was let go at TSN 1040, Price’s response was blunt.
“We had pie-in-the-sky thoughts [about a big studio], but I don’t think we thought it would happen this quickly,” he said. “I mean, if they had space in a corner on the 40th floor, we’d probably have taken it, but the fact it’s on street-level, that’s just value added.
“Blake was ready to go the day after [1040’s format change]; I needed more time to take stock. And one of the things that convinced me that we needed to continue to do this ... was that you would get these messages about how much we were embedded into the rhythms of people’s lives.”
According to Go Goat Sports CEO Nathalie Rees, the original idea was to provide a platform for a Sekeres and Price farewell show, which was precluded by TSN 1040’s abrupt shut down. But the audience response made the team stop and consider whether there was a way to fill the gap left in the market.
“While this is sort of a new step for sports radio in British Columbia, it has all the players that really were a part of what made sports broadcasting here in Vancouver so special,” Rees said. “So while it is a new venture, it is with the people who really cared about what this space meant, and I think that’s a story that needs to be told.”
The show’s performance so far, Sekeres noted, also came without Vancouver’s No. 1 driver of sports talk: the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks in a playoff chase or drive. Both Price and Sekeres said they expect audience numbers to spike once the Canucks season picks up in October, and much will depend on fan optimism surrounding the team in the new year.
In this sense, Paterson’s Winnipeg Sports Talk program may indicate the degree of impact. Paterson noted that his show – which streams live daily on YouTube – typically draws about 2,000 to 3,000 fans per show. During the Winnipeg Jets’ run to the second round of the NHL playoffs, however, that number regularly doubled, with one show skyrocketing to 20,000 views after Game 1 of the Montreal series, in which star centre Mark Scheifele was suspended after a controversial hit.
“I can tell you that we just hit 800,000 hits and downloads combined [all-time], and we’ve just hit our six-months mark,” Paterson said of his show. “We thought before that, pie-in-the-sky, we can maybe hit one million in a year. Well, we are way, way past that. The way things are going now, we’ll probably hit that mark in a month or so.
“I think we [TSN Winnipeg 1290], along with TSN Vancouver [1040], had the highest listenership in the network,” he added. “I knew we had a big following. And if this wasn’t going to be available through TSN, there was going to be a huge opportunity for somebody to fill that gap, because the demand is there.”
But Winnipeg’s market situation is different from Vancouver’s. The Manitoba capital does not have another sports talk radio station. In Vancouver, Rogers Communications Inc.’s Sportsnet 650 continues to occupy radio space, competing with the various independent online shows that have sprouted up following 1040’s demise.
On that front, Sekeres and Price both admitted that their new role as entrepreneurs instead of employees has involved a steep learning curve. Both are heavily involved in the budgeting of their business, and both are devoting their entire days to the shop: mornings in business operations, afternoons hosting the show and evenings planning for both sides the next day.
“It sucks,” Price said with a wry smile, drawing loud laughter from Sekeres.
“There are many things that used to be Mr. Bell’s problem that’s now our problem,” Sekeres followed. “There’s no finish line; you complete one task and you go to the next. But what we foresee are communities taking back their coverage. Conglomerates from several provinces away are no longer in tune with the needs and the demands of our community. That’s quite exciting.” •
