If a team loses in Washington, and nobody tunes in to hear it, does it make a sound?

And you thought 9,000 households for MASN was bad!

Talk about kicking someone when they're down...After news broke last month that barely anyone was watching Nationals' games on MASN, the Washington Post reports that almost nobody is tuning in to the radio broadcasts, either (via Washington Post, 8/26/2008):

The Washington Nationals, last in the National League East and closing fast on a 100-loss season, have attracted the smallest radio following in the major leagues, according to audience research from Arbitron.

How low? So low that even the microscopic numbers reported by the rating service might be too low to be statistically valid.

The team's broadcasts on the station formerly known as WWWT (107.7 FM and 1500 AM) attracted a cumulative weekly audience of about 26,500 from May through July, the most recent period measured by Arbitron. 

Ouch. The numbers are breathtakingly low...So let's see, that's approximately 27,000 radios tuned in to WWWT per week. A quick, back of the envelope calculation shows that roughly 25 people are tuning in to each Nationals' game on the radio. Twenty five! (You might want to check our math). But, regardless of how far off our math is, the number is teeny tiny. Even the pathetic Mariners' radio numbers aren't as bad (133,000 cumulative listeners per week)!

Now, this shouldn't be an indictment of Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler. Let the record show that The Nationals Enquirer loves Slowes and Jageler.

(AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Comments

[harper]

It's only because the don't factor in mlb.com radio subscriptions. The Nats are HUGE on the internet.

[Dman]

So, here we go again with the garbage "DC is a bad baseball town" BS. Once again we have a bunch of statistics that can easily be skewed to the negative when people don't look into the historical perspective or the whole picture.

One cannot overestimate the lost opportunity to start building viewing and listening audiences because of the hastily assembled radio and TV network for the first season. I don't want to sound too critical because, under the circumsatnces, they did a decent job. But it does not change the fact that many areas could not pick up the signals and comparitively few games were telecast. So of course the Nats are huge on the subscription services - that is what we had to turn to in large measure to follow the team. I got an XM radio for the MLB package so I could listen while driving home from work. Its a new world in the media marketplace. The core listening/viewing base that should have been built during the excitement of the first season had to turn to the available alternative services. With the inreasing availability of Internet access all over the place, you might as well just watch the game as a webcast. Plus you have the convenience to take your laptop almost anywhere. I doubt we will ever see strong TV or radio numbers. It is a permanently lost opportunity.

Lost in the shuffle of the sensationally low Nats figures is the fact that the Orioles have the 3rd lowest TV viewership. Number 30 and 28 on the same network. Maybe the real problem is MASN.

[CJ]

Yeah and Jimmy Osmond is big in Japan...

[The Nationals Enquirer]

"So, here we go again with the garbage "DC is a bad baseball town" BS...."

Dman, I think these radio numbers say nothing about DC being a bad baseball town -- what it IS is another example around how poorly this team is marketed around town, coupled with the piss poor product being sold.

I disagree completely with your assertion that the Nationals will never enjoy strong TV or radio numbers. First and foremost, the team needs to win -- no strike that -- the team needs to be COMPETITIVE, needs to be marketed, and the numbers will get more in line with what you see in comparable markets.

[bill]

blame stan kasten. He was an imbecile when he ran the hawks and braves (riding on jon schuerholz's coattails), and he's an imbecile now.

[DMan]

I need to clarify. First, I do think ratings will increase if the team improves and in time as a tradition is built up. My point is that they will never quite be what they could be because DC natives like myself who waited 33 year for baseball to rectify the injustice of 1971 made sure we didn't have to rely on general broadcast media to have access to the games.

My second point is that you seem to think I buy into the myth DC is a bad baseball town. Nothing is further from the truth.
The TV and radio numbers alarm me becasue it gives THE UNIFORMED their chance to blindly babble and perpetuate the lie. You have to peel back too many of the layers of this onion to reveal the truth that DC is a pretty good baseball town. This news just adds another layer we die-hards have to fight through.

The truth is that few cities have supported a perenial loser like the Senators better than DC did. Fan support had little or nothing to do with the 2 Senators franchises moving, but we are stuck with that stigma.

[The Nationals Enquirer]

Dman -- your comments are appreciated. On your first point, though, I'm sorry, but I'm not sure there's any way to prove that there's a solid base of fans out there (like you) watching/listening to the games via alternative outlets like XM or MLB.tv etc.

On your second point -- you're wrong in saying "you seem to think I buy into the myth DC is a bad baseball town." That's not what I said. Go back and re-read my comment. You might find we're closer to being on the same page on this issue than you want to believe.

[DMan]

We are very much on the same page. We're just having an issue with semantics.