Channel Media & Market Research, Inc has released their now-annual survey regarding Boston sports. More than 14,200 people participated in the survey.

In addition to questions about each of the local professional sports franchises, there is also a media section.

Guess which is the first entry in that section?

orsillo

 

A few others from the media section:
obrien

So at least NESN is replacing the most popular TV announcer with the most popular radio announcer. The next slide is where I begin to lose faith in my fellow man.

mazz

From the top two names in that list, you can probably guess the next slide.

radio

Now we’re onto the writing portion.

reiss

I’m heartened to see no Shaughnessy on the list. And good for Chad Finn.

Elsewhere:

Favorite Local TV Sports Personality

Both Tom Caron and Mike Felger received 20%.

Favorite Local TV Sports Reporter

Steve Burton won this with 22%

Favorite Local TV Sports Show

Sports Tonight (CSNNE) won with 23%

The Felger and Mazz Simulcast was second with 16%

Favorite Local TV Pre/Post Game Show

Patriots 5th Quarter at 27%

Red Sox Extra Innings 24%

 

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

54 thoughts on “Highlights From The 2015 New England Sports Survey By Channel Media & Market Research, Inc”

  2. Felger and Mazz being that far ahead of the closest competition in the “favorite radio show” category just boggles my mind — actually, the fact that they lead the “favorite radio show” category at all boggles my mind, and it always has ever since they assumed the #1 spot. Are there that many people in this area who enjoy hearing two braying jackasses continually dump all over the local sports teams, whether or not the dumping is justified? Are there that many people in this area so obtuse that they don’t realize it’s mostly just an act, and that the ringleader, Felger, constantly moves the goalposts whenever his “arguments” and talking points are revealed to be the complete, disingenuous b.s. the sane people out there always knew they were? Again, my mind boggles.

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    1. I have made this argument before but it bears repeating. Other than when they talk Pats football…that is when they talk baseball, hockey and basketball they usually state or argue points that are astute, commonsensical and often at odds with the uncritical media that covers the team. For some reason they choose only to be contrarians (perhaps they look at how that drives ratings numbers…I have no idea) when it comes to the Pats and as such they sound like morons.

      I can’t remember the last time I listened to Felger make a Red Sox point I did not either outright agree with or find logical and thought provoking. His NBA observations to me are right on. Whereas I hate hockey, from what I can tell his hockey insights are clear and much to the dismay of WEEI timely/ tapping into a huge segment of the market that yearned for someone to acknowledge them.

      They are the most popular show in town because Felger is the most entertaining guy on the radio. It is not that complicated.

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      1. I will concede a few points here, but I have to disagree on most of it. With regard to the Bruins, from 2010-2014, while the team was compiling one of the best records in the NHL, winning a Stanley Cup and going to a second Stanley Cup Finals series, Felger was almost relentlessly negative and critical of the organization and the coach, to the point where one of the B’s players was inspired to say, “Suck it, Felger,” on live TV after they clinched the Cup in Vancouver in 2011. However, in the pre-salary cap days, he was spot on with his criticisms of the organization — they were a sad combination of cheap and incompetent. Still, even after they began managing the roster more intelligently, spending up to the salary cap, and then went on that very successful four- or five-year run, he couldn’t stop with the contrarianism. With regard to the NBA, perhaps he’s been correct about the league in general, but he’s very, very clearly a Celtics hater, and has done very little to hide that fact over the years — his upbringing as a fan of the Bucks in the 80s perhaps has something to do with that; but still, he works in the Boston market now and he could be a little more professional with regard to the local NBA franchise. I can’t speak to his Red Sox opinions, really, because they’ve probably been less outlandish and attracted less public attention than his ravings about the other teams in town — at least Mazz used to be a BBWAA guy, so Felger has a sidekick with him who actually understands the game of baseball.

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          1. Well, he has a personal history of covering the game on a day-to-day basis, so Felger can always defer to him on Red Sox matters, and then later on he can always say he was merely echoing Mazz’s opinions. That’s what I was really getting at, but I didn’t make myself clear enough.

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        1. Not my point. My point is his observations about the Bruins, the way they build teams, spend money and the general organization of the NHL have been at least from my perspective spot on. Does he know players…probably not. Does he know strategy, x’s and o’s…nope. Did he correctly identify that the style of hockey Claude wanted to play was akin to watching paint dry and that his lack of trust/patience for young players was effectively wasting resources…ABSOLUTELY NAILED THAT ONE. So from an entertainment point of view…Felger spoke about hockey in a way that was interesting to me…more metaphysical than detailed, more philosophical than practical. I could see how hockey fans might find his knowledge lacking however they should be thanking their lucky stars he got his own show and decided Hockey is a worthwhile topic on Boston radio (because really it isn’t). His brilliance was finding angles that made it not boring.

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          1. Sorry, but we’ll have to agree to disagree here. Julien is an excellent coach. Felger is more interested in how someone looks than in how he performs (he’s enamored with Guy Boucher, who’s coaching in Switzerland, FFS); that’s the very definition of shallow. Julien has proven over and over and over he’s a solid coach with young players (Krejci, Marchand, Lucic, Boychuk, Pastrnak). It’s nonsense promulgated by Felger that says otherwise.

            Felger knows a little about hockey. That puts him above many in the Boston talk radio market (oddly enough). But a little knowledge, as the saying goes, is a dangerous thing.

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      3. They are contrarians about all four sports. The Patriots come off as the outlier because they are always extremely successful, but the program treats them like a last place team like they do the other teams. They bash the Sox to death, but the Sox deserve it, 3 last place finishes in 4 years. Just doesn’t hold the same weight when you are treating the Super Bowl champion the same way. But they can’t see things in any other way than to bash, bash, bash, no matter how successful the team is.

        The show is popular because as much as the ultra contrarian schtick annoys me, it is an entertaining program, is in the best time slot, and is in a sports crazed area.

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    2. Just like Felger likes to speculate on Brady’s connections to anyone who discredits Exponent. I want to know what the connection this company has to CBS. “It’s so obvious Mike that they’re in the bag for CBS!”

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    1. Suck up. All joking aside it is a shame that Bruce never gets recognized for creating this community. He does a great job year in and year out.

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    1. It’s funny the number of people fake accounts dupe. It’s even better when you have people who’s job is media that think it’s real.

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  5. I truly want to believe that a lot of people listen to Felger and Mazz, not because they’re informative, not because they’re to be taken seriously, but because they find the over-the-top, nonsensical, phony contrarianism to be entertaining. It’s not quite hate-listening.

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  9. At least Holley isn’t even listed. They should have moved him to mid day and put Glenn back he’d be great with Dale and Jerry. (Since he is apparently not fire-able).

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  10. True… which is why I think this is another bit of evidence that the ruling’s going to go in Brady’s favor. Berman is clearly skeptical of the NFL’s evidence and process. A ruling for the NFL wouldn’t be too complex to draft (there’s plenty of room for a court to punt on the issue), and probably should have been finished by now. A ruling in Brady’s favor, on the other hand, needs to be explained in detail and has to address the logic behind each conclusion, as it will be subject to close scrutiny by the appellate court (since vacatur is the exception and not the rule here).

    It’s just a complete guess, but I doubt the judge would prejudice Brady’s chance to get the 2nd Circuit to issue a stay pending appeal by sitting on an NFL-favorable ruling for a couple of days, unless he thinks this case is completely unwinnable for Brady and is giving him a chance to negotiate further. But nothing coming out of the judge’s mouth has given anyone (other than Lester Munson) any reason to think that’s the case here.

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  12. @patskreig brought up a good point about this comment. Why the hell isn’t this gaining more traction? You just had an owner, besides Kraft, say “nothing conclusive there”:

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    1. ESPN has the full quote which is much more obtuse and amounts to “I still think they di SOMETHING”:

      http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13559321/houston-texans-owner-bob-mcnair-deflategate-jj-watt-not-destroy-phone

      “Is there anything conclusive there? No, you don’t have any conclusive evidence,” McNair said. “But the whole idea is we want to make sure we have a competitive playing field that’s level for everybody … don’t want people breaking the rules.”

      McNair added: “In the minds of somebody in that organization, they thought it was important. They thought it would give them a competitive advantage, and that’s why they did it … You just want to eliminate that kind of situation if you can.”

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    2. How about lets make a deal? That station in Houston will put that audio up when WEEI “finds” metco gorilla audio.

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  13. I know Deflategate is the topic du jour for the last 7 months. However, I am perplexed how, especially on this site, that there is zero outrage over the Shank column “that was edited” after the fact concerning the Orsillo signs at Fenway.

    http://wgbhnews.org/post/dan-shaughnessy-defends-boston-globe-over-deleted-sentence-don-orsillo-column

    So, for the first time ever, Shank had sourcing issues?

    Where has David Skok, managing editor for the Globe been for the last 40+ years when this POS has attacked others?

    David Skok ✔@dskok

    Story was published early, sourcing was weak so the line was removed. Our coverage on this speaks for itself. https://twitter.com/jared_carrabis/status/638516780651126784 …

    10:19 PM – 31 Aug 2015

    1111 Retweets

    77 favorites

    If you read the article before it was scrubbed, Shank either had two Red Sox employees tell him that Orsillo signs must be removed or he lied.

    David Skok is calling him a bold face liar.

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    1. Given how NESN/FSG operates, you’d assume they would remove signs. It is interesting. Seems like it leaked and they did every effort to do damage control. Were there actual stories of signs being taken that should be allowed in? You’d think there would have been, or even video. That’s the only thing that makes me think it might have not happened, but otherwise you’d assume it did.

      Even with the change in ownership, Finn and Shank seem to be the only ones yet to be reined in (probably not be smart either), so they can attack issues that deal with ownership. At least with Finn, Globe can present him as ESPN’s did with their Ombudsman. Writes on whatever, with the occasional criticism or downright trashing of the person signing their paychecks, people go “ohh” and “ahh” over the amazement they’re allowed to attack them, but nothing changes or is ever done.

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    2. Funny, when Shaughnessy accuses David Ortiz of taking steroids there are never any issues over his lack of proper sourcing…

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      1. Oh, but didn’t you know that “Terry Ryan of the Twins let this guy go after the 2002 season, and he was one of the best talent evaluators in the game!” That’s always been Shank’s fallback argument or “source” for the Ortiz./PED’s story. Terry Ryan, apparently, never made a talent evaluation error, and so he knew Ortiz really couldn’t cut it in the majors….then he came to Boston and became one of the most feared and clutch hitters in MLB, so he must have cheated after leaving Minnesota. To be honest, I have no freakin’ idea if Ortiz used, or even continues to use PED’s. His name was on the list in 2003. He denies everything and says he still doesn’t know what he was flagged for. At this point, unless some doctor or trainer who’s been supplying him all these years steps forward with a “tell all” book or article, we’ll never really know. One thing we do know, however, is that Shank is a dishonest, agenda-pushing hack with more axes to grind than Paul Bunyon, and he ceased to be a real journalist at least 20 years ago (more, really).

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    3. John Tomase would’ve ran with it. He usually doesn’t need any real sources because he’ll just make one up.

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      1. This poll is not complete when Charlie Moore doesn’t even show up on it! The guy is a New England treasure, I don’t get it.

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        1. You noticed that, too? Yeah I downed a bottle of Prozac after not seeing my favorite show and person, Charlie Moore, not mentioned anywhere!

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    1. Reminds me of the Nielsen system telling me 3.9M people watched the Kartrashians on TV. Not just shameful for who watches what, but that entire system dictates where billions? trillions? of dollars go a year.

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    2. Anyone hear F&M announcing these results the other day? Mazz was positively giddy. Picture an immature 6 year old having his best day ever….

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    1. Real professional…..and trolls like him deserve to be insulted, quite frankly. Jets fans and Hubbuch deserve each other.

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  17. Wonder how much press this will get, since the NFL movie did get some talk. I get that it’s a movie..

    “We’ll develop messaging with the help of N.F.L. consultant to ensure
    that we are telling a dramatic story and not kicking the hornet’s nest.”

    Another email on Aug. 1, 2014, said some “unflattering moments for the N.F.L.” were deleted or changed, while in another note on July 30, 2014, a top Sony lawyer is said to have taken “most of the bite” out of the film “for legal reasons with the N.F.L. and that it was not a balance issue.”

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    1. Gotta wonder what he said when NFL CBA stuff has gone to court before. I recall seeing him happy that the NFL got smacked down, but now he’s unhappy they’re going to be?

      Great response by Patrick Hubry (and there’s more):

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      1. His previous twitter account is suspended so I couldn’t go through it but I pulled this off of Bleacher Report.

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        1. I figured there’d be something like that.. he’s like 99% of the writers who cover the league, just a decided to make himself one of the murder’s row in this whole affair.

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          1. wondering the same. when i have more time i am going to dig into that. hopefully google will give me something.

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  20. My issue with Felger & Mazz is that they’re reliably predictable. It’s so bad that you can follow mock accounts on Twitter and they predict to a tee exactly the response you are going to hear on that show. Especially in Mazz’s case.
    I just don’t find that kind of radio as interesting as Felger suggests. It’s why I don’t watch shows like Maddow,Hannity ,Rush,ect.; because you know what they’re gonna say and what side they’re going to fall on before you even hear them. I can only guess that the majority of their ratings are from the locals who don’t have allegiances to all the locals around here. I know Steelers, Giants and Cowboys fans who LOVE that show and can’t stand D&H, it makes sense due to all the Patriots bashing.

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