Bay Area media column: Damon Bruce and Ray Ratto no longer with 95.7 The Game
Bay Area radio station 95.7 The Game alerted its employees to a major shakeup Wednesday, letting staff know that they parted ways with Damon Bruce and Ray Ratto, who had partnered for years on the station’s afternoon drive-time show. With this came a schedule change, along with at least two other employees leaving the station, according to multiple radio industry sources who requested anonymity.
Advertisement
This comes less than a year after the station signed Bruce to a multiyear extension, and seems to be a cost-cutting move for the station’s parent company, Audacy, which has denied rumors it would file for bankruptcy and was warned in August that it was in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. Audacy’s stock price, which was above $3.00 a year ago, closed at $0.16 on Wednesday.
Bruce and Ratto have built long radio careers that spanned both Bay Area sports talk stations. Bruce hosted on KNBR 680 and 1050 from the mid-2000s until 2014, when he joined 95.7 as its drive-time host. Ratto served as Tom Tolbert’s frequent, and then for a time as his regular co-host on KNBR (despite not having his name included in the show’s title) until 2016, when KNBR hired John Lund away from 95.7 and paired him with Tolbert.
What’s striking about Audacy’s decision is that 95.7 had been outperforming KNBR, at least during most months, for the last year-plus. Much of that was built on the strength of the station’s morning show hosted by Bonta Hill and Joe Shasky, which according to the new schedule will go for one more hour than it lasted previously. Here’s the new programming schedule:
• The Morning Roast (Hill and Shasky): 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
• Steiny and Guru (Matt Steinmetz and Daryle Johnson): 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Willard and Dibs (Mark Willard and Dan Dibley): 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
According to one source, employees were told that while 95.7’s ratings were strong compared to KNBR’s, these measures were required to achieve profitability because the market is down as a whole. We’ve seen this in the ratings for years, and the reasons are numerous. The primary one, of course, is the rise of remote work that got a huge jump-start during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though automobile traffic in the Bay Area can still be pretty brutal now, a few years after the world essentially shut down, it hasn’t climbed back to pre-2020 levels.
Advertisement
But that’s not the only factor that’s causing concern for radio corporations. Satellite radio, and the rise of podcasts, took a chunk out of terrestrial radio’s audience. The other problem, one that hasn’t ever been truly figured out in the decade-plus since 95.7 joined the sports talk fray, is that this region has never really proven it can support two sports talk stations.
In the early-2010s, KNBR routinely drubbed 95.7 in the ratings. With a new lineup full of people from other regions of the country, and the Giants winning World Series titles, 95.7 never really had a chance to make a dent in the ratings when it switched formats from country music to sports talk. But then the Giants became less dominant, and the Warriors — frustrated as they were by KNBR’s prioritization of the Giants above all else — left KNBR and made 95.7 their flagship radio station in 2016. Since then, the two stations started to finish closer and closer to even in the ratings, and 95.7 has enjoyed better numbers than KNBR for most of the past several months. But with a smaller overall market audience, even consistently defeating its rival station wasn’t enough to prevent Audacy from pulling the plug on “Damon & Ratto.”
This is the first significant change in Bay Area sports talk since just over a year ago when KNBR fired Tolbert’s former co-hosts, Rod Brooks and Larry Krueger and replaced them with Adam Copeland. Since then, Brooks has worked for NBC Sports Bay Area as a 49ers studio analyst and Krueger has appeared frequently as a fill-in host on 95.7.
Media morsels
• Johnny Doskow joined the A’s radio broadcast team in late-January. Doskow, who called Sacramento River Cats games since 2000, will handle 65-plus spring training and regular-season games according to the A’s, while also contributing to A’s Cast, the team’s streaming station.
• One source suggested that this could indicate that Ken Korach will retire after this season. (Update: Korach reached out to The Athletic on Thursday and said that while the hiring of Doskow is great because it allows the A’s to have someone permanent in the booth when he is away, Korach has no plans to retire after the 2023 season.)
Advertisement
• Many have wondered about the future of NBC Sports’ regional sports networks, including NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California. I haven’t heard anything in recent months, but it’s completely within the realm to assume that NBC Universal — which is owned by Comcast — is considering what to do with its RSNs. Especially in light of what’s been happening with Diamond Sports (which is owned by Sinclair and operates Bally Sports RSNs), along with the recent announcement by Warner Bros. Discovery that it wants to get out of the RSN business (Warner Bros. Discovery owns three AT&T SportsNet RSNs).
What the Bally Sports saga means for NBA, NHL, MLB broadcasts: All you need to know
via @TheAthletic https://t.co/amOnJCWciA
— Daniel Kaplan (@KaplanSportsBiz) February 17, 2023
I received an email recently asking why other teams get either all or a significant number of their spring training games aired on TV, while the Giants and A’s hadn’t been on the local airwaves yet. NBC Sports Bay Area will air three of the Giants’ Cactus League games (March 12 against the A’s, March 19 against the Angels and March 23 against the Guardians) and NBC Sports California will air one A’s game (March 18 against the Reds) before the A’s and Giants face each other in the Bay Bridge series on March 26-27. I’m not sure if the local RSNs have ever broadcasted that many spring training games, but it’s probably safe to assume that Cactus League coverage won’t increase in upcoming years.
The big question is how long we’ll have any RSNs around, including ones under the NBC Sports umbrella.
(Photo of Ray Ratto handing the 2012 National League MVP Award to Buster Posey: Brad Mangin / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k2tvcm9paXxzfJFsZmlrX2WFcIWUcGStoJVitKK5xGabmqWfo3qjvtScnGaqka56s63TraZo