Dodgers Take New Approach

It's almost springtime and Dodger baseball is in the air. There just isn't much of it on the air, at least not during the week.

Of the Dodgers' 33 exhibition games, only 15 are being broadcast by new flagship station KFWB (980).

This is a break from the Dodger tradition of broadcasting every spring training game to promote the regular season.

The reason for the change is that KFWB doesn't want to preempt its news format for early morning baseball, which doesn't draw nearly as many listeners.

The Dodgers, who were on KXTA (1150) the last five seasons, went along with KFWB's wishes because of the station's potential to deliver new fans. Its listening audience is considerably larger than all-sports stations KSPN (710), the Angels' new flagship, XTRA (690 and 1150), and KMPC (1540).

"On a weekly basis, KFWB reaches more than twice the combined audience of the three all-sports stations," KFWB General Manager Roger Nadel said. "So our goal is to not emulate what they do, or give up our current audience in exchange for the all-sports audience. Our goal, and the goal of the Dodgers, is to grow the KFWB audience -- and the reach of Dodger baseball.

"Unfortunately, that means we carry fewer spring training games in order to preserve our existing news audience."

Nadel points out the station still has plenty of ancillary Dodger programming to promote the team, such as daily "Dodger Moments," which began in November, the daily spring training reports from Dodgertown, monthly "Ask the Dodgers" call-in shows, and Sunday night "Sports Wrap-Up" call-in shows.

Dodger senior vice president Derrick Hall said, "We'd love to have every game broadcast, but we are pleased with the promotion we are getting from KFWB. And our fans are going to be pleased with the coverage during the regular season. It will be a vast improvement."

During the regular season there will be pregame coverage and postgame call-in shows, although much of the pregame programming, according to Nadel, will still include the station's traditional quick doses of news, weather and traffic.

Nadel said no segment will be longer than three minutes, which provides some good news. Stu Nahan, who will be part of the pregame show, won't have time for any of his long-winded yarns.

More Baseball

Although KSPN is broadcasting every Angel spring training game, the Dodgers get more spring training television coverage.