Also, I think some of you, many who do not live here, are way overvaluing the University of Miami's influence on local TV/Radio. If you're the head of WQAM and UM is this huge cash cow, you'd bend over and do everything possible to make them happy. Clearly, WQAM isn't bending the slightest and considers UM to be a nice partner but not one worth changing the programming for. I'm not sure what type of rating the radio broadcasts get but apparently they're not nearly as good as some people here are assuming.
I don't give a **** about some Jimbo Fisher radio show and to be honest, I didn't even know it existed before reading about it here but obviously WQAM thinks it's a money maker for them.
Also, there are four sports radio channels in the south Florida area but people only listen to two of them. If UM blows off 560, that leaves them with only 790 the Ticket as a possible business partner. If there's no other competition for UM broadcasting rights, 790 can just name their price and UM would pretty much be forced to take what they offered or risk having no radio audience at all.
While I find WQAM deplorable for sucking off Cuckbo, what people fail to grasp is just the basics of negotiation. Your post highlights another important point, we have at most 3, and realistically only 2, possible partner stations in the market. For this reason, and others that are at least as, if not more significant, we are not in any position of strength to dictate programming to our carrier. Negotiation is like war, the more weapons you have, the stronger your negotiating position. Our negotiationing position is not strong, through no fault of our own, that's just the circumstances and the reality of the situation.
I suppose one can criticize UM for not "selling" the idea of not having so much Cuckbo on the air. That's fair game. A fair criticism would be that we have not developed the relationship enough so that WQAM would do us that courtesy. But that's all it would be from them, a courtesy based on Miami being the home team, and the schools relationship with the station. We are in no position of strength to dictate demands, though. It's just a basic lack of understanding by many here on the business realities of the situation.
Tell me why UM is in such a weak position with QAM that we can't tell them to not allow the coach of our biggest rival to take a weekly residency on their station. I don't see and am willing to be enlightened.
Seems like a pretty simple negotiating point. I think the UM rights package is more valuable to QAM than a 5 minute weekly segment with Cuckbo for 12 weeks a year. They've fired guys for being too critical of UM on the air. I doubt Cuckbo is all that valuable to QAM.
Just saw this post.
Here's why: we already have a contract with WQAM. Obviously, there's not a "no Cuckbo" clause in that contract or he wouldn't be on the air.
The weakness mainly lies in our ability to extract a concession on the next negotiation. What's our hammer? What's our "or else"? What are our other options. One of the major strengths in a negotiation is the ability to walk away. Our ability to do is hindered by the fact there are limited choices if we walk away, and assuming we do, we just put ourselves in an even weaker position with the remaining one or two stations left.
I'm not saying that's a concession or clause we shouldn't attempt. We should. So the weakness is in what our response would be if the say no that clause. Remembering that we have other goals in the negotiation which probably take precedence, such as the monetary terms, number of programming hours, etc.
Clearly there's nothing to be done now from a contractual standpoint until the next negotiation and like I said previously, the fault, if any, lies in our relationship with WQAM
sans contract, i.e., we have not sold them on the idea of some modicum of exclusivity.
Don't get me wrong, I think WQAM doing this is straight horseshīt, and just out of some sense of local civic duty they shouldn't do it. But for whatever reason, they think it's to their benefit to do it.
