Traug Keller: taking the ESPN brand ahead of the curve

Traug Keller

Traug is the SVP, Production Business Divisions for ESPN. He has been with ESPN since December 2004. He’s responsible for all aspects of ESPN Radio including talent, staffing, national programming content, scheduling, event production and coordination with ABC Radio Networks/Citadel for ad sales and affiliation needs.

Keller is also responsible for ESPN Deportes, coordinating synergistic efforts with ESPN’s domestic operations as well as enhancing and developing ESPN Deportes’ relationships with affiliates. They recently added oversight of the Bass and Outdoor business of ESPN.

Keller took on the role of Bristol, CT integration for Mobile ESPN in June 2006, responsible for developing new, potentially exclusive, video content for the phone, driving more integrated promotions of Mobile ESPN on-air, and serving as Mobile ESPN’s rep in evaluating and executing on all other Mobile ESPN synergy ideas.

Prior to joining ESPN, Keller was President of ABC Radio Networks, responsible for the ESPN Radio Network as well. He joined ABCRN as VP/Eastern Sales in 1994.

In 1997 Traug named EVP/Ad Sales and Marketing for ABC Radio Networks, including Radio Disney, ESPN, syndicated programming and Internet sales.

Prior to joining ABC, Keller was the NY Sales Manager for the CBS Radio Networks and held several different marketing and sales positions with the NY Times Company. FYI—in case you were wondering, “Traug” is an old German family name. Here, we ask him about the great success ESPN has been enjoying.

What are the biggest challenges ESPN Radio faces today and down the road?

I think the current challenge right now is taking on the stewardship of the five O&Os and getting them into the culture of ESPN. That’s the immediate thing. Longer term, something that I think we’ve done a fairly good job to date with is just keeping up with the growth explosion of the various new media opportunities.
Whether it’s HD, podcasting or dot com. We’re doing satellite, we’re doing all of that, but it’s making sure we’re still on top of our game.

As we move down the road it’s critical that we continue to satisfy our listeners as we have for 15 years on radio, and successfully expand our fan base on new platforms.

How does the Citadel deal change the selling and sales support with ABC Radio Networks?

We had a separate force all along that sells in conjunction with the ABC Radio Network Team and that will continue, that partnership on the sales side. Our sales team works with the overall ESPN/ABC Integrated Sports Sales Marketing Group and then they will be working with the ABC/Citadel folks as well. We look
forward to a good partnership with Citadel. The dedicated sellers for ESPN Radio are staying with us and as they interacted with the ABC Radio Networks folks that will continue.

Are you looking for more O&Os?

Primarily we are in the content business and we have great relationships with our 326+ 24/7 affiliates. There are very, very few holes but where there are opportunities we will absolutely take a hard look. The whole concept of keeping those ESPN stations was because they are just great stations in big markets, right? Absolutely and more importantly they serve as local touch points for ESPN with the everyday sports fan.

How important is radio in the scheme of things to ESPN since it was one of the two small radio portions Disney elected to keep when it sold off the bulk of it?

Our Mission Statement at ESPN is to serve sports fans wherever sports are watched, listened to, debated, read about or played. Clearly radio is fulfilling that mission.

The fact that ESPN-Disney kept the five owned stations certainly speaks to the importance of radio to ESPN. There is an abundance of internal research at ESPN that shows radio plays an extremely strong role in complimenting all that goes on with television.

How is ESPN leading the way in digital audio?

This, is I think, the area we are the most proud. I think that we have truly been innovators. Led by Marc Horine, our new media business continues to lead the radio industry.

We’re constantly innovating and looking for new ways to connect sports fans to our content, our talent and our advertisers.

We’ve also launched seven new websites including all five for our O&Os, created a local podcasting network, launched a super media player, which integrates national and local podcasts and insider clips, live webcams, for Mike & Mike and Colin, wireless applications and we also launched three very successful online video games.

To give you some examples of ESPN Radio.com’s growth and leadership in the digital radio industry, chew on these numbers: ESPN Radio.com—the ESPN Radio national feed in our five owned stations draw more than 240,000 monthly online radio listeners (Ando Media Web Metrics). In the past six months our fans have logged 17.6 million listening hours on ESPN Radio.com.

In the past two years ESPN Radio.com has nearly doubled its average monthly users and increased its advertising revenue by 60%. ESPN Radio produces more than 35 original and edited podcasts that account for more than four million downloads each month by more than a million unique users on ESPN’s Podcenter and the iTunes store.

How are you cross promoting ad sales and content with radio in all of these online options? What packages are you offering them?

John Fitzgerald and his team talk to our advertising partners first, discuss who they want to reach, what they want to tell those folks and how they want to do it. We then create a package based on the myriad of offerings at our disposal. A lot of those I just gave you—24/7 talk network, top play-by-play events throughout the year, onsite opportunities around the biggest events, ESPNRadio.com, Podcenter, etc. We’ve even created viral games using our talent for advertisers. Most of the ad community really embraces this 360 approach to reaching the fan. It’s something we’ve seen ESPN Inc. do and what we’ve tried to do is replicate it in the audio space.

What trends can you identify about the sports radio genre?

The format is maturing and as a result it is more and more about creditability and delivering sports information on a timely basis along with opinions on hot topics. Opinions need to be backed up by facts. Sports news is covered now much the same way that straight news is covered.

I think our listeners have come to expect they can get the full package of interviews, analysis, opinions and entertainment. In fact we located our studios between the newsroom and TV studio to make sure we are giving listeners the latest news from all the resources ESPN has at its disposal.

Mike and Mike are the most popular sports guys on the radio. They’re on HD Television, you have them on the OnStar hotline, etc. What’s next for them, as they’re obviously very marketable?

You can hear them on over 325 stations XM, Sirius, ESPNRadio.com, ESPN Podcenter, iTunes, on your phones thanks to ESPN Wireless.

You can watch them on ESPN2, on ESPN the Best of Mike & Mike, calling arena football games and just last week adding their analysis to the spelling bee. Hopefully you’ll get out there and see them when they’re on the road over 24 times a year. You can interact with them on ESPN Radio.com; you can text message both through their viral video games. You can read them in ESPN the Magazine. It’s remarkable and a testament to what ESPN can do with a brand and Mike & Mike are clearly a brand within the brand. We’ve just taken what is clearly a great radio show, rolled it out on a bunch of different platforms where it makes sense and all those things have made the radio show do nothing but grow.

What do you miss most about leaving ABC Radio Networks and that business in general?

Sitting in Paul Harvey’s studio with just Paul and myself when he would do the noonday broadcast. There is nothing in the world like it. I certainly consider it the greatest privilege I’ve enjoyed being in this business. I will always treasure that and always miss it. The business in general is under siege. I think what you see working in audio is never going away and I think we’ve proven that, embracing new platforms with brands that are recognizable to the consumer. There is great business there.

The traditional networks have got to wrestle with that. The stuff that is successful, whether it’s a Sean Hannity or a Tom Joyner or other brand names, those are succeeding. The spots and dots part of the business is not. I think it’s tough because that’s always been a big part of this business. In a nutshell what they’ve got to do is they’ve got to figure out what’s the value proposition and how to articulate that to the ad market. I still think there is great value there. I will tell you with our cable network ESPN Deportes I’ve used network radio.

In particular the Spanish offerings and because I know that it is still one of the great media values out there. I think it’s just that the industry has got to do a better job articulating its value proposition to the customer base.

Tell us what you do for the cable side.

I oversee ESPN Deportes as well as ESPN Radio. Part of ESPN Radio has been the addition of ESPN Deportes Radio. My responsibilities on ESPN Deportes side are the cable network; there is a magazine, there is a dot com component and a mobile component. It’s a multi-platform deal and its target is the American Hispanic sports fan with Spanish being the primary language. It’s a growth market. It’s a fan base that loves its sports and we’ve just gotten major distribution deals done with DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner and we’re rocking and rolling.

What’s coming down the road from ESPN Radio?

I think you’ll see it continue to innovate in ways to better serve the sports fan, that’s mission number one. We're developing new content that takes advantage of the new audio platforms like HD and satellite and dot com. We’ll look to add to our great roster of play-by-play events and I think you’ll see us continue to push the Hispanic sports area as we pour more resources into ESPN Deportes Radio. I know going forward what you can continue to count on out of ESPN Radio is energy; passion and I think above all else fun.

What are some of the plans down the road for ESPN Deportes—cable and radio?

Distribution is key and ESPN Deportes Radio has been successful far more quickly than I ever thought possible. It mirrors our English language side; it’s a 24/7 offering. We have a great partner in Lotus Communications, which serves as our flagship out on the west coast at KWKW. We’ve got now over 23 affiliations. We have a bunch more on the line. We just picked up soccer rights. We have soccer rights for Copa América and Super Liga. We have pre-Olympic qualifying soccer rights. So we’ll add that to what to look forward to in the future with ESPN Radio.

Deportes is a self-contained platform. So when we go out to our advertisers we can sell them cable, we can sell them radio, we can sell them dot com, we can sell the magazine and we can sell them mobile. All five of those businesses are fledgling but each support each other’s growth. The radio is helping to drive the cable network.

The cable distribution is now helping drive the radio growth. It’s a very integrated operation, the group all communicates. On the cable side we’re going to do over 160 hours of the Pan Am Games this summer. We will be the exclusive home for that and that’s near and dear to a lot of our fan bases hearts. We’ve staked out a
leadership position with baseball. We have Dominican baseball; Mexican Pacific League baseball; Sunday Night Baseball; Venezuelan baseball.

We have baseball 12 months a year on ESPN Deportes as well as great soccer. We have the exclusive Spanish rights to the UEFA Championship. Again, our mission is to serve the fan and in this case it’s the Spanish speaking fan. To that end we have even put ESPN Deportes on the English ESPN Sports Center that runs at 11 o’clock at night, late at night and also in the morning.

Sounds like you’re ahead of the curve there.

Yes we are. All you need to do is look at the diversity within the United States and the population trends and if you’re into growth, these are the logical extensions. We are a leader now. I think if you look at the different audio platforms there is nobody doing what we’re doing—nobody in terms of a comprehensive, successful way.

--by Carl Marcucci