Do the A's get fair coverage from the Bay Area media?

by vk on Sep 24, 2006 7:20 PM PDT

Today's Chronicle 2 cents question:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=13&entry_id=9183

Well as both an A's fan and a Bay Area media type, I have a conflict of interest here. Professionally, we try to give the A's equal coverage but we know that all other factors being equal, the Giants draw more page views. Same with the 49ers and Raiders. Oakland teams also suffer a little because the Tribune isn't that strong. But the A's main main problem is that KNBR is a force that can't be equalized.

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this mornings san jose mercury

had a really good article. they always have good articles but headlines etc are some other sport

by smasfan on Sep 24, 2006 7:23 PM PDT reply actions

hmmm

methinks SJ would make a fine city for baseball... I wonder if anyone else has ever thought of that. We'd already have a beat-writer.

"I see Milton Bradley being the Oaktown player that breaks out this year." breaks out... breaks out of where? jail?

by gdub171 on Sep 25, 2006 3:11 AM PDT up reply actions

The Chronicle

gives fair coverage, I have to admit. I'm very pleased with the SF paper -- it seems as if the articles are evenly mixed.

VacaAsFan

by Vacafan on Sep 24, 2006 8:44 PM PDT reply actions

thanks, VacaAsFan

we certainly try.

by vk on Sep 25, 2006 7:43 AM PDT up reply actions

TV ratings help indicate level of interest

Quite a long time ago, I remember seeing an article about the Nielsen ratings that FSN Bay Area gets for its telecasts of live games.

With super-strong caveats that (a) I am going by memory, (b) these numbers would be nowhere near current and (c) this probably goes back to when Barry Bonds was at the peak of his popularity, I think the numbers ran very roughly like this:

Giants: 4.0
A's: 1.5
Warriors: 1.0
Sharks: 0.7

If anybody has current numbers, please post them.

If I'm running SFGate.com or any other commercial outlet, my job is to make money, not to provide "equal treatment" to the A's and Giants. Given the apparent level of disparity in interest between the two teams, as measured by TV ratings and also by Commuter's page view stats, I think that in general the Bay Area media, and the Chronicle in particular, give adequate coverage to the A's.

(Maybe I should cross-post to the Unpopular Opinions thread.)

by cynthia2003 on Sep 24, 2006 9:53 PM PDT reply actions

To Richard Deering of Daly City

WTF! Since when do homicides play a part in baseball? Look at Detroit and how much coverage they have gotten all year! I bet you still love the only basketball team in the Bay Area even though they are in Oakland. Stupid, stupid stupid...

My two cents.

"We are deep-sea diving in the Monongahela River after heavy rains in the western Pennsylvania area." - A's Fearless Leader

by OaktownRajah on Sep 25, 2006 12:41 AM PDT reply actions

such a typical giants fan

they can't come up with anything bad to say about the team itself so they'll throw in "well, oakland has a lot of homicides!" or "the ballpark sucks!".

*rolling eyes*

by gotgreen on Sep 25, 2006 9:00 AM PDT up reply actions

Chron good, others not so much

I actually prefer the quality of Chron A's coverage to that of the Giants, column inches aside. And I understand the KNBR-fueled publicity machine which the Giants have and the A's don't...that's just the way it is.

I'm far less forgiving of the TV news coverage, which always seems to put the Giants on a level above the A's. Yes, it's just five minutes a night, but there's a certain hierarchy of importance set by those few minutes. KTVU is in Oakland, for crying out loud, yet their (rarely discussed) Giants ownership share clearly sets the pecking order all season long.

Like the Swingin' A's...except that Reggie is batting RH!!! -- saint

by FreeSeatUpgrade on Sep 25, 2006 8:30 AM PDT reply actions

silver linings dept here:

It HAS been hilarious to listen to the various KNBR jocks struggle mightily to find something--N-E-thing nice and hopeful to say about the Gi-aunts. It's been

since the Break that those ol' gomers didn't have it, but there went Murph and Mac, Krukow and others*, essentially resorting to saying "for an overmatched team in a sucky division of a lousy league, why, these guys really aren't so bad!"

* list might-should include Radnich, but nothing short of what-is-it "coercive methods?" could get me to listen to that blowhardy arsehat.

The meaning of life is not so much 'found,' as it is 'made.' --Opus

by The Dogfather on Sep 25, 2006 12:51 PM PDT reply actions