Thirty years ago, when Cheryl Raye-Stout began covering sports on Chicago radio, she was often the only woman on the beat.
Thirty years later, little has changed.
“It’s the management that has to decide who’s going to be on the radio and who’s not going to be on the radio,” said Raye-Stout, who reports for WBEZ-FM 91.5. “They’re not looking for it. … I don’t see any of it changing unless it’s forced, and (employers don’t see a) compelling reason for it to change.”
While television networks have hired more women to report on sports and newspaper sports departments have made incremental improvement in hiring women, sports talk radio appears static as an almost entirely male domain — from on-air talent to behind-the-scenes workers to listeners.
“Sports radio is sort of the last bastion of the bro, frat-boy culture,” said Julie DiCaro, an update anchor at WSCR-AM 670 who occasionally hosts shows. “I feel like every (other medium) has moved on. There’s such an untapped audience of people who want more intelligent conversation and want to hear from women. But nobody is going down that road. I don’t know exactly why that is.”
She hopes to help change that. As do other women in the profession.
Out of about 200 regular hosts in the top 20 markets nationally, only seven women are part of a station’s weekday lineup, according to Jason Barrett, a former sports radio program director who has studied the topic as president of Barrett Sports Media, a consulting firm.
The Score lists 21 people on its website as hosts, reporters or columnists. DiCaro is the only woman.
ESPN Radio this year launched the first three-woman team, called “The Trifecta,” with Chicagoan Sarah Spain, Jane McManus and Kate Fagan. ESPN Radio airs another program hosted by Michelle Beadle and Ramona Shelburne. Both shows air on weekends, with The Trifecta airing locally Saturdays on WMVP-AM 1000.
A 2015 ranking by website Talkers.com of the top 100 sports talk shows included only one woman, CBS Sports Radio Network’s Amy Lawrence at No. 98. She is the only woman in the country with her own national show five nights a week.
“I can go weeks at a time without seeing another female,” Lawrence said.
Contrast on TV
The reason women in sports radio are a rarity is a head-scratcher to some pioneers in the business. Peggy Kusinski, who joined NBC-5 in 2000, was an anchor on WMVP, hosting a Saturday morning show, and the co-host of “Sports Huddle” on now-defunct WMAQ-AM.
“When I was doing it, there was a perception that the audience was all male and they didn’t want to hear a woman talking sports,” Kusinski said. “It was a risk for program directors. Today it’s not as much a risk anymore. Everyone’s mother, sister, girlfriend played sports or knows sports or is interested in sports and is a Blackhawks fan or Bears fan. The NFL can tell you that almost 50 percent of their fans are women.”
Some in the business say women aren’t being developed as interns or entry-level employees to follow the track from producer to on-air host. Others noted that television networks, which pay better, will snatch up talented women.
Watching a morning of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” will reveal that television is hiring women at a greater rate than radio. Some of that is because of opportunity, Barrett said.
“A sports radio station is going to have only six to eight people on the air,” he said.
Chicago has many strong female sports reporters on its local TV networks. Some suggest that on a national scale, women on television are confined to lesser roles in which appearance plays a factor.
“I find that it’s sort of a fallacy that women are ‘included’ on TV because of their presence, when so often they’re relegated to the role of sideline reporter, update anchor, social media reporter — whatever that is — and, in Jillian Barberie’s case on the NFL on Fox, weather girl,” DiCaro said. “It is easy to find a beautiful woman, put her in a short skirt and throw her out there to read off the teleprompter. It gives the illusion of diversity.
“What’s far more rare on TV are women who are asked to share their analysis of an issue. Women who get to talk about what they think, rather than what someone has written. Women who are asked to share their opinions, rather than ‘hosting’ by asking all the men on a given panel what their opinion is but can’t share their own. So while women are much more visible on TV than on radio or in print, I think the number of women who are really given a chance to show what they know is extremely limited.”
Reflection of audience
Another potential hurdle is the male-dominated field appearing unwelcoming to women, keeping many from pursuing sports radio as a career. Some sports talk shows are infamous for so-called “guy talk.”
Most local-market stations register their listeners as about 80 percent male, according to Barrett. He noted that female listeners are on the rise in many markets; 10 years ago, women made up about 10 percent of the audience.
“If a station has 80 to 90 percent listening by mostly Caucasian males,” Barrett said, “and the station is doing great in the ratings by offering Caucasian males on the air, it’s really hard from a business standpoint to say: ‘Let’s break this up. We’re making a ton of money, we’re hitting our targets, the audience likes it, but you know what? We feel like we should do something no one is doing.’
“That’s the struggle. You can take a risk, but you get the mantra from up above: All we want is results. Do I want to be the guy who changed the world or do I want to be employed?”
Stations often fall back on the demographics of their listeners, typically a target audience of men 25 to 54.
“I do think they’re extra cautious when they put a woman on the air and want to make absolutely sure she could work out,” said Kusinski, who stressed how helpful her time on radio was to her career. “I think they put a lot of men on the air a lot quicker in auditioning roles. Women are just as capable of bringing the content up. Program directors need to have more open minds about the types of shows women can host.”
Mitch Rosen, operations director at The Score, said: “We’re looking for the best talent out there regardless of gender. If you have an opinion and you’re passionate, that’s all that matters.”
Women of color are particularly underrepresented on the radio. Barrett said the most underrepresented demographic is Hispanic men and women.
“A lot of people are left out who should be out there,” Barrett said. “It’s an issue that has to get better. It’s better than it was previously, but that doesn’t mean it’s satisfactory.”
Lawrence estimates about 90 percent of her listeners are male. Through her career, she has embraced being an atypical voice.
“I don’t downplay the fact that I’m a female,” she said. “I did when I was younger and program directors would say: ‘Don’t talk about your personal life. Don’t laugh on the air because you’ll lose credibility.’ Now I think it gives me a unique perspective. Why not use that to my advantage?”
sryan@tribpub.com
Twitter @sryantribune
