You'll usually hear about gift subscriptions from us only around Christmas. And with cause. Those have topped 10 percent of our total annual sales in some years.
But the quiet fact is, we sell them all year, mostly on birthdays. In fact, since Dec. 25, 2019, or after the most recent Christmas, we've sold 185 gift subscriptions.
Our second-biggest holiday: Father's Day.
Which is tomorrow, of course.
I couldn't bring myself to write about Father's Day a year ago, much less arrange a sale. Those of you who were with us two years ago will know why. It still hurts. I'm sure it always will, as this is when family and friends will reach out to commemorate the anniversary of my dad's passing.
So yeah, that wasn't where my head was last year. And it isn't where my head is this year, either.
At the same time, I've heard from so, so many fathers and sons/daughters who've found some small extra connection through this little place, and I'd be remiss if not sharing that on this weekend. Some of the very best stories I've heard from readers, most of them in person at our meetups, have been about someone's dad who loves Pittsburgh's sports teams, and how they'd spend some time talking about something they'd read here.
Again, I'm not sharing this to sell gift subscriptions. We had a promo out on Twitter yesterday, and we had all of two purchases.
If you'd like one, it's right here. Usual price.
If not, that's OK, too. What matters is maintaining that connection in whatever way works best for both of you. Stay in touch. Call just to say hello, not when you need something. Talk about old times even if you're not that into old times. Don't shake hands when a hug is there to be had. Cherish every moment.
RADIO MIXED BAG
It was a mostly uplifting return for DK Sports Radio this past week.
We averaged 3,163 listens per day, which was well above our expectations considering it was basically just the five episodes of my 'Daily Shot' show each morning. It's safe to say the expectation was about half that. So that part was good. And it'll no doubt get better when Jeff Hartman's afternoon 'Back Through The Tunnel' show starts Monday at 3 p.m.
The part that wasn't so good was the subscription component, and that was surprising.
We ship the podcasts out to every platform under the sun, including the three most popular:
• Apple
• Spotify
Subscribing to a podcast doesn't cost anything, and it's literally as simple as tapping a single button. Go to whichever you prefer, hit the like or the heart or the SUBSCRIBE or whatever it asks, and you'll automatically have our latest podcasts downloaded into your device, your car, wherever you are. Can't beat the convenience. And on our end, those numbers all count toward the metrics used by advertisers to determine the show's rate.
If even a fraction of our subscribers -- meaning our readers here on this site -- would do this, it'd make a colossal difference!
NO APP THIS WEEK
Yeah, yeah, I know.
For a while now, we'd targeted the week of June 15 for the release of the new app to our subscribers, but that fell through due to a couple of legitimately unforeseen circumstances. Now it's looking closer to the end of this month ... which is only 10 days away, so hey.
Plus, to be candid, it buys us a few extra days to complete the related promotional material we've been building, including an all-new TV ad that's looking amazing in the teaser frames we've seen.
We'll get there. We're closer than ever.
MAJOR SPONSOR SOUGHT
We're moving on up, and we're thinking equally big when it comes to support. So step up and ask us what our growing business can do for yours.
We don't know everyone else's page views since they don't make theirs public, but we publish ours every single day, as well as all kinds of other data in this very weekly feature. But we're beyond confident that there isn't a sports media app that's got an active Pittsburgh-rooted user base of 18,371. With a presence in 52,177 individual devices. And on Twitter, if you add up our company account plus our top five individual accounts, the follower total is 291,623. That's more than the Post-Gazette, the Tribune-Review or The Athletic's local branch.
I'll say it with pride: No one can match this. And we're inviting you to be a big part of it by emailing She Who Is Director Of Operations: Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com
WE FIXED THE GLITCH
Talk about a dumb thing: So Dali happens to be fixing a subscriber's account when she comes upon an oddity: That account had been several months expired, and yet it was still active. She checked several others, all of them three-year Lunatics, and the same was true. One after the other after the other.
Bottom line: She found 400-plus Lunatic accounts that had expired but were still reading and -- this is why it's completely our fault -- were never notified their time was up.
Long story short: We sent them all an email yesterday explaining this and heard a lot of great things back. Thanks to everyone who signed right back up and for understanding.
We'll miss this current system terribly.
NEW TOON REVIEW
Compiling Rob Ullman's finest illustrations of us all ...
... as seen on our social media mastheads.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past week, were 55,728. The general goal with this figure is to average 100,000, but that's obviously not going to be realistic for a while.
• Our most-hit original article of the past week was my column criticizing Major League Baseball players at 8,801 views. Overall, the Steelers accounted for 94,687 page views, the Pirates 91,629, the Penguins 55,440, and Pitt 10,091.
• We're at 36,635 (+75) followers on Twitter, we're at 33,604 (+47) page likes on Facebook, we're at 14,545 (+20) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• Get our free newsletter with a simple signup. We send out a new one Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.