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WABC ratings collapse

Unregistered said:
Radio is dead...and we know who killed it. Lou Dickey and Bob Pitman to name two!
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Someone has to provide the money so that consumers can listen to free radio. Those people are owners and advertisers.

If not for companies like Cumulus and CC, there would be other companies with the exact same motivation doing basically the exact same thing. That's how the system works. These companies are keeping radio alive. You don't see Jeff Bezos or Apple buying radio stations. It's just not happening. The other options are churches or people with political motives.
 
You mean with Imus and Savage they aren't setting the world on fire?

The demos are a challenge, one that will need to be dealt with, but Cumulus had to know that the ratings for WABC would drop like a rock when they lost both Rush and Hannity. I'm surprised it took this long for them to drop below 2.0

I have to wonder if they thought the drop would be this significant. Looks like the decision by CC to buy WOR is paying off though.
 
WABC and their ilk have cynically profited while dealing in slander, half-truth and outright lies. These carcases have poisoned the well for commercial talk radio.

Prediction: 6-7 years as vanity outlet for Cumulus' syndication product -then here come the preachers followed by the scrappers.

Chan/NYC
 
Today's talk radio for those under 45 is texting on a smart phone, usually using Twitter or Tumblr, and sports talk radio still attracts guys 25-49. Every other form of talk radio reeks of older, primarily Caucasian men and women in the 'burbs or sticks, living in fear and anger. Pretty sad.
 
mohawk82 said:


Those are both 50KW stations. KABC is 5KW and fades in parts of LA. KFI (50KW) covers most of the western states.
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Keep in mind that out-of-market listening is of no value to KFI. It needs to cover LA and Orange counties, and nothing more.

And that "western states" coverage is at night only, when little ad revenue is generated and radio listening is very low.

KABC does not "fade". It simple does not have enough signal to stay above the man-made noise level in a good part of the LA market.
 
Element9 said:
Today's talk radio for those under 45 is texting on a smart phone, usually using Twitter or Tumblr, and sports talk radio still attracts guys 25-49. Every other form of talk radio reeks of older, primarily Caucasian men and women in the 'burbs or sticks, living in fear and anger. Pretty sad.
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You didn't mention online forums, left or right leaning news blogs, and comment sections of news blogs and info blogs. There are plenty of under 45 people participating in those media. I would think those forms of interactive communication have eroded talk radio's appeal. Even the progressive talk shows are having trouble.
 
boombox4 said:
I would think those forms of interactive communication have eroded talk radio's appeal.
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Yep...I said that earlier in this thread. The great thing about message boards is you don't have to get past a call screener to get your opinion out. Call screening makes for better radio, but its frustrating to the people who call.
 
A local radio host here in Ottawa was saying on Thursday morning despite having the most listened to show on Ottawa radio (and yes, this is an AM station) he's been getting fewer and fewer calls over the past few years. Listeners would rather send an email in or a text. The station doesn't receive texts, and he wouldn't allow it if it did on his show because he'd rather hear and have human interaction. He was noting that you see young kids hanging out, not talking to each other, they're texting instead. Smartphones may very well kill not only talk radio, but human conversation as no one under 45 wants to talk any more. These kids probably don't even own a radio any way and his kind of radio would not be of interest to them.

One station in Montreal does take texts from listeners and to be honest there are more texts being read than phone calls aired. That doesn't always make for good radio.
 
Element9 said:
Today's talk radio for those under 45 is texting on a smart phone, usually using Twitter or Tumblr, and sports talk radio still attracts guys 25-49. Every other form of talk radio reeks of older, primarily Caucasian men and women in the 'burbs or sticks, living in fear and anger. Pretty sad.
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I agree with two qualifiers: "most" and "commercial". NPR and the local non-comm affils do a generally excellent job of intelligent, propaganda-free talk.

The commercial stations are all about building host name and in the case of AM keeping something on the air that can bring in some bucks -regardless of the damage it does to the Country and political discourse.

Chan/NYC
 
mimo said:
One station in Montreal does take texts from listeners and to be honest there are more texts being read than phone calls aired. That doesn't always make for good radio.
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In the UK, that seems to be a staple of BBC local radio, especially on late-night shows, based on what I hear online. Host puts out a question or a "challenge" (create a list, make puns on song titles, etc.) and asks listeners to text, e-mail or comment via Facebook. Host plays a song or two, then spends five minutes or so reading the responses. And on it goes, for three or four hours, with the listeners, although they remain unheard, basically becoming the main focus of the show. I find I actually prefer this approach to ours, as people are generally more succinct when writing -- and, of course, writing contains no annoying ummms, errrrs, likes and y'knows.
 
Why the broadcast media has this obsession with sending its audience to Facebook is beyond me. In the early days of TV I don't believe radio stations responded by telling listeners to go turn on the TV, then come back and give us a report.

Facebook is not an open source means of communicating ... it's a private resource controlled by a competitor who is after the same ad dollars. Given the many bone-headed moves made by today's radio management I believe they deserve the ratings they get.
 
That's simply accepting reality. Moreover, it's not as though radio never cross-promoted with, or referenced content from, newspapers. To simply ignore the way tens of millions of people do connect and communicate is not going to help one iota.
 
wadio said:
Why the broadcast media has this obsession with sending its audience to Facebook is beyond me. In the early days of TV I don't believe radio stations responded by telling listeners to go turn on the TV, then come back and give us a report.

Facebook is not an open source means of communicating ... it's a private resource controlled by a competitor who is after the same ad dollars. Given the many bone-headed moves made by today's radio management I believe they deserve the ratings they get.
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To me that doesn't seem a valid comparison. Television's content competes with radio's. You can't listen to the radio and watch TV at the same time unless the TV programming is still understandable and enjoyable with the sound down (sports, for example). There's no reason for a radio station to send a listener to the TV; you're basically telling him "Turn off the radio."

On the other hand, Facebook users who communicate with their favorite radio stations (and other fans of those stations) are also listening to the radio and hearing the ads. I'd venture to say that a positive, engaging Facebook experience on a radio station's page would make the user even more receptive to the station's advertising. Isn't that the kind of audience you want to cultivate? Or are too many of the local and regional advertisers that used to make radio a priority now spending those dollars on Internet advertising, Facebook in particular?
 
wadio said:
Why the broadcast media has this obsession with sending its audience to Facebook is beyond me.
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They're not "sending its audience to Facebook." Their audience is already there. Facebook and Twitter are efficient places for engagement.

wadio said:
it's a private resource controlled by a competitor who is after the same ad dollars.
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Not the same ad dollars. They go after national ad dollars.
 
wadio said:
Why the broadcast media has this obsession with sending its audience to Facebook is beyond me. In the early days of TV I don't believe radio stations responded by telling listeners to go turn on the TV, then come back and give us a report.

Facebook is not an open source means of communicating ... it's a private resource controlled by a competitor who is after the same ad dollars. Given the many bone-headed moves made by today's radio management I believe they deserve the ratings they get.
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They are already moderating their Facebook comments and paying for the cost of hosting so it is not like it would increase cost either. Adding an open source board or commenting system is trivial.

If they still wanted to use Facebook for commenting it can be done directly from their website. Yet they would rather give their Ad revenue to Facebook. Mind blowing.
 
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