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Beanless Kevin Dropped at KROQ

What took so long? The show was a shell of itself. Kevin was just okay when it was Kevin and bean. that jensen guy was hard on the ears. I did like Allie McKay, but the show was way better with Ralph and Lisa May.
 
Apparently he was fired by phone call and escorted out of the building.
Twitter blowing up with ANGRY comments. The end of an era for the world-famous KROQ.
 
I guess the Woody show was taking a toll on Kevin and bean without bean. I guess they had to stop the bleeding somehow. Stryker and Klein are great and have a following so it's not like there starting from scratch so to speak.

Wouldn't ya know Kevin weatherly leaves and the station falls apart. I like the station and I listen to them and wish them well.

Hey David how was the numbers for kroq vs alt 98.7 in the mornings?
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
I guess the Woody show was taking a toll on Kevin and bean without bean. I guess they had to stop the bleeding somehow. Stryker and Klein are great and have a following so it's not like there starting from scratch so to speak.

Wouldn't ya know Kevin weatherly leaves and the station falls apart. I like the station and I listen to them and wish them well.

Hey David how was the numbers for kroq vs alt 98.7 in the mornings?
Click to expand...

2.9 for KROQ and 4.4 for KYSR in February in 25-54. Tied for second for KYSR, tie for 10th for KROQ.
 
hotpatrick2004 said:
Thanks David. No wonder the powers that be did what they did. What's your opinion of what they did David?
Click to expand...

That's a format I have less than zero expertise in, but KROQ for many years was driven by the morning show. When the "partnership" ended, the show declined further; even then it had gotten weak in the younger demos.

It's obvious that the format is driven in LA by the morning show. The music gets more and more fragmented into subsets, and the only place the listeners come together is with the morning talk content.

We see evidence of this with the failure or limited success in other markets like Atlanta and Philadelphia of alt rock stations that do not have heritage and well accepted morning shows.

I think KROQ was principally driven by the high cost of the old show. The "departure" of the almost-historic PD, rumored to have been the highest paid PD in America, is another sign of this being economy-driven. But the recent ratings justify the savings and the intent to move on.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That's a format I have less than zero expertise in, but KROQ for many years was driven by the morning show. When the "partnership" ended, the show declined further; even then it had gotten weak in the younger demos.

It's obvious that the format is driven in LA by the morning show. The music gets more and more fragmented into subsets, and the only place the listeners come together is with the morning talk content.

We see evidence of this with the failure or limited success in other markets like Atlanta and Philadelphia of alt rock stations that do not have heritage and well accepted morning shows.

I think KROQ was principally driven by the high cost of the old show. The "departure" of the almost-historic PD, rumored to have been the highest paid PD in America, is another sign of this being economy-driven. But the recent ratings justify the savings and the intent to move on.
Click to expand...

My take is this is the end of an era - the long-time morning show era. Kevin and Bean, Mark and Brian, Howard, Mark and Kim,et al. They all rode the good times when there was a school of thought that, like an NFL team without a star quarterback, a station was sunk without a great morning show; and once a winning formula was obtained at a given station, management was convinced it could not be replicated and paid these personalities enormous amounts of money to stay. But that was also in the day of sky-high station asset valuations and beyond-crazy leveraged buy-outs by large conglomerates. All of those days are gone. I believe stations will no longer allow their talent to become bigger than the station itself - there will be a limit as to how much talent, even talent that can be shown to increase marginal ratings, will be paid and it will be well short of what the personalities on my list made. The overall lowered station valuations and related cash flows simply will not support those old high salaries.

Thus there will be no need for morning shows that last three decades, and most likely top talent, once it hits its top earning potential, will start to capitalize on their personalities in other more profitable venues, and thus will lead to more frequent turnover at a given station.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
I believe stations will no longer allow their talent to become bigger than the station itself - there will be a limit as to how much talent, even talent that can be shown to increase marginal ratings, will be paid and it will be well short of what the personalities on my list made. The overall lowered station valuations and related cash flows simply will not support those old high salaries.
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There will still be a search for morning talent, but it will be used in multiple markets. It will be paid based on new metrics, because in 2020 dollars, radio is billing just one-third of what it billed in 2005.

Stations are valued at what their coverage area and cash flow are; today most stations in LA have gross billings that are less than the cash flow 15 years ago. Blame new media, the 2008 recession and the PPM.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
My take is this is the end of an era - the long-time morning show era. Kevin and Bean, Mark and Brian, Howard, Mark and Kim,et al. They all rode the good times when there was a school of thought that, like an NFL team without a star quarterback, a station was sunk without a great morning show; and once a winning formula was obtained at a given station, management was convinced it could not be replicated and paid these personalities enormous amounts of money to stay. But that was also in the day of sky-high station asset valuations and beyond-crazy leveraged buy-outs by large conglomerates. All of those days are gone. I believe stations will no longer allow their talent to become bigger than the station itself - there will be a limit as to how much talent, even talent that can be shown to increase marginal ratings, will be paid and it will be well short of what the personalities on my list made. The overall lowered station valuations and related cash flows simply will not support those old high salaries.

Thus there will be no need for morning shows that last three decades, and most likely top talent, once it hits its top earning potential, will start to capitalize on their personalities in other more profitable venues, and thus will lead to more frequent turnover at a given station.
Click to expand...

The only part you left out is one hinted at in an article I read about San Diego radio after the IHeart 'bloodbath' in January -- that radio revenues overall have dropped since the 2000's decade. I would think that if revenues overall have dropped, the money available to pay top talent also has dropped. The feeling I got from reading that article (and I would think many metros are probably in a similar situation to that of San Diego) is that some radio stations, and companies, are feeling the squeeze.

I could be wrong. Maybe San Diego was an exception? Haven't read anything about radio revenues in places like L.A. or other larger metros.]

Edit to Add: I see Mr. Eduardo already addressed this... I hadn't read all the way to the bottom of the thread before posting.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
I believe stations will no longer allow their talent to become bigger than the station itself - there will be a limit as to how much talent, even talent that can be shown to increase marginal ratings, will be paid and it will be well short of what the personalities on my list made. The overall lowered station valuations and related cash flows simply will not support those old high salaries.
Click to expand...

It depends on the station and what defines the brand. You hear that word "brand" a lot everywhere. Instead of Program Director, you have brand manager. To some of these stations, your brand needs a face. It's not going to be the GM or the CEO. Certainly a personality like Ryan Seacrest can be the face of a brand. He's obviously an extreme. But that's who iHeart is looking at in terms of brand representation. Their pop brand is represented by Elvis Duran. Their country brand is defined by Bobby Bones. All of these guys are syndicated, all make good money. But that's what iHeart is doing. Entercom isn't in that business at all. They want to be all local. They think they have marketable talent now with Stryker and Kevin Kline.

So I think you're jumping the gun on killing off the highly visible highly paid morning show. The salary isn't based on station value. It's based on revenue. The job of the face of the brand is to drive revenue. If the show does that, they will see a percentage of that revenue.
 
boombox4 said:
The only part you left out is one hinted at in an article I read about San Diego radio after the IHeart 'bloodbath' in January -- that radio revenues overall have dropped since the 2000's decade. I would think that if revenues overall have dropped, the money available to pay top talent also has dropped. The feeling I got from reading that article (and I would think many metros are probably in a similar situation to that of San Diego) is that some radio stations, and companies, are feeling the squeeze.

I could be wrong. Maybe San Diego was an exception? Haven't read anything about radio revenues in places like L.A. or other larger metros.]

Edit to Add: I see Mr. Eduardo already addressed this... I hadn't read all the way to the bottom of the thread before posting.
Click to expand...

This is national. There are percentage variances between markets, but in general revenue in "real" 2020 dollars is off by over 60% in, at least, the top 50 markets.

There are exceptions. The lack of strong in-car listening in the New York City market and the decline of in-home listening has hurt there the most... NYC bills less than LA does, despite being a larger market.
 
DavidEduardo said:
That's a format I have less than zero expertise in, but KROQ for many years was driven by the morning show. When the "partnership" ended, the show declined further; even then it had gotten weak in the younger demos.

It's obvious that the format is driven in LA by the morning show. The music gets more and more fragmented into subsets, and the only place the listeners come together is with the morning talk content.

We see evidence of this with the failure or limited success in other markets like Atlanta and Philadelphia of alt rock stations that do not have heritage and well accepted morning shows.

I think KROQ was principally driven by the high cost of the old show. The "departure" of the almost-historic PD, rumored to have been the highest paid PD in America, is another sign of this being economy-driven. But the recent ratings justify the savings and the intent to move on.
Click to expand...

While these considerations ring true, the handling of the exiting of dual Hall of Fame air talent, Kevin Ryder, who for more than three decades was instrumental in building the powerhouse that has been KROQ, is disrespectful. Yes, I know it is common in radio to be removed with no advanced notice, yet the decent way the station and the air talent handled Bean's departure last year could have been emulated, within at least the duration of this week and perhaps next week too. They could have allowed the team to package together shows that salute the accomplishments achieved. The K&B morning show was a magnet for celebrity appearances. With so many music, tv, and film stars now encamped in their homes during this pandemic, many many of them would have been queuing up (by phone unfortunately, not in person due to our current COVID19 required social separation) to offer their departing appreciations. So much good radio could have been produced by orchestrating a concluding set of appreciation broadcasts as the station would honorably proceed with cutting ties with its heritage. Sad, that such a classy conclusion was denied.
 
david said:
They could have allowed the team to package together shows that salute the accomplishments achieved.
Click to expand...

Seems to me they did that when Bean left. They gave Bean an appropriate send-off. In Boston, Loren Owens stayed on at WROR after his team-mate Wally retired. Then a few months ago Loren was replaced. The February book was just released, and the station is #1. Obviously no one misses Loren. I predict the same will happen here. The show was Kevin & Bean. They achieved a lot in their time at KROQ, and got into the Hall of Fame. But when Bean left, the show was over. I think Kevin Kline is a talent who was waiting in the wings for this day. We'll see what he does with the opportunity.
 
The person in me that enjoys radio is sad that Kevin, Allie, Jensen and the staff did not have an opportunity to say goodbye and give a fair transition to Stryker and Klein.

The person that follows the business of radio and understands that ratings and advertising are king acknowledges that this had to be done. Ratings were pretty weak (according to this thread) and I'm sure it wasn't cheap to maintain a staff of six or seven to run a morning show that wasn't meeting its targets. It was time to re-think mornings to increase ratings, reduce costs and stand a chance against The Woody Show.

Stryker and Klein are familiar to the KROQ audience, are experienced broadcasters and will likely be accepted by the existing morning audience. The cost of producing the show is probably less expensive than Kevin in the Morning and have an existing fan base. I think it was a smart move!
 
radiojomo said:
The person in me that enjoys radio is sad that Kevin, Allie, Jensen and the staff did not have an opportunity to say goodbye and give a fair transition to Stryker and Klein.

The person that follows the business of radio and understands that ratings and advertising are king acknowledges that this had to be done. Ratings were pretty weak (according to this thread) and I'm sure it wasn't cheap to maintain a staff of six or seven to run a morning show that wasn't meeting its targets. It was time to re-think mornings to increase ratings, reduce costs and stand a chance against The Woody Show.

Stryker and Klein are familiar to the KROQ audience, are experienced broadcasters and will likely be accepted by the existing morning audience. The cost of producing the show is probably less expensive than Kevin in the Morning and have an existing fan base. I think it was a smart move!
Click to expand...

Good analysis.

I think the general rule is that, when a station retains its format, departing staff is not allowed to do a swan song as it casts a negative feel to the daypart. Sometimes, though, when a station is changing format, the departing staff is allowed to say goodbye.

The best "farewell" I have heard was the ending of the rock format when EMF entered Los Angeles with it's English language "K-Love" (LA has both a Spanish and English usage of that name, with the Spanish one being commercial and not religious).
 
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