Without explanation, WBEN dumped Sean Hannity, moved Savage and brought on Mark Levin. Considering Hannity is number #1 across the country, this must be another cost cutting move...
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Hannity Out at WBEN
- Thread starter Long Time RadioFan
- Start date
Same lawn droppings, different dog.
Naw. Most of those shows these days, almost all of them.. are barter. Stations run the spots contained within the show, sometimes a few outside the show.. and they get the show for free
When did Hannity jump Rush?
I'm not aware that Hannity costs money, but it costs inventory, and the amount of inventory may be too great for the time of day the show runs.
Hannity is definitely one of the more uneducated and simpleminded of rightwing hosts. Savage is half nuts but pretty bright in general. Levin is a screechy teen-aged girl. Completely unlistenable.
Hannity is now airing live from 3-6pm on Lockport’s WLVL. I guess for the distributor of Hannity the opportunity to air live on a small station in our market “trumped” the delayed evening broadcast on the region’s top rated talk station. Also, WLVL is now carrying FOX radio newscasts. You might recall that when Dick Green owned WECK, that station was a FOX affiliate.
So the distributor, thought to be dismayed at being delayed on WBEN, pulled Hannity from a 5 kW full market signal on 930 in order to jump to real time PM drive clearance on a 1 kW rimshot signal on 1340 that on a good day reaches maybe into north Buffalo, but gets obliterated after local sunset (4:30, winter months).
Nah.
Nahhh, more likely that for whatever reason, WBEN dumped Hannity, who BTW, was on WLVL before WBEN snagged his daily dialogue of deceit and drivel.
Here are the facts folks. Hannity did not want a recorded show, which it was on BEN. He wanted 3 to 6 live. BEN has that slot covered so they discountuned the agreement. Premier radio looked for another station that call itself “ news talk “. LVL came up. They reached out to LVL. They now have a barter agreement for the show. Simple
If the goal is to get THE most ears for advertisers, the move makes ZERO sense. There is no real advantage to that show airing live in Lockport vs. or prerecorded on 'BEN.
The same could be said about iHeart moving Rush from KFI to KEIB. He went from a Top 10 station to one in the bottom of the ratings. But it gave KFI more local avails to sell, so it made sense. The syndicator is simply looking to clear markets. The individual market ratings don't matter. They're looking for a .2 or better nationally, and I think they have that already regardless of what happens in Buffalo. The bigger problem for Hannity and Rush is that they are still on the "do not buy" list for a lot of major advertisers. But so is Savage, so nothing gained there.
The map shows Lockport in rural Niagara County. Who else but Trump Luddites would be listening to this station in 2020? Their website says "Hometown" Radio - whatever that means...
Thanks to Buddy for clarifying the situation.
Listeners are listeners. There's no litmus test. I'm not a Hannity fan, but if he attracts ears, it works, especially for a small town radio station that may not have a lot of options. Lockport is a modest city of 20 thousand.
https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=Lockport%2C+NY&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8
Here's the body count on Niagara County.
https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=Niagara+County%2C+NY&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8
The other major cities in Niagara County are Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda. There's also the Town of Lockport. Niagara County also has many villages, home to residents that commute to Buffalo for work or college. The WLVL daytime signal covers Niagara County fairly well, but it's a rim shot to Buffalo and Erie County, hence my initial post. The saving grace is, WLVL reaches the northern suburbs of Erie County, at least daytime. It's not a ratings factor. For every 20 listeners WGR, WBEN or the other Buffalo stations get, it's estimated WLVL probably gets approximately one. At night the AM band is full of hash and 1 kW signals like this get eaten up. Typical.
Listeners are listeners. There's no litmus test. I'm not a Hannity fan, but if he attracts ears, it works, especially for a small town radio station that may not have a lot of options. Lockport is a modest city of 20 thousand.
https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=Lockport%2C+NY&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8
Here's the body count on Niagara County.
https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=Niagara+County%2C+NY&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8
The other major cities in Niagara County are Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda. There's also the Town of Lockport. Niagara County also has many villages, home to residents that commute to Buffalo for work or college. The WLVL daytime signal covers Niagara County fairly well, but it's a rim shot to Buffalo and Erie County, hence my initial post. The saving grace is, WLVL reaches the northern suburbs of Erie County, at least daytime. It's not a ratings factor. For every 20 listeners WGR, WBEN or the other Buffalo stations get, it's estimated WLVL probably gets approximately one. At night the AM band is full of hash and 1 kW signals like this get eaten up. Typical.
More than a few small market stations use the "Hometown" moniker. It's where you hear high school sports (such as it may or may not be in a pandemic) and get the local dirt. In fact, a few large market TV stations do the same. It's a branding slogan. Is it hokey? Maybe. But if listeners buy into, great.
The barter is relative to the ratings or coverage map in this case. I would assume that lvl is giving a crap load of inventory for this show. WECK could have had this show easily.
WBEN felt it was more important to keep local on 3p to 6p. I totally agree with them. Hannity wants to be on live, so good for LVL. Good move for them.
If WECK wanted Hannity, we could easily of got it, but because we are doing so well as an oldies station, I was not interested in having a talk show to that extent. Weekends I may have considered it, but not Monday thru Friday.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Rush. Other than the morning show, he has the highest ratings on BEN.
WLVL has a very small coverage area, and even if you assumed that it’s 20.000 population listens to the radio, or to WLVL, that’s not a huge amount even then. No one will hear it in Buffalo because LVL, like most stations, does not promote itself, and even if it did, you can’t get the signal
Lvl is doing everything a small market station should be doing really. It ain’t gonna get much bigger than it already is. I see no listener growth opportunity for Lvl. I see a little more revenue opportunity, but not more listeners.
Talk radio is interesting.
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Understandable. They make twice as much money with a local host, because they don't have to give up the barter spots.
BTST, there are people in Buffalo who don't like Bauerle. They now have a choice.
The people who don't like Bauerle probably don't like Hannity. It's the same vitriol. This move is much ado about nothing. Listeners had choices before this move anyway. It's called NPR or the internet...
Here's my take on the difference: Bauerle acts like he knows the president. Hannity actually does.
But that's just me. I bet everyone here could come up with something like that.
Bauerle acts like the pompous ass that he is. He thinks he's the big fish in a small pond. I'm sure he's jealous that Hannity has a national show. Whatever happened to Bauerle's big syndicated show?
Hannity may know the President, but so does Stormy Daniels. Maybe she can get a talk show on WLVL...
In slightly different ways! Good one!
Bottom line, WLVL had nothing to lose by picking up Hannity's show. Just speculating, if they're giving up six minutes of inventory an hour at this stage of the game, it's no big loss. As has been discussed here and nationally, it's not like radio has inventory control issues these days. WLVL now needs to promote Hannity's presence, on the air and outside. Whether that happens is anybody's guess. When they had him years ago, WLVL ran on-air promos. While that's worthwhile and necessary, those promos reach only the listeners the station already has.
The station's website is boiler plate.
https://wlvl.com/
Ironically both Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are promoted in 3 to 6 p.m. slot. Helluvan afternoon team.
The station's website is boiler plate.
https://wlvl.com/
Ironically both Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are promoted in 3 to 6 p.m. slot. Helluvan afternoon team.
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