I wasn't here at the time, but probably.
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Knoxville Ratings
- Thread starter Ktownradioman
- Start date
When Lolwry Mays was gone, and Mary Berner took over, one could almost hear the sigh of relief on the air. They dumped shows that Cumulus force-fed, and replaced one of them with local. They were allowed to bring back Hannity and dump Savage.
Lowry Mays was Clear Channel, now iHeart. He had nothing to do with Cumulus. You are thinking about the Dickey family.
Absolutely, I don't know what I was thinking. Lew, Lowry, same thing LOL.
There’s no doubt that Mary Berner has improved the situation at Cumulus. Of the big radio operators, that would probably be the one I'd most want to work for today. Having worked for Cumulus briefly during the Dickey years, I never would’ve imagined myself saying that a few years ago.
One thing I haven’t noticed much, though, is the more locally sourced programming. Cumulus operates where I live, and the programming on its seven stations isn’t noticeably different from what it was under the Dickeys. The AC still only has local talent in morning and afternoon drive. Rachel Marisay is on in the midday while John Tesh is on at night. The jocks let go in the massive staff purges of about a dozen years ago have never been replaced. The country station is still using “Nash” and is only local in middays and afternoons. I don’t think it would matter if it stopped using the “Nash” branding. The ones that have either taken on a new brand or gone back to their heritage brand are still mostly “Nash” in every way except the name. Much like Nash, the CHR in the cluster is still only live and local in afternoon drive and on a couple of weekend slots. It’s a better operation, and the people I know who work there are happier. However, it’s not any different to the average listener.
What percentage would listen more if there was live & local talent 24/7?
There’s no accurate way to figure it anymore. Too many people get their engagement from their smart phones. We’ve all likely seen friends ignore a good bit to make a call. Or even worse, an incoming call dumps you out of the station you were enjoying in the car.
That’s beside my point. At my local Cumulus cluster, however, some stations do well. Others don’t. Currently, its major competition has about 1/3 of the total market share while Cumulus has about 1/5. The numbers for that cluster were a lot better before the massive cuts, though I’d have to assume corporate is reasonably happy with its performance. There were a couple of changes in 2014-15, and it turned the license to one station in order to emerge from bankruptcy more quickly a couple years ago. That was the only major change since the summer of 2015.
My point was that, despite a kinder and gentler approach, the programming from the previous corporate cramdowns is still about all my local Cumulus cluster has. Corporate may not be mandating them, but, if it won’t offer the budget to change them, is the situation really that different? The old Clear Channel rarely mandated voicetracking explicitly, but it didn’t give most clusters enough money to fully staff every station. So, they had little choice but to use the technology. You know what they say about a rose by any other name...
Maybe, but if there is no direct connection between having local talent and ratings, then why have local talent? They're not a jobs creation program.
Hardly the same. I can't think of a major broadcast owner who did more things that hurt radio than Lew. While his intentions were to build a large company, his actions were so devoid of successful outcomes that I give him an F- on management. Of course, Wall Street awarded him with even less...
Mays bought a failing FM in San Antonio and make it profitable; he moved on to the market's biggest AM which was also failing. After turning both around, he moved to other regional markets like Tulsa and revitalized stations. The original Clear Channel was a good operator of sound radio stations. And Lowry turned out to be a good broadcaster despite not originally having selected radio as a career.
I never said it was. That wasn’t my point. My point was that, for all the talk of Cumulus returning to local programming, that doesn’t seem to have actually happened many places. It’s a different coat of paint, but it’s pretty much what it’s always been. I never said it had to be more local. My point was that the hype behind all of the changes that have happened since the Dickeys were pushed out seems more hype than reality. We should look at the changes Mary Berner has made realistically.
I don't know...they seemed to leave WIVK alone. Still the same old Froggy.
The mandate was to run all these on all Country stations:
MIDDAYS - "Katie & Company"
NIGHTS - "Rob & Holly"
SAT 8A-10A - "Country Top 20 Countdown with Jessie Addy"
SAT 7P-MID - "Saturday Night Party with Coop".
SUN 8A-10A - "90s Country with Kelly Ford".
That's Entercom. WIVK is Cumulus. None of those shows on WIVK.
Oops. Right. It is indeed hard to keep Cumulus and Entercom separate, particularly after the horrible moves Entercom has made of late.
Since the Dickeys left, WIVK seems to have started doing more of its own programming. It's one of two country stations I know of within the company (there might be more) that have local night shows. Don't know if it's live or not, but it seems to be local. I'm thinking it was airing Nash Nights Live until the Dickeys left, though. It still carries the company's syndicated overnight show, but the last live overnight host I remember on WIVK was Hoss. (Again, not that there might not have been one after him; last time I was in Knoxville was either 2002 or '03, and I've only occasionally listened to Knoxville radio since then.)
WIVK and KPLX in Dallas would seem to be the exceptions, not the rules. In Dallas, Elaina is already on KSCS while KSCS goes all music in the overnights, and KPLX airs Lia after midnight. Granted, nights aren't big moneymakers for most country stations, and overnights don't make much of anybody any money. WIVK may have held out on live overnights for so long because it was either the LP-1 or LP-2 for Knoxville (the other LP, I believe, is WJXB).
The Wolf is a disaster. "All Hands On Deck" sort of disaster. They have been trying to shunt the bleeding for a few years now. That cluster has been in a constant state of turmoil since they dropped their original country format on WQIX. Remember them? Of course not.
Speaking of ratings, and the overwhelming population of actual broadcasting professionals posting on this forum, why is Cumulus still getting 1984 dollars for their cluster's stations? WIVK is worth about $10 per unit. I am amazed that the clowns on Old Kingston Pike are still demanding and getting pre-failure numbers for their low, low ratings. Speaking of low ratings, how in the hell are HHH, Phil and Bob still on the air? They're the weakest links!
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