You are correct; it was RKO-General's parent company, and not the TV division, that was the culprit.
It's unfortunate and sad since RKO-General owned some really classy operations, too.
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It's unfortunate and sad since RKO-General owned some really classy operations, too.
Tired Of It All
Banned
I have a question regarding Talk1200. WHY WHY WHY is it every single Saturday morning like clockwork, there is a double airing???? WHY???? WHY can't this be fixed? It happens at 11am or 11:30am AND in most cases it happens at both times. WHY? Please don't make excuses for this incompetency. Apparently no one from the station actually listens to the station, it's on auto pilot 24/7/365. Emails are not acknowledge and voicemails are ignored.
When WKOX and WXKS were playing Air America liberal talk a few years ago, it was the same thing. Two programs at once. And on the weekends, they just repeated shows from earlier in the week, complete with days-old news, weather, sports, and traffic. I remember one Saturday diverting around a supposed traffic jam on 128, only to find out that the traffic jam had been the previous Tuesday. I envision WXKS as running on Windows 95 
I thought we have been over this before. YES, it's an automated station. Like almost, all of your Satellite programmed stations coast to coast. That is done so don't have to pay someone to monitor them 24/7/365. In today's world of radio, more stations are automated than aren't. Why do you think that is???
We have been over this…..over and over and over. Talk 1200 has a 0.0 rating. 0.0. No audience. It is a clearing house for national programming. Period. No company would or should invest any money or management resources into a business where there are no customers. The focus is on their two money making AM stations-WRKO and WBZ. The money in talk radio is with Jeff, Grace and Howie on WRKO. Talk radio doesn't attract the demo advertisers want and is a dying format anyway. IHeart is in the business of making money and making prudent investments. The programming on Talk 1200 will NEVER generate any ratings. EVER.
Simple. No audience. No management attention or resources. A 0.0 rating. Don’t listen because nothing is going to change. No business reason to change.
That would be why WSB in Atlanta bills nearly 40% more than the #2 station there. Or KOA in Denver outbills the #2 station by 50%. Or WCCO in Minneapolis is in a 4-way tie for top billing in that market.
While I have to agree somewhat with Motown about Talk 1200 and its extremely low number of listeners, I'm glad he's way off re how advertisers don't want the talk radio demographic.
And I'm sorry but iHeart really wanted Talk 1200 bad. They bought it and built a new antenna for it, and basically now, it's just a place to get Premiere's fare on the air in Boston. Mind you, not to attract any listeners, just to be able to say that Premiere's offering "clear Boston".
With Tired bring up that they listen on weekends and getting angry with the repeated programs, shouldn't that rating be somewhere like 0.0000000001? 🤔
I mean, come on. There is one listener, right? 😆
I think I'm getting old. I find myself scanning the AM dial when waiting to pick up my kids from sports. Usually listen to WINS, WFAN, or WCBS when they come in. Where I live, WRKO's night signal isn't of issue. I don't listen to RKO, but I do get it clearly.
Thanks for the feedback David. I understand the heritage talkers that continue to perform such as WRKO. Has there been any significant successful major market format changes to live and local talk radio in the last year or two? I was interested in the future viability of the live and local talk radio format. Thanks!
>>now, it's just a place to get Premiere's fare on the air in Boston.
An attempt was made around 2010 to do some live-local conserv talk on 1200 with Jeff Katz and the now late Jay Severin doing shows on what was then branded Rush Radio--along with their syndie talkers. They were dismissed in 2012. Clear Channel ( at the time) made it comedy radio then Bloomberg business; finally the conservative talk that had been shifted to 1430 returned to 1200 by 2018; 1430 was in a trust then later sold off.
An attempt was made around 2010 to do some live-local conserv talk on 1200 with Jeff Katz and the now late Jay Severin doing shows on what was then branded Rush Radio--along with their syndie talkers. They were dismissed in 2012. Clear Channel ( at the time) made it comedy radio then Bloomberg business; finally the conservative talk that had been shifted to 1430 returned to 1200 by 2018; 1430 was in a trust then later sold off.
Talk, local or otherwise, requires a big signal on AM or a very good FM. Very few markets have an available big AM, and there are really not many full signal FMs that are not doing well enough to take on the expense of a start-up during a pandemic.
I can't think of any recent highly successful start-up, particularly during the COVID crisis.
It also has to be the personalities. On paper WTKK should have dominated WRKO, with the 96.9 FM signal. If they got Carr, perhaps the timeline would have turned out differently. But, Howie ended up on WMEX with its lower signal and virtually no signal at night, before going back to WRKO, which supports your statement. WTKK didn't have the stronger personalities, and ended up flipping.
Maybe true, but a couple of other issues were at play...
1.) The margins for talkradio are pretty slim. If you have a $65 million dollar FM, the return can't be less than 1%. WRKO's "bar" is set much lower.
2.) It appears the PPM hit WTKK particularly hard. (Back then, there was a thought I've heard that "talky" morning shows and talk stations on FM did not fare well in the PPM world.)
3.) WTKK had many other options and music formats with much more upside than WRKO did. WRKO had to stay talk. WTKK could morph into any format that seemed available and workable.
The PPM showed most stations with a "phantom cume" which were listeners who listened but did not write you down in the diary... often more casual or light listeners,
Stations that had jut P1's and no light listeners suffered. That applied to other stations and formats, too... it was the death of Smooth Jazz for this reason.
Where I read explanation, if we hypothetically flipped WTKK's air staff and WRKO's air staff at the time, could have WTKK stayed with the format longer? Could it pull in the ratings and billing today that WRKO pulls in? I know ratings and billing are two different metrics.
Again, it's completely hypothetical. I agree that there are more options for formats on an FM station than on an AM station. WBTQ is showing to be a viable station for Beasley. From the relative time around it's flip from "Talk" to "Hot" until now, we've watched WKAF/WRZM flip formats three times, WODS/WBGB flip formats twice, and WBOS tweak/flip formats twice. On the flip side, WRKO couldn't have flipped to "Hot 680" and been successful. Options on AM at the time were either Sports (which was covered on FM and WRKO's then-owner had WEEI), Spanish language talk or music, Christian music, or leasing it out. I'm sure I'm missing some other known AM options. Even then, the "Oldies" format wasn't as prevalent on the AM band as it is now.
I agree that when WTKK flipped perhaps WRKO needed to stay talk. I don't see it as needing now. It draws ratings, thus the following is a nonsense discussion; so, I present it as hypothetical only. If WTKK stayed around, and ended up having stronger ratings and stronger billing than WRKO, I question whether WRKO would go with an Oldies format, as some AM stations are doing in the area. It would have the reach. Would some nostalgia come into play from the 54+ demo for a revival of "The Big 68?" Again, not that WRKO flipping would be even questioned in reality, given the ratings it is pulling in. I hypothesize that had WTKK had the air staff that was present on WRKO, we would likely still have "Talk 96.9," yet might not have the current format of WRKO.
Yeah, that would make sense to you or to me, but I'll bet SOMEONE on this Forum will weigh in and tell you there's nothing out-of-the-ordinary here, this is the nature of the radio business, and so, just get over it.
Got another one for ya: I just learned this today from another Forum member, but Gina Genesis, who does traffic on Talk1200, does so remotely from COLUMBUS, OHIO.
Now, someone in the know can surely correct me, but isn't iHeart's Total Traffic and News (TTN) facility directly across the highway from iHeart's palatial Medford facilities?
I think these days she is in Corpus Christi TX, and she also does WOKQ and other stations
Yes IHrt's Boston TT hub is in the old Kiss108 building
Her LinkedIn does say Columbus OH but her FB page seemsto have a lot of Texas on it
Yes IHrt's Boston TT hub is in the old Kiss108 building
Her LinkedIn does say Columbus OH but her FB page seemsto have a lot of Texas on it
Today's automation technology could do that without having to pay board-ops. Assuming the flagship airs the ID at precisely the same time each hour, the local affiliates stations automation can be programmed to override the feed ID with the correct local affiliate ID at the correct moment of the hour.
And, if the flagship routinely varies the time they air the ID give-or-take a few minutes around the top of the hour, the flagship could send a silent digital automation command to their affiliates computers when they run (or announce, if live) their ID, commanding the local affiliates computers to override the feed ID with the local ID at that moment.
Of course, they would have to make sure that the feed station ID and all the affiliates ID's are all precisely the same length. That could be done if the ID's at all ends were all pre-recorded and timed.
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