The minimum fulltime SAG-AFTRA rate is below what talents are paid at any of the major LA stations. The major beneficiaries of union membership are part timers, now mostly eliminated by voice tracking.
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KNX onto … 97.1??
- Thread starter Jstnpspck
- Start date
The LPFM is at 93.3. There's also an issue of the 93.1 (KFBK) stick being in Pollock Pines, 35 miles east of Sacramento, and a shadow effect that wipes out coverage in a lot of the eastern suburbs and the foothills. At 4,000-plus feet, the line of sight shoots right over them.
But---the attitude was that the people who have to listen to the AM know it's there. The FM is where the growth opportunity was.
Yeah, I'm pretty certain long time talent Pat Prescott, Deborah Howell, and Frankie Ross, are all at "minimum scale" -
That's David's point. Talent at major L.A. stations are doing multiples of scale. Competitive pressures, rather than union minimums, set the going rate.
There are no make-goods. Spots are billed after airing.
I suspect the 3 PM launch on FM was not done earlier so that the sellers had time to call the few clients that they had and advise that they were being cancelled due to a format change. Agencies are very used to that sort of thing, and the few local directs could just be told they won't be billed for further spots.
For local direct accounts, they might have offered a "great deal" to move to one of the other stations in the cluster so as not to annoy them with the cancellation. Or "we'll give you January free" or something like that. Most of the agency business was via combo buys, so all that takes is a rate adjustment.
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KFI is at the borderline of being in the top 20 in 25-54. It has been losing under-55's consistently over the last six or seven years as the core audience ages with them.
As I have mentioned before, all news and talk formats have a different listener and client base. They are really not directly competitive.
And my point is STILL that KNOU had no high cost talent exclusive to Los Angeles...KTWV has union talent at multiples of scale. Cost of operation of KNOU vs KTWV most likely advantage KNOU
Neither is at the "must buy" level for agency accounts.
In Adults 18+ KNX averages over three months a 3.2 and KFI has a 3.8. But agencies don't look at share, they look at rating. Both have a 0.2 rating.
KNX is an easier sell in this era when opinionated talk radio is a "no buy" for many agencies and accounts. In 2019 (not looking at 2020 because of the obvious), KFI was 3rd in LA billing, KNX was 5th. Both live off of a lot of local agency and local direct business, and those are not ratings and limited age range driven accounts.
And even though KTWV isn't the easiest sell, it's almost certainly billing multiples of what KNOU did. That means it's probably profitable, while KNOU might have been struggling to stay out of the red even with lower costs.
Exactly. When I was involved with contracts for a couple of "little" LA stations, the fulltime talent was making anywhere from triple to several dozen times the union minimum, even though we did not have a union shop.
None of the fulltimer announcers at any of the LA Class B FMs (and at many of the Class A ones, too) make anywhere near as low as the union scale minimums.
KTWV is between 15th and 20th in market billing. But it's a low cost operation as there is no direct competitor and thus, no need for expensive promotion and marketing.
Still, it has about the lowest power ratio of any Top 20 25-54 station in the market: 0.5. For those not familiar with the term, a 1 power ratio means that your 25-54 audience share is equal to the market revenue share. In the case of KTWV, it is under-performing by 50%.
KIIS has a power ratio of 2.2, meaning it gets over twice as big a slice of market revenue as its 25-54 ratings warrant.
#1 in what?
Number one news radio AM/FM simulcast in Los Angeles!
LOL Are you here all week? But seriously- I am happy to see Audacy bringing the great KNX to FM. Best wishes to them.
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My apologies -- I meant #1 in 6+ overall
Here's some of my reasoning:
- As discussed on this board, music tastes have drastically changed over the past decade. Radio listeners who have moved their in-vehicle audio consumption to streaming may not be interested in listening to music formats. But a news format would likely draw more widespread interest.
- I think the popularization of podcasts has driven interest in Spoken Word formats/content. I've seen more of my peers increasingly tell me about what new podcasts they're excited to listen to over the past year than over the past decade.
- Local news is still relatively untouched by any of the new podcast/audio startups. There is no "LA Local News Radio" channel that I can access on Spotify or Apple Music. KNX still has content that is relatively "sticky" and unique for listeners.
- KNX has no political lean so it can appeal to individuals with contrasting political views. (I think this is where KFI would be challenged if there was any thought to moving that station to FM.)
- This one isn't worth as much, but here we go: FM News and FM News/Talk stations are #1 and #2 Overall 6+ in San Francisco. Obviously, 22% of the market in the Bay Area is Hispanic vs. 43% in LA (basically double the number). But it does show promise with the format in a large market in California. I'm sure this is why Audacy took this step.
However, one of those stations is KQED, and the equivalent in LA is KPCC. KNX is already beating KPCC, so there was no real pressing reason to move KNX to FM.
How are the demos for all-news vs. news/talk? I know news/talk is struggling to stay relevant in 35-54 and is more 55+ in a lot of cases. I would imagine even though all news may skew older it still has more viable demos than traditional news/talk running traditional Premiere or Salem fare.
Great news! It will be nice to hear KNX on the FM dial next time I am in LA. I had a feeling that this might happen at some point in LA since most of the other heritage CBS all-news stations across the US have been simulcasting on FM for some time now (WBBM, KCBS, KYW). It still would not surprise me if Audacy flipped another station to all sports since LA is one of the only major market cities without an FM all-sports station.
I wonder what is going to happen to KRTH HD-2? I would love to see a return of K-Earth Classics since no one is playing oldies in LA (or San Diego for that matter) anymore.
I wonder what is going to happen to KRTH HD-2? I would love to see a return of K-Earth Classics since no one is playing oldies in LA (or San Diego for that matter) anymore.
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