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KNX Talk at Night?

david

david

Rich Lieberman's 415 Media is sharing speculation of a new, probably nighttime format change at every Audacy all-news station, set to debut around January, where the 7-12 midnight time frame --or even more dramatically, 7 PM to 5AM overnight would change to newstalk. The talk portion of the day won't be opinionated; won't be partisan-based. It will have a more public-interest, CSPAN-type bend. And it will involve lots of guests and host-interaction with callers.

Thoughts?
Does this sound likely... and if so... might this be applied to just the AM 1070 side (or the FM 97.1 side), or to both signals?
Any thoughts on if KNX (and WINS) would be looped in to doing this too?
 
Interesting subject. To begin with, several Audacy medium market news stations are already doing this. They've been adding non-partisan talk to overnights in St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Several all news stations have been repeating some overnight hours between 3 and 4 AM. They're looking for ways to save money in hard to sponsor hours. Unscripted talk is significantly cheaper to do than scripted news. So yes it's very likely.

The fact of the matter is that there's been a hole for this kind of programming for a long time. There was a time when the Larry King show performed this function, with live, non-partisan talk with callers and guests, with access to live news in overnight hours. So that if something breaking happened during that time, they could interrupt the talk with news. That may be the thought here.
 
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TheBigA said:
Interesting subject. To begin with, several Audacy medium market news stations are already doing this. They've been adding non-partisan talk to overnights in St. Louis and Pittsburgh.
Click to expand...
But neither KMOX nor KDKA are news stations. They are talk... or news/talk if you will.
 
david said:
Thoughts?
Does this sound likely... and if so... might this be applied to just the AM 1070 side (or the FM 97.1 side), or to both signals?
Any thoughts on if KNX (and WINS) would be looped in to doing this too?
Click to expand...
It would be done on both signals. The point would be to save a buck, splitting the signals would cost money, not save it.

I do question how much cash would be saved by this... I imagine KNX staffing late at night is pretty much an anchor, a writer, and a board op. Well, a live, caller intensive talk show requires at least that many staffers.

I would not assume this programming model would be forced on WINS. WCBS on the other hand... yes.
 
david said:
Does this sound likely... and if so... might this be applied to just the AM 1070 side (or the FM 97.1 side), or to both signals?
Click to expand...
If they do it only on one signal, they lose single line reporting. That would cost them millions in revenue as each station would only show part of the listening, and thus each would rank way below the level agencies even consider for buys.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I do question how much cash would be saved by this... I imagine KNX staffing late at night is pretty much an anchor, a writer, and a board op. Well, a live, caller intensive talk show requires at least that many staffers.
Click to expand...
If we're talking 7pm to 5 am, I think you could at least double the current staffing estimate. I think they still keep a reporter into at least part of the evening, and you're not going to keep an anchor live for ten hours straight---nor should you do that to a board op or writer/editor.

As for the talk show, who says it's local? If it's not, you're going from six or more people at KNX in those hours to potentially zero.
 
michael hagerty said:
As for the talk show, who says it's local?
Click to expand...

If you go to the 415 Media story in the OP, they base this all on the hiring of a former KGO talk show host at KCBS. So the rumor is they'd add local talk hosts. But once again, this is all a rumor, based on flimsy logic. The logic being why would they hire a former talk show host as a part time anchor?
 
TheBigA said:
If you go to the 415 Media story in the OP, they base this all on the hiring of a former KGO talk show host at KCBS. So the rumor is they'd add local talk hosts. But once again, this is all a rumor, based on flimsy logic.
Click to expand...
Right. Which Lieberman specializes in. If he were reliable, Jim Gabbert would be in his 10th year of ownership of 610 AM, having successfully revived KFRC.
 
TheBigA said:
The logic being why would they hire a former talk show host as a part time anchor?
Click to expand...
Maybe the former talk host, simply, does not want to leave the Bay Area and that's the only radio job available... he might have taken a non-radio fulltime position and just wants to stay active on the side.

This is an example of hearing hoof-beats and imagining zebras instead of horses. But it makes for a lot more interesting story.
 
They tried non-partisan talk radio some years back with Money 101 on weekdays and Food News on the weekends. This was from 9am-Noon. Lasted a bit over a year I think.
 
TheBigA said:
If you go to the 415 Media story in the OP, they base this all on the hiring of a former KGO talk show host at KCBS. So the rumor is they'd add local talk hosts. But once again, this is all a rumor, based on flimsy logic. The logic being why would they hire a former talk show host as a part time anchor?
Click to expand...
And I'll just add that another of their most recent anchor hires is Alisa Clancy, who did jazz at KCSM for 20+ years until earlier this year.

They're not going jazz. Alisa has a good voice, reads well, needs a gig and didn't want to leave the Bay Area.
 
CaliRadioFan said:
They tried non-partisan talk radio some years back with Money 101 on weekdays and Food News on the weekends. This was from 9am-Noon. Lasted a bit over a year I think.
Click to expand...
That was under CBS, which began to worry about news image (they had Chef Mike Roy in middays and the CBS Mystery Theater in evenings for decades, from the beginning of supposedly being "All News"). This is Audacy, which---if it's true-- is worrying about money.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Maybe the former talk host, simply, does not want to leave the Bay Area and that's the only radio job available... he might have taken a non-radio fulltime position and just wants to stay active on the side.
Click to expand...
Speaking from experience, radio news and traffic gigs keep people in the business and afloat. Sometimes they turn into full-time positions, sometimes not. But there are people coming from other parts of radio into news all the time. Larry Van Nuys was KNX's evening anchor for decades. Before that, he was best known for playing slightly jazz-tinged MOR at KGIL and KFI.
 
Unless they are going with a national talk show I don’t see how this would a huge cost savings, especially if you think you still need to keep one or two local people around for local news updates or breaking news. KYW (in Philly) runs prerecorded news from 2 AM or 3 AM (not sure which) to 5 AM with live traffic reports every 10 minutes.
 
This latest Lieberman blog is mostly an attack on management at KCBS. Calling Jennifer Seeling a lousy manager, and a toxic paranoid newsroom due to recent hirings and a strict "don't talk about it policy". Going talk at night is simply something Lieberman is throwing out there, and far from facts. Especially with the vendetta he has with Seelig.
 
KilowattKat said:
This latest Lieberman blog is mostly an attack on management at KCBS. Calling Jennifer Seeling a lousy manager, and a toxic paranoid newsroom due to recent hirings and a strict "don't talk about it policy". Going talk at night is simply something Lieberman is throwing out there, and far from facts. Especially with the vendetta he has with Seelig.
Click to expand...
Lieberman has a cycle and after ten-plus years of off-and-on reading, I'm pretty confident this is how it works:

1. Attractive woman gets media job.

2. Rich writes flattering things about woman with media job, which occasionally begin to feel somewhat creepy.

3. Attractive woman with media job ignores Rich or tells him to stop.

4. Rich writes increasingly hostile things about woman with media job.

Two years ago, it got this far:

www.sfgate.com

29 female journalists sign letter denouncing SF blogger as sexist

Twenty-nine female journalists from around the San Francisco Bay Area have united against...
www.sfgate.com www.sfgate.com
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting subject. To begin with, several Audacy medium market news stations are already doing this. They've been adding non-partisan talk to overnights in St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Several all news stations have been repeating some overnight hours between 3 and 4 AM. They're looking for ways to save money in hard to sponsor hours. Unscripted talk is significantly cheaper to do than scripted news. So yes it's very likely.

The fact of the matter is that there's been a hole for this kind of programming for a long time. There was a time when the Larry King show performed this function, with live, non-partisan talk with callers and guests, with access to live news in overnight hours. So that if something breaking happened during that time, they could interrupt the talk with news. That may be the thought here.
Click to expand...
I am sorry, but perhaps I missed it and there really IS a huge demand for Larry King style mush talk radio at night (or any other time for that matter).

I really can't remember anything Larry King said that was noteworthy in all those years he had that show, except of course for the ubiquitous "Traverse City Michigan, you're on!".
 
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