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Los Angeles Radio Ratings: October 2023

DavidEduardo said:
For a while, when he was on the Howard Stern station and his shtick involved things like "show your tits in traffic".

Leykis was great on WNWS in Miami in the early to mid 70's, but when he tried to do hot talk in LA later on, it was not a lasting thing.

Never say never. KFI's revenue is so strong that they may find a need to put it on FM. However, dropping right now a Black formatted FM for a white conservative approach would be terribly hard to sell through so it won't happen.
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there’s no way they could also justify getting rid of Big Boy. That would be a huge mistake. KFI’s audience won’t grow on FM.

Leykis would bring great ratings today as he did years ago. I feel like we forget the hot talk format did well across various demos.
 
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Robert Douglas said:
That's ridiculous. They are already on a sideband of 103.5. All that's needed is a little bit better tuner technology to where the sidebands are all buffered and ready to go when the user hits the preset.
Robert Douglas said:
That's ridiculous. They are already on a sideband of 103.5. All that's needed is a little bit better tuner technology to where the sidebands are all buffered and ready to go when the user hits the preset.
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I mean they will never go on a terrestrial FM signal HD don't count. I stand by what I said. There is more of a chance of a FM sports station in la and that ain't gonna happen either. I know they say never say never in life but I am!!!
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Loverofradio said:
there’s no way they could also justify getting rid of Big Boy. That would be a huge mistake. KFI’s audience won’t grow on FM.

Leykis would bring great ratings today as he did years ago. I feel like we forget the hot talk format did well across various demos.
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Howard Stern wouldn't even bring ratings like he did years ago. His act, which was once novel and compelling (for some, I always found him to be one-dimensional and boring) hasn't changed and has gone stale.

I have seen several stories over the years where he has to come to terms with his own irrelevance. Latest one was where he whined that NBA players don't acknowledge him at his floor seats at MSG. Never contemplates the obvious question, "Why should they?"

Leykis talking about his fake daliances with hot chicks, crude humor, and discussions of cigars would go over like a lead balloon today. The 18-49 male demo has completely changed in their preferences (mostly not for the better, but whatever). You can only say "Blow me up Tom" so many times before the audience doesn't care any more. It got repetitive even then.

There is a reason male-driven Hot Talk doesn't exist any more.
 
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Loverofradio said:
Leykis would bring great ratings today as he did years ago. I feel like we forget the hot talk format did well across various demos.
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You're forgetting that Tom and the hot talk format both stopped getting great ratings, which is why neither's on anymore.

Here's the thing about making predictions on a board like this: You've got to have been right more than once to be taken seriously.

To do that, you have to know the business, not just what you think about the business or how you want the business to be.
 
michael hagerty said:
You're forgetting that Tom and the hot talk format both stopped getting great ratings, which is why neither's on anymore.

Here's the thing about making predictions on a board like this: You've got to have been right more than once to be taken seriously.

To do that, you have to know the business, not just what you think about the business or how you want the business to be.
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I didn’t realize you make the rules of this radio board. It’s funny when someone can‘t just be intelligent enough to engage or do simple research to back up their claim they result to the “you don’t know anything” comments. Kind of sad actually
 
michael hagerty said:
What would "and then some" be?

Seriously, Patrick...I've seen you bet your life a few times on this board. Eventually, you're gonna lose, especially if you're betting on permanence in radio. Switch to "lunch" or maybe "a beer".
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You wake up on the wrong side of the bed in the nursing home? Again, enough with the personal jabs at people
 
Loverofradio said:
I didn’t realize you make the rules of this radio board.
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I don't.

Loverofradio said:
It’s funny when someone can‘t just be intelligent enough to engage or do simple research to back up their claim they result to the “you don’t know anything” comments. Kind of sad actually
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That was intended as helpful advice---know your facts, understand the business from the side where the decisions are made and your batting average will improve.

As for simple research to back up the claim, the ratings histories are all at WorldRadioHistory.com. It's very easy to document the decline of Hot Talk's ratings in general and Tom's in particular.

What we're not seeing is anything backing up your claim that:

Leykis would bring great ratings today as he did years ago.
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michael hagerty said:
What would "and then some" be?

Seriously, Patrick...I've seen you bet your life a few times on this board. Eventually, you're gonna lose, especially if you're betting on permanence in radio. Switch to "lunch" or maybe "a beer".
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No I will stick w my life for not everything u are correct I should bet my life on but this I feel very confident about
 
ChannelFlipper said:
Howard Stern wouldn't even bring ratings like he did years ago. His act, which was once novel and compelling (for some, I always found him to be one-dimensional and boring) hasn't changed and has gone stale.
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I think the same could have been said about Rush in his last 10 or so years. He ceased being entertaining, and instead spent his time lecturing audiences about politics. Then his personal prejudices started to emerge, and he became the opposite of what made him popular. It was all about his personal grievances. That's partly why KFI and a few other iHeart stations moved him to his own private island and why Cumulus dropped him at their talk stations.

The talk format today for the most part retains it's existing audience because they have no other option. The format doesn't break any ground or break any news or attract news listeners. Charlemagne Tha God does a better job in my opinion.

I didn't bring up Stern or Leykis because I thought either of them would do well today. Just that it was possible to do talk and succeed in their time without being a conservative wacko, as Leykis used to say. Stern has done what most of the talk hosts have done, which is retain most of their heritage audience. They preach to the already converted.
 
michael hagerty said:
If it helps pinpoint, Tom was on the air at KFYI in Phoenix when I went for my first job interview in October of 1985. The town was still buzzing about him, so he may have only been there a few months at that point.
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Yes, I used to listen to Tom while I was commuting to WHTT (Kendall to Hollywood) in the 1981-1984 period before I went back to Puerto Rico. WNWS was the doing quite well against older leaning WINZ and it was selling aggressively. I used to run into their sellers at agencies all the time.
 
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TheBigA said:
I think the same could have been said about Rush in his last 10 or so years. He ceased being entertaining, and instead spent his time lecturing audiences about politics. Then his personal prejudices started to emerge, and he became the opposite of what made him popular. It was all about his personal grievances. That's partly why KFI and a few other iHeart stations moved him to his own private island and why Cumulus dropped him at their talk stations.

The talk format today for the most part retains it's existing audience because they have no other option. The format doesn't break any ground or break any news or attract news listeners. Charlemagne Tha God does a better job in my opinion.

I didn't bring up Stern or Leykis because I thought either of them would do well today. Just that it was possible to do talk and succeed in their time without being a conservative wacko, as Leykis used to say. Stern has done what most of the talk hosts have done, which is retain most of their heritage audience. They preach to the already converted.
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Agreed
 
TheBigA said:
I didn't bring up Stern or Leykis because I thought either of them would do well today. Just that it was possible to do talk and succeed in their time without being a conservative wacko, as Leykis used to say. Stern has done what most of the talk hosts have done, which is retain most of their heritage audience. They preach to the already converted.
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And my analysis of Stern says that, had he stayed on "regular" radio until the PPM launched, he would have had much lower PPM shares. In LA, I calculated he'd have been 9th or 10th in PPM instead of 2nd or 3rd in the diary. The reasons: 1) in the diary, people wrote in huge uninterrupted spans with no breaks, while in the PPM people did other things, from taking a shower to taking the kids to the bus stop. 2) In the PPM, stations picked up lots of lighter "phantom listeners" who often did not get mentions in the write-it-down diary. Stern had either fans or haters, no in between.
 
TheBigA said:
I think the same could have been said about Rush in his last 10 or so years. He ceased being entertaining, and instead spent his time lecturing audiences about politics. Then his personal prejudices started to emerge, and he became the opposite of what made him popular. It was all about his personal grievances. That's partly why KFI and a few other iHeart stations moved him to his own private island and why Cumulus dropped him at their talk stations.
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Uh, not really. Rush at the end was still on over 600 stations , although not getting the same ratings he once did, was an integral part of the many stations he was on. He would undoubtedly still be a force today, especially with, uh, the more "challenging" issues we have nowadays. Tom Leykis has been off the air for decades (unless he has gigs I don't know about) and nobody will hire him for his shtick as I noted above.

And Rush was never not entertaining. Your post is proof that you have not listened to his show as the reality is the exact opposite of your take. In the later years he spent even less time on day-to-day politics and more time on lifestyle issues, such as this fascination with, and sometimes difficulties with, his various Apple products and taking the dog to the vet as well as non-political news topics like the challenges Boeing had with the 787 Max and the reasons why those planes were grounded. He went into such detail on that topic that a lot of what he broadcast could have been considered close to original source news reporting.

I honestly don't know why I bother to respond to this drivel. Comparing Rush's career with Leykis' is ludicrous in the extreme.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And my analysis of Stern says that, had he stayed on "regular" radio until the PPM launched, he would have had much lower PPM shares. In LA, I calculated he'd have been 9th or 10th in PPM instead of 2nd or 3rd in the diary. The reasons: 1) in the diary, people wrote in huge uninterrupted spans with no breaks, while in the PPM people did other things, from taking a shower to taking the kids to the bus stop. 2) In the PPM, stations picked up lots of lighter "phantom listeners" who often did not get mentions in the write-it-down diary. Stern had either fans or haters, no in between.
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Plus his show was oversold like crazy leading to 10+ minute stopsets. Even die-hard fans won't sit through that.
 
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