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WLS Cuts Steve Cochran, Local Programing
- Thread starter JoeU
- Start date
It's true. All the live shows on weekdays have been terminated including Steve Cochran (AM Drive) and Bret Gogoel (PM Drive). Ray Stevens will begin hosting mornings on Monday. And the rest of the schedule is all Westwood One conservative talk shows. Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro, Chris Plante, Matt Walsh, Mark Levin, Michael Knowles, with Red Eye Radio overnight and America in The Morning at sunrise.
radioinsight.com
BTW, WLS in the latest ratings dropped just under a one share. It's the #27 station in Chicago. But two AM-only stations make the top ten: WGN #9 and WSCR #10. I guess with WLS, staff cuts lead to losses in listeners. Losses in listeners leads to less advertising revenue. Less advertising revenue leads to more staff cuts.
And it's all the same thing. Biden and the Democrats can't do anything right and are trying to destroy the country. Trump and the Republicans can't do anything wrong. No other topics permitted. Just national right vs. left politics.
WLS Makes Morning & Afternoon Changes
Cumulus Media Conservative Talk 890 WLS Chicago is making a morning show change as Steve Cochran exited following today's show
radioinsight.com
BTW, WLS in the latest ratings dropped just under a one share. It's the #27 station in Chicago. But two AM-only stations make the top ten: WGN #9 and WSCR #10. I guess with WLS, staff cuts lead to losses in listeners. Losses in listeners leads to less advertising revenue. Less advertising revenue leads to more staff cuts.
And it's all the same thing. Biden and the Democrats can't do anything right and are trying to destroy the country. Trump and the Republicans can't do anything wrong. No other topics permitted. Just national right vs. left politics.
Well, I guess if Trump/MAGA wins and clamps down on criticism, WLS is all set to be a House organ. But Ray Stevens will not be singing The Streak. (I know, different guy).It's true. All the live shows on weekdays have been terminated including Steve Cochran (AM Drive) and Bret Gogoel (PM Drive). Ray Stevens will begin hosting mornings on Monday. And the rest of the schedule is all Westwood One conservative talk shows. Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro, Chris Plante, Matt Walsh, Mark Levin, Michael Knowles, with Red Eye Radio overnight and America in The Morning at sunrise.
WLS Makes Morning & Afternoon Changes
Cumulus Media Conservative Talk 890 WLS Chicago is making a morning show change as Steve Cochran exited following today's show
BTW, WLS in the latest ratings dropped just under a one share. It's the #27 station in Chicago. But two AM-only stations make the top ten: WGN #9 and WSCR #10. I guess with WLS, staff cuts lead to losses in listeners. Losses in listeners leads to less advertising revenue. Less advertising revenue leads to more staff cuts.
And it's all the same thing. Biden and the Democrats can't do anything right and are trying to destroy the country. Trump and the Republicans can't do anything wrong. No other topics permitted. Just national right vs. left politics.
Guys, it's not at all about politics. The fact is that it's cheaper and easier to drop local programming in a couple of slots and retain the current product than it is to blow up the entire station and go through the time and expense to start up another unsuccessful format. If Cumulus thought they could make more money than they are now with something else (even liberal talk) they would do it in a heartbeat.
I should have been a bit more clear. I'm not saying conservative politics led to the staff cuts. Maybe these days it's hard to do anything else with an AM-only station you want to run on the cheap.
I should have said, now that there's no more local shows except for mornings, all you will hear on WLS day and night is conservative politics from those Westwood One shows. Cumulus owns WLS and also owns Westwood One. Hence that's what WLS has become.
I should have said, now that there's no more local shows except for mornings, all you will hear on WLS day and night is conservative politics from those Westwood One shows. Cumulus owns WLS and also owns Westwood One. Hence that's what WLS has become.
Similar to what they're doing with KABC in LA. There, the only local is afternoon drive. An all-local staff wouldn't change the revenue situation for that station. They make more clearing the national talk.
Then there is KGO in SanFrancisco. This was the only Cumulus station that was similar to WGN with mainstream talk and news. Was severally handicapped as Cumulus never promoted the format. They just fired the entire staff and sold the complete 24 time block as brokered time to the CBS Sports Betting format which runs here in Chicago on 105.9 HD2. Some of the former KGO staff are now on YouTube after being fired.
Most view conservative talk as a format choice but in many cases reflects the politics of the ownership. You have to wonder if many past and present program directors and station managers sleep well at night knowing we are very close to becoming an Oligarchy because of their programing choices which were primarily handed down from on high. Being kind, if it wasn't intentional the result is still the same.
It's flawed thinking to view political talk as not being harmful over-all to the national discourse and comparing conservative talk vs. liberal talk as a programing choice like rock vs. country or news vs. sports.
At some point with Cumulus, after their mission is accomplished, you wonder just when they turn the license in to the FCC for all their AM's, eliminate the leasing fees for the transmitter sites and just take their money and go off into the night. Vertical Bridge will make money selling off prime real estate when this happens as will be the case with the WLS Tinley Park site.
Most view conservative talk as a format choice but in many cases reflects the politics of the ownership. You have to wonder if many past and present program directors and station managers sleep well at night knowing we are very close to becoming an Oligarchy because of their programing choices which were primarily handed down from on high. Being kind, if it wasn't intentional the result is still the same.
It's flawed thinking to view political talk as not being harmful over-all to the national discourse and comparing conservative talk vs. liberal talk as a programing choice like rock vs. country or news vs. sports.
At some point with Cumulus, after their mission is accomplished, you wonder just when they turn the license in to the FCC for all their AM's, eliminate the leasing fees for the transmitter sites and just take their money and go off into the night. Vertical Bridge will make money selling off prime real estate when this happens as will be the case with the WLS Tinley Park site.
Sort of an oversimplificaton. The station started to go downhill under Disney, continued its decline under Citadel, and was a mess once Cumulus got it. They tried to do an all-news format but got killed by KCBS. Then tried to return to talk, but the audience was gone. Cumulus owns 3 AMs in San Francisco. Only one had any ratings. It wasn't KGO.
KGO did remarkably well until People Meter was instituted. Very similar story for a lot of the other major market AM's. WGN was affected by People Meter as well. In Chicago's case you have what once were four "Clear Channel" AM's that are non directional signals with no signal limitations. I know in 2024 things have changed somewhat with 780AM. Three out of the four stations do well as AM's in a depressed AM market. How WLS fails so miserably is certainly not signal related but, whats put out over the air as an unlistenable product.
What has hurt AM radio is lack of balanced local programing were listeners can hear / talk about local issues. AM radio changed for the worse when ABC radio began their satellite delivered talk shows back in the early 80s. Remember Michael Jackson the British talk show host? Think a lot of that programing was originating out of KABC in Los Angeles at that time. Back around 1982, WIND started to eliminate a lot of their own local programing and instead started to carry the ABC syndicated stuff that no one wanted to listen to. When WIND was live and local, that had the formula nailed for great local, balanced, professional news talk radio which by the way was modeled off of KGO at that time. Westinghouse lost interest in running WIND as it was viewed has having signal limitations in a metropolitan area that grew out of its night time signal area. WLS has no such issues.
In the end in today's world broadcast standards are thrown to the wayside. News was considered a public service and not part of entertainment. Stations were required to carry a prescribed number of hours of public service programing. There were self imposed standards in place for accuracy in reporting and some semblance of accuracy and fairness in what was put out over the air in progaming that was offered. Now, especially in the case of WLS, crap is just put out over the air with no worry about repercussions or what is does for the over-all public good. Poor radio, poor performance poor results, poor profit. That's Cumulus in a nut shell.
If you want to hear bad radio, listen to WABC in NY. It's 24/7 amateur hour. Most of the people have no business being on the radio. But they somehow get a 4 share in NYC. Quality isn't necessarily what attracts an audience. TikTok and YouTube are proof of that.
No one is interested in "balanced local programming". Even in a town like Knoxville, TN, if the talk station starts about about city council and the need for new strret signs, it's generally a snore-fest. They want to talk about national issues and personalities. We are a purplish city in a deep red state that is gerrymandered to within an inch of its life. Chicago has interesting politics but I don't know of any station there that went an "all local politics all the time" route.
The first several years of WLS's talk format was good and had some diverse voices (Bob Lassiter, Stacy Taylor, Jay Marvin, Catherine Jons). Over time it went more syndicated and one-note MAGA.
Any of these companies would love to have another spoken word format that would sell. Liberal talk, for reasons discussed over the years, wasn't it.
Been saying they should either blow it up and try something completely different than the same old angry white old man radio.
Otherwise sell the damn thing, all of their satellite programing doesn't pull in any numbers in any market.
Since Lush Rumball has left the building AM talk is done.
Otherwise sell the damn thing, all of their satellite programing doesn't pull in any numbers in any market.
Since Lush Rumball has left the building AM talk is done.
Sports betting is about the only choice left, and no one is going to buy it. It still provides Market #3 clearance to it's parent company's shows, whether we like it or nor.
If someone made them an offer, they'd grab it, as they did with WABC.
National programming doesn't need local numbers. They sell them based on market clears and the total national audience. The national shows are attached to podcasts that make the real money. They use radio to drive audience to unregulated digital media that's not burdened by Nielsen PPM.
Talk radio serves the same unsalable 65–dead demos as 1955–1972 oldies but has next to no music royalties.
Isn't that what WRME does?
Music on AM? Oh sure, that would be a real rating juggernaut. Especially true if they no longer have a sales department too.
Just burn electricity to play music that few would care about. Great business strategy.
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