This is pretty typical of talk radio today. It used to be a place where you could get a little bit of everything, politics included. Now, almost every talk station is all politics all-the-time. I guess angertainment sells, but I don't get it, and it certainly doesn't seem to get a huge audience.
I believe that was the one. I remember being surprised at how big St. Patrick's Day was in Kansas City my first St. Patrick's Day there. It's pretty big all over the state. Missouri has either the second or third most St. Patrick's Day parades in the nation. It's a big deal all over the state. St. Louis has a big one in Dogtown, too. A friend of mine used to always say I reminded him of Mike Murphy, especially after he found out about my radio background. I wish I had a career in the business that was as successful as Mike's was!
It didn't. The thinking was that 710 had a better signal in JoCo at night. It's only marginally better. Plus, 710's signal has a nighttime null right over the Legends and Bonner Springs areas, and both 710 and 810 have nighttime patterns that exclude the far eastern suburbs in the metro that have seen large growth since the swap. I believe 710's nighttime signal to the east is worse. I also never could figure out why Entercom wanted to go through all that trouble just to increase the nighttime signal of a station that didn't have much of a nighttime audience. Talk radio has never had much of audience after dark, and that wasn't likely to change with what KCMO was airing.
He's a love him or hate him type of person. You don't find much middle ground or indifference when it comes to him. The PD at one of the college stations where I worked took a job with Union Broadcasting out of college and thinks highly of everybody who owned the company when he worked there, including KK. I believe he's a K-State grad and was previously a sports anchor. He really took off doing sports talk for KCTE 1510. I seem to remember it started as a fill-in gig after the regular host either went on vacation or took leave due to illness, and his star soared. He was so popular the regular host wasn't around very long afterward.
I believe KMBZ-FM was locally focused until either 9:00 or 10:00 PM originally. As you mention, it also generally avoids national politics, though it does talk local politics when those issues are in the news. A friend and former co-worker of mine works there and says it's the way talk radio needs to be if it's going to be successful in the future. Problem is you're not going to be able to succeed with that kind of programming on your typical AM signal. It's expensive to run, and you need an audience both large enough and young enough to sell, or it'll eat your lunch quickly. AM doesn't have enough good signals and doesn't reach enough of the money demos. Even KMBZ-FM found selling a good local show after dinnertime wasn't sustainable, which is ultimately why it cut the evening show.
radioinsight.com
