Mo Kelly show out at KFI

[K.M. Richards]

It was great to have live/local talk tonight. Merrill was chatting about the explosion in Tennessee. It felt good to be "connected" to current events, as KFI as done since.... forever.

Tell me why a local host talking about a news event in a state thousands of miles removed is significantly better than a national host addressing the same topic.

When that goes away, I feel that'll be the end of KFI.

For someone who believes in live and local, you overestimate the "local" part. If all the audience hears is the same type of program with the same nationally significant topics, it will (to repeat what I have said elsewhere, many times) just presume there was a change in hosts.

We make the distinction because we know what's going on in the industry. Every such change seems like "the end". Yet the audience doesn't flee as your proclamation of pending doom anticipates.

Handel retires eventually. Gary and Shannon in mornings. Conway afternoons. Syndicated hell the rest of the day.

As BigA has said, Handel's eventual retirement will be noticeable. But give the listeners time to get over it and they'll adapt, by and large. Your definition of syndication as "hell" does not carry through to the audience's perception. They just hear programming.

I carried Rush Limbaugh for a few weeks in 1989 on a rimshot AM to Los Angeles, before KFI picked him up to replace Geoff Edwards after the latter made some borderline offensive remarks about Salman Rushdie. When we were carrying him, I actually got a few listener calls who thought he was live from our studios, even though he was on the other side of the country at WABC.

They didn't know the difference then, and they won't now.

Slow, steady death. Just like every other news talker that tried this.

Specific citations of these "other" stations that "tried" whatever it is you are objecting to (you are speaking in platitudes without any depth to clarify exactly what you mean by that) would help me understand why you think this one move at KFI is a death knell.

 

[TheBigA]

Handel retires eventually. Gary and Shannon in mornings. Conway afternoons. Syndicated hell the rest of the day.

I don't see it that way. iHeart has syndicated talk on KEIB. In markets where they have two AM talk stations, they do local on the other one. That's what they do in Cincinnati with WLW. That's what they do in Boston with WRKO. I think they will stay local with KFI, but they have to cut expenses to keep up with declining revenues.

Slow, steady death. Just like every other news talker that tried this.

That sort of corresponds with the slow & steady death of the talk radio audience. They're not getting younger. They're not being replaced. They're not building the next generation of talk show hosts. The next generation is in podcasting, and iHeart knows that. I saw where iHeart's podcasting division makes more money than its syndicated radio division. That's the future for talk radio.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I saw where iHeart's podcasting division makes more money than its syndicated radio division. That's the future for talk radio.

Case in point: Keith Olbermann was reportedly approached several times to bring a form of "Countdown" back as an audio-only program. As I heard it (granted, I am using hearsay as the backstory to my point) at least one of the syndicated talk networks made him an offer ... which he declined.

He now does a twice-weekly podcast on iHeart's platform, with occasional "bulletins" if something worthy of his comments breaks between scheduled programs, and it has more regular listeners than CNN has viewers in prime-time.

 

[TheBigA]

Case in point: Keith Olbermann was reportedly approached several times to bring a form of "Countdown" back as an audio-only program.

These big names don't want to do talk radio because it's too much work. Sitting in a studio for four hours every day is like being in jail. Bill O'Reilly hated it. He couldn't wait for his contract to end. He prefers what he does now.

 

[KilowattKat]

The extension of podcasting into radio seems to be on iHeart's agenda. It's happening with KFI, the 'Revisionist History' is just the beginning. Many iHeart Hot AC's (KMXP Phoenix is one) have added the following 2 hour true crime podcast on weeknights.

True Crime Tonight - Where We Talk True Crime All The Time!

If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, iHeartRadio and KT-Studios invite listeners to join us on the radio LIVE for an unfiltered conversation about the true crime headlines that everybody is talking about. Or you can...

truecrimetonight.iheart.com

So radio will become another outlet for the podcast.

 

[TheBigA]

The extension of podcasting into radio seems to be on iHeart's agenda. It's happening with KFI, the 'Revisionist History' is just the beginning.

The production values for some of these podcasts are pretty high. It's not just some guy sitting in a studio for an hour. They incorporate sound, music, and other elements to become an audio experience. Listening to Revisionist History is not unlike what it was like listening to radio drama in the 1930s. It's very similar to what you hear on NPR. It works for NPR, and perhaps it will work for commercial talk radio. Because this endless focus on national politics is a dead end street.

 

[K.M. Richards]

These big names don't want to do talk radio because it's too much work.

KO has said on several occasions since he began the Countdown podcast that he isn't doing this for the money (he says that he still has every penny of the buyout of his Fox Sports contract a few decades back) but because he feels a need to comment on the current state of affairs. I very much respect him for that and I also believe it factors into his own personal distaste for being tied to a multi-hour live daily shift.

 

[El Zilcho]

These big names don't want to do talk radio because it's too much work. Sitting in a studio for four hours every day is like being in jail. Bill O'Reilly hated it. He couldn't wait for his contract to end. He prefers what he does now.

Makes me think about the already minuscule market for progressive talk and what, if anything, would replace the few nationally syndicated progressive talkers like Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller when their respective times in radio are done.

 

[RayydioLA]

Ok but they arent watching twitch streams while theyre driving so.

Yes, and also--isn't Twitch for people watching live gaming? Who wants to watch a bunch of sponsored headphone-wearing 20-somethings narrate their every move with a joystick/clicker while shooting at alien cartoon bad guys, is what is baffling to me. Somehow these gamers make money doing that. But indeed--if you stream that in the car while driving, you can't *watch*. It's not like listening to a YouTube podcast where it's like (shocker) Talk radio.

 

[Intheairnevada]

Would mo Kelly be the most openly liberal host at KFI? Handel, Gary Shannon, kobylt, Conway…libertarian, center right, attitude radio, etc. Kelly would do a sort of liberal rant at the end of the show sometimes…of course the Roger Stone interview was his biggest national impact… his sports segment was more left politics than sports? As people say this time slot is a waste anyway

 

[TomásEstefan]

Makes me think about the already minuscule market for progressive talk and what, if anything, would replace the few nationally syndicated progressive talkers like Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller when their respective times in radio are done.

If I was crazy and in a financial position (money being immaterial) to put 1500 back on the air in Los Angeles, those two you mentioned would be my first choices to fill the air time. Yes, I know that almost no one would be listening but I don't care, I just want to see some balance on the AM band.

Yes I realise this is dreamland, but if my initials were S L this what I would do with 1260. To me it would serve a much more useful purpose than essentially simulcasting Classical music on the AM band. I've always been a fan of Classical music too but only listen to KMZT on 98.3 or 105.1HD2. And of course I listen to KUSC.

The AM band is dominated by programs with a certain point of view, that appear to be totally unapologetic for misleading, disingenuous statements about almost anything. Constant gaslighting. It's time to give a platform to the other side to attempt to do the same thing! 🙃

 

[henry]

Yet the audience doesn't flee as your proclamation of pending doom anticipates.

I don't have data. But I have on-the-ground anecdotes:

KALL 910 (Salt Lake City) ran local hosts. Commanded top dollar. Local owners sold it in '94 and it went 100% syndicated except mornings. Then they lost Limbaugh by '98. Station was "RADIO DISNEY" by 2002.

KFI **removed** syndication (Limbaugh, Dr. Laura) and bought themselves another FIFTEEN YEARS of relevance. Had they hung on, they'd be billing like KEIB.

Another anecdote:

I guest spoke at UCLA's engineering school in 2022. I casually mentioned KFI in passing. And six students shouted back "DING DONG." Talk radio is absolute death to anyone under the age of 50 (thanks to syndication of right-wing political talk). And here are some 20-somethings showing that they actually would flip on Conway (who was 7-10p back then).

Local matters. There are thousands of places to get national coverage. Cable TV. News feeds. Social media. But having a local place to hang out makes KFI and KNX the sort of "living room" and "kitchen" for southern California. And I think radio programmers are so out-to-lunch with consultant data and pretending that 1970s metrics matter, that they never stopped to realize what business radio is actually in. And they keep making DUMB decisions that make a few bucks now, but push the product deeper into irrelevance among non-Boomer audiences.

Radio killed itself. Full stop. Every voice tracked jock. Every listener call gone unanswered. Every syndicated show. It was like chopping off a finger. How many can you chop off before you no longer have working hands?

Ending live/local on KFI after 7 is like KIIS playing a slightly-off-format syndicated music show after 7. KFI is like KIIS, except they play LOCAL talk instead of pop music.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

I don't have data. But I have on-the-ground anecdotes:

KALL 910 (Salt Lake City) ran local hosts. Commanded top dollar. Local owners sold it in '94 and it went 100% syndicated except mornings. Then they lost Limbaugh by '98. Station was "RADIO DISNEY" by 2002.

KFI **removed** syndication (Limbaugh, Dr. Laura) and bought themselves another FIFTEEN YEARS of relevance. Had they hung on, they'd be billing like KEIB.

Another anecdote:

I guest spoke at UCLA's engineering school in 2022. I casually mentioned KFI in passing. And six students shouted back "DING DONG." Talk radio is absolute death to anyone under the age of 50 (thanks to syndication of right-wing political talk). And here are some 20-somethings showing that they actually would flip on Conway (who was 7-10p back then).

Local matters. There are thousands of places to get national coverage. Cable TV. News feeds. Social media. But having a local place to hang out makes KFI and KNX the sort of "living room" and "kitchen" for southern California. And I think radio programmers are so out-to-lunch with consultant data and pretending that 1970s metrics matter, that they never stopped to realize what business radio is actually in. And they keep making DUMB decisions that make a few bucks now, but push the product deeper into irrelevance among non-Boomer audiences.

Radio killed itself. Full stop. Every voice tracked jock. Every listener call gone unanswered. Every syndicated show. It was like chopping off a finger. How many can you chop off before you no longer have working hands?

Ending live/local on KFI after 7 is like KIIS playing a slightly-off-format syndicated music show after 7. KFI is like KIIS, except they play LOCAL talk instead of pop music.

Without Rush and Dr. Laura, there would not have been a talk formatted KFI back in the day. They were the foundational talent on which the station was built.

The only reason KFI was able to carry on after their departure was the creation of two very talented local shows, Handel and John and Ken, that were originally built around the syndicated shows. Take either one of those shows away and the live and local talk format falls on its face.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

If I was crazy and in a financial position (money being immaterial) to put 1500 back on the air in Los Angeles, those two you mentioned would be my first choices to fill the air time. Yes, I know that almost no one would be listening but I don't care, I just want to see some balance on the AM band.

Yes I realise this is dreamland, but if my initials were S L this what I would do with 1260. To me it would serve a much more useful purpose than essentially simulcasting Classical music on the AM band. I've always been a fan of Classical music too but only listen to KMZT on 98.3 or 105.1HD2. And of course I listen to KUSC.

The AM band is dominated by programs with a certain point of view, that appear to be totally unapologetic for misleading, disingenuous statements about almost anything. Constant gaslighting. It's time to give a platform to the other side to attempt to do the same thing! 🙃

This is the Easter Bunny approach to liberalism on the radio.

One would lose less money forever smoking $100 bills than implementing this strategy.

 

[ted chittenden]

This is the Easter Bunny approach to liberalism on the radio.

One would lose less money forever smoking $100 bills than implementing this strategy.

Now how much has Civic Media lost in Wisconsin?

 

[TheBigA]

I don't have data. But I have on-the-ground anecdotes:

You could stop right there. You don't have data. That says it all. By not having data, you don't know that audiences started leaving broadcast radio in the late 80s, when everything was live & local. Especially AM radio.

By 1990, KALL was billing half of what KSL was billing. KALL was being killed by FM stations such as KKAT and KSFI. They couldn't afford to keep their own news staff, so they made a deal to combine news coverage with a TV station. This happened in 1990! Before the ownership changes. That's what you would know if you had the data. Look it up:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Duncan-American-Radio/Duncan-1990-Market.pdf

Radio killed itself. Full stop. Every voice tracked jock. Every listener call gone unanswered. Every syndicated show. It was like chopping off a finger. How many can you chop off before you no longer have working hands?

Those things happened as a result of the audience already leaving. If you had the data, you would know it. But you don't have data. If all it took to retain audience was live & local talent, that's what you'd have. The hiring of Mo Kelly at KFI was an attempt to do something different, but at the same time keep it local. The listeners of KFI rebelled because they didn't want something different.

The thing that killed radio was choice. You give people choices, and they no longer act as a mass. When that happens, they're less valuable to advertisers, so rates drop. When that happens, there is less money for local staff. That's what happened at KALL in Salt Lake City. They're a small 5K AM station that got hurt when FM came along. They were printing money when people only had AM. But that changed by the 1990s.

 

[TomásEstefan]

This is the Easter Bunny approach to liberalism on the radio.

One would lose less money forever smoking $100 bills than implementing this strategy.

I wouldn't be doing this for money. This is dreamland. It's just for the love of radio. Running it as a hobby. Just like a couple of other guys.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Without Rush and Dr. Laura, there would not have been a talk formatted KFI back in the day. They were the foundational talent on which the station was built.

Much as I dislike both of them, I agree 100% that they made a good foundation for KFI to build an image as the talk station.

And what @henry fails to take into account is that when iHeart moved Rush to 1150 in 2014 because the progressive/liberal talk format there was a failure, that strategy also worked. KEIB had him as a foundation to beuild listening on, and almost 12 years later, it's still viable in terms of commercial revenue (albeit a little weaker in the aftermath of Limbaugh's passing). But I suppose our naysayer would have thought "it's all syndicated, it'll never work" (and would likely find more anecdotal "evidence" of that).

Of course, Dr. Laura had moved to SiriusXM before all that, in 2011 ... after leaving KFI a couple of years prior in favor of her own syndicated show being carried on KFWB. I suppose @henry thinks that was a mistake on her part as well.

The only reason KFI was able to carry on after their departure was the creation of two very talented local shows, Handel and John and Ken, that were originally built around the syndicated shows. Take either one of those shows away and the live and local talk format falls on its face.

Talent rules. And drive time is important, regardless of format.

In the context of all that, it matters relatively little what KFI runs at night. One fact that has not changed over the decades is that nighttime listening is always significantly lower than in the daytime, and I'm sure whatever iHeart replaces Kelly with will be compatible with the format and more cost-efficient.

And -- before @henry tries to rebut me -- keeping the station together as a whole is much more important than who is doing evenings.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Thing is, Mo' Kelly just didn't come off as likeable, a necessary quotient. It was hard to place a finger, but he seemed just a tad stuck up. It was like he was a bit professorial, the opposite of Conway, Kobylt, etc. In radio, you don't lecture to your audience, but you initiate a conversation with them and allow the listener to respond in their heads to what is being said.

Secondly, a talk radio show needs to become "appointment radio" where the listener turns on a show because you want to hear the host's thoughts in a news-driven format.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Secondly, a talk radio show needs to become "appointment radio" where the listener turns on a show because you want to hear the host's thoughts in a news-driven format.

And, referencing my earlier comments, that is much less likely to happen outside of daytime hours.