• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Salem talk show hosts

J

johnbasalla

Salem has let go, or substantially decreased the amount of time that some of their best local talkers can be on-the-air. It makes me wonder if two of their best, and most high profile, nationally syndicated hosts, who are unable to do their radio talk show, are part of the reason for trouble at Salem Communications?

DENNIS PRAGER and CHARLIE KIRK. Dennis experienced a devastating fall and Charlie was assassinated.
Both were deep thinking Conservative thinkers who could express themselves very well and had the ability to change some hearts and minds. As Dennis Prager is well over the age of 70, I thought that Salem brought in the much younger Charlie Kirk as Prager's eventual replacement. Now, with both of them unable to do their shows, this put Salem Communications in a tough place.
 
johnbasalla said:
Salem has let go, or substantially decreased the amount of time that some of their best local talkers can be on-the-air. It makes me wonder if two of their best, and most high profile, nationally syndicated hosts, who are unable to do their radio talk show, are part of the reason for trouble at Salem Communications?
Click to expand...

Both Prager and Kirk were national hosts, and they've each been replaced. That's not where the problem is.

Let's review the situation with Salem.

About two years ago, they were likely heading towards bankruptcy. They were about $200 million in debt.

So last year, they sold off a bunch of their most profitable FM stations to K-Love. That solved their immediate debt problem:

investor.salemmedia.com

Salem Media Group Substantially Strengthens its Balance Sheet by Repaying All $159.4 Million of its Long-Term Debt and Brings in New Strategic Investor

investor.salemmedia.com investor.salemmedia.com

But it completely changed the cash-flow situation in all of those markets. It's very possible that those FM stations were supporting the AM talk stations in those markets. So they've had to adjust their local budgets to account for that huge loss of revenue. That is what I think is the reason for these changes.

My suspicion is the local hosts have been given a choice: Stay for less money, or go on your own. There is money to be made doing ideological talk on platforms like Rumble or even YouTube. If you go on your own, you own your content, and can market and merchandise it your way. On the other hand, you lose a dependable paycheck and benefits. Apparently, some see that as a better option.

Salem knows its future is not in doing local talk or owning AM radio stations. Part of their strategy, laid out in the linked article, is to create new digital content. They have a new investor who is helping them in that area. That's where they're heading.
 
Also, Charlie Kirk was primarily an online figure. His show was distributed to radio stations through SRN, but the footprint was limited. Prager also was far from a live clearance in most markets (even on many Salem owned talkers), also he did a much different type of show that most of the Rush wannabees in talk radio land.

It was very logical and cerebral with fewer listeners calls. It was mostly not partisan hot takes about the current news cycle.
 
In Cleveland, Ohio, Bob Frantz had a number of advertisers, such as Harry Buffalo, a restaurant that hosted their anniversary celebration some years ago.
 
johnbasalla said:
In Cleveland, Ohio, Bob Frantz had a number of advertisers, such as Harry Buffalo, a restaurant that hosted their anniversary celebration some years ago.
Click to expand...

Do you think they bought enough time to cover local salaries and benefits? Apparently not.

If they were specifically buying Bob and not the station, they might buy time on his podcast.

But if they want to continue to buy WHK, they get Chris Stigall to do some local segments.
 
Since its founding until about ten years ago, Salem was amazingly profitable. The organization concentrated on three formats:

--Brokered Religion, mostly on AM
--Christian Contemporary on FM
--Conservative Talk, mostly on AM.

Religion was the original format. Imagine you are a profit-making company but you've got Christian charity as your listeners' motivation! Preachers paid you for airtime, then used those hours to give their sermons and prod their followers into sending donations. That money paid for the airtime.

Then Salem got involved in a few FM stations in several markets. The format was called "The Fish." Christian Contemporary music but unlike K-Love and the regional CCM networks, this was advertising-supported. Salem had CCM stations in Atlanta, Dallas, Cleveland, Nashville, Colorado Springs, Orange County CA and a few other markets.

In many cities, Salem has a second AM station. Some of them, like 970 in NYC, had been used as an alternate religion channel, since the primary religion channel (570 WMCA) was so profitable. But Salem management thought the nation was getting too liberal and put conservative talk on those secondary AM stations. Hey, if they made a small profit, all the better. But pushing the country to the right was the main motivation.

Now, with streaming, the Christian Radio business model has changed. You don't have to tune to a Salem religion station to hear Focus on The Family, David Jeremiah or Joyce Meyer. Streaming allows you to hear them whenever you want Not to mention, nearly all of Salem's best religion stations are stuck on the AM band.

In a matter of a few years, Salem went from one of the most profitable and stable broadcasting companies to one that had to take drastic action. Salem sold nearly all its FM stations to K-Love just to stay afloat.
 
TheBigA said:
And merchandise it your way. On the other hand, you lose a dependable paycheck and benefits. Apparently, some see that as a better option.

Salem knows its future is not in doing local talk or owning AM radio stations. Part of their strategy, laid out in the linked article, is to create new digital content. They have a new investor who is helping them in that area. That's where they're heading.
Click to expand...

And the other problem with Salem.. manby of their AM's are sub par signals or doing what has to be a niche dying format on radio that there cant be that many listeners (Heres looking at you, KDOW)
 
johnbasalla said:
Salem has let go, or substantially decreased the amount of time that some of their best local talkers can be on-the-air. It makes me wonder if two of their best, and most high profile, nationally syndicated hosts, who are unable to do their radio talk show, are part of the reason for trouble at Salem Communications?
Click to expand...
No impact.

In their latest quarterly report, Salem reported that revenue from its talk stations fell about 2% year on year (Jul-Sept 2024 vs Jul-Sept 2025). A year ago was before Mr. Prager's fall, and at the height of Mr. Kirk's influence.

A 2% fall in revenue is not that significant. The much larger iHeartMedia had a 3% drop in revenue in its radio division over the same period.
 
I was dealing with Salem in 1994. They've been around a long time and talking to one of the primary people, I was told theirs was a company like any other, seeking a profit and becoming bigger. They had an 'in' on the Christian audience through distribution for ministries (they weren't Ambassador but a good choice). I was told 'we're Cristian until it doesn't pay the bills'. That's why we saw them jump into their own talk shows although in 1994 each station had one talk show. The other talk shows from the other Salem stations were marketed to non-Salem stations.
 
johnbasalla said:
Salem has let go, or substantially decreased the amount of time that some of their best local talkers can be on-the-air. It makes me wonder if two of their best, and most high profile, nationally syndicated hosts, who are unable to do their radio talk show, are part of the reason for trouble at Salem Communications?

DENNIS PRAGER and CHARLIE KIRK. Dennis experienced a devastating fall and Charlie was assassinated.
Click to expand...
Kirk was murdered. I fixed that for you.

And speaking as a Salem Media (no more "Communications") employee, I can tell you that neither Prager nor Kirk weren't as "high-profile" as you want them to be, fanboy. The company puts a lot of stock on both Mike Gallagher and Hugh Hewitt. Prager and Kirk shared a daypart that isn't as highly-listened to as the other two, and they were certainly better known for their activities outside of radio.

What no one has mentioned in this thread is the presence of the Salem News Channel. From what I'm hearing internally, that operation continues to be a drain on the company's finances.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
What no one has mentioned in this thread is the presence of the Salem News Channel. From what I'm hearing internally, that operation continues to be a drain on the company's finances.
Click to expand...

That should be no surprise to anyone (though sometimes it is). The reason that only a handful of Audacy (formerly CBS) stations in large markets do all news is that it is the most expensive format to produce and it draws in primarily older age groups that advertisers don't want.
 
Ryan Williams said:
Also, Charlie Kirk was primarily an online figure. His show was distributed to radio stations through SRN, but the footprint was limited. Prager also was far from a live clearance in most markets (even on many Salem owned talkers), also he did a much different type of show that most of the Rush wannabees in talk radio land.

It was very logical and cerebral with fewer listeners calls. It was mostly not partisan hot takes about the current news cycle.
Click to expand...
This comment makes not a lot of sense. The majority of his clips that went viral were from his radio show which was televised on the salem news channel. As well as pulling in an average of 4 million unique listeners weekly according to talkers estimetrix. He also took calls every day through the website, ..... Clearly you didnt pay much attention to what that show was all about.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
Kirk was murdered. I fixed that for you.

And speaking as a Salem Media (no more "Communications") employee, I can tell you that neither Prager nor Kirk weren't as "high-profile" as you want them to be, fanboy. The company puts a lot of stock on both Mike Gallagher and Hugh Hewitt. Prager and Kirk shared a daypart that isn't as highly-listened to as the other two, and they were certainly better known for their activities outside of radio.

What no one has mentioned in this thread is the presence of the Salem News Channel. From what I'm hearing internally, that operation continues to be a drain on the company's finances.
Click to expand...
Assassinated, murdered. It all amounts to the same terrible thing. In Charlie Kirk's case, assassination is an appropriate term as, in his case, it was the murder of a public figure, both on and off radio.
 
b-turner said:
I was dealing with Salem in 1994. They've been around a long time and talking to one of the primary people, I was told theirs was a company like any other, seeking a profit and becoming bigger. They had an 'in' on the Christian audience through distribution for ministries (they weren't Ambassador but a good choice). I was told 'we're Cristian until it doesn't pay the bills'. That's why we saw them jump into their own talk shows although in 1994 each station had one talk show. The other talk shows from the other Salem stations were marketed to non-Salem stations.
Click to expand...
They are "Christian Enough To Make The Sale!" just ask Janet Mefford and her husband.
 
johnbasalla said:
Salem has let go, or substantially decreased the amount of time that some of their best local talkers can be on-the-air. It makes me wonder if two of their best, and most high profile, nationally syndicated hosts, who are unable to do their radio talk show, are part of the reason for trouble at Salem Communications?

DENNIS PRAGER and CHARLIE KIRK. Dennis experienced a devastating fall and Charlie was assassinated.
Both were deep thinking Conservative thinkers who could express themselves very well and had the ability to change some hearts and minds. As Dennis Prager is well over the age of 70, I thought that Salem brought in the much younger Charlie Kirk as Prager's eventual replacement. Now, with both of them unable to do their shows, this put Salem Communications in a tough place.
Click to expand...
Their "hosts" are generally UNKNOWN quantities outside of the Salem stations.
 
Gregg. said:
Since its founding until about ten years ago, Salem was amazingly profitable. The organization concentrated on three formats:

--Brokered Religion, mostly on AM
--Christian Contemporary on FM
--Conservative Talk, mostly on AM.

Religion was the original format. Imagine you are a profit-making company but you've got Christian charity as your listeners' motivation! Preachers paid you for airtime, then used those hours to give their sermons and prod their followers into sending donations. That money paid for the airtime.

Then Salem got involved in a few FM stations in several markets. The format was called "The Fish." Christian Contemporary music but unlike K-Love and the regional CCM networks, this was advertising-supported. Salem had CCM stations in Atlanta, Dallas, Cleveland, Nashville, Colorado Springs, Orange County CA and a few other markets.

In many cities, Salem has a second AM station. Some of them, like 970 in NYC, had been used as an alternate religion channel, since the primary religion channel (570 WMCA) was so profitable. But Salem management thought the nation was getting too liberal and put conservative talk on those secondary AM stations. Hey, if they made a small profit, all the better. But pushing the country to the right was the main motivation.

Now, with streaming, the Christian Radio business model has changed. You don't have to tune to a Salem religion station to hear Focus on The Family, David Jeremiah or Joyce Meyer. Streaming allows you to hear them whenever you want Not to mention, nearly all of Salem's best religion stations are stuck on the AM band.

In a matter of a few years, Salem went from one of the most profitable and stable broadcasting companies to one that had to take drastic action. Salem sold nearly all its FM stations to K-Love just to stay afloat.
Click to expand...
If you had a favorite Christian preacher you wanted to listen to, would you rather wait until broadcast time or go to that ministry's website and listen when you want to? Would you want to get directly to the program or listen to multiple PI Deal Ads from questionable unknown advertisers with the phone number repeated three, four or five times?
 


Back
Top Bottom