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98.9 News Talk FM

W

waxonwaxoff

Guest
I am finding myself listening to 98.9 Newstalk more and more when I am driving into work. My question is what is the realistic future of this format on FM radio in Memphis. Is that type of format ever going to draw decent ratings or is the auidence too limited?
 
The morning show seems to be solid. Ken, Bev and Andrew sound like they've been together for years. Considering that they've doubled their audience from Aug. to Nov., and are in a dead heat with WREC, that at least in mornings, it's a viable station, in the top ten in the market with Adults 25-54. That means they have a larger audience 25-54 than KXHT-FM, WEGR-FM, WHBQ-FM, WMFS-FM and WDIA. Ferguson has struggled in the afternoon, but seems to still beat WREC's syndicated show. Consider that only 15% of all listening in Memphis is on the AM dial, 98.9 has a greater potential audience that WREC will ever have. And with a younger skew, and an election year in 2012, it ought to do well. Some additional promotion on TV and billboards woiuldn't hurt, either.
 
98.9 will win over WREC in a very short time. Their commitment local talk will prevail in the heart and minds of Memphis listeners. The problem as I hear it on on WREC is that once you hear a story on Glen Beck you hear it again on Rush, Hannity and whoever the new syndicated talking head is in PM drive. Go local, go live and win big.
 
That's a good point, Molly. I like Ken, Bev, and Andrew. I am a Republican and though I like him, I think Ben Ferguson can go a bit overboard at times, but he has a good show. I agree about more local shows. The problem as you stated is the national shows tend to be all the same. For example, Mark Levine and Laura Ingram basically make the same argument. It is the same problem I have (this may be a poor comparsion) with Sports 56. Every show is basically the same, they rehash the same two or three topics. I realize this is SEC country, but when I am at work or driving around I can't help but notice all kinds of cars with NFL flags of various teams and I frequently overhear a lot of discussions on the NBA, yet you hear little of that on the radio. That tells me that there is a potential audience out there being overlooked. I personally can't take SEC talk all day long. Some is fine and great, but I like a variety of sports. I wish the Riverkings and hockey in general was given a segment or two once a week.

My point is 98.9 needs a variety of shows as well. I am an independent who leans Republican, but in all fairness, I would have a Democratic show, etc. That makes for not only fun radio but is a way to build a bigger auidence because let's face it a station like 98.9 is going to have a limited auidence because of its format.
 
The problem is that shows from a liberal viewpoint don't have an audience. Alan Colmes used to be on with Hannity...Hannity went solo and his ratings soared. Air America was a huge failure, and there's not a single liberal voice out there that attracts ratings. If there was a liberal that was saleable and could attract an audience, I'm sure stations would be lining up to put the show on the air. One of the basic tenents of radio programing is to define an audience and super-serve that audience. 98.9 has targeted conservatives...so what sense does it make to put a liberal show on the air?
 
There are some libtalkers who do OK in selected markets; somehow I doubt Memphis would be one of them. Wasn't 680 Air America before it went under? I don't recall it ever doing well in the 12+ ratings we see here.

The real ratings winners in my opinion are the ones with a mix of high rated syndicated fare and good local talent. That seems to be the magic formula. That and being on FM. Birmingham has tones of speech programming on FM so it's more about programming difference, and the mostly syndicated WERC (Clear Channel) is usually tops in talk, followed distantly by Cumulus' WAPI-FM which is live and local from midday to late evening. WAPI-AM has a different talk lineup of all syndicated stuff like Boortz and Hannity and it a distant third. Close in on fourth is WYDE-FM who has a mix of syndicated and some local talkers but the talent pool on both ends is very shallow.

Even before WSB in Atlanta got an FM signal they were usually the highest rated talker, and occasionally the highest rated station, period, even just being on AM. Theirs again is a mix of local and national talk. WGST and the other pea shooters were just weak sauce because they were either all syndicated or all local niche talkers.

Right now 98.9 has a competitive advantage simply because it's on FM with a good signal; I expect that to disappear if (no, when) WREC migrates to FM, especially if it happens with a full power signal.
 
Harumph. As a liberal, I found Air America unlistenable other than Al Franken or Mike Malloy. We don't get into the yelling and anger that you find on conservative radio, and while we like hearing a viewpoint we can appreciate, we like to calm down, not get jacked up. That doesn't always make for good radio.

We would just settle for actual non-biased news.

To be honest, I have always thought, even though it is expensive, that Memphis COULD support a 24-hour news station, like WBBM/Chicago or WINS/NYC.
 
sjs1959 said:
Harumph. As a liberal, I found Air America unlistenable other than Al Franken or Mike Malloy. We don't get into the yelling and anger that you find on conservative radio, and while we like hearing a viewpoint we can appreciate, we like to calm down, not get jacked up. That doesn't always make for good radio.

We would just settle for actual non-biased news.

To be honest, I have always thought, even though it is expensive, that Memphis COULD support a 24-hour news station, like WBBM/Chicago or WINS/NYC.
Click to expand...

Hmmmmmm
Who was that nerdy looking guy with thick glasses I saw screaming at Bill O'Reilly at a press club dinner a while back? It looked a lot like Al Franken to me.

Yeah, (Dead) Air America certainly wasn't angry about George W. Bush being in office.
If they had been, they would have been obsessed with him and gone on for years talking about how dumb he was.

There is no such thing as non-biased news.
Everyone has life-experiences and a belief-system that filters the way they cover events.
Most contemporary commentators don't even pretend to be unbiased these days.
 
Yeah, (Dead) Air America certainly wasn't angry about George W. Bush being in office.
If they had been, they would have been obsessed with him and gone on for years talking about how dumb he was.
Click to expand...

Some things are just self-evident.
 
Ed Schultz delivers the best ratings of any liberal talker. His show is very much tape-delayed on KWAM and airs here at 10:00 PM weeknights. You can hear his show during the day on SiriusXM. Schultz trails in the ratings behind other talkers such as Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity so badly that Schultz isn't in the conversation, when it comes to most popular radio talk show hosts in the country. I, personally, like Ed Schultz a lot. From a business standpoint, there's no way that I would put a liberal talk radio station in the Memphis market.

Getting back to Air America, Thom Hartmann and Rachel Maddow were my favorite hosts.
 
Tynosaur said:
Yeah, (Dead) Air America certainly wasn't angry about George W. Bush being in office.
If they had been, they would have been obsessed with him and gone on for years talking about how dumb he was.
Click to expand...

Some things are just self-evident.
Click to expand...

If that were the case, they wouldn't need to repeat the claim every day for years would they?
The irony was that the majority of the Bush-haters had less education and came from less prestigious schools.
Barbra Streisand, for example, dropped out of high school and would often horribly mangle the English language during her written criticisms of the president.
 
RadeoEngineer said:
How many unfunded bogus wars did Streisand start?
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Moot point - she didn't have the opportunity.
If she had been at all concerned about the legitimacy of the war, she would have continued to criticize it (with lots of grammatical errors) as it continued for four more years under the current administration.
 
Radioguy914 said:
The problem is that shows from a liberal viewpoint don't have an audience. \
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Not true. Liberal talk has a pretty big audience. It's called NPR. Unless things have changed recently, Morning Edition and All Things Considered were the second and third most listened to talk programs in the country, just behind Rush and just in front of Hannity.
 
Kent-

Let me rephrase that. Liberal talk shows are not commercially viable. If NPR is all that and a bag of chips, why do WE have to fund them with taxpayer dollars? Let them come into the commercial world and see how well they perform.
 
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