Bernie Ward's take on KGO

[kinetic]

Happened upon Bernie Ward's blog and saw this post.

http://lionoftheleft.blogspot.com/2011/12/lets-talk.html

It's lengthy, but here are some salient points:

"The Thursday night massacre, which occurred at KGO, was not about ratings or people meters or a company bleeding money. What happened at KGO is the logical conclusion to a process started in 1996 when Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996...

"Cumulus had a problem. It could make more money by getting out of local talk, but face a firestorm of criticism. They decided on a two-step process to achieve their goals. First, fire all the full-time hosts (they would have fired Owens too except for the fact he was smart enough to have a contract which didn't allow it...I bow to his negotiating skills) and pretend to change to an all-news format. Keep some talk on the weekends where niche shows do well. In about a year or less, they will contend they are still losing money and cancel the all-news format and move to syndicated programming. By this time, the passionate listeners who could cause them licensing problems will have moved on. They will abandon any pretense about the local community and bring in shows with no local concerns whatsoever. Cumulus' Thursday night massacre was a bloodletting disguised by a format change in order to get where they really want to go."

I've had that suspicion, too. Many have commented about KCBS and no way KGO can beat them... based on what I've heard of just the first week... not really compelling. Will it improve? Bernie writes:

"With an increase in news coverage one would suspect KGO would hire a number of new reporters and anchors. They will re-open a bureau at San Francisco City Hall and the Hall of Justice... a Sacramento bureau staffed full-time... an East Bay bureau and an expanded South Bay bureau. If they are serious about going all-news, they will spend money, sending reporters to breaking news stories all over the world and nation... The reality is almost none of this will be done. They might hire a new anchor, but more reporters, new bureaus, investigative stories and national coverage will never happen. Instead the news product will [be] lighter and fluffier and will involve ripping and reading more than anything else... This wasn't about ratings or people meters or loss of money. This is about a corporate model which takes advantage of the public airwaves (owned by you) to make a huge profit while ignoring any commitment to the local community. (It’s no accident the new owners dropped the Leukemia Cureathon and tried to get their hands on the money from the Thanksgiving Charity Drive)"

"If you want proof of my theory," he says, "watch and listen."

Any thoughts on what he's saying?

 

[DavidKaye]

Any thoughts on what he's saying?

Cumulus has owned KNBR for years and they run live, local talkshows from 7am until 10pm weekdays, with not only one host but usually two. KNBR is the highest-share sportstalk station in the country and Cumulus management knows it's because of the live, local talk.

KGO management hasn't cut back on any live, local programming except for eliminating Ray Taliaferro's shift. This makes money sense. There simply aren't enough listeners to support live overnights in most markets anymore. In fact, even in the days before Jazzbeaux Collins was on the overnight shift, KGO used to shut down at 1:00am.

 

[kirksan]

Any thoughts on what he's saying?

KGO management hasn't cut back on any live, local programming except for eliminating Ray Taliaferro's shift. This makes money sense.

Huh? The idiots at KGO just eliminated Len Tillem, Gene Burns, Dr Bill, John Rothman, as well as Ray Taliaferro. I suppose you could claim that the all news format is live and local, but since it's a bunch of regurgitated wire stories, and constantly repeated traffic and sports scores, I'd hardly call it local, it's barely live.

 

[DavidKaye]

I suppose you could claim that the all news format is live and local, but since it's a bunch of regurgitated wire stories, and constantly repeated traffic and sports scores, I'd hardly call it local, it's barely live.

Well, it IS live and local. They're continuing to employ real people gathering news and reporting it and reading it. The point was that everybody, including Bernie Ward, has been saying that they fired all those talkshow hosts so they could do syndication, and yet the only syndication they brought in was to replace 4 hours between midnight and 4am.

 

[raydioheadfm]

KNBR is the highest-share sportstalk station in the country and Cumulus management knows it's because of the live, local talk.

David...not sure what you are talking about...KNBR the highest rated sports talk in the country?

November 11 6+

KNBR SF 3.4
WXYT Detroit 6.8 (#1)

There are a few more out there too..Boston has two stations that rank higher...

 

[LKellerIII]

I suppose you could claim that the all news format is live and local, but since it's a bunch of regurgitated wire stories, and constantly repeated traffic and sports scores, I'd hardly call it local, it's barely live.

Well, it IS live and local. They're continuing to employ real people gathering news and reporting it and reading it. The point was that everybody, including Bernie Ward, has been saying that they fired all those talkshow hosts so they could do syndication, and yet the only syndication they brought in was to replace 4 hours between midnight and 4am.

According to Bernie, the live and local news format is just a fiendish plot. In his logic, Cumulus wants the new format to fail. Then in a year, they say: 'See? Live and local is dead on AM.' then they insert syndicated talk, and nobody complains.

I find this logic a bit tortured because it assumes Cumulus doesn't mind losing revenue for a year while KGO's ratings tank to even lower levels, just so they can avoid controversy now.

 

[DavidKaye]

David...not sure what you are talking about...KNBR the highest rated sports talk in the country?

Well, that's what they've been saying. Take it up with KNBR management.

 

[DavidKaye]

According to Bernie, the live and local news format is just a fiendish plot. In his logic, Cumulus wants the new format to fail. Then in a year, they say: 'See? Live and local is dead on AM.' then they insert syndicated talk, and nobody complains.

This is the problem I've always had with Bernie's take on anything. To him everything was a fiendish plot, when a lot of actions in business and politics could be explained as simple ineptitude. Obviously, Cumulus owns KGO and can do with it what they want. They don't need to set up a straw man to knock it down a few months later, and certainly that's not what their shareholders want to see. Their shareholders want to see positive cash flow results ASAP. Bernie obviously doesn't understand the first thing about business, especially corporate business.

 

[TheBigA]

According to Bernie, the live and local news format is just a fiendish plot. In his logic, Cumulus wants the new format to fail. Then in a year, they say: 'See? Live and local is dead on AM.' then they insert syndicated talk, and nobody complains.

Nobody is really complaining about the current situation either. And Bernie assumes that ABC wouldn't have done the exact same thing.

This has nothing to do with the 96 TCA, and has nothing to do with corporate radio ownership. It has to do with a tired and old radio station that was long overdue for freshening up. Coupled with the fact that the days of AM radio are ending.

 

[LKellerIII]

According to Bernie, the live and local news format is just a fiendish plot. In his logic, Cumulus wants the new format to fail. Then in a year, they say: 'See? Live and local is dead on AM.' then they insert syndicated talk, and nobody complains.

Nobody is really complaining about the current situation either. And Bernie assumes that ABC wouldn't have done the exact same thing.

This has nothing to do with the 96 TCA, and has nothing to do with corporate radio ownership. It has to do with a tired and old radio station that was long overdue for freshening up. Coupled with the fact that the days of AM radio are ending.

Yes - though sensible people can argue about whether or not the 96 TCA was a good or bad thing, it's always used as a convenient whipping boy when posters here lose one of their favorite stations or formats. It's like the people who blame Propsition 13 for every ill that befalls public funding of anything.

Nobody ever explains how it would be different if corporations could still ony own 8 (or whatever it was) stations. Before the 96 TCA, there were some local owners, but most station owners were corporations who owned radio stations as only part of their portfolio. They were business people, first and foremost. RKO General made tires.

If 96 TCA had never happened, modern voice-tracking technology, and syndicated talk shows would still exist. Wouldn't those old-timey station owners have been just as likely to do these same things to save money?

RE: Bernie Ward - I wasn't a fan, but I recall that my mother-in-law (a big Bernie fan) was convinced by something she heard on his show that George W. Bush was plannning to bomb The Hague, if an when the World Criminal Court decided he was a war criminal. I don't know if that was based on something Bernie actually said, or something a caller to his show might have said...but I thought that was laughable...as much as I disliked 'W.'

 

[coppersmom]

or perhaps your mother in law misunderstood a flight of rhetorical fancy?

 

[JEREMIAH]

Actually, Cumulus is planning to go "Radio Disney" on KGO.


Jerry Gordon

 

[LKellerIII]

or perhaps your mother in law misunderstood a flight of rhetorical fancy?

Anything's possible, but she was actually a very sensible person and not gullible, at all. But she did reserve a special brand of disdain...hatred even...for Mr. Bush

 

[oaktree]

KGO management hasn't cut back on any live, local programming except for eliminating Ray Taliaferro's shift. This makes money sense.

[/quote]

Huh? The idiots at KGO just eliminated Len Tillem, Gene Burns, Dr Bill, John Rothman, as well as Ray Taliaferro. I suppose you could claim that the all news format is live and local, but since it's a bunch of regurgitated wire stories, and constantly repeated traffic and sports scores, I'd hardly call it local, it's barely live.
[/quote]

And ... Joannie Greggains, "Dining Around w/Gene Burns", Lloyd-Lindsay Young weather, the "Super Commuter" and gosh knows how many "support staff" producers, engineers, programmers on both KGO & KSFO, and various other "live" talents from both stations. Peter Finch won't be long for the format if he doesn't burn out first.

Afterall ... his contract wasn't renewed at KFOG and it was either "news" (term used lightly) from 7 to 10 or it was "see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya." Oh, and let's not forget the "live" talent like Dough McEntyre on "Red Eye" ending on Jan. 3rd.

Doug ... "we hardly got to know ye."

 

[TheBigA]

And ... Joannie Greggains, "Dining Around w/Gene Burns", Lloyd-Lindsay Young weather, the "Super Commuter" and gosh knows how many "support staff" producers, engineers, programmers on both KGO & KSFO, and various other "live" talents from both stations.

But the point is that they haven't been replaced by national syndicated programming. Right?

The days of huge staffs of engineers, producers, and others for local radio programs ended in the 1940s. That was taken care of when DJs replaced the radio drama folks in the 1950s. But if you worked for a network O&O (and I did at one time), a lot of that over-staffing was kept in place by union rules. The good news about working at a network O&O was there was TV money coming in that helped pay for the radio staff. Some of the engineers and producers who worked at my O&O radio station also did shifts for TV. Once radio had to exist on its own, it lost money. That's what Citadel discovered when they bought ABC.

 

[kinetic]

I suppose you could claim that the all news format is live and local, but since it's a bunch of regurgitated wire stories, and constantly repeated traffic and sports scores, I'd hardly call it local, it's barely live.

Well, it IS live and local. They're continuing to employ real people gathering news and reporting it and reading it. The point was that everybody, including Bernie Ward, has been saying that they fired all those talkshow hosts so they could do syndication, and yet the only syndication they brought in was to replace 4 hours between midnight and 4am.

Actually David, he's saying that's the long-term plan. I wouldn't be surprised if he were right on this one. And don't you think sports radio is a bit of a different animal than news-talk, both competitively and in terms of content? It would be really hard to justify syndication on a sports station with so many pro teams in the market representing all four major sports.

 

[TheBigA]

Actually David, he's saying that's the long-term plan. I wouldn't be surprised if he were right on this one.

He really doesn't know. Bernie obviously has an agenda and an ax to grind. Not the kind of background that provides credibility.

And nothing he says justifies keeping a staff that was clearly very expensive and dropping in ratings and revenue. Had ABC intended to keep radio, they would have done a better job infusing new blood here. By 2008, it was too late.

 

[kinetic]

Actually David, he's saying that's the long-term plan. I wouldn't be surprised if he were right on this one.

He really doesn't know. Bernie obviously has an agenda and an ax to grind. Not the kind of background that provides credibility.

And nothing he says justifies keeping a staff that was clearly very expensive and dropping in ratings and revenue. Had ABC intended to keep radio, they would have done a better job infusing new blood here. By 2008, it was too late.

I'm not saying he knows that, just that he's saying it. He didn't say it would happen overnight. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if it did. While it sounds like they're running their new "news and information" on the cheap, it's hardly more compelling so we'll have to see if it pulls better numbers. Can they get any worse?

Can't see how anyone can argue with your second graph.

 

[MC]

I don't think that "red eye radio" is going to cut it in SF. The guy talked about Andrew Pulhouse, some baseball guy...do KGO people want to here that? Isn't Doug MacIntired being fired anyway?

Most talk Stations have one or two local shows during the week and the rest sydicrap.

 

[SCMcKinney]

Here's a wild idea from an out-of-towner. What would be the prospects of CBS hiring the fired hosts and putting them on 2.0 - 1.9 rated KITS-FM? Goodwill of the personalities will immediately transfer. KITS is not 24/7 music since they carry the Raiders currently. KITS is last place in the CBS stable, and pretty low on the Bay area ratings race anyway.