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Best News and Talk Station Today

J

jrls4444

What is the best news and talk radio station in America today and why is it the best? It can be big stations like WABC, KFI, WGN, WOR, WLW, KABC, WLS, WMAL, or your local hometown station.
 
Radio is like TV or movies. There may always be a separation between what is good and what is being listened to, and there might be a difference between 'best' and 'most successful'.
 
landy007 said:
jrls4444 said:
What is the best news and talk radio station in America today and why is it the best? It can be big stations like WABC, KFI, WGN, WOR, WLW, KABC, WLS, WMAL, or your local hometown station.
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To me, a great station has a variety of personalities on the air, irrespective to any political ideology. The hosts need to be good at radio first. They need to be entertainers, you know, capable of entertaining listeners of varied political persuasions. Of course the only way to make sure that works, is to not have shows that use politics as a crutch.

That station should also have a solid troupe of local hosts, along with some reality-mandated good syndie hosts.

The station should really reflect the market, and not just in service elements. But don't force-feed local talk topics if they're not as interesting as the day's national topics.

If I tune in a talk station in a given market, I wanna be able to hear THAT market, not McDonalds radio.

P.S. WABC is one of the biggest disgraces in the industry these days. Here you have a legendary station in the #1 market---a market with an unbelievable amount of local issues. You could do nothing BUT local, and have tons of material---yet they sound like a radio syndication clearinghouse, a turnkey operation, barely reflective of NYC. So sad.
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Broken record.
 
I think stations like WLW, KFI, and WGN are great because they are mostly all local... and it shows in the ratings. Other stations like WHO and WOR are great also because they have a good mix of local and syndicated shows. I agree that WABC has relied too much on syndicated shows, although most of those shows call WABC their flagship. Cumulus is clearly using WABC and KABC as a clearinghouse for their syndicated shows, which is just another example of Cumulus ruining talk radio.
 
Local talk will get it's resurgence when local talent will do it, syndication desires are fine but we need to be focused on winning where we are.
 
WSB Atlanta is a landmark news/talk station here in the Southeast. On 750AM and now 95.5FM. Although they are currently in somewhat of a restructuring phase with the retirement of longtime host Neal Boortz. Herman Cain is taking over, and they now have Rush along with Hannity and local consumer host Clark Howard. And of course very good local news and traffic mixed in. Probably some more scheduling tweaks will eventually play out as they struggle to recover from the loss of Boortz. Who will fortunately still do daily commentaries and be a fill in host.
 
And WBT Charlotte is another major news/talk station in the Southeast, and they are actually featuring more local hosts now, with the exception of Rush at noon. But very much still a work in progress right now, but the trend here does seem to be more local and not ncessarily all right wing like Rush. 1110AM and 99.3FM.
 
WLW 700AM is a very impressive news/talk station in Cincinatti, Ohio, and I also liked the major news/talk station in Detroit. And what about WTOP and WMAL in Washington?
 
KGO San Francisco was my favorite, back before the big changes happened at that station. To me, that was what a news-talk station was supposed to sound like.
 
I would have to vote for KFI and/or WGN - bascially because they still have a lot of local content and they do a great job for their market (vs. the synicated "repeator stations" that are WABC, WJR, WLS, KGO, etc. - unfortunate :'().

From an entertainment value, I would go with KFI - they have some pretty funny radio show hosts.

:)
 
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