CBS Radio Sports To LA?

[Thomps2525]

KMPC-710 had a sports format from 1992 to 1994. ESPN started a sports format on KSPN (the former KRLA-1110) in late 2000; KSPN moved to the 710 frequency in January 2003. In the early 2000s, a format known as "Xtra Sports" ran on XETRA-690 and KXTA-1150. It moved to KLAC in 2005. From 1997 to 2007 a sports format ran on 1540, which was KCTD and later picked up the old KMPC call letters. Right now we have a sports format on KLAC-570, KSPN-710 and KLAA-830.

"Golly gee, Steve, all the sports stations have been on AM and CBS seems to be putting its new sports format on only FM stations."

Ah, you got my point. CBS Sports Radio could indeed be coming to KFWB but I'm guessing KTWV-94.7 is more likely. I can't see CBS being content with being the fourth AM sports station in the market.

 

[RadioFanBoy]

KTWV does seem the most likeliest candidate for a flip to sports come Jan 2013. The Wave will live on in HD2 Land. The new station will have two strong selling points out of the gate: The new home of Jim Rome and the FM home of Clippers Basketball, who at the moment continue to play like the Lakers used to. Guys from the KNX Sports department may even get shows of their own. If the station does well, either UCLA and USC may be wooed away from their current radio homes.

 

[Thomps2525]

So CBS Sports Radio in Los Angeles will have the Clippers but not the Dodgers, Angels, Ducks, Kings, Bruins, Trojans or Lakers. If it wasn't for the Clippers' strong start this season (discounting losses to lousy Cleveland and lousy Golden State), I'd say CBS L.A. is doomed to failure, but.....

 

[kogi19]

Have Angel broadcast really helped the ratings at KLAA? They seemed to range between 0.3-0.4. Arte was following the trend of baseball teams buying radio stations to put their teams on. The St. Louis Cardinals also did that when they bought a share of KTRS, taking the team off of KMOX. Cardinals went back to KMOX.

The Dodgers have moved four times since their 25 year run on KABC that ended in the late 90s. It doesn't bring ratings and revenue as it once did. KLAC's overall numbers didn't seem to dramatically increase this season.

Depending on how long Arte Moreno's agreement is with KSPN, a deal could be brokered to put games on the CBS Radio Sports station. Also take into account the new CBS Radio Sports Network and CBS flipping FMs to sports are two different things, and could involve two different stations.

 

[justpassingthough]

Have Angel broadcast really helped the ratings at KLAA? They seemed to range between 0.3-0.4. Arte was following the trend of baseball teams buying radio stations to put their teams on. The St. Louis Cardinals also did that when they bought a share of KTRS, taking the team off of KMOX. Cardinals went back to KMOX.

The Dodgers have moved four times since their 25 year run on KABC that ended in the late 90s. It doesn't bring ratings and revenue as it once did. KLAC's overall numbers didn't seem to dramatically increase this season.

Depending on how long Arte Moreno's agreement is with KSPN, a deal could be brokered to put games on the CBS Radio Sports station. Also take into account the new CBS Radio Sports Network and CBS flipping FMs to sports are two different things, and could involve two different stations.

Cable RSNs were the nail in the coffin for baseball on the radio. As soon as nearly every game could be seen on TV, the need for radio dissipated rather quickly. Of course, there are some people who prefer the commentary of the radio announcers to the sometimes lacking commentary by the early cable commentators, but it doesn't appear radio even has this edge now. Sports, is and will always be, better delivered by a visual medium.

 

[KeithE4]

Cable RSNs were the nail in the coffin for baseball on the radio. As soon as nearly every game could be seen on TV, the need for radio dissipated rather quickly. Of course, there are some people who prefer the commentary of the radio announcers to the sometimes lacking commentary by the early cable commentators, but it doesn't appear radio even has this edge now. Sports, is and will always be, better delivered by a visual medium.

But radio (or MLB Gameday Audio via a smartphone) has one advantage: You can't watch a ballgame in your car. And if you live in the Pacific or Mountain time zones, your team will play quite a few games while you're driving home from work (4 to 5 PM local time first pitch).

 

[Thomps2525]

I'm going to make a generalization. Is that okay? I think the reason so many sports stations have failed is because they don't have broadcast rights to very many team's games. Instead of sports, most of their programming consists of people talking about sports. That is not nearly as interesting. Compare "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!," "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" and "In a year where so much has been improbable, the impossible has happened!" with "Hi, I'm Jimmy from Long Beach and I think Mike Trout should have won an MVP award." and "Hi, I'm John from Van Nuys and I just wanta say that Dwight Howard needs to get better at shooting free throws."

So I guess my message to CBS is: Get some games!

 

[reelyreal]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...562528761":"og.recommends"}&action_ref_map=[]

Ballooning cable costs as the television rights fees increase more and more may be good news for radio PBP. While radio rights fees are also continuing to increase, that cost isn't directly passed on to the listener.

 

[justpassingthough]

As much as rights fees for sports on television continue to increase, the MSO's realize that ultimately the investment is worth it, because live sports still attracts an audience. Not only is it generally a larger audience than for most other programming, but people tend to watch the games live, so there isn't the concern that viewers are DVRing the programming and skip the commercials- as most advertisers fear. Also, the vast majority of the sports are still only available via cable and satellite- so sports is essentially saving cable at a time when some people are cutting the cord and realizing that with online viewing, Netflix, Hulu, etc- they may not need traditional cable.

 

[BMedina]

Jay Mohr is replacing Jim Rome (who moves to CBS Sportsradio) on AM 570 KLAC and Fox Sportsradio on Jan 2. What station will be Rome's new home in L.A.? Jay is terrible!

 

[LKellerIII]

Have Angel broadcast really helped the ratings at KLAA? They seemed to range between 0.3-0.4. Arte was following the trend of baseball teams buying radio stations to put their teams on. The St. Louis Cardinals also did that when they bought a share of KTRS, taking the team off of KMOX. Cardinals went back to KMOX.

The Dodgers have moved four times since their 25 year run on KABC that ended in the late 90s. It doesn't bring ratings and revenue as it once did. KLAC's overall numbers didn't seem to dramatically increase this season.

Depending on how long Arte Moreno's agreement is with KSPN, a deal could be brokered to put games on the CBS Radio Sports station. Also take into account the new CBS Radio Sports Network and CBS flipping FMs to sports are two different things, and could involve two different stations.

Cable RSNs were the nail in the coffin for baseball on the radio. As soon as nearly every game could be seen on TV, the need for radio dissipated rather quickly. Of course, there are some people who prefer the commentary of the radio announcers to the sometimes lacking commentary by the early cable commentators, but it doesn't appear radio even has this edge now. Sports, is and will always be, better delivered by a visual medium.

I recall that when I went to Dodger Stadium with my dad in the 60s, many people in the stands would be listening to Vin Scully's play-by-play while watching the game in person.

I also knew people who would watch the Dodgers on TV, but mute the TV sound and listen to Vin instead.

I've never seen any of that in the Bay Area, and I've lived here since the 70s. Maybe that's a tribute to Mr. Scully's fine work.

 

[RicoGregg]

KMPC-710 had a sports format from 1992 to 1994. ESPN started a sports format on KSPN (the former KRLA-1110) in late 2000; KSPN moved to the 710 frequency in January 2003. In the early 2000s, a format known as "Xtra Sports" ran on XETRA-690 and KXTA-1150. It moved to KLAC in 2005. From 1997 to 2007 a sports format ran on 1540, which was KCTD and later picked up the old KMPC call letters. Right now we have a sports format on KLAC-570, KSPN-710 and KLAA-830.

"Golly gee, Steve, all the sports stations have been on AM and CBS seems to be putting its new sports format on only FM stations."

Ah, you got my point. CBS Sports Radio could indeed be coming to KFWB but I'm guessing KTWV-94.7 is more likely. I can't see CBS being content with being the fourth AM sports station in the market.

The first sentence in the quote is notable. The then-general manager of KMPC, now deceased, went to his grave kicking himself over changing 710 from "The Station of the Stars" to all sports. By the time he passed in 2005, he had told several people, including an interviewer from the LA Weekly that he should have left KMPC alone.

By the time the station became The Zone, 710 was but a skeleton of its former self.

In twenty years' time, we have seen all-sports radio evolve. Some have succeeded, then there's been the KWNK's and KMAX's of the world.

I can remember some people in the 70's trying to propose all-sports radio to stations, and their proposals dismissed as "silly", of "will never happen".

Of course, a lot of those same people dismissed FM radio as a company tax write-off. General David Sarnoff himself, the founder of RCA, had no use or respect for FM radio. If he had had his way, FM would have never gotten off the ground.

What I'm trying to say here is that sports radio still has lots of evolution left to go.

In the near future, it will probably be fairly commonplace for teams to own the stations that broadcast them. And offer web streaming for a price. In some areas, that is already happening.

Sports stations, "narrowcasting" in itself, will narrow things down even more. In the more distant future, you could conceivably have radio outlets that are exclusively things like all-college football, with talk of recruitment, changes, and what have you, all-baseball, year round, with hot stove league talk during the winter, all-basketball, and the like.

It's all about competing, just like sports itself.

 

[david]

"Hi, I'm Jimmy from Long Beach and I think Mike Trout should have won an MVP award." and "Hi, I'm John from Van Nuys and I just wanta say that Dwight Howard needs to get better at shooting free throws."

I believe there is a potentially successful formula for sports radio that is not being widely followed and would work much better than the redundant caller version depicted above - analytical Sports Talk as exemplified by Roger Lodge's excellent daily "The Baseball Report" at 7:43 AM on KLAA (AM 830), where he invites a different member of the national baseball media to come on air and discuss the latest Hot Stove developments. This is appointment radio.

Similarly, love him or hate him, you got to admit that Hacksaw crams in to his show tons of breaking news, insights (please don't lob flames) and interviews with reporters who cover various teams.

Sports Radio with less scores and more insights from those who make a living covering sports could be a refreshing complement to what 570, 710, 830 and 1090 already have on air.

 

[Fornax]

KTWV does seem the most likeliest candidate for a flip to sports come Jan 2013. The Wave will live on in HD2 Land. The new station will have two strong selling points out of the gate: The new home of Jim Rome and the FM home of Clippers Basketball, who at the moment continue to play like the Lakers used to. Guys from the KNX Sports department may even get shows of their own. If the station does well, either UCLA and USC may be wooed away from their current radio homes.

It is kind of looking like CBS is using the Mayan calendar for its sports network plans in LA!

 

[michael hagerty]

The then-general manager of KMPC, now deceased, went to his grave kicking himself over changing 710 from "The Station of the Stars" to all sports. By the time he passed in 2005, he had told several people, including an interviewer from the LA Weekly that he should have left KMPC alone.

Yeah, but...he was running out of options. The overall numbers were starting to fall, the demographics were becoming harder and harder to sell...and Gene and Jackie Autry were slowly turning off the money tap.

Music for a more salable demo was out....those listeners were already on FM. Talk? Did that and failed a decade before, and that was just against KABC, not KABC and KFI. And KMPC's sports heritage (Angels, Rams, Bruins), made that seem like a natural move.

If he'd stayed with the old format, it would have been a long, slow ride to the bottom (maybe not that long or slow, given the demos). Sports probably could have worked. But it needed more than two years, and it needed the kind of support Gene Autry gave KMPC in its glory days. It got neither.

 

[Thomps2525]

Around 1980 KMPC had a late-1940s-to mid-1970s MOR oldies format known as "The Unforgettables." Their theme song, of course, was Nat "King" Cole's Unforgettable. There were no album versions of adult standards---KMPC played only hit singles. That concept seems to elude programmers of adult standards stations today. I would imagine that when we hear the KMPC call letters mentioned now, we think of the original MOR format and Dick Whittinghill, Gary Owens, Roger Carroll, Johnny Magnus et al. We probably don't think of the sports or talk formats. It may indeed have been inevitable that a music format would no longer be "salable" but KMPC should have stayed with music as long as they could. On the other hand, KFI dropped music for talk and they've done well, so there goes whatever point I was trying to make!

 

[RicoGregg]

The then-general manager of KMPC, now deceased, went to his grave kicking himself over changing 710 from "The Station of the Stars" to all sports. By the time he passed in 2005, he had told several people, including an interviewer from the LA Weekly that he should have left KMPC alone.

Yeah, but...he was running out of options. The overall numbers were starting to fall, the demographics were becoming harder and harder to sell...and Gene and Jackie Autry were slowly turning off the money tap.

Music for a more salable demo was out....those listeners were already on FM. Talk? Did that and failed a decade before, and that was just against KABC, not KABC and KFI. And KMPC's sports heritage (Angels, Rams, Bruins), made that seem like a natural move.

If he'd stayed with the old format, it would have been a long, slow ride to the bottom (maybe not that long or slow, given the demos). Sports probably could have worked. But it needed more than two years, and it needed the kind of support Gene Autry gave KMPC in its glory days. It got neither.

The KMPC GM basically wound up painting himself and the station into a corner. By the time of the change, it was Jackie controlling the money tap. The GM was nicknamed "Budget Bill."

KMPC was a great sports station - BEFORE the change to all-sports. The two main reasons for that were two Vice Presidents named Stan Spero, who had been kicked upstairs from the GM chair earlier (big mistake), and Steve Bailey, whose association with 710 predated the Dodgers' move from Brooklyn. Their first two years in LA, they were on KMPC.

Shortly before the change was made, what does Budget Bill and Jackie do? They send Stan Spero to the nearest cow pasture, and Steve Bailey gets a pink slip - literally, left on his office typewriter telling him not to come to work next Monday after over 35 years with the company.

Some capable production people were also let go. Some salaried positions became part-time hourly jobs. Robert W. Morgan left because he wanted to play music.

When they ran syndicated sports programming at night, it was the same network that 690 XTRA sports was running, therefore, a lot of dials that might have been tuned to 710 wound up stopping at 690.

Program Director Len Weiner was no great shakes as far as LA was concerned. To make a long story short, he is the answer to the famous Jim Healy soundbyte, "Who goofed? I've got to know!" As things turned out, Budget Bill couldn't get rid of him fast enough.

You shouldn't expect people to buy a new all-sports format after you've gotten rid of capable, sharp people like Stan Spero, Steve Bailey, and Tony Albano, one of the best radio producers ever. The dip in quality showed.

It's my understanding that a book about KMPC is being written. The chapter(s) about 1992-94 should make for a fascinating read, if not a happy ending.

 

[benale]

KMPC was one of the greatest stations I ever heard. The 1979-1980 lineup was superb: Robert W Morgan, Geoff Edwards, Wink Martindale and Gary Owens. That "unforgettable" format was outstanding.

With the success of Imus on WFAN in 1992, I guess KMPC wanted Robert W to emulate him.Hard to believe it's been twenty years since KMPC stopped playing music. WNEW AM in New York also stopped the music twenty years ago. Great stations like KMPC and WNEW were one of a kind. Too bad there isn't a place for stations like this anymore.

 

[Thomps2525]

"Budget Bill"---which is not to be confused with the ongoing Boehner-Obama debate---was, of course, Bill Ward. He had worked in Dallas, Louisville, Providence and Atlanta before coming to KBLA in March 1967. (KBLA was a top-40 station at 1500 AM in Burbank.) Ward changed the station to country K-Bar-B-Q, KBBQ. In 1971 he was hired by KLAC, which had switched to a country format in 1970, and was manager there from 1972 to 1979. In 1982, after serving as an executive with Metromedia for three years, he took over KMPC. In 1985 he oversaw the purchase of KUTE and that station's format change from r&b to AC as KLIT, "K-Lite." The "Budget Bill" nickname is a misnomer; he certainly didn't seem averse to spending money.

While at KLAC, Ward brought back sportscaster Jim Healy, who had been at the station from 1961 to 1965. Healy's fifteen-minute sportscast became more and more popular, especially when Healy started using drop-ins and sound bites featuring athletes and coaches. (Tom Lasorda: "What's my opinion of Kingman's performance? What the f*** do you think is my opinion of it? I think it was f***in' horse****.") In 1984 Ward brought Healy over to KMPC. I wonder how KMPC would have fared if they had tried a sports format in the mid-'80s.

 

[michael hagerty]

To give it a timeline, KMPC was MOR until 1973, Adult Contemporary from 1973 onward, and added talk programs from late 1979 on, until finally going all talk in late 1980.

They tanked while several KMPC alums (Whittinghill, Owens, Johnny Magnus) racked up big numbers playing standards on KPRZ (1150) through 1981.

KMPC figured they could do that, too, with a better signal than KPRZ, and went back to music as a standards station (consulted by Bill Drake, who customized his "HitParade" format for it) in May of 1982. It took them a few books, but they knocked KPRZ off (it became KIIS-AM again), and they had a 10 year run with standards before the flip to sports in May of 1992.