CC Utica sale prices

[BobRoss]

The in depth analysis supplied by Bob Ross holds some good arguments in favor of news-talk, yet, looking at three to five anchors/beat reporters at a minimum salary of $20k (a harsh, unappreciative salary from where I stand) totals $100k. Now add a morning anchor-hand off guy, your production director and promotions director-web master and benefits, SS and unemployment taxes and you're investing about $200k per year on personnel. For Utica-Rome? It's a tough number to carry for a company that's carrying a half a million to one million in debt.

I didn't really ever consider the debt, because I was only offering it as a hypothetical plan, not necessarily Galaxy being the company to step up and make the move. But you're right, the salaries do add up. Concidentally, I just did a post on the TV board a few days ago, explaining how the cost of salaries is likely the reason WUTR doesn't plan to revive its own news department. But even if Galaxy were the ones to battle WIBX... radio news requires fewer people, and it doesn't have to be right now. They could keep the music formats going for a few years to get the debt paid off, then look into making these big moves when they've moved from the red to the black.

Even though WIBX is "entrenched" as the big news/talk station in the market, my point is that it wouldn't take much to compete with them strongly enough to knock them off the mountain altogether. Regent tries to run WIBX as cheaply as possible, because the GM and those above her are big country music fanatics. They don't know or care enough about news/talk to bother with it. Frog and Lite have consultants who come in from out of town to coach the talent, tweak the music and work on formatics. Oldies does not (but doesn't really need it). WIBX has no consultant either, but probably could use one, much more than the other stations could.

Where most news outlets work on "special in-depth series" reporting to attract audiences at ratings time, WIBX defaults to cheesy contesting. Most news/talk listeners are intelligent, informed people. They don't want to stoop to the level of listening for sounders and rushing to the phone to be caller #9. But that's what works on the Frog, so they believe that's what will work on every station. Don't get me wrong, contesting can work on a news/talker, but you have to do it right. The sales staff trying to find the prizes assumes the listeners are old people, so those are the kinds of prizes they wind up offering.

Just as WIBX once had its golden says to drive WTLB out of the news/talk business, this could be someone else's chance to kick WIBX out.

 

[DaveBullard]

I have to agree that a REAL news/talk station -- one that takes local news seriously all the time -- is doggoned expensive. Here's the minimum to do it for real:

One poster suggested 3 full-timers, one for each 8 hour shift. That only gets you to Saturday morning, where there's still a pretty good-sized audience. Okay, so now it's 3 full-timers and 2 12-hour-a-day part-timers to anchor 24/7.

They anchor, they make calls, they tape phone interviews. they listen to the scanner....and, oh yeah....they run the board, too. (Want board ops? Add positions.)

But all that gets you is someone who can regurgitate the paper and make a few calls for phone sound. There's no news in the newsroom. So add a full-time reporter dayside weekdays, a part-timer for 25 hours to work on weeknights, and 12-16 hours of part-time reporting on the weekend.

(That all works until someone gets sick, naturally.)

You're up to four full-timers and four part-timers - just to have a newsroom that's outgunned by every other newsroom in the market.

Add in the expenses -- gas for the news vehicle, news vehicle, recorders, microphones, cell phones, and more -- and you're already approx. $150,000 in salaries plus expenses in the hole before you've sold the first ad. And that $150,000 plus expenses only covers six minutes of every hour. Now, go fill the other 54.

You can understand why owners, particularly in small markets, opt for a music format.

 

[ajhenderson]

You're right, Dave. And while Bob's picture is admirable, the fact is that in market #160, it's not going to happen. I asked the question (here: http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,82581.0.html) about U-R's annual billing, but I can only guess how low it is based on market size. Give more than half that to the top FMs and you're left with next to nothing.

I worked in a top-15 market where a station with a great signal tried for 18 months to put together a news/talk. They had live/local hosts from 6a-1am (the 10p-1am host worked for free). They had live/local news (just anchors). It cost many millions to run and ended up billing about $50k in its final month, after many months of $25-30k. Considering that billing was commissionable, they lost a lot of money to get a 0.5 share in their first (and last) book over a year after flipping to the format. Imagine how a station in CNY, hardly a growth market, would fare.

On the other hand, starting up a news/talker with Beck, Dr. Laura, Savage, Hannity, etc. might make SOME sense. After all, there was a time, and still is to a certain degree, where every AM in an over-radioed market with a latchkey owner, mediocre signal, and multiple failed formats would flip to 24/7 syndicated talk with syndicated news.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Good thread, good thoughts. As PD-OM of WGR Buffalo ('95-'00), going up against WBEN, the long-perceived (and now market leading) news-talk station in the market was a day to day chess match. Some days we won and some days we got beat. The battle is always is fought on a number of levels; programming, promotions, the news room and on the street. There are times that are exhilirating and times that are bleak.

A good, responsible, community-centered news station needs like-minded news people, and by extension, people need to be paid a living, respectable wage. Over the years, I've been through many budget meetings and they're always compromising. As a PD, I always tried to be an advocate for the people who worked for/with me.

You can run a news-talk station with satellite programming, but a few things remain constant: (1) Live and local ALWAYS wins, or at least gives you the best shot at winning, and (2) the mortar between the bricks is just as important as the bricks. If you have good talk talent and a short-staffed news department, you're not going to win. If you run your news-talkstation with satellite talkers, no local depth and a limited news department, you're not going to win.

News-talk can be done using a practical financial approach, but it cannot be done on the cheap and be successful. Some managers know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Just a few observations having been in the fray.

 

[ajhenderson]

Jim

You're absolutely right, and WGR is/was a great station. Here's my train of thought, though: in this day and age, especially on AM, people take what they can get. "Winning" is no longer as big a deal. Making money is still as a big a deal, and everyone is trying to get their 1.0 or 1.2 and make money off that. Are they going to revolutionize a market or become billionaires? No. But an AM station could run entirely off a satellite and be profitable.

Take Buffalo, for example. I follow talk radio nationally and it's in reality one of a very few markets left with a big gaping hole for someone to exploit. The national talents not on - Beck, Hannity, etc. - is astounding. You say live/local always wins - I respect that, but it's not always so. There are countless examples, but first to my mind as of late is WHJJ/Providence. They tried a lot of live/local programming (liberal) and slowly cut back to where now they have all the big name syndicated guys and two hours of local a day. It's tough to beat Rush most places, and he's the antithesis of local. Granted, local is your best bet going up against him, but in the aggregate, people listen to what they like, not what's local. If we had more real PDs developing talent in this country, you'd be 100% right. But unfortunately, much of the local news/talk talent pool is comprised of washed up music jocks or people with egos who are content working for low wages. Face it; we're not developing the next Rush anywhere in this country.

So, you could do news/talk on the cheap and make money. Salem does it in a couple dozen markets nationally. It won't pull a 10 share or make radio people feel warm and fuzzy, but it could easily make money. And while a computer in a broom closet may seem disconcerting, keep in mind that without syndication, market #160 wouldn't have ANY talk radio. If you were an owner, you'd have to think long and hard before agreeing to sink $2 million+ a year into a station whose license wasn't worth that much, all for no guarantee of income/

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

I'll agree, there are some worthwhile syndicated shows that could work for news-talk in many small and medium markets, given the necessary support and daily promotion. It's not my intent to debate the issues, especially when posters have articulated their opinions here in such a collegial manner.

If a PD or OM chooses to go with syndication, by all means make sure it's set it up properly with proper technical functions and good localized staging and bumpers going into and out of every break in the hour. I call it "covering the breaks." Often, the staging elements we hear are weak or non-existent.

Just as we would skim local talk shows for good sound bites for promos, the same applies to syndicated shows. This takes time and live bodies who understand the production value of a good call and a good topic, especially if a local caller gets on with the syndicated host. That's an "automatic" promo piece. And promos and bumpers should be updated daily.

Horizontal and vertical promotion are critically important: "Here's why you need to listen to Don Bagadonuts, today from 3 to 6." Vertical applies to promoting the show and station's benefits "day of;" while "horizontal" refers top promoting the station, show and benefits through the week, for example, promos running Tuesday-Friday that urge listeners to "listen this weekend."

Television has adopted the radio promotion and imaging techniques quite well; "Tonight on Seinfeld..." or "Sunday on 60 Minutes." These techniques were developed by guys like Randy Michaels and Critical Mass who stressed creativity, humor and topicality. They took nothing for granted, creating the "2 by 4" technique ("hit listeners over the head with a 2 by 4 so they get the message.")

BTW, when Biggus regularly posted here, one of his most creative lines was "let me get out the clue by four?" Great word play.

Syndicated programming can create problems with the limited number of avails provided for the local affiliates. There are top and bottom news slots, usually 6 minutes and 2 minutes, respectively. But through the hour, the breaks can be restrictive.

Again, localization and attention to detail is mandatory for the local station to "own" the syndicated show to accomodate the local commercials. It's particularly difficult for small market stations, especially in election season, to accomodate their commercial loads due to the restricted avails or "windows" built into syndicated talk shows.

Politics is thought to be interesting and too many synicated shows play the political song. Boring. It's been shown that politics (at least as it's being done by most yakkers)doesn't attract those valuable 25-44's who are more inclined to view talk radio as old and stodgy.

Doing good talk radio has a lot to do with stirring the soup without spilling the kettle. If you can find the right combination of syndicated fare, you might make a go of it. But with what demo and with what results?

Now more than ever, talk radio, especially AM talk radio, needs to bring in younger demos without resorting to the constant stream of boneheaded T&A topics, farts and crotch shtick. As was noted, CBS Free formats are being blown-up daily because they didn't make the grade.

Good talk radio, whether it's local or syndicated, is a balance of style, shtick and substance. It needs to be topical, relatable and properly packaged, especially if a station wants to reach the "sweet spot" of the 25-54 demo.

As Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach (now GM) Marv Levy is fond of saying, "The answer is simple, but it's not easy."

 

[ajhenderson]

I agree that we need stations to sound local. This is so easy but often overlooked. It's not hard to create interesting liners that rotate on top of liner beds into and out of syndicated show segments. I understand a great station puts a daily effort in, but for the station that is on a budget and can't or won't, you can still sound good and have a computer run the station. I've been a board op and I pine for old time radio (not that I remember it) like many here, but it sometimes isn't realistic.

You're right; the network is going to take 3-5 minutes an hour for giving you a free show. I doubt you'd run out of airtime; since when does that happen on an AM station? Of course, it does, but you can usually find somewhere to put a spot. Besides, having a mostly syndicated station eliminates millions of dollars of risk over time, so a low likelihood that you'll miss out on a couple $15 30s is worth it if that's your approach

 

[BobRoss]

Another factor to consider... while you may find yourself up against the wall when there are more spots than avails... news/talk stations have the wonderful ability to accommodate 30- or 60-minute "expert" shows that are really paid commercials. WSYR has a couple on Saturday mornings (home construction/remodeling, car repair, etc.) and Sundays ("Ask the Expert"), and I believe WGY has a couple of its own.

These shows sound just like any other, with "expert" hosts who take calls, answer questions, offer advice... and they come prepared with their own topics to chat about in case the phones are slow to warm up. But the best part is... these guys aren't on the station payroll. Instead, THEY pay the station! Not too often an FM music station can get away with pulling off an hour of paid talk.

 

[Element9]

And then there's this:

The AM band's future pondered.
WIBC, Indianapolis is about to celebrate its 69th birthday. And the heritage AM has just given the market notice that it's moving to the FM dial. That follows similar shifts at Bonneville's AMs, like Washington's WTOP where Jim Farley says "When you are on the FM dial, you are in a larger neighborhood. There are people who listen to FM that never come to the AM dial." One advocate says FM talk is a "sales machine."

WIBC-AM is legendary in Indy, for Emmis to move it to FM speaks loudly. I'm still pondering the "sales machine" tag, however. Wonder if it comes with a warning, "Keep hands and free objects clear of the sales machine, may cause injury if operated under the influence of alcohol or prescription drugs."

-9-

 

[Radknowski]

About WIBX

Question: When WIBX does local talk, do they get the same "repeat offenders" calling the host? Does the host move callers in and out smoothly and quickly? Does the host carry the show or does he rely (desperately) on the callers to carry the show?

Few things sound as bad as the same seven people calling the talk shows day in and day out. Worse if they're the (house bound) geezers who call just to hear themselves speak, in search of conversation. The same thing happens in sports talk radio when the same eight sports freaks call and expound. Phew, that's bad talk radio.

Some stations invoke a "one call per week" rule. Larger stations have screeners or board-ops to thank the callers and tell them to call back next Tuesday. I once worked with a guy who couldn't handle having no callers, so he'd have his friends and family call in as "Dave in Edison." The guy's sister-in-law thought she was a real politco, but she was just plain clueless, so much so that she was unintentionally funny. Phew, that's bad talk radio.

It doesn't seem like Utica-Rome has a population base that would lend itself to good, aggressive and stimulating talk radio that attracts the attention and participation of 35-49 year old men and women. Seems those people would be glued to froggy woggy doodle and lite and not so brite FM stations. No insult intended, Utica-Rome seems no different than every other medium or small market.