Conservative Talk Radio Station Fails

[smedge2006]

The former Orlando home of Mancow, Laura Ingraham and John Gibson, WAMT, goes to ESPN Deportes. Meanwhile, down I-4, two out of Tampa's three conservative talkers are under a one share and selling infomercials to get by.

And all this time they told us "liberal" talk radio was the "failure"!

 

[The Ultimate Warrior]

The former Orlando home of Mancow, Laura Ingraham and John Gibson, WAMT, goes to ESPN Deportes. Meanwhile, down I-4, two out of Tampa's three conservative talkers are under a one share and selling infomercials to get by.

And all this time they told us "liberal" talk radio was the "failure"!

Here come the facts...

There are 2 successful "conservative" talkers in Orlando and a poorly ran third will not be able to compete.

A liberal station already failed in Orlando trying to be the only one filling a niche.

Genesis is a train wreck and on the train their is an unlicensed doctor performing abortions.

 

[smedge2006]

Here come the facts...

There are 2 successful "conservative" talkers in Orlando and a poorly ran third will not be able to compete.

A liberal station already failed in Orlando trying to be the only one filling a niche.

Genesis is a train wreck and on the train their is an unlicensed doctor performing abortions.

And there go the errors. Error of fact: there has NEVER been a liberal talk station in Orlando. One station was considering the format but was bought out by a company that specializes in brokered radio and which also bought and killed off the first liberal talker in Phoenix. There were four conservative talkers in Orlando, now there are three. Of course, one is run by Salem, leaving two "successful" conservative talkers. On that point UW is correct.

He is also correct about Genesis. One problem with that company is that on its conservative talkers, it keeps trying to pretend that its conservative talk product is something else. A brokered host has taken on the afternoon drive slot in Tampa with stars in his eyes and dreams of being the next Limbaugh. On his first show he proclaimed "a pox on both their houses" and insisted he'd be evenhanded. Then it was back to the same old Obama bashing. Genesis wants to serve red meat without killing the cow.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

The former Orlando home of Mancow, Laura Ingraham and John Gibson, WAMT, goes to ESPN Deportes. Meanwhile, down I-4, two out of Tampa's three conservative talkers are under a one share and selling infomercials to get by.

And those Tampa AMs won't be able to compete as long as Clear Channel owns the strongest AMs in the market, as well as WHNZ which is mostly brokered. WWBA and WGUL will stay in their 1.0 and under status.

 

[smedge2006]

And those Tampa AMs won't be able to compete as long as Clear Channel owns the strongest AMs in the market, as well as WHNZ which is mostly brokered. WWBA and WGUL will stay in their 1.0 and under status.

For what it's worth, WWBA's daytime signal is 50,000 watts and easily reaches from the Panhandle to Fort Myers. When a 50,000 watter can't pull a one share with conservative talk, why isn't that a sign that the format is tapped out -- that there's an oversupply of product?

 

[The Ultimate Warrior]

And those Tampa AMs won't be able to compete as long as Clear Channel owns the strongest AMs in the market, as well as WHNZ which is mostly brokered. WWBA and WGUL will stay in their 1.0 and under status.

For what it's worth, WWBA's daytime signal is 50,000 watts and easily reaches from the Panhandle to Fort Myers. When a 50,000 watter can't pull a one share with conservative talk, why isn't that a sign that the format is tapped out -- that there's an oversupply of product?

It is a sign that WFLA is putting on a far superior product.

Webb/Harris - Tampa Legends
Beck - worked at WFLA
Rush is Rush
Schnitt - Tampa Legend

WWBA is putting on a guy who didn't get ratings a long time ago in Larsen and then a revolving door of garbage programming elsewhere.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

Wasn't WWBA Hannity's home before WFLA snatched him up? How were their shares then?

 

[smedge2006]

It is a sign that WFLA is putting on a far superior product.

Webb/Harris - Tampa Legends
Beck - worked at WFLA
Rush is Rush
Schnitt - Tampa Legend

WWBA is putting on a guy who didn't get ratings a long time ago in Larsen and then a revolving door of garbage programming elsewhere.

Is WFLA still dominant? Yes. Is it what it used to be? No. Its function as an incubator of syndicated shows has overtaken its function as a strong local voice. It only has four hours/day of local -- and Tampa Bay has probably one of the smallest amounts of local talk available for any market its size. Certainly less than Seattle, Denver or Phoenix, less than Pittsburgh. Larsen did garner numbers at WFLA, where he was on continuously for almost a decade. But WWBA recently cut back its local and WGUL has no local at all, save for brokered infomercials.

But the point here is that conservative syndicated talk does not always work. Talk Radio Network seems to go around claiming that it can leap tall buildings and overcome any obstacle, presumably including bozo ownership. Look at their press releases on launches in Little Rock and "The Truth" all-syndicated in Denver. If that were so, then WAMT would still be in the format and have numbers, WWBA would at least be competitive. So would WGUL. The fact that conservative talk radio listeners (and WFLA's success says there are a lot of them in Tampa) reject the two alternatives seems to me to say that the format can only stand so many stations and so many hosts and so many syndicators.

That ought to be a lesson to the folks in Missoula, Montana who just flipped their progressive station to the same third-tier conservative syndicated talkers that are getting flattened in Tampa and many other markets.

 

[smedge2006]

... and yet another conservatalker flips.

WKOZ in Mississippi.

http://www.boswellmedia.net/Wkoz.htm

 

[ctkatz]

don't any of you realize? IOKIYAC. its ok if you're a conservative. if a conservative goes and does or says something controversial nothing happens. sure maybe there's some outrage, but it's usually forgotten about in the following 24 hours because the "liberal media" makes a blurb and moves on to the next cat up a tree. but should a liberal say something slightly controversial, there is such a hew and cry about how offensive the remark was, fueled on by the conservotalkers and propogated by the same alleged "liberal media".

needless to say, i think the this whole "liberal media" canard is such a steaming pile. you can just tell from the questions the media asks officials in the last administration (when it was pretty obvious there was some strange goings on going on) and this one. the so-called "liberal media" is anything but.

so when i see the excuses made by some of these people here that liberal media can't make it and that conservative media generally will i know its crap. it's never the fault of content of the the station that it couldn't generate the ratings. i'm no radio insider, i have never been in the radio business and i can tell you, a station's format will fail if it has no signal, the station owner kills it for whatever reason, or you can't sell advertising for the station. it seems pretty clear to me that there is an obvious glut of conservative stations in the area and the same small crowd of people can't listen to all of the time to all three stations and generate the ad rates.

and on the opposite side, progressive talk will never make it simply because the message that it advocates is bad for these mega media conglomerates. even in cities like orlando with burgeoning superstar congressman alan greyson. even in cities like louisville with two ford plants and is very pro-union with a liberal congressman and is a progressive city in general.