It’s also political neutral so both sides can enjoy.
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Conservative Talk
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
BTW so are talk audiences. Cumes are low, but TSL tends to be high. Most tend to sit through commercial breaks.
That's what I would say about Keith Olbermann. He's not friendly...
He's the only one you can name?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And yet he consistently remains in the top 100 news/politics podcasts at iHeart (which hosts his show). Given all of the voices competing for listenership, someone (or a lot of someones) must be listening and don't care about his not being "friendly".
IMHO, "friendly" is not a positive attribute for a news/politics podcast.
It certainly isn't very common.
Maybe for a morning show but not delivering hard news.
Olbermann is doing real events not a comedy routine. He’s not supposed to be light hearted.
I think the other issue that needs to be brought up on this subject is the political views of radio station owners and advertisers. When Air America was an actual network (a long time ago, I know), I remember reading a quote from Cumulus' Lew Dickey (then the company's owner) who said in effect that he would never let his stations run Air America programming because the politics didn't match his own. And I know that some major radio advertising executives think in the same way (in fact, I am greatly reminded of @K.M. Richards' quote in a thread about music that he often recommends that radio stations do what advertisers [who are paying the bills] want and not necessarily what the ratings may warrant.)
While there are a few stations still running commercial liberal talk programming (think of the CivicAmerica [did I get the company name right?] stations in Wisconsin and the 820 frequency in Chicago), for the most part, those liberal talk show hosts who are still around (Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller) have to rely more and more on noncommercial Pacifica-affiliated stations to get their message out. And that is not a dynamic that is going to attract more liberal hosts to the genre.
While there are a few stations still running commercial liberal talk programming (think of the CivicAmerica [did I get the company name right?] stations in Wisconsin and the 820 frequency in Chicago), for the most part, those liberal talk show hosts who are still around (Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller) have to rely more and more on noncommercial Pacifica-affiliated stations to get their message out. And that is not a dynamic that is going to attract more liberal hosts to the genre.
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Keep in mind he is the owner who dropped Rush Limbaugh after the Fluke affair.
REPORT: Cumulus Plans To Drop Rush Limbaugh From 40 Stations
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
In context, what I was alluding to is that stations need to play songs that attract the money demos, which is what makes a station attractive to advertisers. When that is the case, the advertisers don't care about your ratings ... they will automatically presume that a station that plays music they like will attract an audience that will be good customers for their business.
Ratings are important to stations which depend on agency business. There are a lot more stations that are not dependent on ratings, because they are entirely focusing on local sales.
It depends on the downloads. To make any kind of money, you need to get a million downloads.
A million downloads can earn anywhere from $1,000 to $150,000+, depending on the monetization model and audience
By monetization model, it's how many commercials, where they are, if it's video too, and many other things.
And a big factor is that there is a "wealth" of sports marketing dollars out there. These are separate ad budgets that only go into sports related marketing, including traditional media advertising, stadium branding rights, endorsements, sports gear, etc.
Other radio formats don't have access to that money. Good Karma's whole business model is based on that kind of revenue... right down to no feeling a great need to even buy radio ratings for their O&O stations.
And when tied with all the other sports promotional vehicles, it is a much bigger opportunity for a radio station than just selling spots.
How many hosts like Joe Rogan get a guaranteed contract. Is that just saved for the big names while the rest are fighting for table scraps.
It depends on the personality themselves.
Some "talk" hosts have found that doing podcasts is less time consuming and can be a greater revenue producer. But there are very few of those.
If you think about it, when Stern moved to satellite, he was really doing an early "podcast" where he only did a few shows a week, and those were rebroadcast over and over. Not quite "on demand" but available more to the schedule of listeners than that of a radio station.
The amalgamators or consolidators of podcasts are principally driven by the delivery of each podcaster and each podcast that is created. Advertising rates are generally based on metrics... more viewers, listeners, users and higher rates.
A few top podcasters will get more than just a "per listener" rate as their names are big enough that they help attract advertisers to to the overall spectrum of podcasts a company offers.
This goes back to things like the syndication of Rush or, even, Larry King. If stations wanted the big names, they were encouraged to take some or all of the lesser ones. Star power at work. But each show gets an ad rate based on its delivery.
Maybe we could try to go back to running hosts/programs that are actually interesting and entertaining to listen to, instead of trying to have 24 hour talk stations that will air pretty much anyone or anything just to fill the time? There used to be many stations that were talk programming during drive times, or just aired Rush and played music during the other dayparts. Would that work today? I dunno, but there's a lot of talk stations just running psa's in all the breaks to fill the space, so they aren't making money with what they're doing now. Including Civic Media in Wisconsin. The only market they actually have advertising and ratings in is Madison. They've already switched several stations back to music.
Hartmann's show is online in real-time, I would venture to guess Miller's is as well. That's where you're going to find more liberal-leaning talk, comedy and event coverage.
Who would you suggest?
The top programs that are on now without the lesser ones which are just filling nights and weekends.