DFW Ratings July 2013

[Mediafrog+]

KNON is programmed like a college station circa 1975.

KNON is programmed like its predecessor KCHU actually was in 1975. ;D

Whoops, showing my age there. :

 

[country24]

Most (if not all) KNON air talent is unpaid volunteer who bring their own music. That's got to keep operating costs low. So it doesn't matter if the demographics aren't the best.

 

[idiggraves]

Cumulus has/will never spend the capital it would take to make KLIF anything credible. I'm convinced it's intentionally become the Dallas cluster "write off".

At the risk of dispelling a Hollywood myth about how business works, there is no "tax write off" if one station in a cluster does not make money.

In reality, where most business people are neither crooked bankers or tax cheats, all that truly happens is that the cluster, and thus the company, makes less money. As a result, there is less money for the owners and less money to pay in taxes. In other words, there is no silver lining in under performing.

True. Good info. But these are not "most business people".

 

[arnoldevns]

I think people misunderstand the idea of a "loss leader."
You don't want any of your stations to lose money, but individual programs can be a different matter. I am sure that some stations paid huge sums for Stern or Limbaugh in the past simply could not sell ads at a high enough rate to do more than break even or lose some money on the show. That's okay as long as they bring so many listeners it boosts ratings for other shows on the station, allowing them to get a higher rate that more than offsets the loss on Stern or Limbaugh. A great example or two of this comes from TV.

NBC paid 13 mil an episode for ER for its final contract renewal. They freely admitted they were going to lose many millions onthat deal because there's no way they could sell 13 million dollars worth of ads during each episode. But, at the time the show had such high ratings they could not afford to lose it to Fox (who had said they too were willing to lose millions for the ratings it brings) ER was a show NBC could use to promote ither programs and boost their ratings. It was also a huge boost to affiliate news ratings. So while thy lost money on that one hour, they gained enough promotional ability to boost ratings for other shows to more than offset that loss. THe Olympics and NFL are the same for NBC.

 

[davideduardo]

I think people misunderstand the idea of a "loss leader."
You don't want any of your stations to lose money, but individual programs can be a different matter.

Good point. Today, in music radio, those 60 minute to several hour-long "music marathon" segments with no commercials are a good example. Zero revenue, but the expectation of favorably impacting the competitive environment and converting audience gains to overall revenue.