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Does Bill Bennett or Doug Stephan..

R

radiobum

or any syndicated News/Talk host get any significant ratings in AM drive anywhere Don't you think a live local show is a necessity for overall ratings ?
 
Bennett is primarily on Salem stations and they typically are not huge ratings generators. You will often see them running 3rd or 4th or be unrated in market. I know Stephen is on a ton of stations but oddly I don't run into him that often...or hear his show when I am around the country. He may have some pockets of success but I have no clue where they are.
 
In the Pittsburgh market, Salem's talk outlet WPIT-730 is doing paid religion until noon, so Bennett comes in from 9 a.m.-noon on WAVL-910 from the other side of New Kensington. Oddly enough, WAVL is a church-owned station (Evangel Heights Assembly of God) but it switched from WAY-FM Christian music to news-talk some months ago. Stephan just picked up another Pittsburgh market station of sorts, McKeesport's WEDO-810 where he also is on at 9 a.m.
 
While these are "technically" major market clears...I don't think they provide a ratings success story that the original poster was looking for.
 
Maybe I should have said 'listeners' rather 'ratings' since i'm guessing Stephan is in plenty of small unrated markets and/or on not great AM signals.
 
Point well taken. Stephan's lead-in on WEDO is Catholic programming and a couple doing "Pittsburgh oldies" barters the time afterward. WAVL runs "America's Morning News" from 6-9, but then is the fourth station in the market to clear Neal Boortz after WPGB initially had him, dropped him when it could swipe Rush Limbaugh from KDKA, KDKA had him, dropped him, and WPTT [now money-talk WMNY] had him and later dropped him for a more local talk schedule.

WEDO usually gets 0.1 share, WAVL doesn't usually get any share.
 
radiobum said:
Maybe I should have said 'listeners' rather 'ratings' since i'm guessing Stephan is in plenty of small unrated markets and/or on not great AM signals.
Click to expand...

That's fairly accurate, though Doug does have some larger market clears - usually as "glue" between overnight programming and local morning drive shows.

Here, he's only (as far as I know) on east suburban Cleveland talk/variety WELW/1330 Willoughby, a 500 watt station that mostly aims at suburban Lake County, but can be heard in the upper part of the I-271 corridor.

Oh, and the BAS Broadcasting stations carry him in North Central/Northwest Ohio. In fact, he bought WTTF/1600 Tiffin for use by his alma mater (Heidelberg College) from BAS, but BAS is still operating it for him in an LMA.

Doug's show airs on (his!) WTTF, and most of, if not all the other BAS AM stations (WMVO/1300 Mount Vernon, not sure if he's on WLEC/1450 Sandusky, etc.)

ETA: A quick website check shows that standards/soft AC WLEC does not run Doug, but still has local morning host Mark Fogg, though I don't know how up to date that is. WMVO does run Doug, along with Citadel's True Oldies Channel.
 
Signal_Faded said:
Bennett is primarily on Salem stations and they typically are not huge ratings generators. You will often see them running 3rd or 4th or be unrated in market. I know Stephen is on a ton of stations but oddly I don't run into him that often...or hear his show when I am around the country. He may have some pockets of success but I have no clue where they are.
Click to expand...

Most Salem conservatalkers clear Bill Bennett live. There are two exceptions: WNYM/NYC airs in in tape-delay following the local Curtis Sliwa morning show, and WIND/Chicago doesn't air it at all (they are local in AMD plus have Glenn Beck, Dennis Miller and Savage!!!).

"Good Day," if I'm not mistaken, is syndicated by Doug Stephen himself. I presume the greatly faded KFWB/LA still clears it somewhere on their sched, but I wouldn't know... they do air his weekly "Talk Radio Countdown," though.
 
As radio hosts go, Bill Bennett would make a good sleeping pill. I find him very difficult to
listen to. Just not really cut out to be doing this for a living in my view.

Salem has some much better hosts (Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt) though they
likewise probably draw no listeners here other than me. (WPIT time shifts both ahead 3 hrs.
and by then they are putting out a mighty 24 watts)
 
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