Ed Schultz said he and some investors are looking for some small radio stations

[RBA]

to buy. As for small, I think he means low wattage. He said he has as many listeners as BillO, and doing it on far fewer station. Heard this on his show today. Anyone think this is a good idea?

 

[SeanMGilbow]

It's better than what the local advocates for progressive talk have been wanting to do since the options don't allow for commercial programs like Big Eddie and Stephanie Miller.

And yes, Big Eddie and Bill O'Reilly both have 3.25 million listeners according the latest numbers from Talkers magazine.

http://www.talkers.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=34

I'd certainly invest if he can find some stations locally, especially with the Clear Channel "fire sale." Small-town listeners are sure to relate to a hunting, fishing, beer-drinking, meat-eating liberal from North Dakota.

 

[NewsVet]

It's better than what the local advocates for progressive talk have been wanting to do since the options don't allow for commercial programs like Big Eddie and Stephanie Miller.

Huh? What "options" are those? If you're talking about Air America, it's a myth that AAR demands that you take all of its programs. Hardly any stations do -- almost all progressive talk stations carry programs from both AAR and Jones.

 

[SeanMGilbow]

It's better than what the local advocates for progressive talk have been wanting to do since the options don't allow for commercial programs like Big Eddie and Stephanie Miller.

Huh? What "options" are those? If you're talking about Air America, it's a myth that AAR demands that you take all of its programs. Hardly any stations do -- almost all progressive talk stations carry programs from both AAR and Jones.

The plans I'm aware of locally involve non-commercial stations, which would also rule out Air America.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

Re: Ed Schultz said he and some investors are looking for some small radio stati

It's better than what the local advocates for progressive talk have been wanting to do since the options don't allow for commercial programs like Big Eddie and Stephanie Miller.

Huh? What "options" are those? If you're talking about Air America, it's a myth that AAR demands that you take all of its programs. Hardly any stations do -- almost all progressive talk stations carry programs from both AAR and Jones.

Some AAR stations only carry one program. Heck, Premiere and ABC Radio Networks are worse.

 

[ABQTom]

Re: Ed Schultz said he and some investors are looking for some small radio stati

Huh? What "options" are those? If you're talking about Air America, it's a myth that AAR demands that you take all of its programs. Hardly any stations do -- almost all progressive talk stations carry programs from both AAR and Jones.
[/quote]

And that's really a poor choice on the part of PD's considering all the other liberal talkers on OTHER networks besides AAR and Jones:

Peter B. Collins (self-syndicated)

Alan Colmes (FOX)

Bob Brinker (independent, usually sides with moderate Democrats) - ABC

Leslie Miller

Mike Malloy (NOVA-M)

Mark LevinE - note spElling

Why rely on AAR for 80 % of your programming when there are so many other choices?

It's cookie cutter, boring, predictable, programming from market to market, lacking in creativity.

 

[bigtalkradiofan]

Re: Ed Schultz said he and some investors are looking for some small radio stati

to buy. As for small, I think he means low wattage. He said he has as many listeners as BillO, and doing it on far fewer station. Heard this on his show today. Anyone think this is a good idea?

Sounds similar to what Nova-M initially had in mind - to buy some low-price stations and put them together into a loose network of LibTalk stations.

As for whether or not it will be successful - depends upon:
* How well they sell ads / # of advertisers / $ amount of money they are able to generate
* Extent of coverage
* Listener numbers and demographics

 

[ajhenderson]

I wish them the best, but people like this (and I'll exclude Schultz) generally love to fantasize about the idea like some kind of anti-capitalism protest, but couldn't sell dime on of advertising. Of course, and I've seen this in multiple markets first hand, they also wouldn't want to ruin their little baby by having any kind of creative advertising whatsoever. "Someone wants to buy an hour on Saturdays to talk about mortgages? Heaven forbid we would preempt a rerun of the Greenpeace show." It's all about the message to these types, but when you're billing $100k a year, you need to get a clue and wise up.

 

[smedge2006]

Of course, and I've seen this in multiple markets first hand, they also wouldn't want to ruin their little baby by having any kind of creative advertising whatsoever.

First, a number of progressive talkers run brokered shows, including WINZ.

Secondly, I'm not sure it's such a good idea. Believe me, there is NOTHING creative (even in the advertising sense) about a brokered mortgage show. Some of them try to be the next "wild and zany" morning zoo circa 1982; others repeat their same sales points every week, and almost all of them try to convince you that everybody in the mortgage biz but them is a con artist. Fortunately, the foreclosure boom has most of these advertisers circling the drain, no doubt to be replaced by whatever the next scam-du-jour is -- maybe it's time for Wade Cook to make a comeback.

This nonsense of "nobody's listening on the weekends so let's just prostitute it out" , long recognized as dreck by the likes of Walter Sabo, is going to be exploded once the PPM hits all the big markets. If I were running a progtalker, I'd try to catch all the conservative talkers' cume that's being driven away by all the infomercials -- by running spots on Fox News on local cable ("Conservatives, your favorite station thinks you're stupid, running all those shows talking about John Wayne's colon"). Then I'd declare Saturday "combat day", have local shows with hosts taking calls ONLY from conservatives. One confrontation after another. Boom, boom, boom. Being and owning the "no-infomercial" talker position is worth exploring.

 

[ajhenderson]

Of course, and I've seen this in multiple markets first hand, they also wouldn't want to ruin their little baby by having any kind of creative advertising whatsoever.

First, a number of progressive talkers run brokered shows, including WINZ.

Secondly, I'm not sure it's such a good idea. Believe me, there is NOTHING creative (even in the advertising sense) about a brokered mortgage show. Some of them try to be the next "wild and zany" morning zoo circa 1982; others repeat their same sales points every week, and almost all of them try to convince you that everybody in the mortgage biz but them is a con artist. Fortunately, the foreclosure boom has most of these advertisers circling the drain, no doubt to be replaced by whatever the next scam-du-jour is -- maybe it's time for Wade Cook to make a comeback.

This nonsense of "nobody's listening on the weekends so let's just prostitute it out" , long recognized as dreck by the likes of Walter Sabo, is going to be exploded once the PPM hits all the big markets. If I were running a progtalker, I'd try to catch all the conservative talkers' cume that's being driven away by all the infomercials -- by running spots on Fox News on local cable ("Conservatives, your favorite station thinks you're stupid, running all those shows talking about John Wayne's colon"). Then I'd declare Saturday "combat day", have local shows with hosts taking calls ONLY from conservatives. One confrontation after another. Boom, boom, boom. Being and owning the "no-infomercial" talker position is worth exploring.

First, yes, WINZ and other stations do sell time. WWRC now sells weekday time. But those stations are owned by CC, who exists to make a profit. I know many liberals who are very capitalistic, etc., but the ones I've run into in radio, the ones who want to "take back the airwaves"... not so much.

Second, you think that because someone hosts a paid program that they're a con artist. Yes, despite the fact that one of my biggest categories of time buyers is now off by 80%, I myself have a little smirk at all those who thought they could get rich quick and now are one step from living in a box under an overpass on the Hollywood Freeway. However, there are plenty of paid shows that can be halfway decent (ie, live/local, not infomercials). My consensus of radio people's negative opinion is that they're mad that anyone with money can be on the radio, something they worked long, hard, and cheaply for. But, radio is a business and listeners put up with the brokered stuff to a reasonable degree.

As to your weekend strategy, you may have a point, but the key here is MONEY. Ratings are insignificant except as a tool to make money. This is EXACTLY the thought pattern I spoke of in my previous post. Liberals want to reach a certain amount of people; businesspeople want to make a certain percent return on their money. The reality is that few spots are bought specifically on the weekends. Sure, people place ROS buys, people get bonused, etc., but few advertisers specifically say, "hey, through me on that weekend show". When they do, it's typically for much less than the weekdays... besides, it's hard for any station outside of the top 5 or 10 markets to specifically sell a weekend show. It's not worth the return for the AE or for the station. And yes, there are home improvement, gardening, and how-to shows that make money for their stations, but these are typically entrenched shows on heritage stations. After all, how many home improvement shows can a market handle? As far as the audience is concerned, not more than 1. So, stations sell brokered time because they can make a lot more money than just running bonus spots, not because they're on a quest to get listeners. Besides, don't you think a talk station's (more loyal) listeners will return on Monday morning anyway?

 

[smedge2006]

Second, you think that because someone hosts a paid program that they're a con artist.

There are enough of them to build a "Brokered Radio Hall of Shame" made up of former infomercial/paid program stars who have been fined by the FTC or gone to prison for their shenanigans.

Ratings are insignificant except as a tool to make money.

Infomercials are a way that stations with no ratings make money. Eventually the infomercials take over, as seems to be happening to WWRC.

Besides, don't you think a talk station's (more loyal) listeners will return on Monday morning anyway?

If another station actively sought them on Saturday and Sunday by going local and dumping the infomercials and paid how-to shows, and created destination radio, maybe not.

 

[ajhenderson]

The insipid and undocumented comment about everyone who hosts a paid program being a felon (not true) aside, the fact is that infomercials have taken over stations that perhaps never should have been licensed and, without them, wouldn't be on the air. Do you think if every 1kW station here in Los Angeles had the signal of KFI that they'd be whoring out time during the afternoon? Or that stations whose licenses were issued 5-10 years ago when the market already had 60 stations? Everyone here bitches about corporate ownership, but when an independent owner comes in and can't stand up to the giants who outspend him, steal what talent they develop, promote more, etc., what are they supposed to do? WWRC, while owned by CC, is a dog that can't get ratings because 2/3 of the market can't hear it.

Of course, KLSX in the aforementioned market sells most of the weekend at $6-7,000 an hour and rarely has an opening; some clients have been there for several years. I recently spoke with one of WBAP's hosts who spends $5,000 an hour and gets 40-some appointments a week. Granted, I'd rather keep the top-tier stations (mostly) free of brokered time (like KFI), but if everyone despised this programming as much as you, this client wouldn't have gotten tripled his 30-year-old business' revenues in less than one year on the air.

I love radio and love to see it flourish, but as a business-minded person, you have to be realistic. I also don't have to protect my ego by keeping "non-radio" people away from a microphone. There was a discussion on the Syracuse board recently about how someone should start a new talk station and be live/local 24/7. When I pointed out that such an effort would cost millions of dollars a year to bill 1/4 of that, I'm regarded as some sort of Clear Channelesque anti-radio pariah suit who is ruining the business. Come to some of the stations I've worked for and with and tell me they could keep the lights on programming their 200-watt station for actual listeners rather than selling time to preachers for $30/hour. It seems so many here, like 16 years who just want mom and dad's money for a car, live in an ivory tower where their great talent trumps any need to understand how the money that pays their salaries is made.

 

[smedge2006]

The insipid and undocumented comment about everyone who hosts a paid program being a felon (not true) aside,

Now where do you see that in any post on this thread? Of course every paid program host is not a felon. However, if you listed one of these five words:

felon​

quack​

bore​

self-serving​

audience-depleting​

I'm sure at least one of the above would apply to any paid program host.

Do you think if every 1kW station here in Los Angeles had the signal of KFI that they'd be whoring out time during the afternoon? Or that stations whose licenses were issued 5-10 years ago when the market already had 60 stations?

Stations doing brokered time on weekdays include 50 kW-ers and stations that were licensed as far back as 1922 and have low NIF numbers. Clearly there are stations that could produce numbers that are allowed to vegetate as radio brothels.

Everyone here bitches about corporate ownership, but when an independent owner comes in and can't stand up to the giants who outspend him, steal what talent they develop, promote more, etc., what are they supposed to do?

One of the problems with consolidation is that it has wiped out the "middle class" in radio -- the middle-of-the-pack ownership groups where most of the risk-taking took place prior to 1996. We have either the sclerotic megacorps that blew all the capital Wall Street gave them, and the undercapitalized, undersignaled owners that can't grow their businesses. Nonetheless, it is a good rule of thumb if you are a mouse trying to survive among the dinosaurs that whatever it is they're doing, do the opposite. If they're filling up the time with syndication, go local. If they're brokering out the weekends, use that as an opportunity to grab the listeners they cast aside.

If stations can't or aren't willing to do these things, I suggest it's time to turn in the license. Most of these crusty owners of small facilities have way too high an opinion of how valuable they are. If we can get these values down to where they belong ((<$1M in medium/major markets) we might see some innovators take a risk on them. I view the AM radio band as an electromagnetic neighborhood -- it's an old neighborhood that has been allowed to get run down, and there are a lot of nice, vintage homes being used as crack houses. The solution is pretty much like what you do with an old neighborhood in the real world that's down and out -- save the facilities that have hope of rehabilitation and bulldoze the rest. We need someone with the authority to tear down the crack houses -- even if that's just a smart AM operator buying out the dumb/undercapitalized ones and turning off their signals.

I don't see big radio chains doing that much promotion nowadays -- they're pretty tapped out, which opens an opportunity for the small guys. Here's something I don't understand. Let's say that in Market X you can buy a Class C FM with ratings for 50 million dollars, a Class B AM with no ratings for 5 million. Given the two choices, instead of buying the FM, you buy the AM and put the other 45 million into -- talent (a little) and promotion (a lot). You mean to tell me if you drop say 10 or 20 million in promotion and advertising you won't get numbers equivalent to that FM -- assuming the talent's right? Instead we have owners who spend the 5 million, spend nothing on promotion and are surprised by no ratings. Then they broker and the dream of ratings slips farther away.

I recently spoke with one of WBAP's hosts who spends $5,000 an hour and gets 40-some appointments a week. Granted, I'd rather keep the top-tier stations (mostly) free of brokered time (like KFI), but if everyone despised this programming as much as you, this client wouldn't have gotten tripled his 30-year-old business' revenues in less than one year on the air.

You're missing a point here -- the client's only measure of success is the phone ringing. He may get 40 phone calls -- but out of a hundred thousand cume, that means 40 people stayed tuned in and the other 99,960 LEFT. The old "one caller equals a thousand listeners" rule of thumb doesn't apply to brokered shows, any more than it applies to psychic shows. It builds one business (the client) while destroying another (the station) -- the definition of a parasitic relationship.

It seems so many here, like 16 years who just want mom and dad's money for a car, live in an ivory tower where their great talent trumps any need to understand how the money that pays their salaries is made.

If radio stations were "parents" of their employees, they'd have lost custody long ago for child abuse/neglect. Nobody that I see on this board is expecting a free ride -- just a change that encourages the industry to focus on its long-term survival and stop cashflowing itself to oblivion. Radio's biggest worry right now is not spoiled brats wanting the world in their job contracts -- it's the utter indifference among young people, thanks in part to low salaries and counterproductive business practices, that has dried up the talent pool altogether.