I think part of it too is that it could be viable, but most progresive talk stations are an afterthought in most station clusters, and get little to no promotion. When CC started rolling out lib talk nationwide, weren't most of those station PD's already programming right wing talkers? I remember reading that at CC San Diego, account execs were actully telling clients not to buy spots on KLSD 1360
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Goodbye Progressive Talk in San Francisco
- Thread starter Gregg
- Start date
As has been pointed out, none of the suppositions about how "liberals" or "conservatives" behave toward liberal talk radio are supported by any research whatsoever. As far as I know, no one has ever done those kinds of perceptual studies. Thus we have posters on this thread making assumptions based on their stereotypes that probably don't have any basis in real life. They speak more to those individuals' biases than any reality on the ground. Everybody's anxious to score talking points for their own ideology, rather than try to figure out whether liberal talk radio is actually viable. No other format has thousands of people who actively desire its destruction, not to mention a blog devoted to that end (Brian Maloney), and dozens of radio executives who set out to hobble it and strangle it in the crib.
I don't know whether the move to junk Green 960 is a response anticipating what happened at KGO, but if it is, it sounds like exactly the wrong one. This could have been a bonanza for 960, as displaced liberals looked for another station. Conservatives who liked KGO won't feel the need to look for a station. They already have 560.
If only you were correct... if you ask me, the left could use more anger, instead of allowing themselves to be de-motivated by the sleepy syrup of NPR talking about ant colonies, while talk radio fires up the Tea Party.
The problem with Air America was that too many of its hosts lacked energy, and they were TV people dabbling in radio. Not to mention that it never really got cleared in enough of the country to show the potential of the format. (No affiliates in Houston, Baltimore, Tampa, Orlando, for example, and only token clearances in Philadelphia).
I don't know whether the move to junk Green 960 is a response anticipating what happened at KGO, but if it is, it sounds like exactly the wrong one. This could have been a bonanza for 960, as displaced liberals looked for another station. Conservatives who liked KGO won't feel the need to look for a station. They already have 560.
If only you were correct... if you ask me, the left could use more anger, instead of allowing themselves to be de-motivated by the sleepy syrup of NPR talking about ant colonies, while talk radio fires up the Tea Party.
The problem with Air America was that too many of its hosts lacked energy, and they were TV people dabbling in radio. Not to mention that it never really got cleared in enough of the country to show the potential of the format. (No affiliates in Houston, Baltimore, Tampa, Orlando, for example, and only token clearances in Philadelphia).
.........And why the bizarre move of creating a KKSF-AM? They don't even like associating those calls with 103.7..........[/quote]
Maybe, with the launche of Don Bleu (on 103.7) they are going to drop the KKSF calls from the FM in favior or new calls or some heritage calls? Just wondering.
Mike
Maybe, with the launche of Don Bleu (on 103.7) they are going to drop the KKSF calls from the FM in favior or new calls or some heritage calls? Just wondering.
Mike
I think it's a mistake to believe that there is some kind of political agenda behind programming decisions in publicly-held broadcasting companies. The fact that there is such a large amount of conservative talk on radio has begun to hurt radio in other markets, thanks in part to PPM and the general dislike of politics among a majority of people. While it's true that a handful of conservative talkers have been able to attract sizable audiences, the overall record for conservatives isn't very good, and a lot of them tend to alienate advertisers, which is bad.
It's popular to associate investment groups with political ideologies, like the Bass Brothers in Texas with the Bush family, or Bain Capital and Romney. But the real story behind these investment groups isn't promoting an ideology, but making money. Salem is the only large broadcasting company with an obvious political ideology. But a public company like Cumulus has to appeal to a broad range of investors in order to remain viable. That means you stay away from narrow political ideologies.
Where radio needs to go in this current environment is back to entertaining. If you come up with an entertaining liberal, great. But whatever happened to talk radio that wasn't about politics? Whatever happened to Larry King and KABC's Michael Jackson? There clearly is an interest in celebrities, and I see a huge window now for talk radio that isn't strictly about hating liberals.
It's popular to associate investment groups with political ideologies, like the Bass Brothers in Texas with the Bush family, or Bain Capital and Romney. But the real story behind these investment groups isn't promoting an ideology, but making money. Salem is the only large broadcasting company with an obvious political ideology. But a public company like Cumulus has to appeal to a broad range of investors in order to remain viable. That means you stay away from narrow political ideologies.
Where radio needs to go in this current environment is back to entertaining. If you come up with an entertaining liberal, great. But whatever happened to talk radio that wasn't about politics? Whatever happened to Larry King and KABC's Michael Jackson? There clearly is an interest in celebrities, and I see a huge window now for talk radio that isn't strictly about hating liberals.
TheBigA said:
Good comments. Along those lines, I remember the pre-politics obsessed talk radio, when I was growing up in the early and mid 60s. My mother would listen to Pamela Mason on KABC. She had been an actress who never hit the big time, and was mostly famous for being the divorced former wife of actor James Mason. But she was smart, funny, and had that British accent (no, Michael Jackson wasn't the first - he was still playing hits on KEWB). Politics did come up on Mason's show - you knew where she stood politically, but she and her guests (some celebrities) mostly talked about fashion, show-business, cooking, etc. Of course, in that era, much of her audience was probably stay-at-home housewives, like my mother.
Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows had a similar gossipy type morning show on the pre-Boss KHJ for awhile. They broadcast from their home, and celebrities would stop by.
I was only a kid, but I think what happened is "Two-Way Radio" KLAC came along in the LA market and started dominating the ratings with more confrontational and political talk-radio (Joe Pyne, in particular) and the other stations, including KABC, followed suit.
I also recall that the KGO of the 80s (when I was a loyal listener) was not entirely obsessed with politics, which was maybe 60% of the programming. But Ronn Owens, Jim Eason, and the other hosts spent a lot of time talking about other subjects. Each host had their resident experts on pop-music, pets, computers, cooking, movies, the latest releases on video - etc - and those experts would show up fairly frequently to dispense info and advice to callers.
Some of that may still exist on talk radio - I have no idea.
recto101 said:
You mean that KKSF-FM will be KNEW-FM, KEWB-FM or KABL again?
[/quote]
Yes, this is exatly what I was thinking.
TheBigA said:
They're both 80 and no one bothered to groom successors when Larry went to CNN and Michael got run over by Rush Limbaugh in the L.A. ratings. PS: Michael Jackson did a boatload of politics and relished making even moderate conservatives look like Neanderthals. But he did it smoothly and politely.
Non-hate-motivated talk with some focus on celebrities?
You're describing Ryan Seacrest.
michael hagerty said:
It's being done to a large degree on TV. Once again, radio has lost its monopoly to TV. But I think shows like The View prove there's a huge audience for this kind of thing that isn't so focused on the minutia of inside-the-beltway politics.
By the way, Larry's radio successor was Jim Bohannon, and he's still on the air today. Jim used to call himself "second string King." But he's more of a journalist and not a confrontational political talker, so he hasn't attracted the audience that the others have.
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TheBigA said:
i think i saw john bohannon on CSPAN in the late 90`s when the CSPAN cameras showed him doing his entire show one day.he was pretty good.
TheBigA said:
Bohannon is more of a journalist.
And have you ever SEEN The View? They do politics a lot, it's left of center except for one of them, and Whoopi and Joy could teach MSNBC hosts how frothing at the mouth shrill partisan rants are done. Even when it's a celeb on to plug a new show, if they're conservative, Whoopi and Joy get there and ride them about it.
Seriously. Ryan Seacrest is the new Larry.
michael hagerty said:
That's what I said.
michael hagerty said:
Yes, and I agree with your description. What they do is very different from the vast majority of radio talk. It would work well on the radio, but would need hosts with proven credibility.
Ryan Seacrest is more the new Dick Clark. We know more about Larry than we do Ryan or Dick. Larry opened his life to his audience. Ryan and Dick try not to.
I don't think I'd describe Pamela Mason as "someone who never made the bigtime". She hosted her own TV show, was a guest on virtually everything from Ed Sullivan to Jack Benny to The Tonight Show and had a plethora of movie and television credits. She wasn't Elizabeth Taylor but who was"? I certainly knew who she was!
radiowizard101 said:
Where have you been? There's the Pacifica network of hundreds of radio stations across the land, a group which began with KPFA in Berkeley, one of the two most powerful stations in the Bay Area. (The other is KQED-FM, not a conservative station, either.) Pacifica has high-powered stations also in Los Angeles KPFK (the most powerful station there), New York, WBAI, Washington DC WPFW, and Houston, KPFT. URL: http://pacificanetwork.org/
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Some posts from this thead have been moved to Take It Outside
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=202576.msg1804266#msg1804266
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=202576.msg1804266#msg1804266
semoochie said:
OK - I stand corrected. I imdb'ed her, and she didn't have many credits - and I was unaware of her TV credits. I was mostly aware of her KABC radio show, because it was my mother's favorite in the early 60s. I certainly didn't mean to put her down - I was only a kid at the time, so I wasn't personally entertained by her radio show. but she seemed to be a smart, erudite person
mikecroaro said:
Yes, this is exatly what I was thinking.
[/quote]
FYI - the KEWB call letters are now assigned to Power 94, Redding's equivalent to Wild 94.9 and Now 997/
http://power94radio.com/
960 failed because there were no billboards made for that station. I noticed all the other SF clear channel stations got billboard advertising except for 960. I know KCBS is advertised on CBSSF.com and KPIX5 and KQED-FM is advertised via channel 9. All of the SF CBS radio stations are promoted via CW44 and KPIX5 on eye on the bay. 1640 AM Vallejo advertising is seen via Vallejo transit buses. and KUFX 98.5/102.1 FM is promoted via San Jose sharks website for season games.
recto101 said:
I'm not sure billboards can either make or break a station, but the recent lack of billboard advertising strikes me as odd - given that Clear Channel owns around half of them in the Bay Area...the ones that aren't owned by CBS.
I guess the "outdoor" division loses money when they give freebies to their own stations, and can't rent them out to other businesses, but still...
I remember some 960 The Quake billboards circa 2004
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