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Houston: The Only Major Market with No News-Talk Station in The Top 10

G

Gregg

KTRH, a talk station that once had been All-News in the daytime, is tied for #11. But KUSF with a large news department and NPR backing it, is ranked at #19. No other News or Talk station ranks in the Top 20.

But what about other formats outside of Contemporary/AC, Rock, Country and Urban/Latin? Houston had a Smooth Jazz station but only briefly. Smooth Jazz died in Houston well before it happened in other big U.S. markets. When did Classical 94.5 KLEF die? 30 years ago or more? Again, most large cities in the U.S. only lost their commercial Classical stations in the last few years.

Nearly all the top 10 markets in the U.S. have an All-News station. NYC has two. All-News is #1 in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit. In AM Drive, in NYC, WCBS is #1 and WINS is #2. Where's Houston's All-News station? KTRH had been an All-News station in the daytime with talk at night, similar to WBZ Boston. But that was years ago. Gradually, under different owners, All-News was eliminated from all dayparts on KTRH.

So are radio stations owners in Houston just being cheap? Or is there something odd about the nation's #6 market that has no AM stations or News-Talk stations in the Top 10?

Gregg
[email protected]
 
I'll go out on a limb and say what we hear -- or don't hear -- on the radio is a direct reflection of public tastes, and what radio programmers think the public wants to hear.

If the programmers were convinced there's an audience for an all news station, there would be several stations busy chasing that audience. The same goes for commercial classical.

Both formats have failed in the Houston market.

Radio stations succeed or fail on how accurately they discern what the listening public wants, and how well they deliver the goods. It really is that simple.
 
Here's my theory. Clear Channel makes more money even with lower ratings by airing right-wing talk. A news format is expensive. Yes, the ratings would come in with all news. But it's the expense of generating the content for an all-news format.
 
Cheap Channel is going the way of the industry in Houston. What a shame. Back to the internet!
 
Gregg said:
But what about other formats outside of Contemporary/AC, Rock, Country and Urban/Latin? Houston had a Smooth Jazz station but only briefly. Smooth Jazz died in Houston well before it happened in other big U.S. markets. When did Classical 94.5 KLEF die? 30 years ago or more? Again, most large cities in the U.S. only lost their commercial Classical stations in the last few years.
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Not so much. While major markets have just started losing classical over the last few years, KLEF 94.5 going away was, by no means, anything new in the mid-80's. Classical stations were going non-commercial, to weaker signals, or just going away for years prior. Major markets were simply better equipped to stave off classical's shift because they both had more stations and were more likely to have at least one owner who was truly committed to the arts. Since many FM's ran classical when they signed on and FM wasn't considered viable by many owners, many of them flipped to more commercially successful formats when FM started taking off. Classical basically went away for the same reason freeform rock died. Austin, for example, lost commercial classical in the 70's when KHFI flipped to top-40 and sent its format to non-commercial KMFA.

By the way, KLEF 94.5 was owned by Entercom when it flipped to AC as KJYY in either '86 or '87, and Entercom made its fortune by purchasing FM's on the cheap in the 60's when everyone said it was a fad and wouldn't work. Classical was a cheap format to program because you could automate it easily. At one time, Entercom had classical stations in Houston, Oklahoma City and Tampa. Oklahoma City's KLNK 101.9 dumped classical in '82, going first to jazz and to AC as KLTE a year or two later. KLEF went next, and WXCR in Tampa upgraded its signal and dumped classical for oldies in '89.

Nearly all the top 10 markets in the U.S. have an All-News station. NYC has two. All-News is #1 in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit. In AM Drive, in NYC, WCBS is #1 and WINS is #2. Where's Houston's All-News station? KTRH had been an All-News station in the daytime with talk at night, similar to WBZ Boston. But that was years ago. Gradually, under different owners, All-News was eliminated from all dayparts on KTRH.
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All news has, or at least recently had, the highest power ratio in the industry. However, it's also the most expensive format to run. I seem to remember not too long ago that KCBS, KNX and WINS had more than 100 people on staff, and that was just the voices you heard on-air. When Hubbard announced it was buying WTOP in Washington from Bonneville, the report from the Washington Post said WTOP alone employed over 100 people, 50 of whom worked in the newsroom.

So are radio stations owners in Houston just being cheap? Or is there something odd about the nation's #6 market that has no AM stations or News-Talk stations in the Top 10?
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Are the Houston owners being cheap? Maybe. In their defense, however, starting an all news station costs a king's ransom, and all news startups haven't worked very well in the past. With a high cost out of the starting gate and a low chance of success, I can't say I blame anyone for avoiding all news in Houston. Dallas/Ft. Worth had a station that went all news in '96, and it lasted 6 months. I can't think of another all news startup since. That's not to say there aren't any, but I certainly can't think of one.
 
Why couldn't an all news radio station partner with a TV station/newspaper to share resources, if cost is a concern? All local media seem to have scaled back their news coverage over the past few years. The next hurricane will be covered by blog, Twitter and Facebook.
 
stan said:
Why couldn't an all news radio station partner with a TV station/newspaper to share resources, if cost is a concern? All local media seem to have scaled back their news coverage over the past few years. The next hurricane will be covered by blog, Twitter and Facebook.
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Smaller markets have done it. In Indianapolis, WXIN (FOX-59) and WIBC 93.1 (FM NEWS-TALK) share resources.
 
In Seattle, 1000 KOMO became an All-News station a few years ago, co-owned with the local ABC TV affiliate. They now do a local talk block in middays but still do Traffic and Weather Together every 10 minutes while doing talk. And they're still All-News in drive times, nights and weekends.

KPRC-TV is no longer co-owned with KPRC-AM. But with KPRC 950's ratings falling so low, they'd make a good candidate for switching to All-News if they had the resources of KPRC-TV behind them.


Gregg
[email protected]
 
I'm not sure an all news radio station partnering with a TV station would make a huge difference in cutting costs. Obviously, it would cut them to some degree, but, given the high risk of running the format, it might not cut the payroll enough. Keep in mind that WTOP has a partnership with WJLA 7 but still has a news staff of 50. KEWS, the short-lived all news station in Dallas in '96, had partnerships with both WFAA-TV and The Dallas Morning News, which, as you may know, are co-owned, but still had a large staff, a bloated payroll and a slow start. When CBS and Infinity merged, getting rid of KEWS to comply with FCC ownership caps was a no-brainer. It was going to be a heavy expense, and it would be years before it would make significant money.
 
It's worth noting that a little over six months into the news format KEWS programming was preempted for several weeks. The tower of co-owned KYNG 105.3 fell and the Young Country format aired on KEWS's frequency in the interim. KEWS didn't recover from that, but even without the tower collapse the format probably wouldn't have lasted anyway, given the other factors that came into play.
 
So if there are no synergies between radio and tv for all news, and radio news still had large staffs in other markets, there is no hope of a Houston station staffing up for all news. They and their bean counters are too cheap.
 
stan said:
So if there are no synergies between radio and tv for all news, and radio news still had large staffs in other markets, there is no hope of a Houston station staffing up for all news. They and their bean counters are too cheap.
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You have hit the nail on it's proverbial head. Cheap channel already sold the format down the river and I don't see anyone with an AM signal willing to try it. FM's wont do it after the Cumulus disaster a few years ago. Houston just isn't a news market...for the moment!
 
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