• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

How low do ratings have to drop before changes are made

C

CTHank

In the latest numbers released today the ticket 760 is now down to a 0.3 and KZDC is up (sort of) to a 0.4, now unless they are billing the heck out of strip clubs (which is possible...) how on earth can any programmer worth his or her salt continue to live with those numbers?

In KTKR'S case the numbers have been steadily dropping (you can only listen to amateur broadcasters for so long, before you give up, and I defy anyone over the age of 14 to listen to Mike Taylor for an entire show...) and I'd be willing to bet that Jim Rome consistently does OK but his show is getting stale.. at least KZDC is holding steady, not doing anything great, but it's stayed the same....

I truly find it hard to believe that in a city with a population of 1.6 million, they can't draw better than that.
 
CTHank said:
In the latest numbers released today the ticket 760 is now down to a 0.3 and KZDC is up (sort of) to a 0.4, now unless they are billing the heck out of strip clubs (which is possible...) how on earth can any programmer worth his or her salt continue to live with those numbers?

In KTKR'S case the numbers have been steadily dropping (you can only listen to amateur broadcasters for so long, before you give up, and I defy anyone over the age of 14 to listen to Mike Taylor for an entire show...) and I'd be willing to bet that Jim Rome consistently does OK but his show is getting stale.. at least KZDC is holding steady, not doing anything great, but it's stayed the same....

I truly find it hard to believe that in a city with a population of 1.6 million, they can't draw better than that.
Click to expand...


The problem with those stations is that fact they are on AM. How many people in San Antonio listen to AM radio? You can't listen to AM radio near the computer, nor on a Via Bus. What would they flip to? Spanish? Classic Country? Urban AC? Urban Oldies? If I owned 760 AM I would probally flip it to Urban Oldies as an Old School format to rival KONO 86, but they would have the upper edge due to their FM simulcast. For 760 the signal is very strong but ever since 760's sign on as top 40 in 1984 the ratings never went past 2.0. Z-rock is dead, but they could probally do a reincarnation of KSJL's SMN-Touch format. If KTKR's ratings are this low, it is something they should consider. But at the end the question is "What will bring the station the most revenue?"
 
Maybe the talk can go back to AM then, and make space for music on 92.5 in SA, and the low-rated Austin talk stations.
 
It seems that the radio world is like a TV show, existing in a completely seperate and different reality. If the numbers are so low on a continuing basis, then how do those people keep their jobs? Put yourself, with your current position/employer, in their position, productivity/profitabilty/ratings-wise. Throw in several suspensions/HR counseling statements for repeated indiscretions. How long would you last, especially in this wonderful era of hopeless change, before you were escorted off the property by armed security? Are those people related to someone in corp HQ? Are they blackmailing someone to keep their job? If there are so many radio people out of work, then why can't the entire facility be replaced, give someone else with fresh ideas a chance? Both shows are unbearable to listen to, unless you are 14 years old, which appears to be the mental age of most of their callers. But then again, this is San Antonio.
 
Based on the quality of the product they're putting out, those who say that AM isn't really viable anymore have made a very accurate statement, so I guess the answer to how these guys keep their jobs and why no changes are made is really a combination of things.

Since most AM stations aren't significant in the marketplace any longer why should anyone really care about what is going out over the airwaves? After all everyone knows that nobody is listening, so let's just use anyone who wants to be on air and will work cheap or free and let them run wild and entertain their 14-18 year old teen age boy audience. Although to me, it is kind of sad and pathetic when 30 or 40 something year old hosts try to act and talk like teens....

But now it makes sense.....
 
The same observations could be made about the FM talk and FM sports stations in Austin, too. How much lower before you make them into competitive music stations? Come on!
 
willdav713 said:
But at the end the question is "What will bring the station the most revenue?"
Click to expand...

Bingo! We all know of stations that have wallowed in the ratings for decades now but show no sign of changing format. That's because the operators have found a niche that pays the bills while keeping costs low. More expensive programming may increase ratings, but will the revenue increase enough to justify the increased operating costs? They could actually have a hit station that makes them less money.
 
During the last book, the Spurs had long been out of the playoffs and the organization had entered into the official media silence of lockout mode, where no one in the media is allowed to say the name of a current NBA player and the name of the team in the same paragraph. The NFL was also in lockout mode during most of the book.

You're not going to get San Antonio sports fans excited about discussing the WNBA or baseball while those two sports are on the shelf.

I wouldn't read anything at all into these numbers for sports talk, nor should any changes be made because of them.

Look for the drooping numbers to start affecting The Blowtorch in Q4, if the NBA lockout really blows out the entire season. The Spurs are rumored to be telling their employees this is likely to happen.
 
daypart said:
...nor should any changes be made because of them.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this one part of your statement, because if as you say, SA sports fans aren't going to talk about anything other than the Spurs and Cowboys, then get rid of the local shows and just feed the national stuff. It's more cost effective, and it's a far superior product. Since locals are listening to what's being put out over the air now, the ratings can't get much lower than they currently are and you could still sell advertising to the same places that you do now and in the long run, you would maximize your bottom line and in this day and age, that's really all that matters.
 
CTHank said:
daypart said:
...nor should any changes be made because of them.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this one part of your statement, because if as you say, SA sports fans aren't going to talk about anything other than the Spurs and Cowboys, then get rid of the local shows and just feed the national stuff. It's more cost effective, and it's a far superior product. Since locals are listening to what's being put out over the air now, the ratings can't get much lower than they currently are and you could still sell advertising to the same places that you do now and in the long run, you would maximize your bottom line and in this day and age, that's really all that matters.
Click to expand...
Using your logic, let's say that KTKR and KZDC dump all of their local shows for a year, until the NBA returns to town. Is the savings worth the effort to have to rebuild with new shows in 2012 or 13? Would the syndicated fare that emphasizes teams on the coasts cause a large number of sports talk listeners to remove the stations from their presets or even give up terrestrial radio altogether?

Those are the reasons I'd be afraid to go that direction.
 
But if you consider that even when the Spurs were playing the ticket's numbers were 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.4.,0.4 and the latest 0.3 and kzdc's were 0.3, 0.3., 0.4, 0.4, 0.3, 0.4. It's not like either station was tearing up the airways. I remember in Feb and Mar wanting to hear some Spurs talk, but whenever I'd hit the button that wasn't what I heard, they were always babbling about some inane topic and when the Spurs were mentioned what they were talking about never seemed to make sense, so I quit even trying. I found I could get better analysis by reading the different forums on the net that i ever did from any of their local shows.

I don't know what the answer is, but it just seem obvious that whatever they're doing isn't working and hasn't worked for a period of months and in actuality for the better part of a year and maybe SA is a market that just won't support a sports talk format no matter how good the talent is.

The good thing from my personal perspective is that I live in an area that when I'm driving around I can pick up 2 FM sports talk stations and 5 AM stations (the 2 SA stations are in that mix) and since I'd love to be able to keep up with what's going on in SA, I do click on their buttons during their 'local' programming but there hasn't been anything that has made me want to keep listening. And judging from their numbers, I'm not the only one.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom