Howard Stern or O&A to 101.9?

[WNTIRadio]

Yes, one does have a lot to do with the other. Going from the free range of XM back to FM was diluting the product.

Sure, they were phoning it in, but that was 50% of the problem. The other half was the bi-polar show. You can curse... after 9am. You can cover topics that can't air on FM... after 9am.

It was a dumb idea to begin with. CBS should have bought out the XM contract if they wanted a full morning show. Of course, they could have put on anything after the DLR experiment and it would have been better.

 

[davideduardo]

it appears that many indirectly cite Opie and Anthony's failure on FM as the reason they think Stern would flop if he came back as well. Some differences that poke holes in that idea include O and A never reached critical mass that Stern did and they failed on fm partially because they came back phoning it in. They sounded un prepped and winging it relying on their rep rather than putting in work. There's no telling how Stern would do in the post PPM world because he's always defied odds in terms of ratings the bulk of his career. The evidence does indicate that he would not have the same sort of listening that he once did because PPM results look like they favor the quick break.

It is rather easy to establish a range of possibilities were Stern on FM today in NY and LA in the PPM world.

We know how much of Stern's diary listening was cume based and how much was TSL. We know he had relatively low cume, somewhere around 10th in the market. We know he had humongous TSL.

We can look at the range of cume and TSL (now called AWTE) possibilities in the PPM, and predict that the very cume-based PPM would change Howard's share rank. My personal evaluation after working for over 10 years with PPM would be that he might be 8th in NY and 10th in LA in share.

The biggest loss is the diary phenomenon where "favorite" shows would be written down as "6 AM to 10 AM" or similar, while the PPM shows many short bursts of listening, interrupted by the snooze button on the alarm, moving about the house while getting up, taking out the trash, going out to the car and first checking traffic, etc. Thus the 4 hours becomes 47 minutes or so.

The other issue is the fact that edgy personalty shows don't pick up phantom cume like more broad appeal music stations do when going into PPM. You either like Stern or you don't. So the cume would grow some, but not a lot.

A good example is the Spanish language equivalent of Stern in LA, who was #1 in the diary, edging out Stern, but who fell to about 10th in PPM for exactly the same reason I am explaining.

 

[TTalkradio1]

Wrong. The problem was not that they were split between FM and XM, it was that they did not make an effort on FM. As stated before they phoned it in assuming that their reputation was enough to draw an audience. One should not have had anything to do with the other they were just lazy.

I think they were lazy too.

 

[WNTIRadio]

I agree that they were lazy. But I think the situation also helped them be lazy. Phone it in from 6-9am and then have real fun in the uncensored world of XM.

If they only had to do one show for one place, with the entire paycheck riding on it, then laziness isn't as much of an option. I think the attitude was "eeh, if this doesn't work then we just go back to satellite only".

 

[Brooklyndon]

I, personally, outside of a candy-bar giveaway skit, and a promo for ghetto delta airlines, found nothing amusing about O&A. They are below my class, and I could hear it; and that is why they failed nationally, imo.

Stern on the other hand, his crassness has a very self-aware brattiness to it which dulls the edge of the shock, I think.

 

[ProducerGuy]

They are below my class

Doubtful. You just liked Stern more. Nothing wrong with that, but don't act like his act was somehow more highbrow.

 

[Brooklyndon]

They are below my class

Doubtful. You just liked Stern more. Nothing wrong with that, but don't act like his act was somehow more highbrow.

Stern did news, O and A did nothing like that....Stern would occasionally say things that indiciate he'd read a book, at least once, O and A willfully came across as dumb.

O and A may have been a good fit in the 90s suburbs, when college dropouts could still get jobs, it who wants that audience now?

 

[FellOutBoy]

I agree that they were lazy. But I think the situation also helped them be lazy. Phone it in from 6-9am and then have real fun in the uncensored world of XM.

If they only had to do one show for one place, with the entire paycheck riding on it, then laziness isn't as much of an option. I think the attitude was "eeh, if this doesn't work then we just go back to satellite only".

I'm afraid you dont understand much about the situation friend. They were paid well for the cbs show and considering it was only three hours as opposed to the five on XM they were paid comparatively better by cbs. There was a sense of *wink wink* "the good stuff will happen on XM" I can only assume because they knew that the people who followed them TO XM after they were fired would be ticked off about them going back to free radio after they have been paying to hear them for years. More importantly this was their chance to return as heroes and restore their former glory! and vindication simply because it was the company that made them and later fired them that came crawling back to re hire them. Despite their spin they were also smart enough to know that while XM was a job when they were basically unemployable, going to XM took them off of the public's radar entirely something they wanted even more than money because they already had that. No, they phoned it in thinking the O and A legend was enough to carry them, it was not, they flopped and went back to XM where the only time anyone is talking about them now is in the context of "maybe 101.9 should hire O and A" ..AND BRING THEM BACK TO FM proving my original point.

 

[WNTIRadio]

I think you're thinking about it more than they did. CBS was an extra paycheck on top of the already guaranteed large paycheck from XM.

Remember that CBS also paid the remainder of their contract after the show was "cancelled". They weren't actually fired. So they sat at home and got paid millions for it for a couple of years before XM. Good deal if you can get it.

If they really wanted the former glory of being on FM, and not the easy money, they would have left XM and done a full morning show on 92.3 etc. and put all of their eggs in that basket. This was an easy way to get more money. There was no real incentive to be 100%, and it very well could have been a subtle "FU" to CBS by phoning it in while getting paid for it, with a backup gig still going at the same time.

They shot themselves in the foot in the end, whatever the motive, by doing a half-assed show. They're not coming back to 101.9. Merlin doesn't have a pot or a window to throw it out of right now. And I don't think they would be a good fit, though Randy Michaels does seem to like "big name" talent that is past their prime by 10+ years. See also: The short lived Mancow on the Chicago station. But right now, the investors are saying "run it on the cheap and make some money".

 

[FellOutBoy]

You are correct about one thing the afternoon show was "cancelled" and the sole reason for that was so that their contract was enforced and that cbs could keep them off the air because had they gone across the street to clear channel when they were hot as a pistol and Howard was still doing mornings, they could have declared war on him, no doubt they would have! and it would have drastically cut into the cbs bottom line.

When you say "they would have just left XM and done a full time morning show for cbs" They could not just leave XM when they were still under contract to them, they had a contract. No offense meant but you're just talking. You dont really seem to know what you're talking about.

 

[FellOutBoy]

Let's agree on this: Neither Stern nor O and A are going back to FM anytime soon and even if they do it wont be to 101.9 ;D

 

[ProducerGuy]

Stern did news, O and A did nothing like that....Stern would occasionally say things that indiciate he'd read a book, at least once, O and A willfully came across as dumb.

Because Crackhead Bob and Beetlejuice are straight off of PBS. It's the same act.

O and A may have been a good fit in the 90s suburbs, when college dropouts could still get jobs

I am not even sure what this means. I guess you're trying to say that O&A fans are dumb?

 

[Brooklyndon]

Because Crackhead Bob and Beetlejuice are straight off of PBS. It's the same act.

Pretty much, but different delivery. First off Stern had a lot more blacks and woman on. And his show had, for lack of a better term, a Jewier feel to it, slightly more cosmopolitan than O&A's uniformly white, male, suburban, parochial circle. Stern would also talk about his family and softer subjects, whereas O&A were less public about their private life. At the end of the day the shows were both Long Islanders pushing limits, but O&A had less apparatus to make the listener feel like he was laughing with rather than laughing at.

O and A may have been a good fit in the 90s suburbs, when college dropouts could still get jobs

I am not even sure what this means. I guess you're trying to say that O&A fans are dumb?
[/quote]

 

[ProducerGuy]

I think what you may be trying to get at is that O&A have been a bit more mean spirited. That would be fair to say.

 

[jas2525]

Both Stern and O&A did/do good shows.

Stern's show, IMHO, edges out O&A because, among other reasons, it just has a much longer and richer history, which definitely adds dimension to the broadcast.

I also happen to think Stern is just a funnier and more interesting personality. Anthony is hysterical. Opie not so much.

 

[WNTIRadio]

When you say "they would have just left XM and done a full time morning show for cbs" They could not just leave XM when they were still under contract to them, they had a contract. No offense meant but you're just talking. You dont really seem to know what you're talking about.

If you read farther back, I meant in the way of CBS buying out their contract.

Yes, I do know what I'm talking about. 17 years in the business, working for all sorts of stations, some in top 10 markets and now for my own contracting/consulting business, I do know what I'm saying.

I know how contracts work. I also know that for the right price they can be "modified". CBS was as unwilling to commit to them as they were to CBS. For the right amount, XM would have let them go. So the end result was a half-assed morning show that ended an hour early with the hosts coasting for 3 hours on their "name", on a station populated with Stern and to some degree O&A imitators.

We all know how that turned out.

 

[FellOutBoy]

When you say "they would have just left XM and done a full time morning show for cbs" They could not just leave XM when they were still under contract to them, they had a contract. No offense meant but you're just talking. You dont really seem to know what you're talking about.

If you read farther back, I meant in the way of CBS buying out their contract.

Yes, I do know what I'm talking about. 17 years in the business, working for all sorts of stations, some in top 10 markets and now for my own contracting/consulting business, I do know what I'm saying.

I know how contracts work. I also know that for the right price they can be "modified". CBS was as unwilling to commit to them as they were to CBS. For the right amount, XM would have let them go. So the end result was a half-assed morning show that ended an hour early with the hosts coasting for 3 hours on their "name", on a station populated with Stern and to some degree O&A imitators.


We all know how that turned out.

There is a difference between our opinions and what are facts. XM would not have allowed them to be "bought out" because for better or worse they were an integral part of their identity at the time. Having them on CBS was probably in the minds of XM brass good promotion for XM as im sure they did garner some new subscriptions from those looking to hear "the real show" after 9 AM. As for your 17 years in the business you work as an engineer according to your sig on your profile which doesnt mean that you would know anything about talent contracts and that is reflected in your "cbs would've just bought them out" idea.. You've also in the time that i have been monitoring this board repeatedly suggested that the reason that WRXP did not work was because it was not a traditional AAA which for the most part is a format that only works in a few places like Chicago, Portland and San Francisco where they have well established stations and they only work there because they have been there for years, in some cases decades, and took almost as long to develop an audience as AAA is for the most part a format that will never make an immediate impact anywhere it is and it seemed obvious that Emmis was not about to devote that sort of time or money to the development of a format that would take years to even get noticed let alone succeed. So in this instance sorry to say that you don't really know what youre talking about. Actually KGSR Austin does fairly well but that is also not exactly a major market.

 

[WNTIRadio]

As for your 17 years in the business you work as an engineer according to your sig on your profile which doesnt mean that you would know anything about talent contracts and that is reflected in your "cbs would've just bought them out" idea..

Sorry, been a drive time air talent, PD at by the age of 21 with NYC vets working for me (Chuck Leonard, Max Kinkel, Stan Martin, Lee Arnold, Bill Owen to name a few), an ops manager, a production director, imaging director, some sales... so yeah, I do know something about talent contracts and the other parts of the business. My contract engineering business is what I've decided to focus on after all of the other stuff in radio wore me out. I work for me, which means I control my own destiny not someone dangling a proverbial carrot in front of me. If you've been in radio for any amount of time then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

O&A weren't integral to the identity of XM the way Stern was for Sirius because they were/are a regional act here in the Northeast. They tried to serve two masters, and that usually doesn't turn out well. Luckily, they DID have the existing XM contract to fall back on when CBS didn't renew them. Most of us don't have the luxury of a very high paying fall back gig.

 

[WNTIRadio]

And I still hold that RXP would have attracted a better audience with much higher TSL the first time around if they did AAA straight up OR rock straight up. Pick one. Throwing GNR in with AAA currents isn't going to work at all...anywhere. There we go again with pleasing two masters not working. Their TSL was more in line with a CHR than a AAA and/or rock station because of the disjointed playlist.

It's a suburban format for sure, like PLJ, but it would have billed well (like PLJ). My significant other is the APD for a big AAA station here in the NE... all the time she tells me how they bill VERY well.

If the Peak can attract almost 200k people with such a limited signal, and most importantly make money, don't you think a AAA with a full market signal could attract 10 times that? And all in the key demos too. Which translates to the numbers that really count at the end of the day.

This version of RXP 2.0 is much more focused, and they've gotten rid of the Q-104.3 staples and "**** rock". It has a little harder edge than FNX did in Boston, a bit more 90's rock, but that's a necessity in NYC which is a little less adventurous and rock friendly than Boston.

If Merlin had done this last year they could have fixed RXP and saved a whole bunch of money and misery in the process.

 

[davideduardo]

O&A weren't integral to the identity of XM the way Stern was for Sirius because they were/are a regional act here in the Northeast.

By saying O&A were a regional act in the Northeast you exaggerate the reach of Stern. Add in LA and a dozen other markets, and 80-plus percent of the US could not hear him. And, even with the shares he had in some, but not all the markets he was in, about 85% or so of the populations where he did have an affiliate did not listen.