I hate to even mention this...

[SandyG]

Has anyone seen this new site: hottalkla.com? They are, according to the site, "Presenting you with the very best Hot Talk Talent from a failed radio station."

Really? This is the drecks of the 97.1 days. I really miss the station, but somehow they have made an online station of podcasts that has EVERY ONE of the hosts that sucked on the station. Ok, to be fair, John and Jeff aren't on there so it's only 90% of the talentless hacks that did some weekends there. That's like having a Lakers reunion with only the second string practice squad and a few assistant equipment managers.

Now if they had Leykis....or even "fake" Leykis, they may have a winner.

This is full of infomercial hosts and board ops. WOW.

I got excited when I first saw the page that maybe a little bit of the old KLSX would live on...BOY what a letdown!

Then again, they are new, and when 97.1 launched as Real Radio they had some duds...it took a while to create what became 97.1....but they also had Stern, so unless this podcast station gets a "draw" they're never gonna make it.

It should say "Presenting you with the failed Talent from the very best Hot Talk radio station."

 

[musicfan101]

Has anyone seen this new site: hottalkla.com? They are, according to the site, "Presenting you with the very best Hot Talk Talent from a failed radio station."

Really? This is the drecks of the 97.1 days. I really miss the station, but somehow they have made an online station of podcasts that has EVERY ONE of the hosts that sucked on the station. Ok, to be fair, John and Jeff aren't on there so it's only 90% of the talentless hacks that did some weekends there. That's like having a Lakers reunion with only the second string practice squad and a few assistant equipment managers.

Now if they had Leykis....or even "fake" Leykis, they may have a winner.

This is full of infomercial hosts and board ops. WOW.

I got excited when I first saw the page that maybe a little bit of the old KLSX would live on...BOY what a letdown!

Then again, they are new, and when 97.1 launched as Real Radio they had some duds...it took a while to create what became 97.1....but they also had Stern, so unless this podcast station gets a "draw" they're never gonna make it.

It should say "Presenting you with the failed Talent from the very best Hot Talk radio station."

I saw that...I wasn't aware 97.1 "failed". The weekend hosts were great! It served it purpose for weekends on a hot talk station, unless you prefer hearing about the law all weekend long (cough...KFI, KABC). I would love to hear your ideas on what should've been on late nights/weekends on KLSX?

Real Radio is something Van Gogh would enjoy - the one who chopped his ear off...97.1 the past three years were the best.

The podcasts sound a little low budget, regardless I'm waiting for them to come back on the air...

 

[ChannelFlipper]

Enjoy the wait; it will be a long one.

 

[musicfan101]

Enjoy the wait; it will be a long one.

I sware, what does everyone on this board have against hot talk or KLSX?

 

[rwagoner]

Enjoy the wait; it will be a long one.

I sware, what does everyone on this board have against hot talk or KLSX?

Brains? Intelligence?

 

[musicfan101]

Enjoy the wait; it will be a long one.

I sware, what does everyone on this board have against hot talk or KLSX?

Brains? Intelligence?

Oh, so it's intelligent to hear how dumb liberals are or how conservatives are Jesus freaks all day??? Let me guess you are the 55+ crowd, and you would enjoy hearing how much Arnold Palmer talks about how good soup and crackers are???

 

[michael hagerty]

I wasn't aware 97.1 "failed".

What would you call #27 with a 1.3?

 

[musicfan101]

I wasn't aware 97.1 "failed".

What would you call #27 with a 1.3?

Does anyone here have access to the Feburary ratings books? I'm just wondering if you saw the same 1.8 as I did, when they went off the air?

 

[robnokshus06]

At the time KLSX went off the air it was #1 with men 25-54 (the station's target demo) in middays and afternoon drive.

I grow tired of the Mike Haggertys of the world trying to paint this station as some sort of failure, which it was not. KLSX's ratings were strong and on an up-tick and despite the best efforts of Roy Laughlin to sabotage the station in the advertising community (kind of hard to lock in those annual beer buys when your market manager is telling everyone not to buy you because you're changing format) KLSX would have still made a profit this year. The type of NTR dollars that that station pulled in cannot be replaced by anything else in the CBS cluster.

If you ever read any of Mark Ramsey or Jerry Del Coliano's stuff you would realize that KLSX was doing everything right: creating it's own unique content and distributing it on multiple platforms. And not just the re-purposing of its on-air material, but videos, animation and a whole host of innovations.

You can poo-poo the Hot Talk LA podcasts as being second string all you want, but the numbers for those shows would blow you away! Hats off to Randy Wang (the Podfather) for his tireless energies in creating a very entertaining podcast network. This ain't grandpa radio. This is the future. Bite size, on-demand radio, un-censored, well-produced and fun to listen to.

Now, hurry up and tune in KFWB! Dr. Laura is about to tell you that abortion is bad!

 

[musicfan101]

^^Thank you! In fact, the ratings at KLSX were IMPROVING once it was taken off the air!!! Hottalkla.com is great, I still know there is a place on another FM radio station for this kind of format. [**cough** 100.3] Who knows when it could be? People need to remember a station like this could make tons of money...

 

[SandyG]

Musicfan101, while I do agree on some things you said, there are lots and lots I don't. I agree that I miss 97.1 and wish it would come back...ok, there is ONE thing I agree with you on.

The weekend hosts were replaced by infomercials in most of the dayparts. Then, in a last ditch effort they added the regular weekday shows to Saturdays and finally sent it all over to KFWB...the infomercials, not the hosts.

THEY call it failed on their site, because, had it not failed, it would still be on!

My ideas of what should have been on latenights and weekends...GOOD TALK RADIO HOSTS.

97.1 was a great station because of one thing. HOWARD STERN. If he was still on, 97.1 would still be on the air and doing huge numbers. LEYKIS is GREAT too, but he's not Stern. The weekends had a few good shows and the rest were infomercials. Shindler was fun to listen to, but the other "non infomercial shows" like Sam Philips and the Film Freak were ear bleeding radio. They both must have slept with Jack S. to keep their gigs. I don't know them and I am sure they are great people, but they sometimes had ZERO ratings. Literally a zero in their time slot. The real estate, financial, legal and car shows had a larger following, and they were PAYING to be there.

Putting together a podcast channel is great and I am sure they are all hard workers, but as far as good radio....I stand by what I said. They were the bottom of the bunch of 97.1. Maybe get the Carolla podcast on there? Get Whitman to do something. There is already a great place to find podcasts...it's a little thing called iTunes.

Also, how does a podcast sound low budget? That's like calling a $5 hooker a cheap whore.

Oh, and 97.1 "the last three years" were the best? Really? The three with low ratings and no Stern?

 

[radiojomo]

People need to remember a station like this could make tons of money...

And be willing to spend a lot of money. You could name any music station in LA and they'll for sure be running at a fraction of what KLSX was running at. You not only need a powerful personality to draw in the crowd but you also need to pay the peanut gallery in the studio running the show. And KLSX would always do pretty bad on the weekends which is why some FM Talk station started playing music on the weekends. I remember 92.3 Free FM in NY did that for a while...

 

[musicfan101]

People need to remember a station like this could make tons of money...

And be willing to spend a lot of money. You could name any music station in LA and they'll for sure be running at a fraction of what KLSX was running at. You not only need a powerful personality to draw in the crowd but you also need to pay the peanut gallery in the studio running the show. And KLSX would always do pretty bad on the weekends which is why some FM Talk station started playing music on the weekends. I remember 92.3 Free FM in NY did that for a while...

I mean, yeah, of course ratings during the weekends not many people listened, no one listens to infomercials. I don't think CBS cared about ratings during that slot - they wanted to make money. In my opinion, adding the Raiders to the lineup wasn't a bad idea, but if they added the Chargers or USC.... ;D

Maybe it's just me, but I would kind of think it is hard to have music on a talk station in general. When you are supposedly catering to a young audience, or anyone who just listens to talk radio, how would you know what kind of music to play? Hot AC? Active Rock? Alternative? Hip-hop? Accordion music?

 

[SandyG]

How can you say no one listens to infomercials? Why would someone keep spending $6000 per hour to get no response? The infomercials had higher ratings than the hosts that were paid to do shows on the weekends. When real estate snake oil salesmen are pulling stronger numbers, you have to get rid of the other hosts and try something new, right?

 

[musicfan101]

How can you say no one listens to infomercials? Why would someone keep spending $6000 per hour to get no response? The infomercials had higher ratings than the hosts that were paid to do shows on the weekends. When real estate snake oil salesmen are pulling stronger numbers, you have to get rid of the other hosts and try something new, right?

I don't know Sandy G, maybe the people who wanted to truly tune in to hear about their mortage, or whatever, just logged on the station's site and saw what time it was on and listened??? Do you have proof that the infomercials had higher ratings than the hosts? Is my interrigation over? Am I free to go???

 

[Nate Wesley]

Oh, so it's intelligent to hear how dumb liberals are or how conservatives are Jesus freaks all day??? Let me guess you are the 55+ crowd, and you would enjoy hearing how much Arnold Palmer talks about how good soup and crackers are???

I just wanted to chime in that your last line is hilarious, and I'm going to blatantly steal this illustration the next time I need to make a similar point elsewhere.

 

[musicfan101]

Oh, so it's intelligent to hear how dumb liberals are or how conservatives are Jesus freaks all day??? Let me guess you are the 55+ crowd, and you would enjoy hearing how much Arnold Palmer talks about how good soup and crackers are???

I just wanted to chime in that your last line is hilarious, and I'm going to blatantly steal this illustration the next time I need to make a similar point elsewhere.

Hahaha! No problem!

 

[michael hagerty]

I wasn't aware 97.1 "failed".

What would you call #27 with a 1.3?

Does anyone here have access to the Feburary ratings books? I'm just wondering if you saw the same 1.8 as I did, when they went off the air?

Musicfan: It was actually a 1.8 in January and a 2.1 in February (10 of those days were as AMP). The 1.3 I cited was the average from October, November and December, 2008, which is when CBS made the decision to bail.

So yes, the numbers were getting better. But that's only relative to the depths to which they had fallen after Stern moved to satellite.

Contrary to the impression I seem to have given Robnoxious, I'm not opposed to the format. But I am a realist. For CBS to consider bringing it back, they have to be willing and able to:

* Pay a big salary to Tom Leykis.

* Find and pay a replacement for the Triplets who can deliver #1 numbers in 25-54 men.

* Either pay a big salary to Adam Carolla and be very, very patient (5 years? 10?) as he builds an audience...

* Find yet another replacement for Howard Stern, pay him/her/them a big salary and hope it works...

* Lure Howard himself back to CBS when his Sirius deal ends, pay him Godzilla dollars and hope the 80 percent of his audience that didn't think he was worth paying for on Sirius will come back to him now that he's free.

And there's one more factor. For the above to work, CBS has to find a station to trade away in order to re-assume those costs and risks.

It won't be AMP. They've doubled the ratings and slashed the costs.

It's not likely to be The Wave....another comparatively low-cost, high-billing station.

Jack? KRTH? KROQ? Nope.

And with that, CBS is out of FMs in Los Angeles.

If Citadel had money, it could buy the Sound from Bonneville and Bob could flip it, but...

 

[michael hagerty]

How can you say no one listens to infomercials? Why would someone keep spending $6000 per hour to get no response? The infomercials had higher ratings than the hosts that were paid to do shows on the weekends. When real estate snake oil salesmen are pulling stronger numbers, you have to get rid of the other hosts and try something new, right?

Sandy: Infomercial success isn't based on ratings, but response to the message.

Since paid programming is sold in half-hours, let's take your $6000 an hour figure and cut that in half. That's $3000.

If a real-estate investor's seminar is the client, and their registration fee is $300, they only need 10 people who hear the infomercial to call in and sign-up and they're at break-even (they'll go profitable on the stuff they sell once you get there).

And since the only people who sit through infomercials are people interested in the product, the response levels tend to be high. There could be as few as 50 (fifty) people listening and they could hit their target. More listeners equals profit....which, as I noted in the KABC thread, allows the infomercial buyers to push for lower rates for their renewals precisely because their programs have driven down the station's overall ratings.

 

[SandyG]

MusicFan, you are free to go.

And Michael, the informercials on 97.1 we hourly except for the overnight vitimans. Same goes with KFWB, except they are actually making the shows listenable and a few of the weekend shows are now programming.

If you look at the ratings back then, the infomercials did pull bigger numbers than the shows that had paid hosts.