I hate to even mention this...

[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?

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...

It shouldn't be that much of a problem for CBS or anybody to bring back the format...FHF is off their payroll, so this is the chance to bring in syndicated talent or get Dr. Laura to start calling men ******* for 4 hours. Tom is getting paid a big salary until 2012 anyway. They are already paying Carolla a big salary, and he already has an audience - you don't need Howard. Conway is still on CBS's payroll.

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

 

[michael hagerty]

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

Amazing. Appalling, too.

 

[michael hagerty]

It shouldn't be that much of a problem for CBS or anybody to bring back the format...FHF is off their payroll, so this is the chance to bring in syndicated talent or get Dr. Laura to start calling men ******* for 4 hours. Tom is getting paid a big salary until 2012 anyway. They are already paying Carolla a big salary, and he already has an audience - you don't need Howard. Conway is still on CBS's payroll.

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

Well, hang on, Musicfan...you're making alterations here that pretty much guarantee failure.

How would syndicated talent (especially Dr. Laura) be in sync with the format? She's not gonna be #1 (or even #10) in Men 25-54.

If the audience thought Adam was an acceptable substitute for Stern, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. His numbers (9 months ago) were a fraction of Stern's. And his audience (like Stern's) has developed new listening habits since then. Same could be said of Leykis' listeners too.

And then there are the realities of the budget. Adam, Tom and Tim may be on CBS' payroll...but they're off any individual station's budget. Put them back on and you're flirting with a deficit overnight.

Absorbing those costs back into a single station's budget (add a midday show, because Dr. Laura isn't the answer) and promoting the return of the format and the talent adds up to a huge expense.

Worth it if there's a strong likelihood or better of a sure payoff...but there's not.

Howard Stern carried KLSX. When he left, the party was over.

 

[davideduardo]

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

Jack, KCBS-FM, is about the 12th highest billing station in the US. It is 5th in LA. It's sales-demo numbers have increased of late, so it is an even more valuable franchise.

94.7 will have it's future decided on billings, too. A format change costs billing, as most agency accounts look for more than one book, one quarter, 6 months, to gain confidence in a new format. As has been stated here by others, switching to some kind of AC makes more sense, as the billings could be preserved to some extent with guaranteed delivery promises.

The "hot talk" format, sans Stern, failed in all the places CBS tried it. I really doubt that they would come back and attempt this again. It's expensive, and the revenue loss would be almost total... and the recovery time in this economy would be long.

It's fun to imagine what a line-up would be for a hot talk station, but the fact is that conventional news/talk works on FM and lowers the demos AM stations in this format have, while Hot Talk just does not deliver the goods.

 

[musicfan101]

It shouldn't be that much of a problem for CBS or anybody to bring back the format...FHF is off their payroll, so this is the chance to bring in syndicated talent or get Dr. Laura to start calling men ******* for 4 hours. Tom is getting paid a big salary until 2012 anyway. They are already paying Carolla a big salary, and he already has an audience - you don't need Howard. Conway is still on CBS's payroll.

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

Well, hang on, Musicfan...you're making alterations here that pretty much guarantee failure.

How would syndicated talent (especially Dr. Laura) be in sync with the format? She's not gonna be #1 (or even #10) in Men 25-54.

If the audience thought Adam was an acceptable substitute for Stern, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. His numbers (9 months ago) were a fraction of Stern's. And his audience (like Stern's) has developed new listening habits since then. Same could be said of Leykis' listeners too.

And then there are the realities of the budget. Adam, Tom and Tim may be on CBS' payroll...but they're off any individual station's budget. Put them back on and you're flirting with a deficit overnight.

Absorbing those costs back into a single station's budget (add a midday show, because Dr. Laura isn't the answer) and promoting the return of the format and the talent adds up to a huge expense.

Worth it if there's a strong likelihood or better of a sure payoff...but there's not.

Howard Stern carried KLSX. When he left, the party was over.

For the record, I was kidding about the Dr. Laura thing. Your thing with the audience liking Adam or not is B.S. because we are having this conversation three years after Stern went off the air, that is a good amount of time to build a loyal audience! Are you talking about 9 months ago when Adam's and the station's numbers rose??? Okay, I get it, Stern invented radio, he is God! Of course listeners are going to develop new habits, maybe most of those went to satelite radio where Stern is???

 

[musicfan101]

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

Jack, KCBS-FM, is about the 12th highest billing station in the US. It is 5th in LA. It's sales-demo numbers have increased of late, so it is an even more valuable franchise.

94.7 will have it's future decided on billings, too. A format change costs billing, as most agency accounts look for more than one book, one quarter, 6 months, to gain confidence in a new format. As has been stated here by others, switching to some kind of AC makes more sense, as the billings could be preserved to some extent with guaranteed delivery promises.

The "hot talk" format, sans Stern, failed in all the places CBS tried it. I really doubt that they would come back and attempt this again. It's expensive, and the revenue loss would be almost total... and the recovery time in this economy would be long.

It's fun to imagine what a line-up would be for a hot talk station, but the fact is that conventional news/talk works on FM and lowers the demos AM stations in this format have, while Hot Talk just does not deliver the goods.

Talk during the week, Jack during the weekends? Would that work? It's an IPod...DE you have said yourself that KTWV is way down in billing, so it wouldn't be bad to change it with something that has proven to bring in money. I just don't see why they would go AC, when some of the songs on their playlist are already AC?

I'm not saying CBS should open up hot talk stations across the country again - Free FM in some markets were a disaster. I'm saying, just bring the format back to Los Angeles, a place where it has proven to work. I'm not saying, do it right now, of course it would take some time to bring the format back...

 

[michael hagerty]

It shouldn't be that much of a problem for CBS or anybody to bring back the format...FHF is off their payroll, so this is the chance to bring in syndicated talent or get Dr. Laura to start calling men ******* for 4 hours. Tom is getting paid a big salary until 2012 anyway. They are already paying Carolla a big salary, and he already has an audience - you don't need Howard. Conway is still on CBS's payroll.

Like I keep saying 94.7 or 93.1 is the best bet, if CBS were smart they would just sell of KFWB or geez, make competition with Radio Disney lol...

Well, hang on, Musicfan...you're making alterations here that pretty much guarantee failure.

How would syndicated talent (especially Dr. Laura) be in sync with the format? She's not gonna be #1 (or even #10) in Men 25-54.

If the audience thought Adam was an acceptable substitute for Stern, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. His numbers (9 months ago) were a fraction of Stern's. And his audience (like Stern's) has developed new listening habits since then. Same could be said of Leykis' listeners too.

And then there are the realities of the budget. Adam, Tom and Tim may be on CBS' payroll...but they're off any individual station's budget. Put them back on and you're flirting with a deficit overnight.

Absorbing those costs back into a single station's budget (add a midday show, because Dr. Laura isn't the answer) and promoting the return of the format and the talent adds up to a huge expense.

Worth it if there's a strong likelihood or better of a sure payoff...but there's not.

Howard Stern carried KLSX. When he left, the party was over.

Your thing with the audience liking Adam or not is B.S. because we are having this conversation three years after Stern went off the air, that is a good amount of time to build a loyal audience! Are you talking about 9 months ago when Adam's and the station's numbers rose??? Okay, I get it, Stern invented radio, he is God! Of course listeners are going to develop new habits, maybe most of those went to satelite radio where Stern is???

Musicfan:

Sterrn is not God and did not invent radio.

Most of his audience did not follow him to satellite.

But only a fraction embraced Adam Carolla. The morning show went from #1 to out of the top 20. The station dropped from mid 3s overall to mid 1s...before climbing back to high 1s, maybe a 2, depending on how much credit you give AMP for the last 8 days of the February PPM.

When your ratings go down, you charge less for advertising.

Could Adam have done better given more time? Maybe. Was the growth curve suggesting in any way that it would be fast enough to improve billings significantly? No.

When one talent leaves your lineup and your ratings drop by 60%, and don't recover over 3 years, it's a good bet that the talent who left was keeping you afloat.

 

[davideduardo]

Talk during the week, Jack during the weekends? Would that work?

Why trade a #2 25-54 share all week for what would no doubt be a kLSX-like 20th position?

It's an IPod

No, it's not. It has some of the most clever, entertaining production anywhere... all done by in-studio folks who take the calls and make instantaneous, topical, amusing drops. The listeners are the DJs... and they are better than most of the jocks!

And an iPod on shuffle does not create the very effective flow and transitions that Kevin Weatherly creates for Jack.

...DE you have said yourself that KTWV is way down in billing,

I did not say that. The whole market, the whole industry is off. But KTWV is still a big biller...

so it wouldn't be bad to change it with something that has proven to bring in money.

Post Stern, the revenue just dropped and dropped. That's why Amp hapenened. If there was belief in Hot Talk, CBS would not have blown up all of the ones they had.

I just don't see why they would go AC, when some of the songs on their playlist are already AC?

Follow the (demos) money.

I'm not saying CBS should open up hot talk stations across the country again - Free FM in some markets were a disaster. I'm saying, just bring the format back to Los Angeles, a place where it has proven to work. I'm not saying, do it right now, of course it would take some time to bring the format back...

The format was Stern based. No ammount of embarassing trial and error (keyword: ERROR) could fix it afterwards. The format died, and CBS burried it. Leave it in its coffin.

 

[musicfan101]

Jack is an IPod....listeners ARE NOT the DJ's, which is why Jack FM takes no requests at all? I don't understand, if KLSX was a failure then why did it take 3 years post-Stern era to flip it? CBS eliminated almost all of the Free FM stations in 2007, so, why did it two more years to flip KLSX? It must've worked, huh?

97.1 along with many stations that flipped in late 2008 and all of 2009, died off because of the bad economy. Indie 103.1:Bad Economy, Movin' 93.9: Bad Economy, KFWB: Bad Economy. All stations were not billing as well, do you think the individuals station's owners just said "You know what f*** this station, let's just flip it!"???

 

[michael hagerty]

I don't understand, if KLSX was a failure then why did it take 3 years post-Stern era to flip it? CBS eliminated almost all of the Free FM stations in 2007, so, why did it two more years to flip KLSX? It must've worked, huh?

Working and not working is rarely an on/off switch. There's a thing called decline. To protect your investment, you try to stop and reverse it.

CBS had 15 years and millions of dollars invested in KLSX. It was prudent to try to make it work without Stern. To be fair to Adam, they gave it extra time.

With his original two sidekicks, with Bonaduce, without...it didn't make much difference. From Stern's numbers, it was like a fall from a 20th story window....with a corresponding decline in advertising revenue. Kinda like the L.A. Times...a giant for a long time...but in the past few years, falling fast with an uncertain future.

The other Free FM stations didn't have KLSX's history in their markets...there was nothing to try to save. The fact that they all delivered lower numbers than their previous formats did was simply one more indicator that without Stern, it wasn't appealing to enough listeners anywhere.

Radio is a profit margin based business. Owners like CBS want to see 40% margins. They'll live with 30 if they have to, but below that, investors start calling for changes in formats and management, your stock price takes a hit and it's a vicious cycle from there.

The economy didn't help. But every one of the stations you mention (including KLSX) was underperforming before the recession, got worse during it and was replaced with a lower-cost format with a better potential to get automatic inclusion in ad agency buys, improve billing and restore margins.

As long as stations cost tens of millions of dollars and are owned by publicly-traded companies, those will be the forces that drive format decisions.

And until and unless there's a major revamping of PPM methodology, or a seismic shift in how ad agencies place their buys, look for more music formats with young women the primary target demo.

 

[davideduardo]

Jack is an IPod....listeners ARE NOT the DJ's,

Sure they are... they do all kinds of listener drops, many quite topical and fun.

which is why Jack FM takes no requests at all?

Most stations, even the ones that say they do, don't take requests. That's one of the fastest ways to ruin a radio station.

I don't understand, if KLSX was a failure then why did it take 3 years post-Stern era to flip it? CBS eliminated almost all of the Free FM stations in 2007, so, why did it two more years to flip KLSX? It must've worked, huh?

It was working, and the revenue fell by 60%, to the point it made no money, and they flipped.

97.1 along with many stations that flipped in late 2008 and all of 2009, died off because of the bad economy.

No, they died due to a change in ratings methodology.

Indie 103.1:Bad Economy,

Wrong. Had near a 1 share in diary, a 0.3 when lucky in PPM, and they lost their sales agreement, their sales manager, and flipped to a better format.

Movin' 93.9: Bad Economy,

Nope. The station was up to a very competitive and potentially profitable share, but GRC brought a big bag of money from Mexico and guaranteed them the kind of cash flow that even they could not safely predict.

KFWB: Bad Economy.

No, again. News has been on a decline in LA for a decade or more, and the ethnic composition of the market made it even more obvious that two newsers was one too many. Plus, with growing noise levels from computers and CFLs, KFWB just did not have the signal to compete. And, every year the AM audience in LA gets older and less salable, too.

 

[musicfan101]

If this is all a big ratings thing, then why does the Sound or any other station behind 20th place seem to exist? How much longer do THEY have? Of course radio stations take requests, whenever I call into KROQ - they played the songs, whenever I called into Indie 103.1 - they IMMEDIATELY played the song. My opinion is this, when the economy improves, so will the quality of radio. Stations that died off in this recession period, will be re-born in one form or the other.

 

[davideduardo]

If this is all a big ratings thing, then why does the Sound or any other station behind 20th place seem to exist?

You are not seeing the parts of the ratings data that stations use to sell.... generally 18-49, 25-54 and sometimes 18-34 or their subsets by age, gender or ethnicity.

Some stations that look like they are well "out of the money" actually have very good sales stories.

The Sound is a station without many hopes, unless it makes some adjustments. It's wrong for this market, and needs to be modified... maybe in an active rock direction (although I would wonder if Bonneville could cope with active rock's lyrics).

Of course radio stations take requests, whenever I call into KROQ - they played the songs,

They took the request, but if the song played, it was coincidence. Music is preprogrammed on all significant stations.

whenever I called into Indie 103.1 - they IMMEDIATELY played the song.

Indie was not a significant station. And they fact they played your song request may be a hint as to why.

My opinion is this, when the economy improves, so will the quality of radio. Stations that died off in this recession period, will be re-born in one form or the other.

Bad formats like the Hot Talk thing will not be reborn. And formats that died in the change to PPM will not come back. And formats that seemed to be a good idea but weren't will similarly not return. People's tastes don't change significantly during changing economic times... but formats that had been on a down spiral in billing or ratings will not be coming to visit us ever again.

 

[musicfan101]

DE, I respect you a lot, you're cool, but you don't see how comments like that where you say "bad formats like format X will never come back" just pisses people off? Who are YOU to decide that these were/are bad formats. It's not just you, it's a few people on this forum.

I would never criticize any of the stations you run, by saying they are "bad" just because I don't listen to them.

 

[michael hagerty]

DE, I respect you a lot, you're cool, but you don't see how comments like that where you say "bad formats like format X will never come back" just pisses people off? Who are YOU to decide that these were/are bad formats. It's not just you, it's a few people on this forum.

I would never criticize any of the stations you run, by saying they are "bad" just because I don't listen to them.

Musicfan:

David didn't decide these were bad formats. The broadcasting companies that put them on the air and saw their profits shrink did. And they acted. David is merley providing clear and valuable insight as to how the business works.

For a lot of years, KLSX was a very successful, very profitable Hot Talk station. And then it wasn't. Just like KFWB was #1 as a music station...and then wasn't. Or how KMPC outbilled its ratings for decades...until it didn't. Or how KMET ruled rock radio...until it stopped.

That's the business. The fun never stops...until it does. Then everybody's fired and it's on to the next thing with potential for a 40% margin.

 

[davideduardo]

DE, I respect you a lot, you're cool, but you don't see how comments like that where you say "bad formats like format X will never come back" just pisses people off? Who are YOU to decide that these were/are bad formats. It's not just you, it's a few people on this forum.

I'm sorry you have taken this personally. Those of us with some programming and management experience have access to a wide range of data, from ratings to industry studies. We also hear "post mortem" reports on failed formats at industry gatherings and via e-mails from associates and vendors. Some of us have very accurate data on billings, and from experience can calculate operating margins.

So we do know what a bad format... a bad station... a bad show... consists of. And, after Stern, KLSX became a bad station. Indie was never a good one... and so on. And we understand why they will not return.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

DE, I respect you a lot, you're cool, but you don't see how comments like that where you say "bad formats like format X will never come back" just pisses people off? Who are YOU to decide that these were/are bad formats. It's not just you, it's a few people on this forum.

I would never criticize any of the stations you run, by saying they are "bad" just because I don't listen to them.

David E. didn't determine they were bad formats, and even station management didn't determine they were bad formats, the listening public (also known as the free market) decided they were bad formats.

KMET was my favorite station back in the day. Hugely popular for a certain amount of time and THE Rock station. But guess what - KROQ and New Wave came along and decimated the listening base that made up KMET's audience. In 1978 KMET ruled and in 1988 they were already gone. The format didn't change, the times did. The market moved on to something else.

KLSX was a personality-driven station - Stern's. Everyone else was an also-ran who couldn't hold up a station, even Leykis. It took CBS 3 years to realize this as they kept plugging in new personalities to try to make it work. Hot Talk may come back one day, when another star personality can come in and carry a station, but if you think they are going to spend more money building a new station around Corolla, Conway and Whoever, and the Triplets, you're begging.

 

[jmtillery]

My understanding is when KLSX origianally flipped to hot talk, it was patterned after the very successfull WTKS-FM "Real Radio 104.1" Orlando, Florida. KLSX even hired a former WTKS program director as KLSX's initial hot talk PD, calling KLSX "Real Radio 97.1". To this day WTKS-FM remains a viable hot talk FM in Orlando. The format has failed in other markets, but for some reason, after 16-years on-air, the FM Hot Talk format does quite well in Orlando and is programmed mostly "in-house."

 

[radiojomo]

Whenever I call into KROQ - they played the songs, whenever I called into Indie 103.1 - they IMMEDIATELY played the song.

Stations like KROQ don't really give a crap about your requests until after 7 PM. Usually, stations only consider bumping up songs in the playlist during nights and if a signficant number of people also start requesting the song.

 

[likeaboss]

My understanding is when KLSX origianally flipped to hot talk, it was patterned after the very successfull WTKS-FM "Real Radio 104.1" Orlando, Florida. KLSX even hired a former WTKS program director as KLSX's initial hot talk PD, calling KLSX "Real Radio 97.1". To this day WTKS-FM remains a viable hot talk FM in Orlando. The format has failed in other markets, but for some reason, after 16-years on-air, the FM Hot Talk format does quite well in Orlando and is programmed mostly "in-house."

It's not really "some" reason, I'm sure its many. First, most of the Hot Talk formats that flipped had nothing but infomercials on the weekend. Real Radio 104.1 plays targeted music on the weekend. So they have seven days of programming instead of five that other stations had. Probably better not to chase your audience away. I'm sure WTKS played fewer commercials than KLSX as well (there could be anywhere between 16-20 minutes an hour on KLSX). WTKS developed good local shows like the Monsters and the Philips Phile as well. Yes, WTKS had Stern, but five years after Stern was pulled off, the station still seems to be doing well. Had more Hot Talk stations modeled WTKS and not KLSX, the format may have worked a lot better.