• 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

Is WKLU breaking it's Promise

Hionradio said:
Again, you guys stun me. Instead of recognizing KLU for doing good radio, you blame them for what is going to happen to the station if and when the corporate boys get hold of it. If Oasis holds commercials to 6 an hour, how can you blame him for what the corporate guys would or will do? It's as if you are defending what Wall Street has done to radio by minimizing the efforts of WKLU to deliver a quality product. I understand that you are stuck working for the corporations, but can't you be objective enough to acknowledge that KLU is doing radio in a much better way than the corporate guys are? Be objective.
Click to expand...
I enjoy listening to WKLU on my way to and from my corporate radio job. What I don't like is being lied to. Never more than four is what you said. We can add this as the fourth great lie. You broke your promise, it's that simple. You are no better than the rest of us..add inventory/make more money...so get off your high horse.I even heard a "value add" billboard..."this hour of the program is being underwritten by Home Depot." Please...underwritten? Same game of three card monte the rest of us play...did I say get off your high horse?
 
Try less than that, it's on the market currently. The problem is that at the price Russ is asking most corporations cannot work the cash flow multiple to make the numbers work. To make the multiples work WLKU would have to be flowing more than 65% of the current full signal'ed stations in the market. Kind of a hard sell to Wall Street unless you are not worried about stockholder returns. Or maybe trying to take your company private. :)BTW A tip of the hat to Russ for taking the time and spending the money on engineering to get just about everything out of an out of market class A signal. I have run the signal and done a matrix of the projected vs. actual and the thing does what it is supposed to do in the real world. On the other hand the HD's, HD2 & HD3 sound very very bad, and is not doing the industry any good with the audio quality of the HD2 and HD3 anything under 48kbps HD coded audio does not sound good with complex audio (music) talk yes but music no. Sorry Russ!!
 
Doesn't nearly every station make positioning statements that end up being only mostly true?Kind of like when I showed up for my first shift on an "all request weekend," to find out that there were only five request slots per hour. I called the PD to ask what's up, and he said, "Well, the other songs in the hour are songs the listeners would have requested anyway." Wha??! "Well, if I opened it up entirely, there'd be no flow in the hour." Then why call it an ALL request weekend?So WKLU played six spots in a set. Shrug your shoulders and move on. No pieces of the sky have made their way to Earth just yet.jim
 
mobilene said:
Doesn't nearly every station make positioning statements that end up being only mostly true?
Click to expand...
... or outright, intentional lies and deception.Happens all the time. It does seem rather silly to get all up in arms if they played 6 minutes of spots one weekend... when every station at least exagerrates in their imaging.
 
I think the reason people are making a big deal out of this (versus other types of deceptive positioning statments on other stations) is because of the attitude that WKLU has in their positioning. That "we are great because we are anti-corporate and Russ is a genius" attitude.
 
I'm not an industry guy. I went to college to be in the industry, but got sidetracked. Anyway, I consider myself an average listener, although I do have some inside knowledge of how radio works. Does WKLU increasing from 4 to 6 spots an hour matter to me? Not really. I mean, it is still at least half the commercials most stations play. Do I feel lied to? Not one bit. I still see it as a business, and if they need 10 an hour to keep the bottom line where they need it, I'm still happy with it.I see a lot of sour grapes in this thread. Is that because Russ and WKLU are eating your lunch, or are tou truely personally affected by the "lies"? Get off it. [EDIT=Inflamatory comment]Oh, and I'm drinking Vault right now. No kool-aid here. ;)
 
What is interesting is that nothing has been said about CC's "less is more" philosophy. It still seems to me that they play alot of commericals (including the sponsered weathers, traffic , etc). By stopping once an hour, KLU is still keeping the listener through the stop sets. Whereas FBQ possibly loses. When KLU stops more than once an hour (yes, Iknow the news plays at :10 or :20) then something could be said for KLU straying. All in all, I (as a listener and out of the radio biz for years) am not jumping ship.
 
I'm with BSURadioGeek on this one ... I'm not in the industry and I listen to a decent amount of radio. WKLU has had my preset pretty much since Russ took over and it's definitely the station I listen too the most often (even stream it when I'm at work).I don't feel lied too ... I don't feel cheated ... one commercial break an hour is fine ... multiple commercial breaks actually encourage me to check the next preset (a song I don't like will do the same, but Jack and the Track do that and have multiple commercial breaks, which is why I don't listen to them that often).I'm drinking the kool-aid ... and I've pitched the artificial sweetner.
 
You're right, compared to the rest of us 6 an hour in one set is no big deal. In fact it is great. Why not do 3x in two sets instead? Less fatigue on the listener and definitely better for the customer.The issue is the deception, and the underlying master plan. The story they want you to believe is they are doing great radio. "We can do it with just four spots an hour", as compared to you corporate types who are milking every cent out of the station and killing the business in the process.The underlying master plan is to sell it to some big company for 3x or more what he paid for it. Trouble is he can't make it work in cash flow terms to get some big company to justify the price he wants for the station. He has his costs down...just ask the jocks how much they are being paid...it may be more cost efficient than voice tracking.It was never about great radio..he just found a station with a decent upgrade potential...fixed it up...and is now trying to sell it.How many of the advertisers were told..."because you are only one of four spots an hour, people will be less likely to tune out, therefore making your commerical more effective" Now they are part of a six minute stop set just like every other music station in town.I wonder if the advertisers could demand a refund or makegoods based on the deceptive practice?
 
but spark ... do you think the average listener cares? i don't think your wrong, but i think there's larger fish to fry ... call it indifference if you'd like ... but i personally don't see this as that big of a deal. i for one am just enjoying it while it lasts ... when it goes away ... i'll go somewhere else ... if russ is doing this to get his numbers to a point where he can sell with a significant profit ... good for him ... wish i'd thought of it first.
 
Putting agendas and personality conflicts aside here. There is a distinct difference in exageration and lies. The Track saying they're the hottest radio station at work is an exageration, it's subjective, can't be really quantified because there is probably someone out there that believes it, moreover no one can PROVE it isn't true. So a subjective exageration is not a lie. I'm not saying it's right just that it's not a lie. On the other hand, "We'll never play more than 4 spots an hour" is not subjective. It IS quantifiable and therefore can easily be proven true or false at any given time. So IF KLU is playing more that 4 spots an hour and they DID promise to play no more than 4, then they are lying, not exagerating.It's up to you to decide if there's a moral difference. Most likely, if you like KLU you don't care... if you don't like KLU then they're lying scumbags.
 
The issue is the deception, and the underlying master plan. The story they want you to believe is they are doing great radio. "We can do it with just four spots an hour", as compared to you corporate types who are milking every cent out of the station and killing the business in the process.The underlying master plan is to sell it to some big company for 3x or more what he paid for it. Trouble is he can't make it work in cash flow terms to get some big company to justify the price he wants for the station. He has his costs down...just ask the jocks how much they are being paid...it may be more cost efficient than voice tracking.It was never about great radio..he just found a station with a decent upgrade potential...fixed it up...and is now trying to sell it.
Click to expand...
What? He's not running the station as a 'community service in the public interest?' He's out to make MONEY??Next thing you'll be telling me that remote broadcasts aren't designed to bring the listeners closer to the personalities on the air--but--gasp--they're used to increase traffic and SELL THINGS! Jeez....It's been said many times before...The bottom line...is the bottom line. Russ took a non-player...and started chomping on the big boys' lunch. That's what has everyones panties in a wad. Commercials, to the listener, are commercials. Four...six....whatever.Every station, whatever their positioning statement, is out to make a buck. Great radio? At best, a happy coincidence. Grow up and pull your head out of the clouds. Great radio...is radio that makes a profit. Cause without a profit, you won't last. Simple as that.
 
Tiny, you're missing the point of the whole discussion...the lies and deception to both the listeners (which can be tolerated and explained as hyperbole), and to the customer who thought they were buying one of four spots per hour. That is the point. They went to great lengths to promise never more than four
 
shawk-n-awe said:
Most likely, if you like KLU you don't care... if you don't like KLU then they're lying scumbags.
Click to expand...
I like KLU, but if the lying scumbag name fits...they should wear it.
 
Hey South...you have to be kidding about this massive "deception," right? Let's see, The Track says that they play 18 in a row. Yea...when? Q-95 says that "Less Is More." Sure, less is more, the day 24 units is less than 22 units. Your naive comments that the "underwritten by" announcements are added value and that the live personalities are "cheaper than voice tracking" give you away as intellectually dishonest. You have no idea what the jocks make or whether the announcements are added value (they're not). WKLU never once said that they'd "NEVER PLAY MORE THAN 4 COMMERCIALS." They said that they'd only stop once an hour. It seems to me that what pisses you off the most, is the possibility that Russ may triple his money by having taken a marketing approach that not only worked, but worked because the listeners are sick and tired of being ABUSED BY THE CORPORTATE GUYS. Why do you think that his strategy has resonated with so many people? Listeners are not dumb and they know that WKLU is more focused on what listeners want, than are the corporate stations. If listeners did not feel that way, a 3000 watt station from Brownsburg would not be in 3rd place. If not for Bob and Tom, maybe second place. Quit trying to denegrate the quality of WKLU, because Oasis will get a big payday for beating the corporate guys. WKLU is a better station than the corporate stations. Is it not possible that WKLU is run considerably better than the corporate stations? When it comes to dishonesty, it's your intellectual dishonesty that is the most disingenous.
 
Hionradio said:
Quit trying to denegrate the quality of WKLU
Click to expand...
Sorry, but I haven't seen anyone do that. Just questioning the positioning/imaging and the sincerity. Not the quality. In fact, it seems almost unanimous that it's a well programmed station.
 
I want someone to prove KLU actually said they would always only play 4 spots an hour, that they are now playing 6, and they decieved advertisers and didn't let them know. As far as I can tell they are assumptions, and we all know where that gets us. Otherwise detractors of KLU really have nothing else to say.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom