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It's Official - Houston only has one station for news - it's not KTRH

zork said:
I just noticed that according to the latest PPM link:

http://www.radio-info.com/site/markets/grid/houston-galveston

KUHF-FM is the only station recognized as having any sort of news being classified as News-Talk format.

KTRH-AM has finally been reclassified to a Talk format.
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That might be editorial judgement on the part of Radio-Info. Looking in the front part of the Arbitron book, both stations are classified as "News Talk Information."

Of course, KUHF also does a fair amount of classical programming between the news blocks. I find that easier on my ears than the static coming out of KTRH 24/7.

It's also interesting to note that in the front of the book, KBXX is listed as a Rhythmic CHR as opposed to Urban. Hot and KRBE call themselves Pop CHR. To my ears, KBXX is Urban, KKHH is Rhythmic, and KRBE can't decide between Pop and Hot AC.
 
Didn't most of Houston notice that about 4 years ago when KTRH paired their offerings down to morning drive and noon lunch-hour? I hate living in smaller Houston and being forced to listen to NPR for the news (I prefer 24 h commercial NEWS (only) radio; preferably from CBS Radio. Ex: WBBM, KNX, KCBS, etc.) while the older big cities have choices.
 
KTRH stopped being a "news station" in my mind when they axed the afternoon drive time news. I can tolerate running talk mid-morning and mid-afternoon, or overnight, but I would expect a news station to be running news in the 5 PM and 6 PM hours.
 
HoustonListener said:
KTRH stopped being a "news station" in my mind when they axed the afternoon drive time news. I can tolerate running talk mid-morning and mid-afternoon, or overnight, but I would expect a news station to be running news in the 5 PM and 6 PM hours.
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My thoughts exactly!
 
With the proposed sale of KTRU to U of H, KUHF will wind up being the default news station in town. I still wonder if anyone over at CC is looking at this, perhaps thinking of taking one of their FMs and flipping it to some kind of news or news/talk operation?
 
TexasTuner said:
With the proposed sale of KTRU to U of H, KUHF will wind up being the default news station in town. I still wonder if anyone over at CC is looking at this, perhaps thinking of taking one of their FMs and flipping it to some kind of news or news/talk operation?
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Did anyone catch in this morning's Chronicle that the most outspoken UH regent against all of this happens to be married to Michael Berry? ::)

I think anyone who owns an AM talker is looking at the median age of their audience and wondering when to jump to FM. The answer to when to make that jump depends upon what the stations bill. AM is Ancient Modulation.
 
johndavis said:
I think anyone who owns an AM talker is looking at the median age of their audience and wondering when to jump to FM. The answer to when to make that jump depends upon what the stations bill. AM is Ancient Modulation.
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depends upon the stations bill...or an FCC mandate to end AM transmissions on the MW band à la DTV.

If Obama is smart, he might finish the process which should have started in the '60s to go all FM (or all VHF if counting the Weather band) by 1980 right after the elections.  One way to accomplish this is not to allow the renewal of a MW station's license when it expires. Kill two birds with one stone!
 
You're a little hard on us AM operators there, sonny. AM still has a lot to offer radio listeners. I'm pretty sure it will be around for some time to come.
 
"All News" from NPR-sources is a non sequitor. (All Liberal all the time)
The AM band will be around for many moons to provide balance to left wing views on every other so-called radio news source.
 
AM is not going away. There are nitch audiences to serve. But let's talk about the big guys. Currently, rightwing rabid talkers have taken all the prime signals, but they are pulling minimum audiences, with a few exceptions. Of course a 50K all-news talker could compete with the FMs, as they do in every other major market. But we here in Houston are stuck with you-know-who, who have a political agenda that gets in the way of them serving the public ... and thus getting the real ad-agency local advertising support. Someday that will change. It may take a bankruptcy. But someday that will change. You-know-who is living on Enron-AIG-Goldman Sacks bookkeeping for now. It will not go on forever. You can quote me.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
"All News" from NPR-sources is a non sequitor. (All Liberal all the time)
The AM band will be around for many moons to provide balance to left wing views on every other so-called radio news source.
Click to expand...

Without spending a lot of time on this, I quote from Wikipedia:
A study conducted by researchers at UCLA and the University of Missouri found that while NPR is "often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet", "by our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet. Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's." It did find NPR to be more liberal than the average U.S. voter of the time of the study and more conservative than the average U.S. Democrat of the time. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a progressive media watchdog group, also disputes the claim of a liberal bias.

I find NPR to be the most balanced news source in the free world...I worked in news for several years and would be considered by some to be a "news junkie"...I cringe to read that News Corp. just contributed $1 mil to the Republican Governors' Assn...

Back to the point at hand...there is NO credible radio news source serving the Houston market other than that (admirably, by the way) provided by KUHF. Headlines and "the [morning] news in 90 seconds" read by a third-party traffic person (and mostly lifted from Houston Chronicle headlines) don't really count, at least for me...
 
thathoustonradiogeek said:
History question: We know when KTRH stopped being all-news, but, when did the start the all-news format? I read somewhere it was in the mid-1970's. ???
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When would you say KTRH stopped being all news, or newsradio 740? Your view and CC's might be different.
 
Henry McClurg said:
AM is not going away. There are nitch audiences to serve. But let's talk about the big guys. Currently, rightwing rabid talkers have taken all the prime signals, but they are pulling minimum audiences, with a few exceptions. Of course a 50K all-news talker could compete with the FMs, as they do in every other major market. But we here in Houston are stuck with you-know-who, who have a political agenda that gets in the way of them serving the public ... and thus getting the real ad-agency local advertising support. Someday that will change. It may take a bankruptcy. But someday that will change. You-know-who is living on Enron-AIG-Goldman Sacks bookkeeping for now. It will not go on forever. You can quote me.
Click to expand...

Does Rush or Sean have to be on KWHI at the same time while KTRH can be heard audibly during the day (at least)? You're right about the prime signals. No wonder left-wing talk-radio or in Houston's case Catholic Radio (KGBC 2004-2006) can't take off because of static from weak signals.

Obama could pull a fast one on conservative talk-radio by having them scramble to find an FM or alternative mode. Last I heard, mainstream people prefer music radio over talk (I once talked to someone and he can only listen to music and hates any talk). Shortwave is not an option right now because of the international content requirement (and lack of receivers). That pull could be justified in that AM has served us well for 90 years, just like analog TV served us for 60 years.
 
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