recto101 said:
KLIV gets a 1.6 in a books in January. How can KLIV live on as an all-news station when KGO gets a 4.7 in San Jose and KCBS 740/106.9 gets a 3.2 in San Jose but a 6.6 in SFO.
You think in ratings, not in income and expenses. KLIV is largely a network newscast with local drop-ins throughout the hour. They don't need a large staff to make it work. Plus, if they can find enough local clients they can make it work.
I once worked for KWUN 1480 in Concord (now defunct), which was a 500 watt daytimer though most of its life. The station never made a dent in the Arbitrons, and was further hampered by the fact that it was considered part of the SF market, and thus all the good network and syndie programming was already swooped up by the big stations. And yet when I worked there, they managed to sell LOTS of advertising and support a staff of 7 fulltimers and 4 or 5 parttimers and turn enough profit to satisfy 3 investors.
The owner, Bill Adler was a champion salesman. He moved mountains to get advertising, and when things were slow he'd fill up the schedule with free bonus spots to longstanding advertisers to make the station "feel full". At the time I was there, KWUN had the Mutual affiliation, covered high school sports, did remotes from shopping centers, and even sold the sign-off. (I've mentioned this before... "It's the end of another broadcast day at KWUN, but just the beginning of fine dining at John Jawad's Pioneer Inn in Clayton...")
I haven't listened to KLIV in quite some time, but I assume that KLIV is sold the same way, with the added bonus that they actually show up in the ratings! How cool is that?