KABC-AM Cuts Most Of Local Lineup/ Sacramento's Armstrong and Getty to Join in 2020

[davideduardo]

If Madison was a one book fluke, how did their audience successfully protest a pending format change and keep it on the air longer than iHeart planned?

I suspect that, since it was a time when the FCC still had the last vestiges of format protection, Clear Channel just did not want the controversy at that moment. Remember, it is a Class A and its 65 dbu does not even cover 50% of the MSA. And, while Madison is a college town, the college age progressive thinkers did not usually get into the Arbitron sample.

The station performed decently. Not top 5, admittedly, but as long as there was a supply of syndicated shows that fit the format, they held their ground longer than most.

You could say the same thing about WKIZ in Key West. Some stations hung on hoping that either Air America would get the promised infusions of cash they needed or that something better might come along.

I don't deny that most liberal talk stations didn't succeed with the Air America lineup. That's a separate issue from the format. It's also separate from Patrick's assertion that Air America did "everything wrong." Maybe their management did. But not all of the hosts did.

I was doing talk radio in that era, and since the US stations I worked with were Spanish language, they leaned to the progressive side on most of the issues that Air America espoused. I'd listen to see how they were doing things, and found that, to some degree or another, all the hosts in my opinion were doing just about everything wrong. Some were not talking to the listener (singular) but were lecturing or addressing a crowd (Franken did this all too often). They did not establish themselves as people and sounded all too often like college professors, not "a friend on the radio". They did not chat as much as they addressed the audience.

Of course, a major problem was having mostly AM stations... and secondary ones at that... when the generation that had more progressive ideas was not in the AM demo and was not given to listening to talk radio anyway. In very few markets are there more than two or three full-coverage AM stations (There are about 180 day and night 80% of the market 5 mV/m coverage stations in the top 100 markets) so the first choices were conservative talk, sports and all-news in a few top 10 markets. That did not really afford a major opportunity to Air America, and nobody at the time wanted to dedicate a good FM to the format.

 

[davideduardo]

The best example is Rachel Maddow, who has since found her audience and is the main attraction at MSNBC, with a bigger audience than she ever had on the radio.

.

Yes, and I think she was always better suited for TV than radio.

Radio has a certain one-on-one intimacy, and lends itself to a more colloquial chatty "you and I" style. TV is generally talking heads with a "me to all of you" feel.

Granted, there are TV hosts like Oprah and Ellen who do succeed in making it feel like they are talking to people, not lecturing a crowd (maybe having studio audiences helps that feel), but most behind-a-desk anchors and hosts have a barrier between "them" and "me".

Maddow's style was not as appropriate for radio but, better honed over the years, it is an ideal style for politically polarized cable networks. She fits right in with the ability to have video snippets, 3-minute guests and other members of the MSNBC crew providing content. Radio can't afford to do that due to economics. And that fits your other point, BigA, that most of the decisions in both areas (TV and radio) are financial, not political.

 

[TheBigA]

And that fits your other point, BigA, that most of the decisions in both areas (TV and radio) are financial, not political.

If it was strictly about ideology, it would be easier to accomplish.

 

[Gregg.]

I think there are three problems with Progressive Talk. I'm a fan, and listen to Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann on Sirius XM Progress. But I can see how it is a difficult format to do well.

1. Yes, Air America was hastily assembled and didn't always choose the best hosts. Some came to it from political backgrounds. Some had never done radio before. For some unknown reason, several hosts did not want to take phone calls. Imagine a talk show with no input from the audience. Today, maybe texts work in place of phone calls. But texts were not available then. Rachel Maddow was one of the hosts who wouldn't take calls. I'm not sure if this was from political purity (she already had her show written and didn't need us interrupting it) or because she wanted to be available for TV appearances and could pre-tape her show if needed. Morning host Mark Maron rarely took phone calls. (He is now a popular podcaster and does a lot of TV.) Sam Sedar & Janeane Garafalo never took phone calls on their evening show. Same for the late night host from Phoenix who's name escapes me, Mike Something.

2. It's hard to do Progressive Talk because most liberal points of view are, by their nature, nuanced. Conservatives can be absolutists. No abortion, no gay marriage, no prohibitions on guns, no climate change. All businesses are good, all military and police actions are good. You get the feeling that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would say they like vanilla ice cream more than chocolate because vanilla is the more conservative flavor. It's easier if you say all conservative thought is good and all liberal thought is evil.

Progressive thought is a little this and a little that. Yes to abortion but maybe not in the third trimester. Some industries are good but some are bad. Yes we support the troops but sometimes they go too far.

3. Even though NPR is NOT progressive talk, many progressive minded people are perfectly happy with NPR when they want an enlightened information radio station. Morning Edition is not the liberal version of Rush, All Things Considered is not the liberal version of Mark Levin. But a news program with no commercials and few breaks, that does features on melting glaciers or jazz musicians in New Orleans after Katrina, that's fine for liberal people. And in most markets, the NPR station is powered at 50,000 watts in the Northeast and Great Lakes, and 100,000 watts everywhere else. How does a 1,000 watt station at AM 1340 compete with that, by airing Progressive Talk?

 

[gr8oldies]

I remember early on, listening to Franken talking with a guest for 45 miinutes without taking a break or re-introducing the guest (it was VP Biden). Radio 101. They were TV people and I remember hearing that AAR had hired 100 writers and producers at the beginning. What?

 

[TheBigA]

Morning Edition is not the liberal version of Rush, All Things Considered is not the liberal version of Mark Levin. But a news program with no commercials and few breaks, that does features on melting glaciers or jazz musicians in New Orleans after Katrina, that's fine for liberal people.

That's a pretty good summary. The idea that NPR is liberal is a myth. Anyone who listens knows that. The fact is most of the programming at NPR doesn't deal at all with politics. They actually spend a lot of time talking about other countries. But the main thing is it's articulate talk about intelligent subjects. The kind of thing Michael Jackson did at KABC. Are the people who listen liberals? Maybe on social issues, and maybe not on financial issues. So it's complicated.

A lot of people ask why don't commercial stations try this? Because it is best for non-commercial radio. Its listeners don't want to be sold products, they don't want to hear the same 800 number ten times, and they don't want a good conversation interrupted. A lot of public stations are owned by colleges and universities, and this approach fits the image they're trying to project. They also provide a service that really isn't available from commercial radio.

 

[davideduardo]

2. It's hard to do Progressive Talk because most liberal points of view are, by their nature, nuanced. Conservatives can be absolutists. No abortion, no gay marriage, no prohibitions on guns, no climate change. All businesses are good, all military and police actions are good. You get the feeling that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would say they like vanilla ice cream more than chocolate because vanilla is the more conservative flavor. It's easier if you say all conservative thought is good and all liberal thought is evil.

Progressive thought is a little this and a little that. Yes to abortion but maybe not in the third trimester. Some industries are good but some are bad. Yes we support the troops but sometimes they go too far.

While this is not a political discussion board, in this case we have radio programming based on political partisanship.

So if we look at the fact that the US has nearly always had two party elections, without the fragmentation into further subsets that are common in many other world democracies. Within each of our parties there are considerable extremes. And there is a point in the middle where many independent voters decide based on individual candidates, sometimes red and sometimes blue.

I don't see Democrats as socialists and all Republicans as close minded as you suggest.

There are Democrats who favor free market economies and more limited "nanny state" government intervention. There are Republicans who believe climate change is a huge problem, but in no small part due to climactic cycles that are "normal" for the planet.

I mention these contrasts just as examples of how non-monolithic both parties are. There are centrist Democrats and socially progressive Republicans and all variety of other two-word subsets.

What makes it hard for radio programming is that the "central conservative" and "central liberal" groups may be smaller for one party than for the other at any given time. It's a moving target.

And for radio, another issue in attracting Blue voters is that big parts of the Democratic constituency consists of Blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups such as LGBTQ individuals, each with differently prioritized agendas.

When Air America made its effort there was not the degree of polarization that makes both MSNBC and Fox so passionately followed today. There was less unhappiness, less taking of sides on many issues in those immediate post-9/11 years.

One might think that liberal talk would be a perfect solution today. Wrong. It's nearly a generation too late for talk radio start-ups to make a major impact, as the sales demo audience is just not going to listen to any color of talk radio today because that is not how radio is consumed any more.

Once again, it's about the financial ability to sustain a format and not the content. It comes down to owners looking for programming that will be sustainable, and at this time the only sustainable format based on talking about social and political issues is to the right of center.

 

[davideduardo]

I remember early on, listening to Franken talking with a guest for 45 miinutes without taking a break or re-introducing the guest (it was VP Biden). Radio 101. They were TV people and I remember hearing that AAR had hired 100 writers and producers at the beginning. What?

Yes, Air America was very well financed at the beginning, but they burnt through the initial capital very fast because they got little national traction and, as a consequence, little advertiser interest.

And you pointed out a great example of how little the hosts learned... or were willing to learn... about radio. The lack of frequent resets is to flunk that Radio 101 course you refer to. That's the first thing talk programmers teach those weekend guest hosts that may be lawyers or doctors or even car devotees.

The second lesson is that attention spans are short, and people tune in at random (folks who come from TV have a strict :00 and :30 mentality) and if they can't find out what is going on quickly, they often leave. Even long topics have to be broken into pieces that fit listening incidents; appointment listening does not parallel appointment viewing on TV. And, of course, that TV mentality does not take into account the lack of visual reinforcement to many discussions.

Neither of those points were well understood, if at all, by most of the Air America hosts.

 

[Gregg.]

>>>I don't see Democrats as socialists and all Republicans as close minded as you suggest.<<<

Oh, no. I'm not suggesting that's where the parties or voters are. I'm simply saying that to do a conservative talk show, you follow this pattern. The average man or woman who votes Republican is not like this. But they like to hear hosts who are like this. It's so much simpler. Good vs. evil. Patriotic vs. treasonous. It's like the WWE. Or old-fashioned Westerns. Some players are heroes, some are villains. You can spot them instantly by their white hats or black hats. No complications or nuances. Rush, Hannity, etc. are 100% conservative, 100% Pro-Trump, 100% of the time. (Glenn Beck didn't solidly endorse Trump. Look how his affiliate list has dropped.)

Progressive talk is not as simple. Liberal people WANT nuance. But nuance doesn't translate well to radio.

Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann have continued their five-day-a-week shows, syndicated and carried on Sirius XM and Free Speech TV, too. But how many radio station affiliates do they have? Randi Rhodes has un-retired. She now does a two-hour show, syndicated, podcasted and on Free Speech TV. Al Franken now does one hour each weekend on Sirius XM Progress. Ed Schultz died a couple of years ago. Bill Press, Sam Sedar and Mark Maron now do podcasts. Rick Unger recently started doing a two hour syndicated show. But how many Progressive Talk stations are there to carry it?

 

[TheBigA]

But how many Progressive Talk stations are there to carry it?

There aren't any. That's the point. It's not a format. A station can't realistically program a 24/7 station this way and expect to pay their bills.

Radio stations aren't just a bunch of shows. There are formats. Radio needs consistency. Otherwise it's just a bunch of barter.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

That's a pretty good summary. The idea that NPR is liberal is a myth. Anyone who listens knows that. The fact is most of the programming at NPR doesn't deal at all with politics. They actually spend a lot of time talking about other countries. But the main thing is it's articulate talk about intelligent subjects. The kind of thing Michael Jackson did at KABC. Are the people who listen liberals? Maybe on social issues, and maybe not on financial issues. So it's complicated.

A lot of people ask why don't commercial stations try this? Because it is best for non-commercial radio. Its listeners don't want to be sold products, they don't want to hear the same 800 number ten times, and they don't want a good conversation interrupted. A lot of public stations are owned by colleges and universities, and this approach fits the image they're trying to project. They also provide a service that really isn't available from commercial radio.

I always marvel at the liberals ability to convince themselves that liberal talk fails because the typical liberal is simply too knowledgeable, intelligent, and sophisticated to stoop to the level of traditional talk radio. They only gravitate to the nuanced and erudite information that is broadcast (usually with a foreign accent of some sort) without regard to such petty things as "political differences" on revered outlets such as NPR and the BBC. There is not an icon available that indicates how laughable such a presumption is.

If the idea that NPR is liberal is a myth, can you name the issues on which it takes a consistently conservative position? Can you identify the % of known conservative guests they have on as opposed to outspoken liberals (or even just name a few)? They are nowhere near being unbiased and it only weakens the reputation to try to convince the public otherwise.

 

[TheBigA]

I always marvel at the liberals ability to convince themselves that liberal talk fails because the typical liberal is simply too knowledgeable, intelligent, and sophisticated to stoop to the level of traditional talk radio.

Not sure I said that. I compared it very specifically to Michael Jackson. He was traditional talk radio. That's why ultimately he was killed by Rush.

Can you identify the % of known conservative guests they have on as opposed to outspoken liberals (or even just name a few)?

How about Donald Trump? Is he conservative enough? You can hear him every day on NPR. They just did a big interview with Bill Barr. It was widely quoted. Just today they had an interview with Texas Republican Will Hurd. Did you hear it? If not, here's a link:

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/13/7959...ia-officer-in-middle-east-on-protests-in-iran

Here's Rick Scott:

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794704414/republican-sen-rick-scott-on-iran-and-iraq

Here's Trump's Security Advisor:

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/09/7950...ends-briefing-on-iran-criticized-by-lawmakers

BTW NPR doesn't take sides on issues.

 

[Delete My Account]

Conservatism has factions - pure free trade vs protectionism, the "country club" or "establishment" wings vs the Trump wing, anti regulation libertarians vs. faith based groups, the "nationalists" etc.

Yet this is supposed to be a problem unique to liberal talk, why? And what shifted that caused the lineups on stations to become so polarized? At one point, a strong local talker like WLS had room for Limbaugh and Jay Marvin & Nate Clay & Catherine Johns. WSB had room for Neil Boortz, consumer advice from Clark Howard, and the liberal Mike Malloy. Many of the successful liberal hosts at the time weren't these "erudite" individuals being assumed, Malloy and Marvin in particular could be as tough on a caller as any conservative host I've heard. The idea for "liberal talk" doesn't imply all liberals behave or have the same style. The stylistic differences are as much personal as political.

It was entertaining and created more interaction with callers who actively disagreed and fought their positions on the air. I'm still unclear as to what caused the shift so far away from that to what I see now, with even 100% conservative stations receiving criticism from listeners over hosts who aren't "sufficiently conservative" or "RINOs" or daring to question Donald Trump. I don't doubt David or BigA's expertise here, but I'm searching for the deeper reason as to WHY it got that way.

Also a note on Rachel Maddow, part of why she's talented at what she does, I believe relates to radio. Her background was academic until she answered an audition call for a newscaster & co host on a morning show in Springfield, MA at WRNX. She then moved on to host the "Big Breakfast" morning show on Triple A WRSI in Northampton, before going to Air America and then MSNBC. So her media experience actually routed through two radio stations and a network before television.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

No, it's not a fact.

As to liberal talk, we've been over this a million times, but Rhodes actually beat Limbaugh in several Florida markets, and the FM version of liberal talk was successful enough in Madison to stave off a format change at least once.

Yep, for a short period of time, Rhodes was the flavor of the month and beat Limbaugh in several markets. You might have missed my final scoreboard earlier in the thread, but no worries if you can just answer me this. Rush just signed a new four year contract rumored to be over $20 million per year. What is the value of Randi Rhodes current contract?

 

[Delete My Account]

If you think Limbaugh's career is entirely based on his politics, I'm going to disagree.

You're trying to make the point liberal talk has no marketable value and no profitability. Even if I agree that in the current state of affairs, it's not a viable format, had the same talent been developed at the same time and given the same reach as Limbaugh instead of the mess that was Air America, the discussion might be quite different. The earliest syndicated talkers weren't mostly conservatives. Larry King, anyone?

Limbaugh succeeded because he was a radio jock with pacing and talent who happened to be conservative and was backed by savvy syndicators. To me, Jon Stewart was to left leaning TV what Limbaugh was to conservative talk radio. What if he'd been a radio host before consolidation accelerated, and podcasting?

 

[davideduardo]

Limbaugh succeeded because he was a radio jock with pacing and talent who happened to be conservative and was backed by savvy syndicators.

Limbaugh was self syndicated by his own company run by a good radio pro, his partner Ed McLaughlin. Ed came from ABC where he had been an executive.

If you wanted to affiliate back in 1998-99, you talked with Ed directly, and Rush would even talk to you to do station promos. It seemed like there was nearly nobody else involved other than a producer and someone who did the logistics. The network did not even have the EIB name for the first year or two.

Ed and Rush saw the success of the satellite programming providers and how they used satellite so effectively as a delivery method. They realized that many AM / FM combos already had satellite installations, and they made it easy to get the satellite signal. They were entrepreneurs in the era when Bezos and Cuban used technology to create exciting new businesses.

So the "savvy syndicators" were just two radio guys, one of them Rush himself, with very little money but a lot of passion. Air America had a lot of money, not much radio "feel" or skills and the idea that they deserved to be on your station.

 

[TheBigA]

The earliest syndicated talkers weren't mostly conservatives. Larry King, anyone?

Then again, he wasn't a political talker. He interviewed politicians from all sides of the spectrum, and was equally kind to all of them. But when he moved from the night to afternoon, his style of talk radio got killed, and he retreated back to the night. Talk radio changed a lot in the late 80s, primarily because of Rush.

One could say that's what's missing from talk radio now, and it's primarily available at NPR.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

I'm still unclear as to what caused the shift so far away from that to what I see now, with even 100% conservative stations receiving criticism from listeners over hosts who aren't "sufficiently conservative" or "RINOs" or daring to question Donald Trump. I don't doubt David or BigA's expertise here, but I'm searching for the deeper reason as to WHY it got that way.

I believe it really got started with the FCC revoking the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

 

[davideduardo]

I believe it really got started with the FCC revoking the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

"Fairness" was only part of it, maybe the smallest part.

Talk was mostly local well into the 80's. Distribution via phone line was too expensive for many stations, and so each station did their own thing.

Imus did not syndicate... he went to New York because that was the biggest local market.

But technology changed that. Live talk shows could be done coast to coast with the single cost of an up-link. No incremental cost for 2 or 200 affiliates. That revolutionized the cost structure and made it possible for shows of all kinds to be distributed live, and significantly opened up the bartered programs-for-inventory market. With revenue suddenly available, stations jumped on and, of course, they played "follow the leader" and the leader was Rush.

Plenty of local talk stations lived through "Fairness" with polarizing hosts. They offered opportunities to opposing viewpoints but they were seldom taken up on that because the hosts managed to make the guests look badly... home field advantage. Today, Fox is the best at that game; they love opposing viewpoints but the hosts grind them up.

 

[TheBigA]

But technology changed that. Live talk shows could be done coast to coast with the single cost of an up-link. No incremental cost for 2 or 200 affiliates.

Although someone had to manage and sell the affiliates. So Imus and Stern and others tied in with national syndication companies. In 1994, CBS merged with Westwood One, so that solved the need for a syndicator. In Rush's case, Ed McLaughlin had transitioned ABC from phone lines to satellite in the early 80s. So he simply tied in with ABC Satellite Services to distribute Rush.