KABC AM outsourcing local news and traffic to Dallas

[MC]

Why not India,,,? a few rupees an hour...

 

[henry]

The Clear Channel news/talk station in Phoenix has its own news staff, as does the one in Tucson. It's entirely possible that the news on the CC station in Salt Lake is done by that station's own local staff as well.

That was true up until a couple of years ago. A buddy at CC-SLC says only the afternoon anchor is local, and the very poor news writing (lack of understanding of the SLC market) demonstrates it's outsourced. So maybe the news is still out of Texas, but the traffic is out of Phoenix.

 

[rbrown]

Mr. Hagerty's company is one of many news and traffic sources for stations throughout the country. In-house news production is rarer than some people think these days. Lots of stations rely on other sources for news and traffic reports. I wonder where KFI gets their traffic from???

Stations in a smaller market (ie. Salt Lake City) cannot rely on a solid in-house operation for their news. CC and Cumulus can save money by outsourcing news and traffic on a smaller station (SLC) to a larger station (Houston/LA).

Cumulus's top three stations (WABC, WLS & KABC) all have outsourced news operations. WLS still employs its own news anchors, traffic reporters. and chief reporters, but national news and some state news is still provided via the national source.

 

[uncamark]

Mr. Hagerty's company is one of many news and traffic sources for stations throughout the country. In-house news production is rarer than some people think these days. Lots of stations rely on other sources for news and traffic reports. I wonder where KFI gets their traffic from???

Total Traffic Network--who else?

 

[Thomps2525]

Where is Total Traffic Network located? KFI airs four traffic reports each hour except during the overnight Coast-To-Coast AM program, when there are only two. The reporters are Mike Nolan, Angel Martinez, Rick Smith, Sabina Mora and Ryan Duggan. Is everyone except for Nolan employed by Total Traffic? Does Nolan provide traffic for any stations besides KFI/KOST?

 

[youngsag]

So KABC keeps on the downhill track to oblivion. Absolutely incredible. However, as keen to have "live, local" compelling radio programming as I am for KABC and any station in the mess KABC finds itself (of its' own doing, to be sure), one is far more interested in wondering from the pros who contribute to this forum the specific steps KABC should undertake to improve itself throughout all dayparts so that the heavily listing Titanic of LA talk radio does not sink for good.
Ideas?

We know, for example, as I have written last year, that the KABC Morning Mess is a catastrophe. Horrible before they had to stick John Phillips somewhere (they seem to like him at KABC - ponder that!), the Doug "Out of Place" McIntyre and T-Rae "Always Mumbles" Elmer show has been terrible for the year it has been on and the injection of foul mouthed Phillips only takes it lower. What can be done?

Geraldo "Bi Coastal" Rivera is pleasant enough. His show out of sync and how can he be invested at KABC when he is in New York? And why is Phillips on his show?

Larry Elder's show is old. Overnight is terrible with stupidity out of Dallas - gosh are those two stupid! Even as I am emptying the crankcase on my 18 wheeler parked next to a fire hydrant on Hollywood Boulevard, the trucker audience guys seem to rejoice in their lack of prep, insight, knowledge. Ugh.

The weekend (KABC's secret weapon if they will use it! - my opinion) programming is simply a sick joke. Sales guys hosting paid shows - no.

The "legendary" KABC was great. I have said it before. But this was long ago and seemingly far away. The "24 hour news center" - really? Live, local newsperson ready to go on air 24/7? No. I do not believe it. And if not true, false advertising by KABC.

What are your ideas? Can KABC be saved? Should it be saved? Does a good reason exist to keep any present programming on the station? Would/should Cumulus invest the bucks to seek to fix KABC? Should the first order of biz be to let Doug & Mumbles & Foul Mouth leave the air?

Your thoughts?

 

[davideduardo]

What are your ideas? Can KABC be saved? Should it be saved?

As I have said before, KABC is an AM station with an inferior signal.

LA is a market where only two AMs show up in the top 25 in 25-54, and both of those are 50 kw non-directional clear channel stations.

The market has grown and populations have changed so that the KABC coverage area includes huge areas where the traditional kind of English language talk format is either not used or significantly under-indexes.

Too many obstacles.

 

[davideduardo]

Where is Total Traffic Network located?

Does it matter today where it is located? The data comes predominantly from cameras and sensors on the freeways and other CalTrans sources, not from any station effort.

The presenters could be in a bunker in the Aleutians.

It's been decades since Shadow Traffic and Metro Traffic and the like took over most of the traffic reporting duties in most metros... while a few stations felt the need to brand traffic with a station personality or expensive helo or plane, even that is questionable today.

The real issue is whether the data is timely, actionable and better than what many people now get on smartphones and "connected" GPS devices.

 

[LKellerIII]

Where is Total Traffic Network located?

Does it matter today where it is located? The data comes predominantly from cameras and sensors on the freeways and other CalTrans sources, not from any station effort.

The presenters could be in a bunker in the Aleutians.

It's been decades since Shadow Traffic and Metro Traffic and the like took over most of the traffic reporting duties in most metros... while a few stations felt the need to brand traffic with a station personality or expensive helo or plane, even that is questionable today.

The real issue is whether the data is timely, actionable and better than what many people now get on smartphones and "connected" GPS devices.

Truly. I haven't live in LA for decades, and have only been to Phoenix as a tourist. And my apologies to my friend, Mr. Hagerty.

But at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, radio traffic reporting has rarely helped me. I usually hear the report on my freeway after I'm already stuck in the gridlock.

I've always figured this is because the traffic report only happens on "the 8s" or "the 10s," or whatever, and I got stuck on "the 2" or "the 5." Not timely, in other words.

The last time this happened, I was stuck on the Bay Bridge for 3 hours (a Safeway truck had overturned), and the traffic report came in after we were already well past any access to an alternate route.

 

[davideduardo]

But at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, radio traffic reporting has rarely helped me. I usually hear the report on my freeway after I'm already stuck in the gridlock.

The usefulness of traffic reports is generally commensurate with our knowledge of the area. We know that the suggested "alternate routes" often result in too many cars being on a stop and go business area street and the gridlock becomes worse!

But, given enough advance notice, we know that perhaps taking a different freeway will end up being shorter due to a Sigalert or some other closure.

The lack of viable alternates just makes the suffering worse.

I did the market's only airborne traffic several decades ago in San Juan, PR (A market the same size as Phoenix). The market may have the worst traffic of any place in the US. Part of that is due to a lack of alternate routes. We found that telling people traffic was even worse than usual did not help, and was simply frustrating. Despite a nice sponsorship, we discontinued doing the reports... from the air or from anywhere... it served no purpose to do them.

 

[david]

The weekend (KABC's secret weapon if they will use it! - my opinion) programming is simply a sick joke. Sales guys hosting paid shows - no.
What are your ideas? Can KABC be saved? Should it be saved? Does a good reason exist to keep any present programming on the station? Would/should Cumulus invest the bucks to seek to fix KABC? Should the first order of biz be to let Doug & Mumbles & Foul Mouth leave the air?

Youngsag....I would certainly keep Doug on the air. Your points about the morning mess are valid. I would prefer Doug back on overnights from now thru his retirement. If he personally prefers not to, then PM drive might be a good fit for him. The Morning Answer on KRLA AM 870 is growing on me, so I believe that KABC can and should assemble a morning team that is local and discusses the issues for an intelligent audience. Like you I find Geraldo pleasant enough at 9a and Hannity is the #2 show in the land, so he is not leaving his noon slot. Put Doug on at 3p, John on from 7-9p (cuz management there loves him so I guess he has to stay) and I wish KABC would find someone like John Rothman (formerly late evenings on the late great KGO in SFO) to handle evenings (9p-midnight). Overnights are tough. I agree that trucker radio has to go. I have always been a fan of Doug Stephan's syndicated overnight show, but would prefer that KABC find someone fresh and local for that time slot (assuming Doug does not want to go back there).

Curious as to what you mean by the weekends being KABC's secret weapon. How? What do you prescribe for weekends? I can tell you that I tune out 790 AM COMPLETELY on the weekends, but used to sample it when it used to be programmed with actual compelling content.

 

[Thomps2525]

This conversation reminded me of something---something that really wasn't worth remembering. In 1984 KHJ became "Car Radio." They played "songs that sound good in your car" and gave traffic reports every ten minutes. There were also occasional automobile-related news stories. It didn't last long. Then in 1998 we had KKTR-1650, "K-Traffic." It was nothing but traffic reports. It didn't last long either.

 

[LKellerIII]

But at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, radio traffic reporting has rarely helped me. I usually hear the report on my freeway after I'm already stuck in the gridlock.

But, given enough advance notice, we know that perhaps taking a different freeway will end up being shorter due to a Sigalert or some other closure.

The lack of viable alternates just makes the suffering worse.

That's part of the problem in the Bay Area - lack of alternatives, due to our geography. If you're trying to get across the Bay and your bridge is gridlocked, the only alternative is to drive 15 or 20 miles out of your way to another bridge - which is no doubt bogged down with hundreds of extra cars doing the same thing.

I fondly remember being able to avoid the 101 and 405 into the Valley from Hollywood or Westwood by taking Bevely Glen, Coldwater or Laurel Canyons. Those roads were heavily travelled, but never gridlocked in those days...don't know about these days.

The weekend (KABC's secret weapon if they will use it! - my opinion) programming is simply a sick joke. Sales guys hosting paid shows - no.
I wish KABC would find someone like John Rothman (formerly late evenings on the late great KGO in SFO) to handle evenings (9p-midnight).

FYI - Clear Channel was smart enough to pick up some of the old KGO hosts, including John Rothman (fill in), Gill Gross (weekdays), and Len Tillem. They even adopted the "Newstalk" brand for 910/KKSF. Rothman also has a blog on the KKSF website, as does KGO veteran Gene Burns, who is not yet back on air due to a stroke.

I don't think you can DX the station from LA, but you can probably listen online.

http://www.newstalk910.com/main.html

 

[david]

FYI - Clear Channel was smart enough to pick up some of the old KGO hosts, including John Rothman (fill in), Gill Gross (weekdays), and Len Tillem. They even adopted the "Newstalk" brand for 910/KKSF. Rothman also has a blog on the KKSF website, as does KGO veteran Gene Burns, who is not yet back on air due to a stroke. I don't think you can DX the station from LA, but you can probably listen online.

Lew....indeed yes, I am very familiar with that chain of events thanks to Rich Lieberman's 415 MEDIA, and have listened to KKSF online because John is there. For a while he was filling in quite a bit during PM drive for the ailing Gene Burns up until that slot was awarded permanently last Fall to Gil Gross. John was then designated as the station's in-house political analyst who would appear frequently moving forward as a guest on various shows. I have checked out many of his 1-minute daily podcasts - http://www.newstalk910.com/pages/john-rothmann.html.

Unfortunately NewsTalk 910 / KKSF has a tiny signal compared to the monster KGO signal at 810 AM, so KKSF cannot be heard over the air here in SoCal, only online (via IHeartRadio). In some ways KKSF shares some traits with KABC (looping back to this thread) as it is a mix of both local and syndicated talk. KKSF's ratings are fair at best, nowhere near what KGO achieved. KKSF has scored higher in SFO than KABC has achieved in this market however in recent books.

 

[alok]

Amazing,the people telling us they produce and do news or traffic from a location for a whole bunch of markets.
I know it is how things are done today,but ???
I hope you are being paid accordingly. Your company is selling your voice for 5 ,6 ,8, whatever markets . . . you should be getting paid very well.
The companies making money in all those markets ,are you ?
When you do the traffic do you know the area very well like a local person would or are you taught areas like the people on the phone for tech support located in India,they have names like Americans,etc. to fit in.

Yes you can do this stuff from Moscow,London or Paris ,but it is nice for the local broadcaster to provide "jobs" for the local people it serves,especially when the station is located in LA. It is bad enough you got syndicated shows when you start doing it for news,traffic,weather etc. in a major market.
It is sad.


Al

 

[Shoot From Hip]

There's a lot of myopia in the posts on this thread. Don't do traffic reports because the traffic is bad? Sorry...I don't buy it. Sure, the people stuck in the mess can't do anything about it. But what about the people headed that way? There may not be alternate routes, but still, they might like to know where the bottleneck is. Newer technologies allow for monitoring freeway cameras in real-time (so a reporter can do the equivalent of "play-by-play" of traffic), for determining speed-and-flow information, and travel times. Those elements lead to solution-based reporting, not incident-based reporting. Solution-based reporting (which isn't limited to traffic, by the way) is what can differentiate reports done from within the market to reports done from an outpost. And by the way-- solution-based reporting gives people a reason to listen...because it makes them smarter. OK, David...now you can tell me why I'm off-base.

 

[davideduardo]

Solution-based reporting (which isn't limited to traffic, by the way) is what can differentiate reports done from within the market to reports done from an outpost. And by the way-- solution-based reporting gives people a reason to listen...because it makes them smarter. OK, David...now you can tell me why I'm off-base.

Solution-based reporting sounds good, but would work only if the reporters had intimate knowledge of the entire metro they report and analyze for... every freeway, every significant surface street.

I don't think that is possible... maybe a few people who have logged years in airborne traffic reporting could have the necessary vision and knowledge, but there are few of those folks left.

But the real issue is that traffic, at any given moment, is of interest to way under a third of the audience.

Two thirds are listening at home and at work... unless they are about to depart or expecting a commuter to arrive, traffic is a useless intrusion.

In the car, only those on the freeways are going to get traffic info. If you drive surface in LA (or most other metros) you will seldom if ever get a traffic report that is of interest to you. There was some data released for LA perhaps 15 years ago that showed that a majority of commuters did not use freeways. If that is even close to true today, then the potential audience for traffic is about 15% of the total station audience.

So analytical reporting of traffic, which by definition would take more time, will be a tune out for 85% of the listeners. And lengthy reports about something near Irvine will be irrelevant and boring to everyone else, in a car or not...

 

[MC]

With self driving cars and drones, will there be traffic reporters in the year 2525?

 

[michael hagerty]

Let me see if I can answer some questions that have been raised.

First, please note: I do traffic, and traffic only, for Total Traffic Network. Cumulus is a different company taking a different approach to its news and traffic by having its Dallas office handle Los Angeles. As has been mentioned by another poster in this thread, TTN has two traffic centers in the Los Angeles metro area.

I work in the Phoenix center, where we cover Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, El Paso and Salt Lake City. Generally, each of us covers two markets. If a market is experiencing a greater number of incidents, one of us will offer to either help with that market or pick up the slower market to allow focus on the critical situation.

I've lived in Phoenix for 27 years, have been a journalist for more than 30 and have been a traffic reporter and producer for four. My level of experience is not out of sync with many of the people I work with...some of whose reports I've personally relied upon to get to and from places for more than 20 years.

In addition, I've lived in one of the two markets I cover regularly apart from Phoenix and have spent considerable time in and am familiar with the other. And some of my earliest broadcast heroes as a kid and teenager were some of the finest traffic reporters (Captain Max Schumacher, Jim Hicklin, Big John McIlhenny, Bruce Wayne) in radio history.

Not only are the people I work with experienced broadcasters, we don't do this cold. We have resources and we use them. Each workstation has immediate access to a digital file containing local pronouncers, police scanner codes used by authorities in that area and phone numbers where we can reach the authorities to clarify details. We do our homework. We read those, we memorize those and we use those. On the rare occasions when we blow a local pronunciation, we hear about it on the traffic tipline (a local number for each market that we include in most if not all our reports...which rings straight to us)....either from a listener or someone at the station where the report aired.

As for intimate knowledge of the local streets and freeways:

We each have two computer monitors. One is constantly on a map showing traffic volume and speeds for both city streets and freeways, instantly switchable between markets. The other has multiple web browser tabs (data feeds, cameras, etc.). When an accident happens, I switch tabs and pinpoint the incident on Google maps, which also gives me a glance at alternates that are within reasonable distance. I compare that to the other monitor, showing traffic volume and speeds for those alternates and include the best choices in the report. As long as the incident is in effect, I'm double-checking volume and speed on those alternates...and looking for the next move if those look like they're going to approach gridlock. In satellite or street view, I know about school zones and residential areas that aren't going to be helpful. Construction? Already part of the information we have...updated every time they open or close a lane. And that gets factored into recommended alternates, too.

That is also how we address solution-based reporting...and if you think about it, it doesn't require more time on-air. Something like "Crash on the Northbound I-17 at Camelback blocking three lanes with slowing back to Indian School so far. Get off before then, go east to 19th Avenue or west to 27th Avenue, head north and get back on the freeway at Bethany Home...that's the next on-ramp after Camelback."

It's absolutely tougher in L.A....more people, more cars, more streets and freeways, more simultaneous incidents and fewer alternates in some locations due to geography. But again...TTN does L.A. traffic from L.A. and has invested in not one but two broadcast centers in the Los Angeles area.

Reading some of the comments, you'd think we all did one shift, went home and were replaced by a first-timer every day from then on. We study, we learn, we remember and we build on our experience and knowledge. There is only one first day. And the people I work with are pros enough to get that first day darn near perfect, as we've all done for the radio and TV stations in many markets we've worked for throughout our careers.