I would bet that this is the first time in the history of radio station ratings that KABC had less than a 1 share of the market.
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KABC with a .9
- Thread starter briancraig
- Start date
B
Big E
Guest
I guess you can chalk up the success to Jack Silvers' awesome programming skills. ;D
Button Pusher said:
True, but the station was no juggernaut when it was programmed by David G. Hall.
I think this is a result of people like me who used to switch back and forth from KFI and KABC to get their talk fix. Now, not so much. What is there on KABC to flip to?
KFI has got the talk radio format, topics, and presentation nailed and KABC keeps getting lost in the forest trying to do talk radio like it's still 1977. KFI has done such a good job they are the one station that's talked about in Sacramento - a city they don't even broadcast to. KABC is talked about by no one, even in the city it does broadcast to.
A few months ago I did tune into Larry Elder's new morning show, just to see what was going on. I am a Larry fan, agree with nearly everything he says, and he definitely had an influence on me back in the day when he first started out on KABC. What I heard for that half an hour was emblematic of the whole problem. Larry is discussing the war on terror and the centerpiece to the discussion is a tape of a conversation he had on his show many years ago with his mother. He played the tape, and then took phone calls to discuss the taped discussion. I was so disappointed.
Back in the day, Larry used to have his mom come on the show for a few minutes every Friday, and she clearly made for good radio/ratings because this went on for years and I personally found those segments to be highly entertaining as his Mom had a definite "Old School" wisdom about her and she was quite charming and articulate on the radio. BUT...that was many years ago, his mom has passed on and Larry should move on to something else. The segment may have brought back some nostalgic memories for his old, loyal listeners, but man, compelling radio is about fighting for new listeners every day. If I were a new listener tuning in on that day, I would have said "what the hell is this?" and flipped. Frankly, even as a Larry fan, I eventually flipped. Instead of playing an old tape, how about hustling for a relevant top-name interview guest? There are dozens of qualified "experts" on the topic who could have commented on the situation and made for much more compelling radio.
For God's sake, second chances in radio are hard to get, they shouldn't be squandered. Larry should be hustling harder on his new show than he ever has before, and much like Rick Dees, has instead phoned it in and is now irrelevant in this town. The whole situation is a microcosm for KABC in general.
KFI has got the talk radio format, topics, and presentation nailed and KABC keeps getting lost in the forest trying to do talk radio like it's still 1977. KFI has done such a good job they are the one station that's talked about in Sacramento - a city they don't even broadcast to. KABC is talked about by no one, even in the city it does broadcast to.
A few months ago I did tune into Larry Elder's new morning show, just to see what was going on. I am a Larry fan, agree with nearly everything he says, and he definitely had an influence on me back in the day when he first started out on KABC. What I heard for that half an hour was emblematic of the whole problem. Larry is discussing the war on terror and the centerpiece to the discussion is a tape of a conversation he had on his show many years ago with his mother. He played the tape, and then took phone calls to discuss the taped discussion. I was so disappointed.
Back in the day, Larry used to have his mom come on the show for a few minutes every Friday, and she clearly made for good radio/ratings because this went on for years and I personally found those segments to be highly entertaining as his Mom had a definite "Old School" wisdom about her and she was quite charming and articulate on the radio. BUT...that was many years ago, his mom has passed on and Larry should move on to something else. The segment may have brought back some nostalgic memories for his old, loyal listeners, but man, compelling radio is about fighting for new listeners every day. If I were a new listener tuning in on that day, I would have said "what the hell is this?" and flipped. Frankly, even as a Larry fan, I eventually flipped. Instead of playing an old tape, how about hustling for a relevant top-name interview guest? There are dozens of qualified "experts" on the topic who could have commented on the situation and made for much more compelling radio.
For God's sake, second chances in radio are hard to get, they shouldn't be squandered. Larry should be hustling harder on his new show than he ever has before, and much like Rick Dees, has instead phoned it in and is now irrelevant in this town. The whole situation is a microcosm for KABC in general.
The only program I listen to on KABC is Red Eye Radio, Doug McIntyre's show. He seems to me to have a more listenable, middle of the road point of view, and to me, very informed and common sense opinions. If he is prempted, as he is many times for Dodger Baseball, I will listen to the WABC feed, and usually forget to go back to KABC that evening.
LibertyNT said:
Couldn't do much worse.
B
Big E
Guest
How about they just go all sports? They already have the Dodgers, and could probably pick up the NFL games, maybe even some college games. And in between the games some talking and infomercials at night.
KLAC all ready picked up the NFL package from Westwood One this season. All of it.Button Pusher said:
What else could KABC do? Brokered Ethnic? I can't possibly think of any ethnic group that is underserved in the LA market, nowadays. Brokered religious? I don't see 790 doing either format under its current ownership.
Would an automated or satellite-delivered Oldies format featuring music from 1955-1982 (or so) with live, local talent on drive-time work on 790? Would it at least get similar ratings and be cheaper to run? The target audience is younger than Standards, and there's still a semi-desireable demographic target in the 45-54 crowd. They remember listening to music on AM.
They could do far worse.
Would an automated or satellite-delivered Oldies format featuring music from 1955-1982 (or so) with live, local talent on drive-time work on 790? Would it at least get similar ratings and be cheaper to run? The target audience is younger than Standards, and there's still a semi-desireable demographic target in the 45-54 crowd. They remember listening to music on AM.
They could do far worse.
M
musicfan101
Guest
I don't believe KLAC has ALL the games. Who has the Chargers now?Robnoxious said:
musicfan101 said:
KLAC is all ready touting they have the Sunday Triplecast, MNF and Thursday Night Football. That's pretty much the whole enchilada from where I'm sitting. As far as the Bolts go, KLAC will likely force feed those games down our throat as well but they aren't advertising the hell out of it as much as they are that they have the NFL and the Super Bowl.
The sad fact is that KABC reacted to KFI by doing all the wrong things. Having Maureen Lesourd as their GM during some of those years didn't help as she thinks she's a programmer. The smart money would have been on bringing in someone from KGO to help right the ship. Personally I think the decision makers at KABC did themselves in with poor decision after poor decision. It didn't help that KFI was a Class 1A Clear Channel with 50 thousand watts. Hard to beat that with only 5 watts and not so great coverage compared to 640. Oddly, these two are former sister stations... Makes one wonder what might have been had the FCC not made Earle C. Anthony sell KECA. Citadel didn't help matters either by slashing the budget and bringing in so many hosts that couldn't gain any traction in LA. I think it all started with the ouster of Michael Jackson. Instead of heralding him and promoting one of their best assets they demoted him... Stupid move, but that's just my opinion. Perhaps David has more insight into the ratings for Jackson when it all started to unravel. Maybe his time was done, but I don't think so. He was a very liberal host at a time when the conservatives were making soaring gains on the air and perhaps that was the problem...
calguy said:
I think you hit it--Citadel.
calguy said:
Michael Jackson was tried in a few other places and failed miserably each time, most notably when KLAC went talk for awhile around 2001. He is (and was) a tired old liberal gasbag who thinks he knows so much more than his audience and is more sophisticated and erudite than they are because he is properly educated and thinks the "correct" way. He represents everything that was wrong with talk radio as it was, and talk radio is much improved due to his absence. It is true that he once got stellar ratings on old, tired, KABC back in the day, but that is when outlets for talk were much more restricted and conservatives were not really part of the marketplace. Once talk radio availed itself to entertaining, conservative hosts, the talk radio market flourished and left Jackson and his lefty cohorts behind.
[/quote]
Michael Jackson was tried in a few other places and failed miserably each time, most notably when KLAC went talk for awhile around 2001. He is (and was) a tired old liberal gasbag who thinks he knows so much more than his audience and is more sophisticated and erudite than they are because he is properly educated and thinks the "correct" way. He represents everything that was wrong with talk radio as it was, and talk radio is much improved due to his absence. It is true that he once got stellar ratings on old, tired, KABC back in the day, but that is when outlets for talk were much more restricted and conservatives were not really part of the marketplace. Once talk radio availed itself to entertaining, conservative hosts, the talk radio market flourished and left Jackson and his lefty cohorts behind.
[/quote]
Yes, you pretty much summed up the situation. I could put it into other words, tho:
Absolutely, Michael Jackson was old school. After the tremendous success of more "entertaining" talk hosts (translation: someone, usually right wing, who often yells and screams and makes sweeping, simplistic statements designed to polarize) how could someone who is soft spoken and urbane like Jackson survive? Jackson was always too liberal for my taste, but we now have a whole gaggle of people like Mark Levin (who yells all the time) and Sean Hannity who seem to be doing sports programming in the guise of a political program. The whole atmosphere of these shows is sort of like listening to a home-team's sports flagship station, where it is a bunch of loud cheerleading for their side and booing the opposing team. Yeah, I guess it is entertaining, but if one is really interested in actual political give-and-take discussion, these shows don't supply it...at least not for me. The same can be said for Ed Shultz, so this has nothing to do with any personal political belief. I don't even need to listen to these shows, I know what they are going to say: "Everything...literally everything that is going wrong is the fault of the other party, and once "we" get in (or stay in), everything is going to be O.K."
Michael Jackson was tried in a few other places and failed miserably each time, most notably when KLAC went talk for awhile around 2001. He is (and was) a tired old liberal gasbag who thinks he knows so much more than his audience and is more sophisticated and erudite than they are because he is properly educated and thinks the "correct" way. He represents everything that was wrong with talk radio as it was, and talk radio is much improved due to his absence. It is true that he once got stellar ratings on old, tired, KABC back in the day, but that is when outlets for talk were much more restricted and conservatives were not really part of the marketplace. Once talk radio availed itself to entertaining, conservative hosts, the talk radio market flourished and left Jackson and his lefty cohorts behind.
[/quote]
Yes, you pretty much summed up the situation. I could put it into other words, tho:
Absolutely, Michael Jackson was old school. After the tremendous success of more "entertaining" talk hosts (translation: someone, usually right wing, who often yells and screams and makes sweeping, simplistic statements designed to polarize) how could someone who is soft spoken and urbane like Jackson survive? Jackson was always too liberal for my taste, but we now have a whole gaggle of people like Mark Levin (who yells all the time) and Sean Hannity who seem to be doing sports programming in the guise of a political program. The whole atmosphere of these shows is sort of like listening to a home-team's sports flagship station, where it is a bunch of loud cheerleading for their side and booing the opposing team. Yeah, I guess it is entertaining, but if one is really interested in actual political give-and-take discussion, these shows don't supply it...at least not for me. The same can be said for Ed Shultz, so this has nothing to do with any personal political belief. I don't even need to listen to these shows, I know what they are going to say: "Everything...literally everything that is going wrong is the fault of the other party, and once "we" get in (or stay in), everything is going to be O.K."
ChannelFlipper said:
CF....You are wrong on so many levels. Michael Jackson was a brilliant talk show host because he was entertaining, topical, took more than a dozen calls an hour, and had a rolodex beyond compare. The reason he has not achieved the same heights since is due to him aging - you hear it in his voice, and frankly his style is less playful today. In his prime he was fun, always ready with a pun, had lots of stories and asides, great banter, and could take any random comment and pursue it in an entirely new direction. KLAC and KGIL both tried to build their brands around him, but MJ was no longer the same. I recall listening to MJ on KGIL many times but the spark he used to have in the 70s and 80s was gone. He recently guest hosted on KPCC and he shined a bit brighter there, and I hope they bring him back repeatedly, but his KPCC outing was still not on the level of his KABC years.
One current host who attempts to traverse the same path is Larry Mantle on KPCC. Larry is the longest tenured talk show host in town. Larry is not nearly as entertaining as Michael was, but the endurance of his career here shows how MJ's style of talkradio is not "incorrect", rather it is very rare that someone as talented as he comes along, but when someone attempts it (such as Larry) success is achievable.
Also, KABC in those days was not "tired and old" as you stated. The station had Ken Minyard, MJ, Sportstalk that ruled the PM drive home, Ira Fistell in the evenings, Dodgers baseball, Dr. David Viscott, and Ray Briem who dominated ratings overnight. KABC was repeatedly #1 in the LA ratings book - not as a fluke, but as a recurring #1 station.
Everyone always brings up the fact that KFI has far greater coverage than KABC, but that's not necessarily relevant. Sure, if your aim is to conquer all of Southern California radio then KABC's signal is doomed to failure, but that doesn't mean the station can't focus on winning over listeners in those areas where it IS heard clearly. Of course they'll never have KFI's ratings in terms of raw numbers, and so they'll always be the smaller station, but if they can figure out how to take a bite out of KFI's audience on a smaller budget then there's no reason they should be bankrupt. Again, the focus should be on how the station can win in those areas where it IS heard. If you imply that they'll always be a failure because of their weak signal, then you don't understand business. That's like saying that a local mom-and-pop sandwich shop is doomed to failure because it will never have as many customers as Subway has nationwide.
David at USC said:
Yep those were the good old days for sure. After I left KHJ and moved back to San Diego, KABC called me to come up and do a week of vacation fill, being one of two newspeople who worked the overnight shift doing nothing but writing and packaging newscasts for the Ken and Bob Company morning show. A little while later they had me come back for another week of fill-in, this time anchoring evening newscasts. Even for a week or two it was thrill to be part of the LA's then number one station. I seem to recall that KLOS was way up in the ratings then too, so ABC was doing very well in LA and I have to say it was a heartbreaker when they told me they wanted to hire me to do weekend news (which paid as much as working a full time gig in San Diego) but then came back and said ABC had a started a system-wide hiring freeze despite their success in LA. Well, the two weeks were fun (and well-paid) and I think anyone who spent any time at all at KABC during its heydays has to wonder if signal strength is a good enough excuse for its current status at the bottom of the heap? I'm sure the GM's, OM's, PD's and ND's who've fumbled the ball at KABC for so long would tell you it the problem's are all due to wattage
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