93-3TheSurge said:
OK, rent-a-preachers pay in advance, and KCTA is doing pretty good. I can understand that. No one, however, is answering the question of whether they believe KCTA would earn more with a News/Talk format.
It's hard to answer when you don't know exactly how much KCTA is getting from the rent-a-preachers. Religious broadcasting has always been a very secretive club. Rent-a-preachers don't tell how much they pay, and broadcasters who take their money don't tell how much they charge.
Assuming they could get good talk shows, which is a big assumption, their spot rate would certainly go up. However, it's hard to say if selling :30 and :60 second spots would make more money than selling large blocks of time to rent-a-preachers. Keep in mind, also, that operating as a news/talk station would cause their expenses to go up dramatically. Doing a news/talk format correctly requires a large staff.
5:30-9:00AM Good Morning South Texas!
9-11AM Glenn Beck
11-2PM Rush Limbaugh
2-5PM Sean Hannity
5-8PM Corpus Christi Call-In Show (title pending)
I can tell you this lineup will never happen. As has been mentioned, Clear Channel controls the distribution of Rush and Hannity. There is simply no way they will give those programs up so someone else can start a new competitor to 1360. Any amount of money Clear Channel would make from letting a competitor have Rush and Hannity would be more than offset by the amount they'd lose on either trying to operate 1360 as a talker with other hosts or trying to run another format on 1360. The likelihood of KCTA getting quality talkers to compete against Rush and Hannity is pretty slim because the other two of the top-4 talk shows are public radio programs (Morning Edition and All Things Considered) that aren't available to commercial broadcasters at any price.
As for your question of why the big talk stations are doing talk instead of paid religious, there are two reasons. The first of which is that they're making an amount of money they're happy with on talk radio. Remember, Clear Channel, which owns WOAI, KTRH and KKTX, controls the distribution of many of the best talk shows. By airing programming they already own, they can contain costs and effectively get dual revenue streams. They increase their national ad revenue by clearing their shows in their various markets and can sell the local spots during those shows. Independent operators aren't nearly as lucky, though they can still do well by running the top talk programs. Business has always been about making an amount of money you're happy with. Whether that's $10 million or $10, you will never see any changes at an operation that's happy with its cash flow.
The other reason is simply that rent-a-preachers, like quality talk hosts, are limited in supply. Not just anyone who runs a radio station can fill their lineup with rent-a-preachers. We're already seeing some would-be rent-a-preachers who have decided it's easier to run their programming on the internet as opposed to going out and paying various broadcasters. Broadcasters, remember, have a price, too. They won't sell blocks of time to rent-a-preachers who won't pay what they ask.
Something else to remember is that you often have talk programs that are paid programming on your leading talkers. I worked for a small market talker that had a 10 share in the ratings a little over five years ago that brokered much of the weekend lineup out. There was a program with a veterinarian that the animal hospital paid for. There was also a show called the "Garden Spot" that a local nursery paid over $50,000/year to run. We briefly aired a golf-oriented program on Sunday evenings called "Par Talk" that was brokered out. In fact, the PD was even pretty upset about "Par Talk" because one of the sales managers sold an hour a week of her station's airtime without consulting her. However, there was nothing she could do because the management and ownership weren't going to walk away from that kind of money. It's entirely possible that the large talkers are already brokering out portions of their lineup!
