Zipperhead said:
I don't understand...why won't liberals support their talk radio stations? Seems to me they are giving conservatives a huge advantage by not doing so.
Beats me. But remember, news/talk radio stations are not in the business of converting people's political opinions. They're in the business of attracting listeners so advertisers can sell those listeners steel-frame buildings or Snapple. Listeners are attracted to radio stations by the stations playing what the listeners want to hear. Since some conservatives seem to like to hear someone they agree with, some conservatives listen to conservative talk shows.
Though Rush goes out of his way to put listeners on his show who claim that they were liberals until listening to his show convinced them to change sides, such calls are probably completely bogus. Conservative and liberal talk show hosts "preach to the choir". They don't convert people, they only reinforce the opinions their listeners already hold.
Expecting a liberal radio talk show to persuade conservatives to change into liberals is like expecting WDSY to convince rock fans to change into country fans. It ain't gonna happen.
KDKA needs to find a market segment out there that fits several criteria. It has to currently be under served. It has to be reasonably large. And it has to be willing to hit the button to switch bands over to AM.
Their other option is to pick a market segment that's being served but served by a weak station that can be beaten. I think KDKA's best shot at success would be to take on WJAS and beat them at their own game. I think they could beat WJAS and it's "Music of your life" by using a variation of the "Martini" format. That would take songs from the same era as WJAS is playing, but with more big-sounding jazz vocals and lounge-lizard music and less 60's pop bubblegum. Mix old standards, new recordings of old standards, jazz with vocals, and maybe even lounge-style blues. Mix Sinatra, Billy Eckstine, Robert Goulet, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Micheal Buble, Harry Connick Jr, even cuts from Rod Stewart's and Linda Rondstadt's collections of old standards. They could pay to use the Martini brand name or call it "Tuxedo Music" or "The Electric Lounge". They could use a cute little lizard cartoon character in a tuxedo (A lounge lizard) as the advertising mascot.
One of the great things about that kind of music is that whether a song is a hit or not doesn't matter. It would be a retro throwback to the kind of songs that singers would sing on TV variety shows back when they had TV variety shows. I've been watching old clips on You Tube of people like Mel Torme, who I understand was very popular in his day, but who had few chart-topping hits on Top 40 radio.
That would be a major gamble, because the station would be betting that people my age (40-somethings) would also take to that kind of music because we discover that we like it even though it wasn't the stuff we listened to when we were teenagers. I doubt if anyone involved with the KDKA has the courage to try something like that. It could be a roll of the dice that comes of 7's, or it could come up box cars. But everything else I've heard suggested sounds like a sure bet for failure, so maybe a gamble like that would be their best shot.
In any event, it'll never, ever happen so my suggestion is nothing but a pleasant mental exercise on my part on a boring Saturday afternoon.
