KFNS, KXFN dropping all-sports formats

[Brother]

As reported today by Dan Caesar in this morning's St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainme...cle_d2fea259-8dd6-50f0-bf84-0f2afec8a773.html

Grand Slam Sports, owners of KFNS-AM (590 The Fan) and KXFN-AM (1380 The Fan 2), will drop their respective all-sports formats soon. KFNS will go guy talk (nicknamed "The Man") with Bubba the Love Sponge in morning drive, and KXFN's format will switch to a female-friendly talk format (as "The Woman").

This, of course, leaves Hubbard-owned WXOS-FM (101 ESPN) as St. Louis' sole remaining all-sports radio outlet. For now, at least.

 

[johntherogger]

So now where do I go for NASCAR? Someone needs to pick it up!

 

[rbrown]

1380 "The Woman" will last less than a year, and might not even get off the ground. KMOX takes away a majority of potential listeners of 590 and 1380. Including KTRS and 101.1, there are probably no more listeners left for these two.

 

[mbatchelor]

"The Woman" will be the latest in a long list of half-baked, short lived formats on 1380. Sports is the only thing that has even been remotely close to successful on that frequency; next stop will probably be some kind of brokered religion or foreign language programming.

 

[rbrown]

Currently, there is one female-oriented talk station in the country. FM 107.1 in Minneapolis "My Talk 107.1" has aired the format since 2002 and has grabbed listeners in the market. However, they have WCCO 830 (the KMOX of Minneapolis) to deal with.

I read an article that ITD Morning After was the only show between 590 and 1380 that was achieving a 1.0 in the market. How the hell could they operate local shows on both stations when they did not have a prominent national network? How could they operate sports talk on two stations that NEVER aired any of the teams in St. Louis?

KMOX and KTRS both air sports shows at night. They both have quality hosts during the day. If "Grand Slam Sports" would have thought that E-Mack and ITD could compete with Total Information AM, McGraw Milhaven, and Mike & Mike, they surely thought incorrectly. The difference of sports quality among the other stations is that they have teams to broadcast. There is only so much you can talk about during the day. Sports talk is something that cannot be boring. Regular talk radio began to get boring, so it became conservative political radio. Sports does not have the "right-wing" stuff to talk about. If listeners find it boring, they will tune out as fast as they can. Sports radio cannot be Blues talk all the time, there has to be something extra.

Also, if the main station (590 The Fan) was a failure, then why did they program the other station (1380 The Fan 2). If the Fan 1 does not work, then why would they offer the Fan 2 of the same failed format. When the regular shows average a 0.4 in the ratings, is there any chance of them succeeding on the second station?

 

[mbatchelor]

They have two subpar AM signals, both with hosts of technical problems - if anyone listens to anything at all on either one, I'd call it a success. Considering the signals, a 0.4 is probably the best they can hope to achieve even if they put a good product on the air. Smash has a loyal following, but I don't know how many of his listeners will follow him over to the Antique Modulation band, and Bubba the Love sponge appeals to a demographic that does not listen to AM radio. Will be interesting to see what they fill time with...

Female Oriented talk failed in St. Louis once; when 97.1 first went to talk, they called it "The Link," and they played such pap as Dr. Laura.

I seriously don't know if there is anything at all that can be commercially successful even remotely on those two AM frequencies in StL. They would make more money and have less heartache by brokering out both signals to preachers, foreign language shows, investment scammers, and vitamin hucksters the way that similar crappy AMs have been used in other markets.