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KIRO-FM Replaces CBS Radio Evening Shows with Chad Benson

G

Gregg.

KIRO-FM is a rare talk station that is all-local and largely middle of the road during the day, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. It had been running a few nationally syndicated shows offered by CBS Radio in the evening. They've been replaced with three hours of Chad Benson's national conservative talk show.

Until now, KIRO-FM carried "The Take Out with Major Garrett" at 7pm and "Prime Time with John Dickerson" at 8pm. They are the audio portion of hour-long shows seen on CBS News 24/7, the network's free streaming network. At 9pm, KIRO-FM ran an hour of "CBS Eye on The World with John Batchelor."

Essentially, KIRO-FM has gone from running moderate syndicated talk shows 7 to 10 p.m. to airing Chad Benson, who is a standard-issue conservative talk host. Batchelor leans conservative but his show focuses on international news and interviews with foreign correspondents and authors.

KIRO-FM had sought to run shows that could be enjoyed by folks on all sides of the political spectrum, same with Coast to Coast AM at 10 p.m. which is more about the paranormal than politics. Seattle has four conservative talk stations, co-owned Bonneville KTTH 770, Lotus-owned KVI 570, Salem-owned 1300 KKOL and iHeart-owned KPTR 1090.

Geez, couldn't KIRO-FM find a way to be all-moderate talk? Does Seattle need FIVE conservative talk stations in the evening?
 
Gregg. said:
Geez, couldn't KIRO-FM find a way to be all-moderate talk? Does Seattle need FIVE conservative talk stations in the evening?
Click to expand...

There is a shortage of that kind of material available. Obviously the John Dickerson show ended when he left CBS last month. Major Garrett is still being done. But with the change in syndicators from SkyView to Infinity Networks, there have been a number of CBS News shows that have been dropped from distribution. So the Benson show is perhaps the most moderate thing available.
 
I find Benson to be on the more moderate side of conservative talk. If he were on in the morning, I would take him over MVCR. The only reason that I don't listen to Benson more than I do is because of when he's on.
 
It looks like John Batchelor's show moved syndicators from CBS Radio, to Radio America as of 1/1/26, who is also the syndicator for Benson's show.

So that may be the reason they ended up with Benson.
 
Radio tried at one time with Air America. We all know the drama behind that. Hell, 1090 was Air America for a hot minute, now it's heavily conserviative.

I do agree, KIRO needs to be a more moderate or even slightly left leaning to counterprogram the conservative talk juggernaut, yet Bonneville treats it like its running on a shoestring budget, they used to have local more moderate/left leaning people on the air. You would think with the Seahawks Super Bowl run and the Mariners with their epic run last year (and hopefully a good run this year) revenue would be up.
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
It looks like John Batchelor's show moved syndicators from CBS Radio, to Radio America as of 1/1/26, who is also the syndicator for Benson's show.

So that may be the reason they ended up with Benson.
Click to expand...
Well, this answer may be true. But if KIRO-FM is now doing business with Radio America, why not keep Batchelor? At one time, it ran three hours of Batchelor, instead of Dickerson and Garrett.

Or do what some talk radio stations do to fill time after dark. Replay your local daytime shows.
 


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