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KIRO-FM

W

Wrench

KIRO-FM has a new clock the past 2 weeks or so. Sounds like the same number of avails, parsed in shorter stopdown sets over the course of the hour.

The overall effect, I think is to make it sound like they have more frequent and more total commercials. Sounds more cluttered, IMHO. Especially the spots around 10-11 past the hour.

Also, what's up with the KIRO-FM staff now doing promos for events to occur at 10:03, 11:04, 7:34 etc.? Sounds stilted, like some bad consultant idea.

What do you think?
 
promoting events at the "4's" sounds like trying to keep you from punching over to KOMO for the traffic report. They have to do something. The ship is low in the water.
 
I do wish KIRO and KOMO would back off of their "death match" rivalry and realize that the market is stronger when BOTH of these stations operate well, from a position of strength, with a full service news and information format. A market as large as Seattle-Tacome should certainly be able to afford some competition.

Therefore, I wish KIRO would quit trying to keep me away from KOMO's traffic reports by stalling theirs until the exact same start time - I'd like to listen to both, frankly, in case it's Friday evening and nobody is giving me information about the best way to get into town and how far the back up is on I-5. Or if it happens to be a reporter who I don't think does a good job and I'd like a 'second opinion' about the real traffic problems. If I get an in-car connection to the DOT data, I'll just quit listening to either station altogether.

And KOMO, why won't you give us traffic AND WEATHER together, like all of the other big news stations in other markets? Do you really think I'm going to sit thru all of the commercials for five minutes to wait for what often turns out to be a truncated forecast, when all I really want is a traffic and weather update before I actually get to the point where I have to decide to take I-5 or, shudder, Aurora Avenue?

Respect the listener and his/her time and they'll be loyal and respect you. Manipulate us in a bad attempt to keep us away from the competition and in the end nobody is served with what they want.
 
The Wrench said:
KIRO-FM has a new clock the past 2 weeks or so. Sounds like the same number of avails, parsed in shorter stopdown sets over the course of the hour.

The overall effect, I think is to make it sound like they have more frequent and more total commercials. Sounds more cluttered, IMHO. Especially the spots around 10-11 past the hour.

Also, what's up with the KIRO-FM staff now doing promos for events to occur at 10:03, 11:04, 7:34 etc.? Sounds stilted, like some bad consultant idea.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

It's called adjusting to the PPM world.
 
I thought KIRO made a mistake splitting off from the Mariners, and now with the Sunday Mariner games on both AM and FM it would seem they realize that too. How long before the M's eat up more of the KIRO FM programming? Not soon enough. Games could easily blow out Ron and Don in the afternoon and Luke Burbank at night and the world would be a better place, or at least for that short period of time KIRO FM would be more interesting.

They can fiddle with the clocks all they want to adjust to the PPM world and do specific teases about when stories and talk guests will be on - none of that is a substitute for compelling content, which KIRO lacks greatly and a dynamic news team, which again KIRO lacks. Not that KOMO is any better. I don't get news from the radio any more. I still like talk, but not as much.
 
It's called adjusting to the PPM world.


No - adjusting to the PPM world means being pre emptive, not reactionary. It means less imaging, long boring promos that flex the production directors muscle and satisfy the Program Director's ego, replaced with real, compelling content. Recall has no place in this world. And it means facing the reality that changes need to be made.

Adjusting clocks and dispensing teases with no real reason to stay tuned will not keep listeners in this PPM world.
 
Well, being pre-emptive for KIRO in the aftermath of PPM is like planning a fallout shelter for a nuclear war after you've already been bombed.

So all they can really be is reactionary at this point.

However life does go on and things will mutate. I still think the move to 97.3 wasn't to their advantage. But this is where they are now and they can't scuttle back to 710.

I think they've already messed up a once unbeatable station enough. Messing up the clocks on top of it won't help that.

There's a LOT they SHOULD have done. Like wait for PPM before making any major changes to KIRO. Had they done that, they'd at least have KBSG to fall back on as the ratings winner until they can figure out what to do next. And we'd still have a classic hits station in the South Sound on 97.7.........
 
Cumeanary said:
No - adjusting to the PPM world means being pre emptive, not reactionary. It means less imaging, long boring promos that flex the production directors muscle and satisfy the Program Director's ego, replaced with real, compelling content. Recall has no place in this world. And it means facing the reality that changes need to be made.

Adjusting clocks and dispensing teases with no real reason to stay tuned will not keep listeners in this PPM world.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? How is teasing upcoming events "pre-emptive?" You do understand the math and science about calculating quarter-hours on PPM, right?
 
a dynamic news team, which again KIRO lacks.
Click to expand...

But Linda Thomas filled in for Jane for a big chunk of the first PPM month and it made no difference. I don't think radio reporters or news readers register with typical listeners.
 
Bonneville may be the cluster that is the biggest loser in the PPM, with none of their stations doing well at all. Every other group has a big winner. Clear Channel has KJR-FM, CBS has KJAQ, Fisher has KPLZ, Sandusky has KRWM, Crista has KCMS. Entercom is a bit challenged with KISW dipping in the PPM compared to the diary. Only Bonneville has no winners. News on FM didn't fly in Seattle, maybe because you can already find it on KUOW, which ranked top five in mornings 25-54.
 
What is KIRO-FM? Do you really think female listeners under the age of 60 care about teasing promos and ya ya ya. Come on radio geeks. The news and talk and chatter doesn't work in the real world. Doesn't matter if it is news blah blah or T-MAN blah blah. All talk equals GOODBYE for anyone under 65. It is music attitude like JACK or music with talk that makes sense like MOVIN or DOormat on KISS. There is a reason 25-54 KISS is number one with Doormat at night and MOVIN is in second. There is a reason 25-44 KISS is second and MOVIN is 4th and blah blah blah from T-Man or KIRO or KISW or anyone else is bottom 20. Seems Mamma knows more than best!
 
I wonder what sort of deal KIRO struck with the minor league Mariners? Word on the street is that part of the deal was the AM flipping to all sports...if that's the case, KIRO has 2 more seasons after this one. I suppose Bonneville could take KTTH all news? Not a lot of advertiser interest in conservative talk stations these days....no matter how large the audience.
 
Watching from afar, this is an example of believing the myth that FM is better than AM when it comes to news and talk, in my humble view. KIRO blew up a heritage frequency at 710 on the dial, rather than improve its content. An AM/FM simulcast makes sense or I would have put the Mariners and sports on the FM. Look at the TICKET in Detroit for an example of how that can work. In my humble view, news/talk ratings are about content and heritage, less to do about whether you are AM or FM. A foolish blunder in my humble view. Putting news/talk on 770 will not bring back the heritage. Just flip KIRO AM and FM and you might have a chance, better yet run them in combo and try to regain heritage lost.
 
I would like to amend my earlier post. I just reviewed the May PPM in its entirety. KOMO seems to have picked up an FM simulcast partner and it began operating in the MAY PPM rating period. KOMO AM alone beats KIRO-FM, but by wisely getting an FM simulcast they are having the same kind of early success I saw with KCBS in SF, in my humble view. In the first month KOMO-FM got an extra half share, while KIRO-FM lost a half share. KOMO AM lost nothing. When you combo the KOMO AM/FM numbers it almost doubles KIRO-FM. A stealth move by KOMO to say the least.

Further I would like to amend my earlier post by pointing out the KTTH has the highest ratings of all the AM stations so it would be unlikely Bonneville would want to change its most successful station, in my humble view.
 
Would KIRO Newradio 97.3 move back to 710 frequency and switch the ESPN sports station to 97.3? I think KIRO would be better of on the 710 frequency than 97.3 frequency.

(For those people who aren't familiar with the Seattle/Puget Sound area. Seattle is a very hilly terrain like San Francisco. You cannot hear FM stations very well around the downtown/central area due to multipath issues execpt for KUOW, which they broadcast from Capitol Hill.)

When I was up in Seattle a few weeks ago. All I heared from KIRO-FM 97.3 are the hissss....and the cracking noise in the background due to multipath issues.
 
You must be joking...aren't you? The top 10 stations in the new PPM rating system are FM.

Now that KIRO has moved, they would be in much worse off going back to Antique Modulation. KIRO is building for the future and the future for terrestrial radio is FM. Most people 35 years old and younger never visit AM stations. Now KIRO just needs to rebuild their image back to a relevant news talk station. Being stuck on AM would be a step backwards with gaining the audience of the future..
 
TVradioguru said:
Being stuck on AM would be a step backwards with gaining the audience of the future..
Click to expand...

Radio has no audience in the future.
 
I think it's accurate to say that MOST people under 35 never visit the AM band.

However, I think it's more a function of content than AM versus FM.

The reality is, most people under 35 just are not into news or talk radio. And I think that is the point that has confused Bonneville. First, they put what they consider to be a hip, young show on at 7 p.m. (they consider it hip...I sure don't). The problem is, most people who might have an interest in Luke Burbank sure aren't going to be much interested in Dave Ross or the KIRO morning news.
Then they move everything to FM, because the old fogies at Bonneville think thats where the young listeners are.

35, as an age, is an arbitrary number. But it's more about life transistion.

When you're married, have a family, have a mortgage, are worried about career choices, taxes, health care...that's when you suddenly find it to be very important to seek out news and information. That's when many (not all, but many) people suddenly decide that they need more than T-man and fart jokes and JACK-FM (not that there's anything wrong with any of those things).

For the past 10 or 15 years, more and more music programmers have become corporate PD's and more sales managers have become GM's. And they all think they can improve the big AM news talk stations by putting on what they consider young, hip shows...or, voila!, moving the whole thing to FM,where the young people are.

The way for news and talk stations to get better 25-54 numbers, is to focus on 35-54. (And to not blow off the 55+ numbers by putting on crap like TBTL and Phil Hendrie.)

And, if, for example, let's say I'm a delivery driver for Cintas or UPS. And I drive every day from Federal Way to Bellingham with dozens of stops. And I used to love listening to KIRO 710 every day because it was the one station that came in clear, everywhere. But now, on FM...not so much.

Bonneville came up with a solution without, first, properly identifying the problem.
 
TVradioguru said:
Well then Elmo, I suggest checking back with all of us in ten years and we'll see if you're right.
Click to expand...

Oh you know I will, gramps!

In April I made two "predictions" (statement from actionable information) and everyone acted silly and childishly a la your above statement.

Then I checked back in this month and, voila, Kylie was right! The response? "Kylie you were right!" No -- it was this: "KYLIE - WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO US?!"

Like I said, I'm going to make another "prediction" in July and verify it in August and I expect the same reaction.

In 10 years when the medium doesn't exist and this message board is a nostalgic archive I'll do the same and, even then, everyone will be protesting and saying "radio will be back in 20 years - check back in 20 years and you'll see who's right!"

LMAO! You people are tooooooo precious! :p
 
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