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KLIF talk veteran David Gold- also Miami, Denver, Tampa- subbing in Tampa

It's a 3 page article. Is all of it true, probably not. Do they have the gist of it down, probably.

I was around for some of that, and KLIF's problem was that they just got superceded by other stations doing what they were doing...

Sure it took a couple of years, but the Ticket killed them on the Sports front. And WBAP with Mark and Rush killed them on the political talk...

Unfortunately, it's not always enough to be a lot of people's 2nd or 3rd choice anymore...For example, if you wanted sports talk 10 years ago on your drive home, you had Galloway (if you were a serious sports fan (and old to boot), you had the Hardline (if you wanted edgier, funnier) and then you had Wally and Leon if you didn't like the other 2...

Part of the problem, if I'm a sportsfan, and I want to hear the latest on the cowboys and it's 5pm, who am I going to listen to..Hardline, Galloway, or wait an hour for KLIF to get around to doing sports...

Then they had the problem with mixing regular generic talk with politics...Same thing, if I want to argue immigration (or whatever we were arguing about 10-15 years ago) (probably abortion, that argument never ends) do I tune in to Davis or Limbaugh, or do I wait around for an hour as Kevin finishes joke and talent hour, or finishes interviewing some author on a book tour...
 
KLIF was never that great in its so-called glory days of talk. Its shares lagged those of comparable stations in other markets. KLIF was ripe to get squashed once WBAP got serious about talk. Susquehanna was always a prissy punch-puller, unlike the old Jacor. Most of the old Jacor talkers led their markets and still do today under the CC banner. Susquehanna tried to clone the KLIF approach on WPLP (Gold's old station in Tampa), and utterly destroyed the station. Interestingly, that destruction left unemployed (for a short time) a fellow named Mark Davis. And the rest is history...
 
smedge2006 said:
KLIF was never that great in its so-called glory days of talk. Its shares lagged those of comparable stations in other markets.
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I don't know if that's at all accurate. It may not have been the big ratings winner - no Dallas talk station in the 80s was No. 1 overall - but it enjoyed amazing community respect. This being primarily local.

Notice the adjectives the press uses in describing the former KLIF... (The current KLIF is a waste). How many other stations receive such glowing coverage in local media?

[size=10pt][size=10pt]The question, then, is no longer "Will Kevin be back?" but more directly, "What the hell is he coming back to?" Big 570, formerly KLIF-AM, is a shell of the station McCarthy helped build. No longer do politicos and local bigwigs listen to hear what the hosts and their fans are buzzing about.

The days when McCarthy gets a call from Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum just because he was criticizing the Aggie field general are over, it would seem. In last week's spring Arbitron ratings, Big 570 was anything but; Flaccid 570 would be more apt. In the category known as "12-plus" (i.e., everyone listening who is 12 or older), it ranked 29th in the market with a .9 rating -- a lower rating than it had when it first switched to all-talk in 1986. As one wag noted, a taxicab's car-radio frequency gets better ratings.

The sad irony is that both of McCarthy's illnesses, first the inner-ear problem and now his panic attacks, have coincided with the station's slow, painful slide into irrelevancy. For a 10-year period, from 1986-'96, KLIF-AM was, in McCarthy's words, "hot, hip, and happening." Best known was David Gold, the 3 p.m.-to-6 p.m. local Limbaugh before Limbaugh was cool, a huge talent who infuriated and captivated, such as in his first week when he suggested putting all death row inmates in the Texas Stadium end zone, wiring them, then frying them.

But it also boasted the country's first morning sports host in Norm Hitzges.
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Station management is quick to point out that the radio business has changed dramatically -- a national trend toward radio station consolidation, increased competition from national hosts, and the success of other stations. Nevertheless, these obstacles led to one ill-conceived strategy after another and ultimately failed to maintain what made KLIF talk radio an important part of the Dallas media landscape. And despite some honest enthusiasm by a few staffers who see themselves as ready-to-bite underdogs, the station's low standing now makes the prospect of McCarthy's return bittersweet.
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That's another good point. KLIF was an important part of Dallas' media landscape.
No one could dare suggest that today.
 
During its peak years, KLIF employed SEVEN local hosts M-F: Hitzges, McCarthy, Sanders, Gold, Wally & Leon and Gary Cogill. That's more than KLIF, KRLD & WBAP combined have today. And so it goes. My money says Gold ends up being full-time in Tampa.
 
Since Florida has a much higher percentage of Jews in the population than Texas (I think 5% vs 0.5%) wonder if he is marketing himself as a Jew rather than a Jew-for-Jesus....
 
Frank Provasek said:
Since Florida has a much higher percentage of Jews in the population than Texas (I think 5% vs 0.5%) wonder if he is marketing himself as a Jew rather than a Jew-for-Jesus....
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Gold markets himself as a flame-throwing conservative with little if any reference to his religion. You can hear him on weekends on KSFO in San Francisco.
 
And those that recall the OTHER big mistake KLIF-570 did in the early 90s...they dumped RUSH LIMBAUGH just a week after the 1992 election, IIRC. That's when WBAP picked him up (albeit with a large forklift) and, for what it's worth, the rest is ratings history. (Or maybe it was November, 1993, as that's when 'BAP dropped the Country Gold/"Full Service" format for News/Talk...?)

Gold's had many chances to get back into this market. He filled in relentlessly for Gary McNamara on his former local evening show on WBAP, and was one of the "trial" hosts that got several evenings on the air to test for McNamara's vacated spot when Gary went to overnights...but to no avail. Honestly, I can't say whether Gold 'has' or 'doesn't have' what he used to have in terms of engaging conversation, or if he's too animated at times, or what it might be, or it could have been former WBAP PD Bob Shomper that just didn't care for him, or simply wanted someone else instead. The reality is, Texas is still a guaranteed, sure-bet hotbed for conservative talk, and I'd bet it's the first state on the list for any conservative talker to pursue.

That said, it's still a mystery to me why KSKY can't get a foothold anywhere in this market with their format. Gold could be a decent draw there, but perhaps Salem is looking for someone who will also 'preach the gospel' regularly...hence the attraction to Mike Gallagher.
 
You could be right...it's all a blur to me right now. I'm betting that's who filled the gap of time between McNamara and Mark Levin. OK, toss my previous logic out the window, please. :p
 
I've always felt that KLIF's demise was due to one person, Dan Bennett. I could never get a bearing on his thinking. The station, even in it's so called hey-day always sound disjointed....it never had any flow, sometimes stuffy. I listened because they were the only talk around, but by 1993, when WBAP got serious about the format, KLIF became a joke. Some one mentioned the Rush Limbaugh situation....he got an hour or two on Saturday and Sunday. Then he went over to KGBS and finally WBAP and that was the nail in 1190-570's coffin. What was Dan thinking? I know that 70's and 80's era Susquehana was a bit of a strange bird...heck, everyone you'd meet in the biz back then either worked at one time or another for the "Indian." (Disclosure, I did too). With all the missed opportunities that station has had over the years, no wonder their just a footnote anymore.

No, I don't think I'd want to hear a KLIF rewind....first of all it's not on 1190!
 
Gold was on in the evenings at WBAP,but guess what preempted him? Dallas Stars, so he was hardly on the air. So He left.
 
Has Gold had a full-time job since he left KLIF? On a legit news/talk station? Odd that nobody snapped him up. Whatever happened to Fred Mertz? He was good, but sure didn't last long. Sports Brothers were pretty entertaining, too.
 
kzewdude said:
Has Gold had a full-time job since he left KLIF? On a legit news/talk station? Odd that nobody snapped him up. Whatever happened to Fred Mertz? He was good, but sure didn't last long. Sports Brothers were pretty entertaining, too.
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Mertz went to Kansas City, if I recall correctly, KCMO, for the p.m. drive, when that station aired some local talk. Now it's wall to wall syndication after a morning show.
 
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