Ilovebeer: Why would KTTH need to move Savage? I've thought Beck should be live on KVI for some time now, as Wilbur's show is really not lighting anything up. If Beck went live on 770, he would theoretically displace the duo there now. Or would they move to evenings? With Sonics preemptions, I don't know why you'd want them there. I've had sales people from the station talk down Savage, so 6-9 isn't a bad time for him.
LITTLEBOYBLUE said:
Doesn't that mirror television network programmers?
A network gets a show with some serious potential ... so they program it against another network that already owns a time slot. "Our {brand-new no recognition} killer show is going to unseat their {well-known and established} killer show". Result is almost always that a great new show goes down in flames. I never understood why it's not better to concede certain slots and try to "own" a different one instead?
Guess every dollar of revenue is scrutinized ... or I just haven't had the required executive retreat and lobotomy that goes into that decision making....
I'm not a TV expert, so I'll answer as best I can using radio knowledge. I don't necessarily think Dr. Laura is designed to beat Rush. In a sense, it's minimizing damage with a chance to beat him. If you paid $20 a share for stock in a company that was now going bankrupt, would you sell it at the current price of $8 or wait for it to go to $0? Running Tammy Bruce or some other fifth-tier conservative sound-alike show is going to concede the daypart to Rush: no one will listen to the shrill, whiny, unentertaining version when they can listen to the original and hear the same material in a more well-presented format. But perhaps you have listeners who aren't P1s or listeners who get sick of politics here and there. They might hear Rush talking about an issue they're sick of hearing about, talking about a sports topic they don't get, whatever... and want an alternative. They've got Dave Ross (still politics, and they probably don't like liberals), Thom Hartmann (same), and news on KIRO. Dr. Laura offers an alternative. She may serve as an outlet for conservatives who find Rush arrogant bush don't like the other options.
KFI here in Los Angeles is always #1, #2, or #3 in W25-54, W35-54, A35-64, and does very well for an AM in W18-34, during Dr. Laura's daypart. Listen to the show - there are a lot of women calling in, yet Dr. Laura is on few FM stations of any significance. Many of these women are listening to AM stations, and I'll bet many of them don't listen to much of the other fare on the stations. Even if a guy who loves the political fare gets his wife to listen to Dr. Laura only, that's increasing the cume and bringing in desirable, rarely-seen AM demographics. Result: more NTR, more openness from prospective advertisers, etc.
As to the TV example, perhaps I wouldn't put a crime drama up against CSI. But I might launch a heavily-male skewing show against Desperate Housewives. Again, I don't follow TV, so it's hard to say. But I can tell you one thing, and that's that having a Rush clone on from 9-noon isn't not going to attract anyone, it's going to get rid of many of the listeners from the morning show (which isn't that many to begin with) and drive them elsewhere until at least noon, if you're lucky.