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KZTK 99.3 Tyler-Longview goes all sports?

J

jd

I was away for a while and just discovered a lot of sports talk on the station. I also noticed that they now bill themselves as a Yahoo Sports affiliate.

Granted they've had afternoon drive sports for quite a while and they're a Cowboys affiliate, but the website is currently under construction and still lists Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Neil Boortz. So what's the real schedule now?
 
What a truly horrendous idea. Tyler/Longview already has an ESPN affiliate on FM, and a year's head start. Their local sports drew awful ratings already, adding Yahoo Sports (who?) to the station doesn't seem like it would add any names big enough to pull away from ESPN.
 
Im sure that Benny has a plan. Benny doesnt believe in losing money or just breaking even.......Just Stand by !!
 
Benny Springer should change KZTK to KBPZ--Bluegrass-Polka-Zydeco format. If played at a ratio of 39% bluegrass, 32% polka and 29% zydeco, it would be a "killer" station.
 
Ah no he wants the station to make money....Your polka format would work well in Pennsylvania not East Texas. My vote is for test tones then we could all set the levels on our stereos. If they also ran white noise and pink noise after the tones we could adjust the EQ.
 
Can we address the real issue here, namely, will this finally be a format that can turn 99.3 around? Seriously I'd think it has a fairly good chance, considering what may be two pivotal differences. First, the signal: KZTK has a good signal in Longview and a decent one in Tyler, too; 92.1 doesn't serve much more than Tyler itself. Secondly, discount the fact that KTBB-FM has "a year's head start" with the sports format; one big problem is that with ESPN you're shackled with Mike and Mike in the morning (everybody has to carry it). So when it comes to competing by airing a local sports show in the morning, advantage KZTK. Talk Cowboys, talk local high school sports and you've got a leg up. Do it right the rest of the day and 99.3 may perform well in the long run, providing Benny is committed to that goal...and I figure he is.
 
jd said:
Can we address the real issue here, namely, will this finally be a format that can turn 99.3 around? Seriously I'd think it has a fairly good chance, considering what may be two pivotal differences. First, the signal: KZTK has a good signal in Longview and a decent one in Tyler, too; 92.1 doesn't serve much more than Tyler itself. Secondly, discount the fact that KTBB-FM has "a year's head start" with the sports format; one big problem is that with ESPN you're shackled with Mike and Mike in the morning (everybody has to carry it). So when it comes to competing by airing a local sports show in the morning, advantage KZTK. Talk Cowboys, talk local high school sports and you've got a leg up. Do it right the rest of the day and 99.3 may perform well in the long run, providing Benny is committed to that goal...and I figure he is.
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I see what you're trying to say, but I disagree. Mike & Mike's not a show I like, but it's got a following and the ESPN brand is a powerful one. There's never been a local morning sports show in this market, as far as I can remember. The station doesn't have a local show at any hour that's drawing more than a half a point. Who could they bring in to host a morning sports show that would draw numbers quick enough to make it work, even with adding more salary? Their sports format was already failing.

Tyler/Longview isn't a major metropolitan area. There's just not enough room for two sports stations, and ESPN's brand already has a major foothold. Plus you're about to end high school football season, and within three months college and pro will be done as well. Numbers drop for sports stations in Texas when it gets outside of football season, and they really have no room to drop. I doubt there's a "long run" for this station in this format.
 
Sports, in just about every market, makes money. Doesn't get huge ratings, but makes money!! Especially if done right. And yes the 99.3 signal (when at full power) is far and away better than anything that Gleiser has!
 
I pose this question to all of you....Why would Gleiser take the ESPN (that was already not really making money on 1490) and put it on his one and only FM station?? It seems like Gleiser is grasping at straws??? He has taken 1490 spanish sports??? Interesting???

At least with 99.3 they are doing something that makes since for them. They have the Cowboys, and Bryan Houston a VERY talented sports caster. 92.1 has a satellite feed. For my taste I would prefer something local and live any day to something on the bird!
 
600kogo said:
I pose this question to all of you....Why would Gleiser take the ESPN (that was already not really making money on 1490) and put it on his one and only FM station?? It seems like Gleiser is grasping at straws??? He has taken 1490 spanish sports??? Interesting???
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Repositioning 92.1 from Oldies to an updated Classic Hits was worth a shot, in my opinion. For what it's worth, I still haven't forgiven Gleiser for killing KDOK!

600kogo said:
At least with 99.3 they are doing something that makes since for them. They have the Cowboys, and Bryan Houston a VERY talented sports caster. 92.1 has a satellite feed. For my taste I would prefer something local and live any day to something on the bird!
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I totally agree and I hope it works for KZTK.
 
600kogo said:
I pose this question to all of you....Why would Gleiser take the ESPN (that was already not really making money on 1490) and put it on his one and only FM station??
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Because sports sells, even without ratings.
 
600kogo said:
At least with 99.3 they are doing something that makes since for them. They have the Cowboys, and Bryan Houston a VERY talented sports caster. 92.1 has a satellite feed. For my taste I would prefer something local and live any day to something on the bird!
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Houston's not up against a satellite feed, he's up against another local show on 92.1. Bill Coates has been hosting in that time slot for about three years longer.

Just kidding around here, but I'm assuming anyone with "600" in their name would love to see KZTK turn to sports, because they'd be out of business in a hurry and Gleiser could lease that frequency for KTBB AM 600.

Now in all seriousness, I'm seeing several posters here say sports always draws money, even when it doesn't draw ratings. That's not true, but for the purposes of discussion, let's pretend it is. Why then, has it taken this long for someone in the Tyler/Longview market to go all sports if it always draws money?

There's a finite amount of ad money out there, as we all know. If you want to spend your money on sports radio, are you going to spend it on ESPN Radio or on KZTK, a station with no big national names and a fifth of the ratings as ESPN?

High school football season is almost over, and there's nothing local to talk about that will draw attention until next August. There's only one brand name in national sports coverage that matters.
 
fairchild said:
Now in all seriousness, I'm seeing several posters here say sports always draws money, even when it doesn't draw ratings. That's not true, but for the purposes of discussion, let's pretend it is.
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Don't get me wrong. I never said you couldn't lose money doing all sports, but it's pretty difficult.

Why then, has it taken this long for someone in the Tyler/Longview market to go all sports if it always draws money?
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I don't think it really took long for someone to do all sports in Tyler/Longview. As someone else mentioned, it was on 1490 for quite some time. Obviously, it was doing well enough to make Gleiser think he could make better money by doing it on 92.1. M

High school football season is almost over, and there's nothing local to talk about that will draw attention until next August. There's only one brand name in national sports coverage that matters.
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While there's one brand name in national sports coverage that stands out, there's a reason there are so many brands of sports radio and why CBS is trying so hard to get into it. I've heard of some smaller broadcasters making enough for the entire year off of just high school sports. Not all of those stations, by the way, are 100% sports. Granted, that's probably not realistic in a market like Tyler/Longview where there are several different high schools and fewer potential boosters, but you get the idea. Doing really well in high school sports can get you better billing for the rest of the year, too. Plenty of operators won't let you buy high school sports unless you buy a full year's schedule.
 
For the record I am not a big Gleiser fan I think he screwed up royaly in sumping the oldies from 92.1! But sports can fail and can have problems with money...I am reminded of 100.3 KXAL when it was an FM ESPN station. It made money during football and Nascar season but that was it! It lost money the rest of the year and it had a staff of less than 6 people!

103.1 was also an FM talker that couldnt get ratings easily, and there was sports on it! It finally started getting ratings and money when it became spanish language music.

Talk on FM is having problems in other part of the country I am just suprised that Gleiser is still messing with it.
 
Also when KXAL was ESPN sports they had no sports teams for it. When Gleiser lost the Cowboys to 99.3 he should have ditched the idea of being a sports station...Especially in East Texas!
 
Wouldn't it be funny if Reynolds moved "The Blaze" to 99.3 and let Dave Moreland program the 102.7/106.9 duo like KOOI back in its heyday?
 
C414B said:
Wouldn't it be funny if Reynolds moved "The Blaze" to 99.3 and let Dave Moreland program the 102.7/106.9 duo like KOOI back in its heyday?
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I don't think you need to move the Blaze, it just needs to stabilize and go back to what it used to do so well and fix the damage of the last 4-5 years. But you hit the nail on the head, really. If you have an asset like Dave Moreland on staff, let Dave do his thing and program a music station.
 
Dave is a double asset!! He will bring extremely high ratings in the mornings just like he used to, and if he were programing a true soft rock (with an actual promotions budget) he would tear most of the stations a new one! He was the magic of KOOI! Dave was fantastic in the mornings!!!!
 
600kogo said:
Dave is a double asset!! He will bring extremely high ratings in the mornings just like he used to, and if he were programing a true soft rock (with an actual promotions budget) he would tear most of the stations a new one! He was the magic of KOOI! Dave was fantastic in the mornings!!!!
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Well, the last book still showed the ratings in the toilet, so hopefully it's time for them to let Dave work his magic in the mornings again with a music format that will draw some numbers and sponsors. It's a waste of a good frequency right now.
 
jd said:
For what it's worth, I still haven't forgiven Gleiser for killing KDOK!
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JD, in case you've not heard, KDOK lives again! My friend Chuck Conrad has purchased, taken possession of and flipped AM1240 KDOK to "All Hit Radio -- The Greatest Hits of the 60s, 70s & 80s". It can be heard in Kilgore on AM1240 and FM101.9 and at 105.3 in Longview. ;D ;D ;D

www.kdokradio.com
 
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