• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

no news not good news

A

airchic

Guest
New KFYI PD is in place...Though he and News Director, Melody Birkett, are in sync in many ways (so far), she asked for another reporter and he says no new news staff--Seems in line with our "Cheap Channel" nickname... Meanwhile, Mike Anthony and KTAR are blanketing the Valley with team coverage.
 
If you count Kim Shepard, whom I believe is on maternity leave, KFYI has eight reporters / anchors and an agreement with FOX 10 to use some of their resources. This doesn't compare with the firepower that KTAR has in its newsroom (though KFYI's people are very good).

As much as I would like to see them add some news staff, there is a law of diminishing returns. KFYI has no news block - KTAR has AM and PM drive. KFYI has always prided itself on having the most compelling talk hosts, while KTAR stakes its claim on being the news leader. None of that has changed. Over the years KFYI has tried news blocks in the AM (never in PM drive) and KFYI never got very good ratings with that plan - no matter who hosted. This goes back to Fred Weber's decision to abandon counter-programing and hire Bill Heywood to do an AM news block. No one cared. Not because Heywood is no good; he's great. It's just that people weren't leaving KTAR to listen to the same thing on KFYI. KFYI's ratings got better when they resumed counter-programming by hiring Jacobs.

What KFYI has discovered over the years is that their ratings do not fluctuate depending on the size of their news staff. It's all about the talk. In fact, when I was there, a sales manager said as much. That was demoralizing for the news staff, but there was a lot of truth in that. KTAR pays people like Ned, Heidi, Ted and Connie pretty good money to be news personalities. Ratings depend on those people. Joe Adams is a wonderful guy, a legend in Phoenix radio news and all that, but he is not counted on - nor is any KFYI news staffer - to deliver ratings like some of KTAR's news staff.

It all adds up to: KTAR will spend the dough to get the best possible (and largest) news staff because that's their bread and butter. For KFYI, news will always be important, but not the thing that drives listeners.

A good comparison is L.A. KFI does not have a huge news staff; it's adequate. But KFI has much higher ratings (12+ anyway) than either KNX or KFWB. True, KTAR does talk, KNX and KFWB don't, so my analogy isn't entirely fair, but when the suits look at what drives the ratings, they will staff their stations accordingly. KTAR and KFYI have staked out their choices and the listeners will decide.
 
so, before I go back to L.A. on Friday...
I just got word that KFYI is loosing another one of it's news staff

"they" wouldn't say who, but it's someone extremely important.

That's all
 
---->KFYI has always prided itself on having the most compelling talk hosts, while KTAR stakes its claim on being the news leader.


KFYI has usually boasted of its news presence.

---->A good comparison is L.A. KFI does not have a huge news staff; it's adequate.

Bad comparison. KFI has reporters on the street, and anchors inthe studio. It has a substantial news image that it reinforces on its audience. Unlike KFYI, it puts its money where its hype is.

---->KTAR and KFYI have staked out their choices and the listeners will decide.

And in this era, the informed and intelligent news audience will gravitate to KTAR and KJZZ, the right wing idealogues will gravitate to KFYI. You are right, news commitment (or facts, for that matter) are irrelevant to the average KFYI fan.
 
As a reporter seeking tape, and as a flack seeking coverage, I have had to try and persuade certain Valley notables that the news staff is not affiliated with abrasive talk show hosts. They lump the entire station together and refuse to give tape to neutral news folks because they have been maligned by opinionated talk hosts. It does seem most KFYI listeners tune in more for ideology than information.
Excellent discussion on this topic, all. Thank you.
 
---->As a reporter seeking tape, and as a flack seeking coverage, I have had to try and persuade certain Valley notables that the news staff is not affiliated with abrasive talk show hosts.

As well they should.

In LA, the "news" staffs of KFI and KABC have crossed waay over the line, in support of the farright talk hosts. The same on Fox Newschannel, and for that matter on Lou Dobbs.
 
airchic said:
...she asked for another reporter and he says no new news staff--Seems in line with our "Cheap Channel" nickname.
Click to expand...

"Our" CC nick? Well, I've got a clue for you all, the airchic was Paul... ;D
(Well I guess not.)

Closed circuit for Melody and the new PD "from SLC but apparently not ISU":

So how much does Royal Norman pull down for those crummy (Crummey?)
canned weather drops? Send him packing and put those $$$$ toward
another news staffer, who, along with the existing newsers, can read the
WX forecast and currents live.
 
"Meanwhile, Mike Anthony and KTAR are blanketing the Valley with team coverage."

Funny, when we see him behind Diane Arthur on TV... He barely covers a corner of the screen. I'm positive the valley is bigger than the corner of Diane Arthur's Studio.

Please, lets NOT make Mike bigger than life itself... Nice guy, sure... Knows news, absolutely.... But C'MON!!!!! :D
 
I've noticed Michael sitting there. I don't ever remember seeing B.B. there. Maybe Michael changed the room around and his desk just happens to be in the camera shot.
 
Two things:

Zumahans: KFYI does tout its newsroom when those guys win awards or they have a proof-of-performance promo, but not once - ever - has KFYI tried to compete with KTAR on a level playing field. KFYI has never hired the same number of staff as KTAR news, instead hoping to lure listeners with aggressive, controversial talk shows. That was the whole image of KFYI in 1986, "no more toaster talk; no screening calls to weed out highly opinionated people." At those times when they tried to have a large news staff, the strategy WAS to compete with KTAR for news, but even then Uncle Fred still shortchanged the newsroom. KFYI news had to be more agressive and work with less; fewer staff, no news vehicles, 2nd rate equipment, so forth. The staffing portion of that hasn't changed. Then when KFYI dropped any pretense of having news blocks, there simply was no reason to have as large a news staff as KTAR.

As for the intelligent audience being over at KTAR and KJZZ. Those are fine stations, but c'mon Zumahans, you're better than that. There is no need to stereotype every listener of a particular station. Neither left no right has a monopoly on truth, facts or being right.

Airchic: I feel your pain about having trouble getting tape from some folks who won't talk with KFYI news because of what a talk show host said. I recall former Congresswoman Karan English refused to speak with KFYI news because Bob Mohan had some unkind things to say to her on his show. I also recall taking calls from listeners who would ask me to go into the studio and give Bob, or Barry or Tom Leykis, or Jack Cole, etc., a piece of the listener's mind. My answer was always, "call 'em at 258-5394." They were never happy with that answer because they would say, "that line's always busy." No kidding...
 
buster2 said:
Two things:

Zumahans-----> KFYI does tout its newsroom when those guys win awards or they have a proof-of-performance promo, but not once - ever - has KFYI tried to compete with KTAR on a level playing field.

KFYI competes EVERY DAY with KTAR. Management may never have put up the resources, but KFYI has, was and today positions itself as a news authority,

----->As for the intelligent audience being over at KTAR and KJZZ. Those are fine stations, but c'mon Zumahans, you're better than that. There is no need to stereotype every listener of a particular station. Neither left no right has a monopoly on truth, facts or being right.

KTAR and KJZZ/NPR operate in the realm of facts. KFYI positions itself as a news leader, its liners and news slogans position itself as a news leader, its very format is "news talk".

The problem here for KFYI is that it deals in syndicated truthiness, not locally-reported facts.

You can't have a news stations without a news staff, but you can have an opinionated, onesided slate of bloviators without hiring radio news people. That's the path Air America took, and has paid for with hit and miss ratings.

And that's the path most right wing radio took. The difference is, right wing radio has an audience that is less, how shall we say, fact-demanding, and will accept an entertainer from another city regale them with what they want to hear.
Click to expand...
 
Two things:

Zumahans-----> KFYI does tout its newsroom when those guys win awards or they have a proof-of-performance promo, but not once - ever - has KFYI tried to compete with KTAR on a level playing field.

KFYI competes EVERY DAY with KTAR. Management may never have put up the resources, but KFYI has, was and today positions itself as a news authority,

+++++++ Sorry, but I worked there. If management doesn't put up the resources, it's not competing on a level playing field. KFYI is, and always has, positioned itself as the leader in talk. "News" is in the name, but talk is where the dough is.

----->As for the intelligent audience being over at KTAR and KJZZ. Those are fine stations, but c'mon Zumahans, you're better than that. There is no need to stereotype every listener of a particular station. Neither left no right has a monopoly on truth, facts or being right.

KTAR and KJZZ/NPR operate in the realm of facts. KFYI positions itself as a news leader, its liners and news slogans position itself as a news leader, its very format is "news talk".

+++++ You're usually more articulate than this. KTAR operates in the realm of facts, but KFYI does not? Pat McMahon and Ted Simons are above giving opinions and every word they breathe is empirically provable? And Barry Young and Joe Crummey are complete liars? C'mon, everyone is entitled to an opinion. You just don't agree with the guys on KFYI. That's cool, it's your right.

But what I truly find baffling about your statement is you are making the assumption that KFYI news reporters are incapable of writing the truth because the talk hosts are opinionated conservatives. OK, you used to work in news yourself, so give me some facts. When has KFYI had to retract a story? Who among their reporters is biased and on what do you base your assumption? The only KFYI reporter who I think could be labeled as inappropriately intejecting bias was John Gibson and he doesn't work there anymore.

I worked personally with Joe Adams for seven years. I can tell you he's pretty much apolitical; he thinks all politicians are weasels. Mike Anthony ran that newsroom for years and I know him, too. All he cares about is a good story and kickin tail. Andy McKinney used to be there and his only bias is as a huge cynic. If you ask me, I would say BOTH KTAR and KFYI news staff are filled with hard-working, probably underpaid reporters who try to get the story right.


The problem here for KFYI is that it deals in syndicated truthiness, not locally-reported facts.

++++++ Huh? I guess their reporters work out of Timbuktu? Are you sure you used to work in radio because you can't seem to get the difference between a talk show host and a reporter.

You can't have a news stations without a news staff, but you can have an opinionated, onesided slate of bloviators without hiring radio news people. That's the path Air America took, and has paid for with hit and miss ratings.

+++ Air America's "news" operation is a joke. They make no pretense to objectivity.

The difference is, right wing radio has an audience that is less, how shall we say, fact-demanding, and will accept an entertainer from another city regale them with what they want to hear.


++++ Once again, you hate right wing radio. Fine. But you're mixing your analogies by lumping news staff in with talk hosts. If you can point to an incident in which a news person blatanly twisted a story to suit a certain point of view, than do so. Otherwise, you shouldn't smear a bunch of folks doing their best and making too little money for it. Let's face it, there aren't that many radio news jobs anymore and not everyone who works in KFYI's newsroom has drunk the conservative Kool-Aid. They're doing a job. Give them a break.


Posted on: Yesterday at 02:49:33 pmPosted by: buster2
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom