Not Quite Goodbye "All News All The Time," But...

[5670Spy]

As some here have predicted KFWB will undergo a format shift in the next few months. A source very close to this writer informed me KFWB's (and KNX's) reinstated boss called for a mandatory meeting with the staff of KFWB Friday afternoon to announce and explain the changes.

To begin... most notable is KFWB will begin airing... Angels' Baseball games. Yes, you read that right and yes, The Angels will still be on Artie's 830 AM.

Another notable change in the coming weeks, since radio infomercials are just so exciting and compelling, brace for all infomercials, all day Sunday. So should nuclear war break out or mother nature wobbles the ground during the weekend rest assure you'll hear complete and accurate information about cleaning your colon and nothing about that smoke hanging over like a pall across the skies of Southern California.

Perhaps the most dramatic change coming to KFWB is the format focus will shift from traditional hard news to entertainment-business news. If this is to be understood correctly based on the way it was explain instead of rewrites from the L.A. Times and Daily News, stories from The Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter will be the focus of rewrites. My source told me the guys with the four-letter first names in charged aren't too sure how to pull off this format yet, but prepare for the change.

For those of you who've complained 980 should drop "All News All The Time," well somebody realizes they're no longer all news all the time and an imaging change, from slogans to jingles, is in the works.

What already seems to be good thinking on 980's part is for a station shifting formats to entertainment-business news the Sunday the infomercials will commence running is the Sunday of the Oscars.

 

[nmoore6676]

Sad but as they say, all things must change. If it keeps the lights on and the paychecks coming to those left then so be it. I do not really think that LA can support 2 all news stations and if they come up with something complimentary to KNX it could work.

The Angels fans will appreciate the coverage to fill in the holes in the KLAA signal, especially at night so I can see no real complaints, it is their business after all.

Infomercials are the wave of the future, especially for off hours and weekends. I am surprised that KGIL isn't packing them in on weekends instead of "The Great American Songbook" which runs almost all day Saturday and Sunday plus at night every day. They ran that phony health show every morning throughout several programing format shifts and only dropped it last year as I recall. There are lots of colons that need cleansing out there, not to mention the limp noodles. ;D

 

[calguy]

I agree, it really is sad. While it may pay the bills it certainly isn't compelling programming. TV went this route and we all know what that's like. It's almost impossible to find anything to watch after a ceratin hour on the local stations, worse there are 50 cable channels playing the same infomercials as well. I see it as the beginning of the end. Instead of giving the audience what they're begging for, radio goes the other way. Yeah it'll bring in dollars, but I see it killing off listenership. If they tune in to a bad infomercial and then tune out, will they come back for regular programming? This decision may help KNX in the PPM, but I doubt KFWB will grab any numbers.

As for Angels baseball on KFWB, well, did the Dodgers help them?

 

[nmoore6676]

I agree, it really is sad. While it may pay the bills it certainly isn't compelling programming. TV went this route and we all know what that's like. It's almost impossible to find anything to watch after a ceratin hour on the local stations, worse there are 50 cable channels playing the same infomercials as well. I see it as the beginning of the end. Instead of giving the audience what they're begging for, radio goes the other way. Yeah it'll bring in dollars, but I see it killing off listenership. If they tune in to a bad infomercial and then tune out, will they come back for regular programming? This decision may help KNX in the PPM, but I doubt KFWB will grab any numbers.

As for Angels baseball on KFWB, well, did the Dodgers help them?

I see what you are getting at but if there were compelling programming then they would have more listeners = higher ratings= more ad revenues. Personally I've never gotten the value of those infomercials, even though most of them are better produced than they were. I am old enough to recall when a lot of radio stations and most TV stations went off the air at midnight or 1am. Then for a while we got those all night movie shows sponsored by someone like Cal Worthington.

I can remember those all night dollar a holler shows on some of the old clear channel stations where they played some music and sold patent medicines and baby chicks. A guy out of Cincinnati used to play music and sell the records from his mail order record store. The trend today seems to do a kind of interview format where the “guests’ and the host extol the advantages of the new bowel flush or male enhancement products. Then there are the vitamins and nutritional supplements, a lot of stuff to sell. I guess that even with all of the time available on cable TV channels they still feel that they need to reach more potential customers. So long as they keep them on at night and weekends I really don't care. I do see the damage that could be done by mixing them into regular programming blocks during peak listening. As a listener (and a viewer) I always tune out when they come on so it would kill audience numbers I am sure.

I can’t answer about the Dodgers, those who keep closer watch on the ratings could answer, but I can’t see baseball hurting them that much either.

 

[calguy]

Well the term "compelling programming" is a subjective one, but I can assure you that I almost NEVER watch infomercials and hearing them on the radio is to my ears even worse than their TV counterparts. I'd rather listen to bad college radio than an infomercial.

As for TV, I remember the late night movies and as a kid used to stay up late to watch old movies and on weekends the LA Thunderbirds Roller Derby and was actually happy to have these shows. Yeah there were stations that signed off, many did it not that long ago, but most don’t sign off now, so why broadcast junk?

I've always felt that you can keep more listeners by continuing with regular programming and normal spot sets. You see there is a psychology to programming radio. If what you're running on the air makes listeners tune out, you may eventually lose them altogether. For instance, the thought for years is that if you listen to a station before bed, you'll most likely turn that station on again in the morning. If you blow off your audience at night, they most likely will not be there in the morning. My point is that you may make money running the infomercial, but it's only short term as you'll see your audience dwindle and over time find yourself with no ratings and in turn, non existent billing.

Compelling or not, I say give the listener what he or she expects. If they expect a bad infomercial, and hate them, you’ve lost them.

 

[nmoore6676]

Well the term "compelling programming" is a subjective one, but I can assure you that I almost NEVER watch infomercials and hearing them on the radio is to my ears even worse than their TV counterparts. I'd rather listen to bad college radio than an infomercial.

As for TV, I remember the late night movies and as a kid used to stay up late to watch old movies and on weekends the LA Thunderbirds Roller Derby and was actually happy to have these shows. Yeah there were stations that signed off, many did it not that long ago, but most don’t sign off now, so why broadcast junk?

I've always felt that you can keep more listeners by continuing with regular programming and normal spot sets. You see there is a psychology to programming radio. If what you're running on the air makes listeners tune out, you may eventually lose them altogether. For instance, the thought for years is that if you listen to a station before bed, you'll most likely turn that station on again in the morning. If you blow off your audience at night, they most likely will not be there in the morning. My point is that you may make money running the infomercial, but it's only short term as you'll see your audience dwindle and over time find yourself with no ratings and in turn, non existent billing.

Compelling or not, I say give the listener what he or she expects. If they expect a bad infomercial, and hate them, you’ve lost them.

I think that we are pretty much on the same page here. Nothing gets me up to reach for the remote control more than those late night infomercials on TV. I often fall asleep on a channel and when those come on it is like a shot of adrenalin. For one thing they are obnoxiously loud; they process the audio to get maximum apparent loudness. I will turn off a radio station if they are on there anytime of the day or night. Which is why I question the effacy of putting them on, if everybody tunes out what good can they do. At least in the old days they played music between the pitches for baby chicks or snake oil.

As a kid we always had our radios set to come on to WBLY, Springfield for the local news and weather plus some entertainment, today and here it, for me, is KFI. But never then nor today does my dial stay on that one station. At different times and in different settings it is on whatever interests me. Music, news, talk or whatever, there are certain personalities that I like, but in music radio not so much anymore. In talk radio I like Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck, Doug McIntyre, Lars Larson, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, mainly, so my radio dial or internet stream gets switched to one of those as the day goes on. If I can't get to those then I switch to one of the three or four music stations I like locally.

My point being that I will go to find what I want so if a certain station has an infomercial block on at a certain time or day then I just won't tune to them for that period but if one of the shows I want to hear or the news is on then I'll listen for that. Now if they start shuffling the times and days to try and trick me, then they will lose me for good. KFWB would lose me if they put those paid programs on during the times when I might tune to them for news. If they drop news and go to some talk or feature type programming it would depend on what they do to say if I’d listen.

 

[AM FM listener]

Sad, indeed, but maybe this is the way it must be during these economic times. This is the closest we have come, in our generation, to the Great Depression, so we must find a way to get through it, one way or another. On the other hand, the AM band may have its challenges even after we get back to prosperous times. AM may become the home of only one or two viable News/Talk/Sports stations per market and the rest will have to resort to infomercials or some other niche programming.