Oh great...now Bill Handel says KFI needs to drop Rush Limbaugh

[OCradiodude]

LAradio is now reporting that Handel stated that Rush should be dropped from KFI. Someone's been listening too much to spinmaster Roy again....

 

[accessdlp]

Since I am not privy to the full LAR site, I do have to ask did he say this on the air, in jest, or to a reporter (maybe Barrett).

Past that I will resist the great temptation of speculating on the level of sanity Mr. Handel seems to possess, if,indeed said statement was made. I also do not have the latest PPM in front of me, but someone should point out to Battlin' Bill that....and I say this as the official card-carrying liberal Air America/KTLK supporter of this board....if there was no rush Limbaugh there would be no KFI.....or Premiere Radio....or Clear Chennel. That statement is backed up by history and several years of books in which El Rushbo obliterated justabout everything in his time period with the possible exception, maybe of Stern when he was on broadcast.

No to mention the pile-on that would happen if Rush became suddenly available. Please remember, counselor, that WABC in NYC is Rush's base of operations, and it would not take more than 3 seconds for Citedel to pick up the phone and insure that Libarugh would be doing 9-Noon on KABC the next day.

Again, if the statemnt is true, a reminder should be added.....the radio graveyard is filled with people who thought they were bigger than thier station.

Just sayin'....

 

[RadioStarOne]

Again, if the statemnt is true, a reminder should be added.....the radio graveyard is filled with people who thought they were bigger than thier station.

Amen, Don.

 

[MusicMaestro]

Again, if the statemnt is true, a reminder should be added.....the radio graveyard is filled with people who thought they were bigger than thier station.

Amen, Don.

DITTOS!!!!!

I hope that Mr. Handel's comment was made in jest, otherwise he loses a little credibility, IMO. ;D

 

[nmoore6676]

The way the ratings are calculated for Handel's time slot the first hour of Rush is counted in the listening period which encompasses all but the first hour of Handel. He has often said that that hour hurts to overall listening figures for his show. That hour shows a significant drop off of listening, but you have to also take into account that 9:00 is when people should be at work and not listening to the radio (yeah right). If you look at other rabid right wing hosts they don't do so well in LA either. This is a moderate to liberal town and Rush has over the years drifted into being a foaming fuming nutcase for the conservative view.

Handel has never ever been a total right wing host, he conservative in a lot of fiscal areas but very progressive on things like universal health care. I do not think he is presuming to say that he is better than Rush though there is no love lost between them. Rush was very upset when due to 9-11 he was stranded in an area where there were no Clear Channel stations and as a result Handel was chosen by Premier to be the national broadcast for Rush's slot. I've heard that Limbaugh had a cow and has decried that should never happen again. They do not agree politically and Handel on air tends to ridicule a lot of what Rush says. Handel would also like to cut the Rush promo that runs right before his show starts but management won’t do that but unlike other stations where Rush airs you will not hear any promos or teases during Handel’s slot until the very end for the lead in.

Bottom line if anyone has an inflated sense of personal value it would be Rush Limbaugh. As a regular Handel listener, and I guess a fan as well, I've always heard him to be self deprecating. I do think he has anger management issues as evidenced when he burst into the KYSR studios over his daughters "visiting" there, but then over achievers tend to be that way. That could very well be why I sit by myself playing with computers and I'm not on air anymore. I didn't have the fire to get to where Handel and others are now and I was always too nice, helping others more than myself. But then I love technology so maybe I'm better off.

 

[davideduardo]

The way the ratings are calculated for Handel's time slot the first hour of Rush is counted in the listening period which encompasses all but the first hour of Handel.

Ratings are calculated in pieces of one quarter hour in length. Arbitrarily, the standard reports are 6 to 10 AM, 10 AM to 3 PM, etc. But in the PPM software (and in the olde diary system version, too), one can create the "Handel Show" daypart, and the "Rush Show" daypart and such for all the different KFI show slots or for any amount of time, right down to each quarter hour of each day.

 

[nmoore6676]

The way the ratings are calculated for Handel's time slot the first hour of Rush is counted in the listening period which encompasses all but the first hour of Handel.

Ratings are calculated in pieces of one quarter hour in length. Arbitrarily, the standard reports are 6 to 10 AM, 10 AM to 3 PM, etc. But in the PPM software (and in the olde diary system version, too), one can create the "Handel Show" daypart, and the "Rush Show" daypart and such for all the different KFI show slots or for any amount of time, right down to each quarter hour of each day.

I was basically quoting what Handel said, on air, from which I assumed he meant the ratings calculated as an average for the 6am to 10am period (daypart). I realize that for selling advertising they use the quarter hours assuming that people listen for 15 minutes at a time to any one station. I have been associated with dial twisters who annoy the devil out of may but most people that listen to talk radio probably listen longer than to music radio, at least I do. For music if a song that I really hate comes on I will change. The point being that Limbaugh does not get the numbers that Bill does but that could also be attributed to listening drop-off as people enter work and have to deal with their jobs, as I also stated.

Personally I find Rush Limbaugh an irritation and Michael Savage a moron but that doesn’t mean the they should be off the air. It is interesting though that soon after KGIL picked up Savage he got relegated to late evenings. Since KFI and Premier, the syndicator of Excellence in Broadcasting are co-owned I image their is considerable internal corporate pressure to keep Rush on during his live national broadcast time slot. But even Handel has noted that Rush built KFI as a talk station, taking over the reins from KABC, as I recall and I've never heard him make that claim of himself.

It should also be that more accurate calculations of quarter hours and “dayparts” will come out of PPM because they will not rely on memory and people who are fans of Handel or Seacrest for example who might overstate they time they are on any given station.

 

[davideduardo]

I was basically quoting what Handel said, on air, from which I assumed he meant the ratings calculated as an average for the 6am to 10am period (daypart). I realize that for selling advertising they use the quarter hours assuming that people listen for 15 minutes at a time to any one station.

I guess I was not particularly clear.

The unit of measurement is the quarter hour, not the minute, 10 minutes, the half hour, the hour or a shift. Stations get credit for quarter hours 00 to :15, :15 to :30, etc) by registering listening in 5 minutes within each quarter hour.

So, we can look at the 6:00 to 6:15 quarter hour, and see the audience figures for it. We can add the 6:15 to 6:30 quarter hour, and mathematically get a weighted average and get the 6:00 to 6.30 numbers. We can make any combination of consecutive quarter hours, such as 5:30 to 9AM or whatever we want.

Since the building block is the quarter hour, we can not look at individual minutes this way.

The average listening spans per tune in occasion are between 40 minutes and 50 minutes per incident.

I have been associated with dial twisters who annoy the devil out of may but most people that listen to talk radio probably listen longer than to music radio, at least I do.

Talk has long time spent listening. KFI has about 50% longer TSL than the average top music station, but it has a low cume (number of different users that tune to it in a day or week) so the long listening compensates for the low cume and KFI is among the top 10 stations in 12+ in LA.

For music if a song that I really hate comes on I will change. The point being that Limbaugh does not get the numbers that Bill does but that could also be attributed to listening drop-off as people enter work and have to deal with their jobs, as I also stated.

Handel does very well, and outperforms all the rest of KFI. The rest of the day including Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, John & Ken and Kennedy / Suits all get about the same share of listening, on average. There is nothing wrong with Limbaugh or John & Ken or the rest... it's just that Handel outoerforms.

By the way, less than half the working population of LA works 9 to 5 jobs. Remember, that guy who brings the FedEx package left the loading dock at 6 AM or so, so he commuted to work at 5 AM.

It should also be that more accurate calculations of quarter hours and “dayparts” will come out of PPM because they will not rely on memory and people who are fans of Handel or Seacrest for example who might overstate they time they are on any given station.

The PPM brings a whole new set of problems. The panel is, for example, so small that in some cases just a few people can double the shares of a station in a particular age group. However, the agencies wanted faster data delivery, so the PPM is what we got. For accuracy, the diary sample over a longer period of time, is probably better within the constraints of what stations will pay for ratings.

 

[nmoore6676]

David, thanks for the info, but I got the part about quarter hours and even though I've been away from radio for some time I know how they are used as a measure for ad sales. I never meant to imply there was any kind of minute by minute figures even with PPM. So maybe I was the one not being clear.

The guys at Mad Magazine used to make fun of units of measurement, in one piece they suggested measuring speed or velocity in furlongs per fortnight. So anyway if you take the four quarter hours that comprise an hour and multiply by four hours which is the time from 6am to 10am. Then you add the total listening per quarter hour figure and divide that sum by (4x4) (16) then you have an average for the time period. I am sure that they also take other factors into the calculation as statistics people love massaging the data. I got from what Handel said on air that for whatever reason they didn't consider his first hour from 5am to 6am in the calculation so from that I gathered that they must consider the daypart from 6 to 10 and not 5 to 9 which is when Handel is actually on. That fact was his reason for saying that Rush takes down his overall ratings. If I am wrong it is by perception of what I heard and not ignorance, though there are those that would dispute me on that matter as well. :