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Oldies 590/KOWH

A

amfmxm

The Journal has to face up to it: KXSP is a waste. Trying to do sportstalk radio in Omaha without Huskers football and the automatic cume-builder that comes with it is like trying to run a conservative talker without Rush. (And KFAB has both).

Current two-month Fall trend has KXSP at a 1.4, good for 18th in a 10-station market. Time to punt.

Here's the plan: sixties-based oldies (late fifties to early seventies) as KOWH--Omaha's original Top 40 calls (at 660 kHz... before KMEO, et cetera). The KOIL calls would no doubt ring truer for more 50+ listeners, but unfortunately they're being wasted on the Plattsmouth Blowtorch.

But there are a lot of cool things a station could do with KOWH. The Oldies demo knows what those letters mean. The average listener won't get the 590/660 correlation, but they will remember that they listened to a lot of radio at 590--they know how to find it.

No, a sixties-based oldies WON'T score in 25-54 (though it would probably do better than KXSP), but it could rack up some decent numbers in the coveted 55-74 demo.

Get used to seeing "Adults 55-74." There are too many human beings showing up there now. And way too much money.

Oldies 590/KOWH. Has a good ring to it.
 
Sports stations are notorious for lackluster ratings...but overachieving in revenue. Nobody cares about ratings; the question is KXSP's revenue, and EBITDA. If THAT is OK, no flip will ever happen.
 
The Journal could get the WOW calls back on 590 if they really wanted to, the FCC has allowed the owner who dropped a 3-letter call to get it back on the same facility.

The ratings for a sports station are usually not that good, they make their money primarily on the play by play. The standards format Journal had on 590 had considerably more listeners than the sports format, but it apparently wasn't making much money or they wouldn't have moved it to 1490.

I'm not sure 55-74 will ever be an important demo, but news-talk dominates in that age group; Country is the number one music format 65+ with AC second. Both have considerably more 65+ listeners than oldies. For 55-64, AC is the top music format, oldies is second, slightly ahead of country.
 
If you break down the ratings for sports stations beyond 12+, most sports stations start doing well among men.

Break that down even more and go by more specific demographics like income, and the more affluent the listener, the higher the ratings. There are some sports stations that may have a 2.9 share 12+, but you go Men 25-54 with income of over $50,000... that station has a 15.0 share. That is a pretty powerful statistic walking into a Lexus dealership or financial planner's office.

In the case of sports radio, it's not always how many, but exactly WHO is listening... Same principle as CNBC
 
All of that is understood. That is, the emotional sell of sports radio... the qualitative strength of upscale guys relating to certain advertiser categories... and the relative unimportance of 12+ numbers.

Anyone with first-hand access to the Omaha book & Scarborough want to transate the compelling sales story that KXSP presents to prospective clients?

Consider me a cynic, but my hunch is that the Journal account execs play hell making 590's 1.4 share translate into a more compelling story than KOZN's extrapolations from its whopping 2.4... or KFAB's extrapolations from its market-leading 9.0.

Even in New York or LA, being "the third" sports station--or "the third" anything--is a tough sell. In Omaha, it's gotta be real tough.
 
amfmxm said:
All of that is understood. That is, the emotional sell of sports radio... the qualitative strength of upscale guys relating to certain advertiser categories... and the relative unimportance of 12+ numbers.

Anyone with first-hand access to the Omaha book & Scarborough want to transate the compelling sales story that KXSP presents to prospective clients?

Consider me a cynic, but my hunch is that the Journal account execs play hell making 590's 1.4 share translate into a more compelling story than KOZN's extrapolations from its whopping 2.4... or KFAB's extrapolations from its market-leading 9.0.

Even in New York or LA, being "the third" sports station--or "the third" anything--is a tough sell. In Omaha, it's gotta be real tough.
Click to expand...

And, P.S.--I've sold in radio Omaha/Council Bluffs with 15 shares behind me, and even then it wasn't a piece of cake. I can only imagine what it must be like trying to turn a 1.4 from a sow's ear into a silk purse!
 
More likely, they're selling the sports station's male demos in combination with the male demos of Journal's various FM stations.
 
I like the original poster's idea, with 2 changes:

1) Forget KOWH. Bring back the original WOW calls. THAT'S what belongs on 590! IMHO, Journal made a huge mistake by jettisoning them.

2) Make sure the genre of music corresponds with the time period during which WOW was a Top 40 outlet. If memory serves me correctly, the format lasted into the late 70s (or later?) before they made the infamous flip to Country.
 
Makes sense, though it'll make more sense as KGOR moves further from the seventies. Best as I can tell, WOW's Top 40 heyday was 1970-1980. They may have hung in through around 1983, but Sweet 98 had clocked 'em by '80 or '81. Even though it might be "historical cheating," a focus on say, late sixties through mid-seventies could work.

For music to work on AM these days it really has to be something unavailable on FM, so the big risk would be a perception that it wouldn't be all that different from KGOR. That's where great programmers make a difference.

If, for whatever bureaucratic bullshit reason, the commission chose not to re-assign the WOW calls, they could go ALL the way back to the original WOAW call-sign from 1922--and use the "WOW" flip (as Clear Channel does with its "WFLA" on Orlando's 540/WFLF. BTW, the FCC is now handing out "K" calls east of the Mississippi, so presumably a western "W" request shouldn't be a big deal.
 
Speaking of WOW, I have a coffe mug with WOW in woodgrain looking letters. The mug is mounted on two cowboy boots, It was from the days it was WOW Country.
I have old radio items I want to part with.

Dave Messing
Nebraska City, NE
 
590 needs to go back to the WOW Calls. If the Rules for AM Radio Nighttime Service were Changed in the Late 50's Instead of the Mid 80's, KOWH 660 with a Wopping 54 Watts Night Would Have Been A Bigger Hit in the Ratings.
 
It's funny to see a 4-year-old posting up here again. Things move slowly on the Nebraska Board!

Funnier still to realize that in all that time, 590/KXSP has exploded from a 1.4 share all the way up to a 1.6 share, and have risen from 18th in the market to dead last at 15th...
 
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