OMW: Karmazin's Good Karma buying/LMA-ing WKNR

[raccoonradio]

>>We have now confirmed from numerous sources that Good Karma Broadcasting, owner of WWGK/1540 Cleveland "Cleveland's ESPN Radio 1540", is buying it's established format competitor, much larger Salem sports talk station WKNR/850.

http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com

 

[gabigley1]

Click here for the rest of this article:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061204/FREE/61204019/1025

Good Karma buys WKNR

By JOHN BOOTH

3:14 pm, December 4, 2006

Wisconsin-based Good Karma Broadcasting, which entered the Northeast Ohio radio market in July with its purchase of 1000-watt WWGK-AM, 1540, has agreed to buy sports talk radio station WKNR-AM, 850 for $7 million from Salem Communications.

 

[kentuckymedia]

When I heard about this, it first sprung to mind, Salem is starting to back out and re-invest elsewhere. Look for them to keep their WHK combo and ofcourse The Fish. They are selling off non-core properties everywhere, look at Jacksonville.

I think this will be a great move for Salem, Karmizan and Cleveland all together. However, I would assume that the Fox and ESPN stations will flip flop, yet I could be wrong.

Look for Salem to eventually spin off WRFD 880 in Columbus. North American is looking to buy a station, hmmm.....wonder why?

 

[74WIXYGrad]

Karmazin could have been dealing with Salem all along, even before he bought WABQ. I was listening to Roadkill for a few minutes this afternoon and heard him proclaim that he wanted to inform the public before they read anything on the internet. My opinion is that he got a few extra listeners due to the news breaking on the internet.

 

[PowerCow106]

Some advice for George Karmazin on how to fix WKNR:

1. Change the name of your company to something less stupid sounding than "Good Karma"

2. Fire Kenny Roda. Immediately.

3. Change the station nickname to something better than "The Voice of the Fan." Maybe "The Team" or "The Sports Animal."

4. Order Greg Brinda to stop having callers give a brief take and then hang up on them while he gives a response. Greg will have to let callers respond to his response and have an actual conversation with them.

5. Fire the production guy and replace him with somebody who's actually creative. Playing "Bad to the Bone" to the exact same soundbites every hour of the Roda show is not creative, nor was using the guitar solo from "We Will Rock You" as sports update music.

6. No more talent with irritating accents like Bruce Drennan and Kenny Roda. All future WKNR talent will speak with "polished DJ" voices.

7. Get rid of The Jim Rome Show and use the money from that to get back the Indians rights. From 1-4 you can simulcast The Dan Patrick Show with WWGK.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Karmazin could have been dealing with Salem all along, even before he bought WABQ. I was listening to Roadkill for a few minutes this afternoon and heard him proclaim that he wanted to inform the public before they read anything on the internet. My opinion is that he got a few extra listeners due to the news breaking on the internet.

He actually talked about it on his show? I was listening later in the evening.

And of course, Your Mighty Blog of...oh, you know...had confirmed and published the news 10 minutes before his show.

Not that we can drive listeners to a 50,000 watt radio station...

 

[radioaj]

Some advice for George Karmazin on how to fix WKNR:

1. Change the name of your company to something less stupid sounding than "Good Karma"

2. Fire Kenny Roda. Immediately.

3. Change the station nickname to something better than "The Voice of the Fan." Maybe "The Team" or "The Sports Animal."

4. Order Greg Brinda to stop having callers give a brief take and then hang up on them while he gives a response. Greg will have to let callers respond to his response and have an actual conversation with them.

5. Fire the production guy and replace him with somebody who's actually creative. Playing "Bad to the Bone" to the exact same soundbites every hour of the Roda show is not creative, nor was using the guitar solo from "We Will Rock You" as sports update music.

6. No more talent with irritating accents like Bruce Drennan and Kenny Roda. All future WKNR talent will speak with "polished DJ" voices.

7. Get rid of The Jim Rome Show and use the money from that to get back the Indians rights. From 1-4 you can simulcast The Dan Patrick Show with WWGK.

1. Yeah to something Karma Kamillian or something. The Name of the company is fine.

2. I think a fresh set of voices all around would be good. There is enough talent and ex-players in town to make a very solid line-up.

3. Agreed, "Voice of the Fan" is a good slogan, a nickname should be something like The Zone, Ticket, etc. Sports Animal is very much a Clear Channel name and not sure if they want to go that way.

4. That's the way a lot of hosts do it and most of them are told to do it that way. Keeps the show moving and gets more callers in. Rome is probably the one who started it, get your thought out and be precise, don't waste the time of the listeners and host to eventually get to the point.

5. YES YES and more YES. KNR's production was/is worse than any college station I have heard. I could do better form my house, btw Good Karma if you are reading this, I'm looking for a job, so I'd be willing to freshen up your stuff from home.

6. Polished DJ voices don't belong on Sports Radio. Let them introduce the songs. Guys like Arnie Spanier and JT the Brick would only work on Sports Radio, and when the host is good enough and passionate enough to hook the listener the voice doesn't matter.

7. Rome should stay, or be moved to WWGK. He has a pretty big following and if GK decides to go mostly local hosts on 850 he will be a nice break in between the hosts.


I would dump FSR, they are horrible and either add SNR or just put ESPN on 850 at night with daytime local and have daytime ESPN on WWGK with some simulcast on weekends. And just because you don't have play by play doesn't mean you can't own sports in Cleveland. Look at WEEI in Boston, they have PBP now but when they started their dominance they didn't have any. 850 has the power and now I think they have the backing of Good Karma to be the WEEI of this area.

 

[Rusty Muck]

3. Change the station nickname to something better than "The Voice of the Fan." Maybe "The Team" or "The Sports Animal."

3. Agreed, "Voice of the Fan" is a good slogan, a nickname should be something like The Zone, Ticket, etc. Sports Animal is very much a Clear Channel name and not sure if they want to go that way.

Why not revive WWWE's old "Monster on the Lake" slogan? Calling WKNR "Your 50,000 watt Sports Monster" would be a big shot of oomph.

5. Fire the production guy and replace him with somebody who's actually creative. Playing "Bad to the Bone" to the exact same soundbites every hour of the Roda show is not creative, nor was using the guitar solo from "We Will Rock You" as sports update music.

5. YES YES and more YES. KNR's production was/is worse than any college station I have heard. I could do better form my house, btw Good Karma if you are reading this, I'm looking for a job, so I'd be willing to freshen up your stuff from home.

WKNR's production has been awful, indeed. That's partially due to both the preposterous insistance that Mike Luczak could image a station , and the abject relucatance for the station to update the outright sound. Why else would they play 1991-era jingles and a TOH ID? (Even though I wouldn't mind attaining a copy of them if I ever could...)

I would keep Steve Dole for one simple reason. He's the only one there that Salem was willing to afford to keep (contrast THAT with WHK/WFHM!!). Team him up with several other professionals. Bring back Ted Lux, hire T.R. Rezny, and re-assign Neil Bender to that department. But - above all else - get the poor guy a new production music library!

Oh, and the "We Will Rock You" update sounders were totally hideous. I, again, can't blame Steve. It always appeared for me to be a Luczak directive (as was playing Ian Hunter's "Cleveland Rocks" for ALL OF THE SHOW PROMOS and assorted TOH ID'S!)

2. I think a fresh set of voices all around would be good. There is enough talent and ex-players in town to make a very solid line-up.

Agreed. That's going to happen. However, it does depend on how you find the talent. And keep Peter Brown in mind for this reason...

Last week, Peter Brown was let go from Entercom's WSSP in Milwaukee, which is a direct competitor to Craig's "ESPN 1510/1290" setup. There's nothing to this just yet, but Craig's knowledge of Peter, plus his past history at WKNR, *might* just play a role if he were to come back to Cleveland.

The rest is academic. Bring in not just Tony Rizzo (if WJW will let him do so), but also the obvious figures. Chuck Galeti, Les Levine and Ken Silverstein come to mind. Hell, bring the BSK back, probably as a three-person morning show. Take a flier on Chuck Booms, while you're at it.

Finally, why not try to strike WTAM by poaching some of their weekend talent? Mark Schwab is a good candidate, and so is Andre Knott.

All of these are my personal wishes. But even just one of these names could directly alter the attitude of the station.

I would dump FSR, they are horrible and either add SNR or just put ESPN on 850 at night with daytime local and have daytime ESPN on WWGK with some simulcast on weekends. And just because you don't have play by play doesn't mean you can't own sports in Cleveland. Look at WEEI in Boston, they have PBP now but when they started their dominance they didn't have any. 850 has the power and now I think they have the backing of Good Karma to be the WEEI of this area.

FSR isn't necessarily horrible. BUT they already had three somewhat modest affiliates in the Cleveland area prior to WKNR signing up: WFUN/Ashtabula, WEOL/Elyria and WLEC/Sandusky. Not to mention the overpowering WCKY/Cincinnati at night. Losing WKNR wouldn't be disasterous for FSR. They will survive - as has WKNR, which astounds me to no end.

- Nathan Obral

 

[ajhenderson]

Quite a bargain considering the $2.5mil he paid for 'ABQ (and that 'ABQ's asking price wasn't too far short of what he paid for 850 ). Don't see why with 1100 being a sports station masquerading as a news/talk one that we need two full-time "sports" stations. 1540 could pick up some of the brokered crap from 'KNR or back in the day from WERE. Some of those shows paid pretty decent cash! Not that I'm predicting any such thing...

"Mr. Karmazin told Crain’s last week that WWGK has daily local sports talk shows in the works. "
That may fly now, but wasn't the reason for him GETTING ESPN Radio was because Salem didn't run too much of it due to Rome, local shows, and paid programming?

 

[radioaj]

3. Change the station nickname to something better than "The Voice of the Fan." Maybe "The Team" or "The Sports Animal."

3. Agreed, "Voice of the Fan" is a good slogan, a nickname should be something like The Zone, Ticket, etc. Sports Animal is very much a Clear Channel name and not sure if they want to go that way.

Why not revive WWWE's old "Monster on the Lake" slogan? Calling WKNR "Your 50,000 watt Sports Monster" would be a big shot of oomph.

That's genius. I've seen a few SPorts Monsters around the country.

2. I think a fresh set of voices all around would be good. There is enough talent and ex-players in town to make a very solid line-up.

Agreed. That's going to happen. However, it does depend on how you find the talent. And keep Peter Brown in mind for this reason...

Last week, Peter Brown was let go from Entercom's WSSP in Milwaukee, which is a direct competitor to Craig's "ESPN 1510/1290" setup. There's nothing to this just yet, but Craig's knowledge of Peter, plus his past history at WKNR, *might* just play a role if he were to come back to Cleveland.

The rest is academic. Bring in not just Tony Rizzo (if WJW will let him do so), but also the obvious figures. Chuck Galeti, Les Levine and Ken Silverstein come to mind. Hell, bring the BSK back, probably as a three-person morning show. Take a flier on Chuck Booms, while you're at it.

Finally, why not try to strike WTAM by poaching some of their weekend talent? Mark Schwab is a good candidate, and so is Andre Knott.

All of these are my personal wishes. But even just one of these names could directly alter the attitude of the station.


FSR isn't necessarily horrible. BUT they already had three somewhat modest affiliates in the Cleveland area prior to WKNR signing up: WFUN/Ashtabula, WEOL/Elyria and WLEC/Sandusky. Not to mention the overpowering WCKY/Cincinnati at night. Losing WKNR wouldn't be disasterous for FSR. They will survive - as has WKNR, which astounds me to no end.

- Nathan Obral

Those were the names I was thinking, as well as maybe Munch, Hanford Dixon, etc. Munch would make a great part of a morning show team.

FSR needs all the stations they can get. I've dealt with them and they go nuts if you cut an hour off a show once a week. I guarantee that SNR will be a very good #2 and FSR will eventually go away say in five years. Remember networks don't care about what your signal is, it's how many sticks affiliates they have. Why would ESPN leave KNR for a 1000 watt station. They did the same thing in Houston. Networks just want more clearance to take to their advertisers. So FSR doesn't care that WCKY in Cincy reaches Cleveland, they care that they have WKNR.

The survival of WKNR tells me this: That Cleveland needs a full time local sports station. Only two local shows and it did very good numbers for sports talker. Bring in better programmers, producers, talk hosts, promotions, and you'll see some great numbers. I'm excited about Good Karma taking over WKNR. I've chatted with some of the guys at GK and they are great and I have no doubt they will take this station where it needs to go.

 

[Rusty Muck]

Quite a bargain considering the $2.5mil he paid for 'ABQ (and that 'ABQ's asking price wasn't too far short of what he paid for 850 ). Don't see why with 1100 being a sports station masquerading as a news/talk one that we need two full-time "sports" stations. 1540 could pick up some of the brokered crap from 'KNR or back in the day from WERE. Some of those shows paid pretty decent cash! Not that I'm predicting any such thing...

"Mr. Karmazin told Crain’s last week that WWGK has daily local sports talk shows in the works. "
That may fly now, but wasn't the reason for him GETTING ESPN Radio was because Salem didn't run too much of it due to Rome, local shows, and paid programming?

Eric Kulsillas' 4p-7p show will be most likely to be ceded on WWGK. It's the case on ESPN affiliates throughout the eastern coast. Craig told OMW recently that he's committed to airing M&M, Colin Cowherd and Dan Patrick. When WKNR aired M&M, the last hour would be lost for Drennan/Brinda, and Patrick never aired on the station. Airing ESPN in the nighttime on 850 would fulfill the clearence issues, though in an odd way.

Saturdays and Sundays, from 10a-12p or therabouts, are obvious times to air a local show or two. Maybe shuttle Jim Isabella's high school sports show to 1540 at that time, ditto with the Sunday Outdoors show. Why not? Experiment a little.

(Unless... maybe his ulterior motive is to eventually swap 1540 for another full-time signal in the market. For whatever reason, I still eventually see a 1540-for-1300 swap with Radio One: WERE's talk format goes to 1490, WJMO returns to their original home of 1540, and WWGK lands on 1300. Then, we'd have an ESPN Radio 1300 with a national feel, and a mostly-local WKNR.)

But even if that doesn't happen, Craig's got a real one-two punch that WILL battle WTAM. Big time. I love it. It's serious time for the AM sports market to become very competitive...

- Nathan Obral

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Nate?

Remember the old board long ago, where at least three or four of us were "programming on a napkin" the lineup of a station once thought to be entering the market - WWVA/1170 - as a sports talk station?

Looks like we've got the napkin out again, though some of this may have a reasonable shot of happening!

Heh.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>Look at WEEI in Boston, they have PBP now but when they started their dominance they didn't have any

Actually WEEI will be ceding the Red Sox to sister station WRKO starting this year and WRKO also has the
Celtics. There is some play by play on WEEI--Revolution soccer, Monday Night Football, and some
college action--though.

 

[network]

5. Fire the production guy and replace him with somebody who's actually creative. Playing "Bad to the Bone" to the exact same soundbites every hour of the Roda show is not creative, nor was using the guitar solo from "We Will Rock You" as sports update music.

The production guy as in Steve Dole? Fire him? That would be an extremely stupid move (up there with Clear Channel letting T.R. go).

I am thinking you mean the producers of such programs you have complaints with, as it's usually a decision made between them and the host(s). Or maybe even the PD as well...given who the PD is, anything is possible.

 

[Johnny Morgan]

Remember the old board long ago, where at least three or four of us were "programming on a napkin" the lineup of a station once thought to be entering the market - WWVA/1170 - as a sports talk station?

Looks like we've got the napkin out again, though some of this may have a reasonable shot of happening!

Uh oh, I think I used that napkin to wipe some BBQ sauce off my fingers.

I thought that writing was my tax calculations!

Seriously, though, consider the small amount paid for these two stations by Mr. Karmazin. I mean, really, what does it say for the market that a 50kw AM, and a regional signal at night, goes for $3 mil less than another regional signal a mere two years later? Either that, or Salem really was waiting for the right buyer to get rid of 850.

By the way, read the Salem press release and the reason is that 850 doesn't fit with Salem's "strategic mission" (no s**t) and family programming (whatever that is). Seems to me, that's what we here said two years ago--and the exact OPPOSITE of what Mickey was telling his brother Roger Brown.

By the way, anyone want to bet that if Roger Dodger was still around, Mickey would be on the phone to him doing his best "Baghdad Bob" imitation that "there's no change here; I'm still in charge and WKNR was successful under me"? Or asking Roger for a job?

Either way, Craig K got a steal and the savings he can probably use for (a) physical plant improvements (essentially everything but the Tx, since that's in pretty great shape being so new and all), and (b) talent.

Oh, and one more thing: if anyone's been down to the Galleria lately, you'll know that Good Karma has the pick of where to put their studios. It's very very vacant (but Cafe Sausalito is still there and that's quality!)

 

[74WIXYGrad]

You think Craig K. was reading those posts as well and writing on his napkin in Wisconsin? I'm just wondering who the WTAM talent was that OMW was referring to? Rado maybe?

 

[Johnny Morgan]

I'm going off on a limb here and suggesting that it is NOT Art McKoy.

 

[74WIXYGrad]

I'm going off on a limb here and suggesting that it is NOT Art McKoy.

No Justice, No sports! No justice, no sports! ;D

 

[Tim L]

I would say that the New AHL Hockey team should end up on WKNR-850..Problem being their night signal isnt too good in Canton...Sports talk just got interesting again..

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I don't normally answer this sort of thing piecemeal, but I'll say that I wasn't talking about either Paul Rado or Art McKoy.

(Though I have, once or twice, heard Art talk about the Browns on his Sunday night show, at least as an opener...)

No other answers to the question, tho. It's just one possible name in the mix... (no, that's not a hint!)