On Air affiliates

[Adam Rivers]

(although I have been begging WZYP to get Dawson McAllister Live on).

UUGGGGHHH!! This is one show I HATE! I have yet to understand why anyone is running this right wing religious show on CHR radio. I have heard the weekend and daily show, and I just don't get it. Seems like a horrible fit for CHR radio to me.

Are you serious? Right wing religious show? Have you seen the ratings? And listened to the REAL content?

Probably not.

Yeah, I've heard the current Dawson McAllister show as well as the former show he used to do several years ago on Contemporary Christian Radio. And honestly, I can't tell much difference. It might not be an outright religious show but it is certainly implied and definately comes off as "preachy" to me. I really can't understand why it would have that big of an appeal to teens. I know back when I was a teen, I would have certainly been turned off by this.


To me, he comes off about the same as Dr. Phil on TV or Dr. Laura on talk radio. It's one thing to do an objective talk show (I think Dr. Joy Browne is one of the best at that); but it's another thing to be overly preachy and have an "agenda" in what you steer the callers toward. And McAllister definately has a right wing view on everything. Just look at his website. With him, certain issues are never based on the callers own personal situation and decisions as to what is right for them, but instead they are always based on McAllister's religious based viewpoints towards all issues.

Anyway, I'm not wanting to argue. I'm just saying that the show and McAllister's views certainly don't appeal to me and it is an immediate button pusher when I hear him on. Just not my cup of tea. I can hear the same type of views on about 100 religious AM (hollar' for a dollar') stations in my area if I want that.

I think it is an excellent show. The first time I heard it, I said... "WOW, we've gotta get that on our station". And we have it. Very relatable to a lot of kids, teens, and EVEN ADULTS.

Mainstream, right wing views (even tho I don't think any politicial anything is involved in Dawson's show) are needed in this country to stop corrupting the people that are my age (20) by people like Barack Obama and how it's "cool" to be a liberal and cool to want Obama to win. I know a lot of kids my age that will be voting for Obama, but are shocked when I ask them if they know the things he stands for and what he wants to do.

 

[ilistentotheradio]

I launched this show on my last station. I'm very liberal, but "know God" isn't that offensive. You'll definitely overlook it when your book comes back a 50 share, for 2 hours.

 

[rubberchicken]

Bringing this back to the top as it looks like Clear Channel is rolling this show out on alot of their signals next week.

Starting Monday mostly, some at later dates, On-Air is coming to:
WAKS/Cleveland, WRVW/Nashville, WQEN/Birmingham, WAKZ/Youngstown, WJJS/Roanoke, WZBQ/Tuscaloosa.

Surely there are others as well. From everything I've heard, this is being forced on the PDs, they don't want to carry the show. Just what I've been told. On more than one occasion.

 

[porkythepig]

If CC GF is so short staffed, why replace Amy with Seacrest? Wouldn't GF want a warm body in the building to help with remotes, etc? Here's a thought, how about hiring someone from out of the market? There has to be more than 1 qualified female jock who's on the beach that would work in GF. Instead CC is putting Seacrest on to save a salary in an already short staffed building and that is ridiculous. Nobody is technically losing a job in GF but CC is eliminating a position and that is much worse. Once a shift is cut it's gone forever.

And don't think for a moment that CC won't do a mandated Seacrest rollout nationwide. That's how they work, eliminating live jocks one market at a time. They did that with Carson Daly. They need to pay back that $19 billion somehow.

One of the issues in the radio industry today is the lack of thinking about the long term future. Corporations (I'm not cherry picking anyone particular) want short term profits to keep stockholders happy. I don't blame them, you need some way to invest in your venture. Part of the lack of future talent is the fact that the industry isn't looking for new talent. Programmers aren't encouraged to find and train up and coming talent to do an awesome show. Radio needs talent to supplement the music. Liner cards don't do the trick, sorry. Jukebox formats such as JACK FM are just that, jukeboxes. Why listen to the radio if you can listen to THEIR personalized jukebox (the iPod)?

Today's 12-17 and 18-34's will be the future 25-54 money demographic. Yet in an industry that focuses on short term profit, there's a lack of effort for another generation of radio listeners who are otherwise growing up on iPod's. You need listeners in order bring results to your clients, otherwise they go buh bye from your station.

Ryan is talented but putting his show on every Hot AC and CHR station isn't going to solve anything in the long term. It's the same reason why not every rock station has Bob & Tom in the morning drive. Why replace compelling talent that already brings ratings for a syndicated show, just to save money?

I had to vent. I have nothing personal against any company. I don't necessarily agree with what they do (e.g. Jan Jeffries doing company wide adds) Alot of talent work and get paid, I respect that. People don't consume music and radio like they used to.

 

[Roger That]

If CC GF is so short staffed, why replace Amy with Seacrest? Wouldn't GF want a warm body in the building to help with remotes, etc? Here's a thought, how about hiring someone from out of the market? There has to be more than 1 qualified female jock who's on the beach that would work in GF. Instead CC is putting Seacrest on to save a salary in an already short staffed building and that is ridiculous. Nobody is technically losing a job in GF but CC is eliminating a position and that is much worse. Once a shift is cut it's gone forever.

And don't think for a moment that CC won't do a mandated Seacrest rollout nationwide. That's how they work, eliminating live jocks one market at a time. They did that with Carson Daly. They need to pay back that $19 billion somehow.

One of the issues in the radio industry today is the lack of thinking about the long term future. Corporations (I'm not cherry picking anyone particular) want short term profits to keep stockholders happy. I don't blame them, you need some way to invest in your venture. Part of the lack of future talent is the fact that the industry isn't looking for new talent. Programmers aren't encouraged to find and train up and coming talent to do an awesome show. Radio needs talent to supplement the music. Liner cards don't do the trick, sorry. Jukebox formats such as JACK FM are just that, jukeboxes. Why listen to the radio if you can listen to THEIR personalized jukebox (the iPod)?

Today's 12-17 and 18-34's will be the future 25-54 money demographic. Yet in an industry that focuses on short term profit, there's a lack of effort for another generation of radio listeners who are otherwise growing up on iPod's. You need listeners in order bring results to your clients, otherwise they go buh bye from your station.

Ryan is talented but putting his show on every Hot AC and CHR station isn't going to solve anything in the long term. It's the same reason why not every rock station has Bob & Tom in the morning drive. Why replace compelling talent that already brings ratings for a syndicated show, just to save money?

I had to vent. I have nothing personal against any company. I don't necessarily agree with what they do (e.g. Jan Jeffries doing company wide adds) Alot of talent work and get paid, I respect that. People don't consume music and radio like they used to.

I agree with your points for the most part. Couple of questions to pose to the group, though, based on some of your points:

- You say "Why replace compelling talent that already brings ratings for a syndicated show, just to save money?"...I ask...are there a large amount of examples of this with Seacrest? If you look at the contract, Seacrest ain't exactly cheap (though less than a local body could live on), and when you look at Steve Harvey, Bob & Tom, Bubba the LS, etc...high-performing syndication is NOT cheap. Not everyone is saving the truckloads of cash that you think they are. If they eliminate a body for a cheap voicetracker at a couple grand a year, yes...that would save them some dough. But that's not what this post was originally about.

- Seacrest is only a 3 hour show...are there really a large amount of people getting displaced, corporate cram-down or not? What live body only has a 3 hour shift that could be easily replaced with this? With all the duties live bodies are expected to perform OFF the air, adding to that and maintaining their own 2-3 hour shift on the air could still be a viable option for the station. Who's getting fired for this show to air?

- Corporate culture may lead to your statement in which "Programmers aren't encouraged to find and train up and coming talent to do an awesome show," but since when does that mean that you can't do it anyway? Just because most programmers are "too busy" (or too lazy) to teach and train, doesn't mean that it's the corporate baddies that caused that. People like to use various levels of management that they can't see or talk to as their scapegoat for not doing their job properly. Unless you're a PD with literally NO subordinates, you have people within your scope that you can teach and make better.

 

[porkythepig]

My bad... high performing syndication isn't cheap. I agree with your points. I'm a bit partial that I used to work for that building.

Maybe "mandate" was a little strong... how about "strongly suggested" that they add Seacrest. The hardest part about Amy leaving is that they have to find somebody to board op Sioux (Univ. of ND) sports. Trust me, they'll do something like reward a hard working part timer and move him/her to full time which is a great way to do business IMO. I doubt Amy moving had much to do anything in terms of Seacrest, he was going to be on the air... Amy or no Amy. CC runs a good ship over there and until Leighton upgrades its talent, they will forever play catch up with Leighton.

The last CHR competitor to try to give XL a run was "More Music 104.3", there were lots of reasons why they never cracked a 3 share and XL was getting double digits, it's on the other message board if you look it up. They went back to AC and they're actually making an impact in the market now.

Everyone has opinions, just don't burn bridges. I totally disagree with the whole "CC only does cookie cutter radio" mentality.

I for one, argue that Radio needs more and bigger stars, and to keep the stars it has. It's not about the money, and yet it is all about the money. That is the paradox. Pay is determined at time of agreement by the marketplace.

 

[Roger That]

I hear ya. I don't know anything about that particular cluster, but DO know from experience that once you eliminate a position, you rarely (if ever) get it back. It's a total pain in the ass to make happen.

 

[porkythepig]

You probably meant "CC runs a good ship over there and until Leighton upgrades its talent, they will forever play catch up with CC," right?

thx for correcting my post.

No worries roger, I moved on to another gig in another market.

 

[The Truthsayer]

I hear ya. I don't know anything about that particular cluster, but DO know from experience that once you eliminate a position, you rarely (if ever) get it back. It's a total pain in the ass to make happen.

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

 

[porkythepig]

I hear ya. I don't know anything about that particular cluster, but DO know from experience that once you eliminate a position, you rarely (if ever) get it back. It's a total pain in the ass to make happen.

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

Aimee, midday girl, who was full time is leaving... they could give Aimee's full time spot to the night guy, who was hourly and has paid his dues. Instead of finding an hourly part timer, they (xl) ride the wave of pop culture and go with Ryan Seacrest for 3 hours. Yes, he will burn out, but he isn't going anywhere, anytime real soon. If there is one station that has kept local, live programming over the years... it's XL. 3 hours (and 6 more if you include overnight) out of 24 isn't too bad. Let's see, they could be like Hot 97.5 in Bismarck and have a syndicated morning show (Kidd Kraddick) and a jockless midday. Or like Z94 in Minot and have Bob & Sheri syndicated morning show and voicetrack the rest of the day, mostly out of market. No, I would say XL is about as close to old school live and local as it gets for small markets these days. Y94 in Fargo is also live and local but I think weekends are voicetracked. Seacrest will sound just fine, no doubt, but it is always sad when a local voice has to come off (Aimee is moving so nobody is losing a job in this case) of the air for some company mandate.

 

[Roger That]

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

LOL...don't you work for Cumulus? Pot, meet kettle. And wasn't it Cumulus that added a considerably SIMILAR option in Billy Bush? Any reason why you aren't crying over the supposed people that will be out of jobs because of THAT?

Again, I ask: how many people are really getting fired over this? It's a THREE HOUR SHOW. Who, these days, has a 3 hour airshift that can be easily replaced with this?

 

[porkythepig]

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

LOL...don't you work for Cumulus? Pot, meet kettle. And wasn't it Cumulus that added a considerably SIMILAR option in Billy Bush? Any reason why you aren't crying over the supposed people that will be out of jobs because of THAT?

Again, I ask: how many people are really getting fired over this? It's a THREE HOUR SHOW. Who, these days, has a 3 hour airshift that can be easily replaced with this?

lol he's got a beef with CC... in most cases the jock's airshift is reduced by a couple hours. If anything, XL's been the most "live and local" as you can get for small market CHR these days.

That Bismarck CHR that's owned by your company, Truthsayer, has Kidd Kraddick in AM drive, jockless middays and weekends are mostly jockless except syndicated shows. They have yet to dominate the market like the previous CHR did and like XL has.

 

[jsu5381m]

Question,

what happens if Ryan gets sick, or goblins chop off his hair in the middle of the night, who will host the show? Will they do a best of then or have a celebrity guest spot on the show?

 

[RonRoberts]

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

LOL...don't you work for Cumulus? Pot, meet kettle. And wasn't it Cumulus that added a considerably SIMILAR option in Billy Bush? Any reason why you aren't crying over the supposed people that will be out of jobs because of THAT?

Again, I ask: how many people are really getting fired over this? It's a THREE HOUR SHOW. Who, these days, has a 3 hour airshift that can be easily replaced with this?

Have you not been reading All Access everytime a station picks up Seacrest? I mean, I've not kept a running tab, but seriously, MANY jocks have had their shifts eliminated with the story ending with the jock's personal e-mail address and some pleasant note about the PD eliminating the jock from the payroll offering a terrific endorsement of said canned jock.


Folks, make no mistake; this is part and parcel as to why radio's in decline, at the stock market, in monthly revenues, and in essence, in the minds of its audience.

People weren't tuning into 'Idol' because Seacrest hosted it.

An 'On the Air' listener won't ever be meeting Seacrest at a holiday parade, fall festival, station event, and CERTAINLY won't be calling in and making a request to said DJ.

And those who lament the higher-ups for making decisions that'll result in lesser ratings... get with it. These uber-businessmen aren't as interested in ratings when they can bring down the botom line. Less overheard with slightly lower ratings can (and will) result in more profit....

...until nobody listens to radio anymore, anyhow.

CL KING & ASSOCIATES consultant Jim Boyle mentioned, today on AllAccess that radio CEOs are in denial, and he's right. He says they have to change their way of thinking (and again, he's right) or this decline will continue.

Putting Seacrest on in Dubuque, Iowa or Amarillo, Tx or Erie, Pa isn't making a radio station a BETTER station; it's making that station (temporarily, anyhow) a more profitable station with declining listener interest.

Locusts, folks. Many of these companies are run by locusts.

 

[porkythepig]

good post

 

[The Truthsayer]

Cookie cutter radio. Brought to you by the fine folks at Clear Channel. Eliminating local airshifts one market at a time.

LOL...don't you work for Cumulus? Pot, meet kettle. And wasn't it Cumulus that added a considerably SIMILAR option in Billy Bush? Any reason why you aren't crying over the supposed people that will be out of jobs because of THAT?

Again, I ask: how many people are really getting fired over this? It's a THREE HOUR SHOW. Who, these days, has a 3 hour airshift that can be easily replaced with this?

I do work at Cumulus. Why do most people have a beef with Cumulus on this board? I have no issues with them and they know what they are doing. Cumulus is ran tighter because they are trying to appeal to the stockholders. Stockholders are what keeps a well oiled machine running. Clear Channel is run the same way, duh. RATINGS = REVENUE. IF YOU DON'T GET RATINGS, YOU DON'T MAKE MONEY.

Jan Jeffries gets country and CHR, and Val Garris gets Rock/Alternative formats for VP of Programming, but they give the local PDs control of most aspects of their station. Jan Jeffries and Val are very good programmers who care about the product.

The Cumulus CHR stations are in pretty small markets except for KRBE and Q100. Guidance is really important in this kind of situation, as you are often dealing with new PDs or PDs without a great deal of experience. Jan Jeffries comes from smaller markets and had some huge successes in places like Roanoke. Larger markets have more local decision making (although in every case the mantra is "follow the research and the chart"), but still have guidance from Jan.

I said this before, Cumulus has many winning CHR stations, so they know what they are doing:

Q100 is beating Star 94 in Atlanta
104.1 KRBE is beating Hot 95.7 in Houston
Hot 101 is beating Q92 (WDJQ)/Canton in Youngstown and is also beating 95.9 Kiss FM
Q92.3 is beating Z102.9/Cedar Rapids in Waterloo
Hot 104.7 is beating 99.7 KKCK/Marshall, MN in Sioux Falls
In the Quad Cities, All Hit 98.9 flipped to K-Love and B100 is the winner.
In Bismarck, Y93 went AC and Hot 97.5 is the winner.
In Mobile, if they thought CHR could make more money than country, Hot 104 would've forced WABB (97.5) out of format.
Hot 92 (WWKL) is beating both 99.3 Kiss FM and FM 97 (WLAN)/Lancaster in Harrisburg.
Tower 98.3 was beating 92.5 Kiss FM in Toledo in the 18-34 demo and will beat Kiss again.
106.9 KROC/Rochester, MN beat 98.7 Kiss FM in Mason City, IA so they flipped it to Kiss Country 98.7
KROC is beating Z93 (WIZM)/La Crosse, WI in Rochester

Oh, PS... all those "balanced" CHR's are getting their ass kicked by Urbans and Rhythmics in key demos. Play less rock, play catchy, melodic hip-hop and you will win.

RATINGS=REVENUE. If your audience doesn't want rock music, YOU DON'T GET RATINGS, YOU DON'T MAKE MONEY. And they flip your favorite "balanced" CHR. Boo hoo.

OR in order to appeal to the MONEY DEMO (25-54), they lean Hot AC (at least in the daytime) like what Cumulus does at many stations to compete with the Hot AC. But if there are too many stations chasing the money demo and not enough targetting young people, it makes more sense to lean rhythmic, you get ratings and make money leaning rhythmic. BALANCE DOES NOT WORK IN 2008! IT'S TOO FRAGMENTED.

KBKS will soon either flip format or lean rhythmic so it can play catch up with KUBE.

PS again... would someone rather listen to a sucky "live and local" no-talent hack or a compelling voicetracked out of market talent like Kane, Randi West or Ryan Seacrest? Now you know why Clear Channel is mandating Ryan Seacrest on its stations. The people loosing jobs to Ryan are ones that aren't as talented as Ryan. COOKIE CUTTER IS GOOD IF IT'S WHAT THE LISTENERS WANT. OR WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE YOUR LOCAL MCDONALDS SERVING CAT FOOD BECAUSE IT'S "CUSTOMIZED TO YOUR MARKET"? Oh, all you piss ant board opp's who are slamming Seacrest, let's hear your aircheck, next to his. Go back to teching your Twins game.

 

[Beejus]

I said this before, Cumulus has many winning CHR stations, so they know what they are doing:

Q100 is beating Star 94 in Atlanta
104.1 KRBE is beating Hot 95.7 in Houston
Hot 101 is beating Q92 (WDJQ)/Canton in Youngstown and is also beating 95.9 Kiss FM in 12+ and 25-54
Q92.3 is beating Z102.9/Cedar Rapids in Waterloo
Hot 104.7 is beating 99.7 KKCK/Marshall, MN in Sioux Falls
In the Quad Cities, All Hit 98.9 flipped to K-Love and B100 is the winner.
In Bismarck, Y93 went AC and Hot 97.5 is the winner.
In Mobile, if they thought CHR could make more money than country, Hot 104 would've forced WABB (97.5) out of format.
Hot 92 (WWKL) is beating both 99.3 Kiss FM and FM 97 (WLAN)/Lancaster in Harrisburg.
Tower 98.3 was beating 92.5 Kiss FM in Toledo in the 18-34 demo and will beat Kiss again.
106.9 KROC/Rochester, MN beat 98.7 Kiss FM in Mason City, IA so they flipped it to Kiss Country 98.7
KROC is beating Z93 (WIZM)/La Crosse, WI in Rochester

You said this before, and others had pointed out how in many of the situations you posted... the "losing" station is on a stick 50 miles outside of the market and isn't even targeting the area.

 

[The Truthsayer]

You said this before, and others had pointed out how in many of the situations you posted... the "losing" station is on a stick 50 miles outside of the market and isn't even targeting the area.

But if that out of market stick is actually any better than the local station, listeners will seek for the weaker signal! But they don't. Otherwise KZIA would beat Q92.3 in Waterloo. Or KKCK's glory days of 6 and 7 shares in Sioux Falls during the 90s wouldn't have halted when Hot 104.7 (KKLS) signed on in 1998. Same thing in Waterloo: KZIA's glory days halted when KKHQ signed on.

 

[porkythepig]

You said this before, and others had pointed out how in many of the situations you posted... the "losing" station is on a stick 50 miles outside of the market and isn't even targeting the area.

But if that out of market stick is actually any better than the local station, listeners will seek for the weaker signal! But they don't. Otherwise KZIA would beat Q92.3 in Waterloo. Or KKCK's glory days of 6 and 7 shares in Sioux Falls during the 90s wouldn't have halted when Hot 104.7 (KKLS) signed on in 1998. Same thing in Waterloo: KZIA's glory days halted when KKHQ signed on.

Or maybe those stations never targetted those markets so when a local station with a strong signal doing the same format came on serving the market, they went to the local station. Signal is a factor in ratings.

WIZM is a La Crosse station that's 60 miles away and doesn't even reach all of the Rochester market, yet alone target! It's about as logical as saying KROC is beating KDWB in Rochester.

The only game in town SHOULD be winning by default!

 

[Roger That]

Have you not been reading All Access everytime a station picks up Seacrest? I mean, I've not kept a running tab, but seriously, MANY jocks have had their shifts eliminated with the story ending with the jock's personal e-mail address and some pleasant note about the PD eliminating the jock from the payroll offering a terrific endorsement of said canned jock.

Well...since you asked...yes, I have. Unfortunately, I can't post content from another site on here, but a quick search of "seacrest" on Net News yields the following:

WFLZ/Tampa - Seacrest In, Moran out (example of yes, someone losing their gig. Question...if she was worth keeping, why find someone else for 10a-1p? She wasn't valuable enough to keep from replacing altogether?)
WRVW/Nashville - Who lost their gig? Doesn't say
WAKS/Cleveland - Michelle works at KQI in Detroit, so even though this shift was shorter, it was VT'd anyway...no loss of gig.
WIHT/DC - Vibegrrl out. I hear she was out a couple week prior, but I digress. Was she doing anything other than middays? Who only has one gig nowadays? A cushy shift-only non-descript midday person is likely to get the axe, Seacrest or not.
WFKS/Jacksonville - Who lost their gig? Doesn't say
WXXL/Orlando - shifts "shifted"...no loss of gig
KIMN/Denver - No one lost their gig
WAEB/Allentown - shifts "shifted"...no loss of gig
WSNE/Prov - doesn't say

There's your All Access running tab. That's two out of nine that seem to have gotten canned as a direct result of this scary Seacrest/Billy Bush experiment. Where's all the aforementioned bloodshed?