Progressive talk takes a page from radio preachers

[bierkenstock]

Remember how the radio preachers used to close with something like, "to keep this ministery on the air, your contributions are needed."

Now the manager of the progressive talk station in Santa Cruz, California is saying, to keep liberal talk radio on the air, buy time...

From Radio Daily News:
<blockquote>Even in the nuclear-free zone of Santa Cruz, left-wing talk radio doesn’t sell well. Since programming content for local AM sister stations 1080 KSCO and 1430 KOMY made the great political split July 18, the liberal arm has been slow to hook advertisers. It’s so slow, station owner Michael Zwerling went on the air recently with an ad of his own threatening the future of progressive shows on KOMY. "For liberal programming to continue ... you need to support it," his ad said ... </blockquote>
(read more - Santa Cruz Sentinel)

I know some here will respond to this with unseemly glee. Others will go into "a river in Egypt." But if advertisers in a very blue market won't buy time on a progressive talk station, that's not good. Or maybe there's more to it...

Checking the 12+ numbers for the Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, CA market (rank number 77), the conservative talk sister station has numbers you'd expect from a progressive talk station; progressive talk KOMY does not appear at all. The dominant talker in the market (by far) is ABC's KGO out of San Francisco, which includes liberal hosts in its line-up. Maybe Franken is just no match for Ronn Ownes.

Also the liberal station seems to be treated as an after-thought in this duopoly. Apparently the two stations are locally owned. The owner wanted to mix liberal and conservative hosts. AAR talked him out of it. So he has a liberal and a conservative station. There is a website for the conservative station which includes only an audio link for the liberal station (but no information about it). No website at all for the liberal station. The conservative station is a mix of syndicated programming and infomercials (no wonder people listen to KGO down there).

Maybe the problem is this local owner just isn't a very good manager and hasn't been doing much to sell time on the station. You've got an apparent bottom-feeder up against one of the real class acts in talk radio. If I were a Santa Cruz drug store owner, I probably wouldn't be anxious to buy time on either station. But the typical repsonse of bad management is blame the format.

 

[Scribbler]

Station switched formats less than two months ago

> Checking the 12+ numbers for the Monterey-Salinas-Santa
> Cruz, CA market (rank number 77), the conservative talk
> sister station has numbers you'd expect from a progressive
> talk station; progressive talk KOMY does not appear at all.
> The dominant talker in the market (by far) is ABC's KGO out
> of San Francisco, which includes liberal hosts in its
> line-up. Maybe Franken is just no match for Ronn Ownes.

Or maybe you don't get instant ratings after changing formats to libtalk LESS THAN TWO MONTHS AGO! From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Zwerling brought Air America to the Central Coast in July.

(snip)

Many businesses buy ad time for both KOMY and KSCO to avoid alienating customers with political extremes, Olson said.

(snip)

Meanwhile, Olson said he never expected Air America to be an instant hit with advertisers.

Advertisers, he said, plan budgets many months in advance and Air America has been playing on KOMY less than two months.

Olson said it’s too soon to rush to judgment, though he believes Air America will one day hold its own.

 

[OldAkronite]

MZ and KOMY/KSCO

> Maybe the problem is this local owner just isn't a very good
> manager and hasn't been doing much to sell time on the
> station. You've got an apparent bottom-feeder up against
> one of the real class acts in talk radio. If I were a Santa
> Cruz drug store owner, I probably wouldn't be anxious to buy
> time on either station. But the typical repsonse of bad
> management is blame the format.

Your observations and suppositions are pretty much correct.

KSCO/KOMY's manager, Michael Zwerling, is off-beat, to say the least. He's often populated his stations with hosts doing shows for free, or who are brokering the time. Not that it hasn't uncovered talent - the oft-mentioned Brian Maloney, known these days for his "Radio Equalizer" blog, went from KSCO, to afternoon drive at KKOH ("NewsRadio 780 KOH") in Reno, and then into the Seattle market.

As far as the brokered time hosts are concerned (I'm pretty sure Brian was not in that list), the Monterey/Salinas/Santa Cruz market is full of 'em... at one point, hosts could also buy time on KNRY/1240 and its then-sister station at 540 AM.

And that brings another thing into the equation - 540 is now full-time liberal talk KRXA, run by what appears to be professional management. They pick up basically all the non-AAR liberal shows, and have a local show featuring long-time host and former San Francisco host Peter B. Collins, who's part of the ownership group.

On other fronts, you're right...KGO typically does very well down there, and its signal booms into the Monterey Bay area. Its ratings usually are somewhat higher than home-grown KSCO, even with Rush on 1080, which "made" that station. Clear Channel tried a news/talk competitor at 1460 AM, and even had Rush for a time, but retreated a year or so ago...1460 now runs standards.

Public radio is also pretty strong down there.

And as for KSCO/KOMY's owner, well, let's just say he put a "feeler" up on his website a few months ago that he was considering switching one or both stations to SPANISH LANGUAGE TALK.

If there's a market for commercial, local liberal talk in Monterey/Salinas/Santa Cruz, it could likely be proven not by Mr. Zwerling, but by Mr. Collins and his group. The "sponsor us or the format dies" thing out of MZ is not a surprise to anyone, even to Mr. Maloney, who worked for the guy.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>

 

[dampier]

> From Radio Daily News:
> Even in the nuclear-free zone of Santa Cruz, left-wing talk
> radio doesn’t sell well. Since programming content for local
> AM sister stations 1080 KSCO and 1430 KOMY made the great
> political split July 18, the liberal arm has been slow to
> hook advertisers. It’s so slow, station owner Michael
> Zwerling went on the air recently with an ad of his own
> threatening the future of progressive shows on KOMY. "For
> liberal programming to continue ... you need to support it,"
> his ad said ...

Here in Rochester, Entercom runs ads not only looking for salespeople to sell ad time on their cluster of stations, but also runs ads for "unique marketing opportunities" which means buying a block of airtime for a talk show or phone in on the weekends.

I am not sure if Zwerling is trying to tap into public radio-type begathon mentality, but it seems pointless to run ad campaigns looking for advertisers. Most clients need to be sold on why their company needs to have radio ads, and on a particular station. I'm not sure a public ad spot does that.

The bigger question is how much Zwerling has done to promote his station and format. Most of the AAR affiliates seem to have zero local promotion other than initial press pieces about a format change. AAR needs a younger demo, and these people don't even know AM exists. Guerilla marketing at the very least would seem to bring ratings up which would then make the station a natural for advertisers.

 

[clichemoth]

> Remember how the radio preachers used to close with
> something like, "to keep this ministery on the air, your
> contributions are needed."
>
> Now the manager of the progressive talk station in Santa
> Cruz, California is saying, to keep liberal talk radio on
> the air, buy time...
>
> From Radio Daily News:
> Even in the nuclear-free zone of Santa Cruz, left-wing talk
> radio doesn’t sell well. Since programming content for local
> AM sister stations 1080 KSCO and 1430 KOMY made the great
> political split July 18, the liberal arm has been slow to
> hook advertisers. It’s so slow, station owner Michael
> Zwerling went on the air recently with an ad of his own
> threatening the future of progressive shows on KOMY. "For
> liberal programming to continue ... you need to support it,"
> his ad said ...
> (read more - Santa Cruz Sentinel)
>
> I know some here will respond to this with unseemly glee.
> Others will go into "a river in Egypt." But if advertisers
> in a very blue market won't buy time on a progressive talk
> station, that's not good. Or maybe there's more to it...
>
> Checking the 12+ numbers for the Monterey-Salinas-Santa
> Cruz, CA market (rank number 77), the conservative talk
> sister station has numbers you'd expect from a progressive
> talk station; progressive talk KOMY does not appear at all.
> The dominant talker in the market (by far) is ABC's KGO out
> of San Francisco, which includes liberal hosts in its
> line-up. Maybe Franken is just no match for Ronn Ownes.
>
> Also the liberal station seems to be treated as an
> after-thought in this duopoly. Apparently the two stations
> are locally owned. The owner wanted to mix liberal and
> conservative hosts. AAR talked him out of it. So he has a
> liberal and a conservative station. There is a website for
> the conservative station which includes only an audio link
> for the liberal station (but no information about it). No
> website at all for the liberal station. The conservative
> station is a mix of syndicated programming and infomercials
> (no wonder people listen to KGO down there).
>
> Maybe the problem is this local owner just isn't a very good
> manager and hasn't been doing much to sell time on the
> station. You've got an apparent bottom-feeder up against
> one of the real class acts in talk radio. If I were a Santa
> Cruz drug store owner, I probably wouldn't be anxious to buy
> time on either station. But the typical repsonse of bad
> management is blame the format.

That's what it sounds like to me. Mediocre ownership and low-rent promotion would be the problem here, not the programming. KSCO has Rush, Savage, and O'Reilly, which should be a decent lineup, yet most of their day seems to be nothing but slimy infomercials. I'm guessing KOMY is nothing but AAR straight off the bird 24/7, unless they clog up a bunch of time with infomercials on it too. Of course nobody would listen to either station, especially with a regional heritage station like KGO as an option.


>

 

[ajhenderson]

Re: MZ and KOMY/KSCO

MZ can go from charming to a impossible to deal with over a short time. His management is weak, based on the fact that he bought the station just to get back at the previous owner who told him, while in high school, that he'd never amount to anything in radio.

Why Zwerling, who's top feature on KSCO is his dying mother's insipid commentaries, doesn't take a page from KNRY and broker more is beyond me. He developed "Dead Doctors Don't Lie" and syndicated it all over the place. Apparently with two, perhaps three, brokered outlets, no one in the market has figured out how to actually sell time. To me, I'd be pitching every business owner on doing a SHOW, not buying spots. Play to their egos, and fill KOMY with local paid programming all weekend long. That should pay the bills. And it's not as if there's anything else compelling coming down from AAR Sat/Sun anyway.