What you should be concerned about is the rapid decline of one of the country's top clear channel stations. When a station with as much prominence as KFI is diminished, that isn't just a station problem or an owner's problem, that is an industry problem.
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Shannon Farren Suspensions?
- Thread starter sdwulfdawg
- Start date
That “diminishing” of AM radio has been going on for half a century. It’s now reaching what had been the strongest stations.
There's really nothing "the industry" can do about it. Radio companies don't own the signals. They merely license them.
You want to see a heritage clear channel that is really diminished? Consider WSM 650 in Nashville. Not owned by a major company. Still with all live & local staff. But without a translator or FM simulcast, it has next to no listeners.
| 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | WSM-AM | 650 AM WSM | Classic Country | Ryman Hospitality | 12,300 |
How do you propose fixing it? It's not a programming problem. It's not a staffing problem. It's a usage problem. People have decided not to use it anymore.
One of the most interesting radio books I ever read (it's available in braille) was
Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Music in American Life): Havighurst, Craig: 9780252032578: Amazon.com: Books
Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Music in American Life) [Havighurst, Craig] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Music in American Life)
www.amazon.com
(Note that this is the Amazon page for this book.) Near the book's end, the author discusses the grave blunders WSM placed on itself. Its management team got rid of Opryland, an amusement park whose popularity helped to finance the station, for example. Anyway, at the time, there was some talk both inside and outside of the station about going noncommercial. (One of its jocks, Eddie Stubbs, had a blugrass/classic country show on NPR affiliate WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C. at the time.) I'm guessing now, given your post response, that it may be time for WSM to revisit that idea.
The radio station is a promotional tool for the Grand Ole Opry, which is a sponsored radio show. There really is no advantage to being non-commercial in that context. With cuts coming in federal funding, you'll see public radio in trouble too. The main thing management has done is broaden the number of platforms the station uses. So there's a digital TV station where people can watch the morning show. There's the streaming station, available worldwide. They had a deal with Sirius for a while.
The theme park shut down 30 years ago. It really didn't "finance" the radio station. It's main beneficiaries were the hotel and the cable channel TNN. They shut the theme park down when the insurance company that owned the complex sold it to Gaylord Broadcasting in Oklahoma. That turned out to be terrible for every part of the company. TNN also shut down. They reinvented themselves in the 2000s as primarily a hotel and restaurant company.
Once again, the issue here is that people don't listen to AM radio. If you go back 20 years, WSM was more competitive in the ratings. But there are no AM stations (including the clear channel WLAC) that are competitive in Nashville anymore. The buggy whip comparison comes to mind. The bigger problem is that broadcast radio usage (not just AM) is also way down. So AM is the canary in the coal mine.
Do these figures include their Listen Live App? If they do, I guess they really are in trouble!
Most of the online listening is out of market, so it wouldn't show up in the Nashville book.
How come radio stations can sell or tout the number of those listening via streaming?
Don't understand your question.
Radio stations know exactly how many streamers they have from their server data. Not Nielsen.
Just keep in mind that the changes in AQH (Average Quarter Hour) listening levels seen with KFI Ane actually a bit less than the overall AQH decline in the market. This is a radio issue more than just a KFI issue.
The same applies to talk stations in quite a number of markets.
NO. Once again this forum brings out the most confident of speculation from the most uninformed of users.
Shannon has always taken off more time than other hosts, and is absent from the show more often than is typical. This is primarily because of the tremendous amount of extra work and travel she has in her second role as sideline reporter for the Chargers. She has not been suspended. At all.
Some of you are real drama queens
Football sideline reporter in June/July? Come up with a better excuse, bud.NO. Once again this forum brings out the most confident of speculation from the most uninformed of users.
Shannon has always taken off more time than other hosts, and is absent from the show more often than is typical. This is primarily because of the tremendous amount of extra work and travel she has in her second role as sideline reporter for the Chargers. She has not been suspended. At all.
Some of you are real drama queens
She has acknowledged in the past her suspensions for on-air blurps.
As such a great expert, what is your connection to her? Time to fess up in your role as her great apologist. Her agent?
NO. Once again this forum brings out the most confident of speculation from the most uninformed of users.
Shannon has always taken off more time than other hosts, and is absent from the show more often than is typical. This is primarily because of the tremendous amount of extra work and travel she has in her second role as sideline reporter for the Chargers. She has not been suspended. At all.
Some of you are real drama queens
My post history here demonstrates my actual knowledge and accuracy about what happens (and doesn’t) at iHeart LA.
What a total obfuscation of your original point. By answering as you have, you just conceded the shaky foundation of your defense.
Don't get me wrong, I like Shannon Farren. But her occasional potty mouth/crude behavior makes Gary Hoffman cringe as well as their audience and that's what gets the attention of management.
I don't listen to their show (I find it boring), but I remember Shannon from her days anchoring the news for John & Ken (and as a reporter before that) so I know she at least has an interesting personality, unlike that Hoffmann guy. It would be a mistake to get rid of her and keep him, IMHO.
They mesh well together
This is troubling, KFI has stopped running promotional spots for Gary and Shannen, haven't heard any for 2 days now. Will listen to Thursdays show to hear if anything new regarding this.
The next day (Saturday the 28th) she posted a photo on Instagram from Colorado. Are you sure Gary wasn't doing the old radio gag of saying his on air partner was suspended when she was just on vacation?
Could be worse. I worked with two guys at KTAR in Phoenix (2000-2004) who didn't get along so great. When one of them went on vacation, the other one mentioned that I'd be sitting in for him----while the regular host recovered from gender re-assignment surgery.
After the news, I said "(Host) was joking. (Other host) is on vacation, not having gender re-assignment surgery."
At which point the guy who made the joke, still gathering his stuff in the studio, leaned in to the mic and said "You're right, Mike. I was joking. (Name)'s been a woman as long as I've worked with him."
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