The cuts were made to cut costs, not to make the shows more interesting. The creative challenge for the programmers and the people left behind is to adjust to the new realities. Maybe its time for these shows to become more inclusive and take listener calls or do interviews with newsmakers or seek out entertaining features they can do that don't involve paid staff. That's where creativity & entertaining comes in. That's not going to come from corporate. They're not there to tell the host how to entertain. That's why they hired these hosts. A lot of these hosts have been doing the same old thing for years, and never had the need to change. Now they've been forced to re-evaluate what they do and how they do it. That will affect both them and their listeners.
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Steve Gregory and more fired from KFI
- Thread starter DoctorWu
- Start date
The cuts were made to cut costs, not to make the shows more interesting. The creative challenge for the programmers and the people left behind is to adjust to the new realities. Maybe its time for these shows to become more inclusive and take listener calls or do interviews with newsmakers or seek out entertaining features they can do that don't involve paid staff. That's where creativity & entertaining comes in. That's not going to come from corporate. They're not there to tell the host how to entertain. That's why they hired these hosts. A lot of these hosts have been doing the same old thing for years, and never had the need to change. Now they've been forced to re-evaluate what they do and how they do it. That will affect both them and their listeners.
I know the cuts aren't limited to iHeart. Cumulus is making more cuts in San Francisco. 2 show hosts from KNBR, and 1 from KBLX.
There are more to come I'm sure. And really will there ever be an end to the cost cutting until there simply is no 'product' left, or listeners for that matter.
There are more to come I'm sure. And really will there ever be an end to the cost cutting until there simply is no 'product' left, or listeners for that matter.
Unless there's a way to reverse the current loss of revenue, or come up with a new source of funding, there won't be an end to it.
The listeners started leaving back when stations had full staffing. It's been a long slow exodus of listeners and advertisers that is now catching up to the programming. There was a time when you could blame it on the greedy stockholders or greedy owners. That's not really the problem here. There's a direct connection between listeners moving to other media, and the loss of revenue. The size of the loss is massive. I read an article where the loss of revenue is as high as 40%.
But, in another board didn’t someone come up and provide stats that radio listening levels are nearly the same as they were 20 years ago? I can’t remember exactly what stat it was. I’ve long felt severely cutting was always premature and it was more to “future-proof” companies. I still feel there’s a significant amount of people who won’t subscribe to SiriusXM and other streaming services due to subscription overload. How are we so sure there won’t be a streaming bubble burst? Now, we’ve taken away, with financial reason, media options that could’ve been easily more accessible that tv or print.
People listen, but not as much. That's the problem. Advertisers can see where the listenership is concentrated, and it's not 24/7. So they're targeting their ad money to the times when people listen. That's why mid-days and after 7PM are the first things hit by cost cutting. The older the listener, the longer they listen. That's not the target advertisers want. KFI has a large audience, but most of it is over-55.
Spotify is reporting their listenership is up 12%. Those listeners came from someplace, right?
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No. Average listening levels 25 years ago were around 18 to 21 percent of all persons listening on average from 6 AM to Midnight. Today it is 5% to 6%.
Nearly as many people use radio each week as before, but they use about 70% less time.
I haven't ever seen specific numbers, so thanks for sharing, David.
Anecdotally, among my peers and younger (age 40 and below), radio listening is D.O.A. except for Tim Conway, Jr. for some reason.
I gave a guest lecture to some students at UCLA last year (not comms students, these were civil engineers). And afterward, for some reason I brought up KFI in conversation and said, "For old folks like me that still listen to radio."
And like one-third of the kids started saying "DING DONG" (Conway's catchphrase). So I'm not sure what that was about; if numbers bear that out, or if it was just a weird fluke. Maybe he spoke on campus once? Or maybe his show (via parents) connects with some Gen Z kids for some reason?
All I know is that KFI is special. And it's a damn shame that Steve Gregory show never got a chance to get off the ground.
Anecdotally, among my peers and younger (age 40 and below), radio listening is D.O.A. except for Tim Conway, Jr. for some reason.
I gave a guest lecture to some students at UCLA last year (not comms students, these were civil engineers). And afterward, for some reason I brought up KFI in conversation and said, "For old folks like me that still listen to radio."
And like one-third of the kids started saying "DING DONG" (Conway's catchphrase). So I'm not sure what that was about; if numbers bear that out, or if it was just a weird fluke. Maybe he spoke on campus once? Or maybe his show (via parents) connects with some Gen Z kids for some reason?
All I know is that KFI is special. And it's a damn shame that Steve Gregory show never got a chance to get off the ground.
Inside Radio has released a Top 10 news and news/talk stations. KFI ranks at #10 in cume:
www.insideradio.com
Typically higher TSL leads to lower cume, which may explain the difference between KFI and KNX.
WINS New York Rules America’s Top 10 News Radio Stations.
The latest edition of Inside Radio’s TOP 10 focuses on the most listened-to news and news/talk-formatted stations in Nielsen PPM markets, based on cume. Half of these 10 are Audacy
Typically higher TSL leads to lower cume, which may explain the difference between KFI and KNX.
Yeah... 80/20 leaves no room to pay any staff, along with FCC fees, local B&O taxes and licenses, power, billing/traffic/accounting, phone systems, technical help, etc...
The two worst I've come across are 1) the phone sellers that hard-sell local accounts with $50 spots, and station gets maybe $8.00, and 2) RURAL AMFM - who submits a client's order to the station with a 15% agency discount and another ruralamfm discount of 35-40%!!! Just this week I turned down an order that came out of the blue from RuralAMFM for 15 :30 spots, with the client paying $24.00 per spot but the net/net/net to us would be $11.74. I had to tell them "no" three times and then I stopped responding to his deceptive tactics.
For local sales, 20-22% commission seems to be the average, in many cases a salary plus 20% of anything over X amount. And typically a broadcaster will have a rep firm, the Agency representing the client takes 15%, and the rep firm takes 15% from the net.
And the problem is, is that radio....hell, all journalism, is fractured now. Back in the old days it seemed they just provided the "news" without bias [at least it seemed that way to me]. I'm old enough to remember how pissed the news anchors/reporters were about them being lied to by the government about how things were going so swimmingly well in Vietnam and after all was said and done, turns out it wasn't. How they were all in on trying to find evidence what shenanigans the White House was up to during the Watergate era. I think the senators of that era would be rolling over in their graves about what's going on nowadays. But nowadays you have "news" channels actively being mouthpieces for the government-shades of Pravda-to others that take a dim view of whatever anybody on the right/left spouts off about. My thinking is that the corporate behemoths that seem to own all the news channels [I think it's like 7 corporations now?] have an agenda to generate controversy but it the end it all comes down to "What's gonna make us the most money, get us the most ratings and keep the government out of our hair, truth be damned?" I don't see it getting any better in what's left of my lifetime. So instead of trying to appeal to the common denominator where you didn't didn't pander to either side, it's gone completely in the opposite direction. Switched to the BBC but now it's coming out that they're not as unbiased as I thought they were. When one of our local PBS stations carried a digital sub-channel that carried international programming from various international networks, MHz Networks if I remember correctly, I watched DW news out of Germany and France 24. They seemed to be the only ones that presented the news and views from both sides, let each have their say and went on to present the rest of the news with no editorializing and no rolling of the eyes, more of like "Here's what they're saying, make up your own mind about what they said."
And the end result may mean that they have a lot less listeners.
Or perhaps the public's view of what bias is has changed.
As I said, more of a mom & pop outfit. Maybe they could afford to do the 80/20 split because they were more or less set and didn't really need to take a huge chunk of change for themselves. They sure weren't giving it to us DJs. And like I said, I thought it may have been unrealistic, maybe only a couple of guys, the top salesmen were getting that as far as I know. I didn't really involve myself with the sales people since most of the times I worked overnights and saw them fleetingly. I do know when the memo came out announcing 20/80 a lot said "adios". They may have done that to get rid of some people because not long after I and a couple of other DJs had also been let go, they ended up selling the station to some corporation which was swallowed up a larger corporation, which sold off some of the stations in the group, which in turn was gobbled down by a bigger corporation. I think the "mom & pop" people sold it cause they were getting up there in age and none of their kids were interested in the broadcast business. If I had known that at the time I would have said "Adopt me!" cause I'd probably still be owner.
I would not say that is true enough to generalize.
Specialized formats, such as jazz and classical typically have lower cume but high TSL. Market exclusive formats also tend to have higher TSL than the market average. An example would be doubly-exclusive KLVE in LA, which is Spanish and also the only Spanish AC format in the market. Singe Urban AC stations will have a higher TSL but, often, lesser cume when a market has less than 30% to 35% Black residents. Soft AC will tend to have a higher than average TSL even if the cume is ranked lower.
Obviously, a lot depends on how well each station is programmed. Not all stations of one type will over-index in TSL, even if many do.
Had today's aging demographics and massive news layoffs been happening in the '70s, WKRP's motto would have been MOR music and NO Nesman.
I think you've identified the crux of things. "It's the exclusivity, stupid" will probably be radio's mantra going forward. Finding new things it can provide that nobody else can will probably be its only hope. Whether that means seeking out existing monopolies (like professional sports) and signing contracts to become their exclusive distributors for their audio-only coverage, or just generating new monopolies by finding new gigatalent (tomorrow's Wolfmans and Sterns) and signing it exclusively to radio and its accompanying streaming platforms, only having (good) things that force people to listen to radio ("get them here or not at all") will keep its audiences around in large numbers. Because everything else it does, the internet does better. Without making exclusivity its new primary focus, radio, like Cousin Eddie coasting into town on fumes, will continue to coast into its grave exclusively on the laurels it established with past young audiences -- who are now dwindling aging audiences -- until there aren't enough of them remaining to pay the power bills.
I'll add to that: once they've developed that talent, to then syndicate them nationally they way they have Seacrest, Woody, Bones, and Charlamagne so they attract national attention (often through other media) and national advertising. As successful as KFI is, it's success is as a single station in one market that isn't syndicatable to the rest of the country.
But they syndicate certain KFI shows, like Handel on the Law and The Jesus Christ Show and they used to syndicate Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy show, until he changed to just doing podcasts.
Both are just weekend shows. Not big billers.
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