Still Number One-est!

[DrAkbar]

KFYI again places first in the Fall P2 (Sep-Oct-Nov). And it just sounds worse for KT'R-FM, tied at number 10-est. (let's see how the Master Blogger spins this one :!) Cheer up M.B. - Movin' is 23rd-est and has even less of a clue than you!

 

[Bug on the rug]

Any breakouts, like Ankarlo, JD or would-you-like-fries-with-that-puny-Mac w/cheese Watson?

 

[DaveFic]

News on FM traditional hasn't worked. It's been tried in LA, San Diego, Dallas, and countless other markets. When will they learn??

 

[kzewdude]

<<News on FM traditional hasn't worked. It's been tried in LA, San Diego, Dallas, and countless other markets. When will they learn??>>

Fact is, FM talk is working. New Jersey 101.5. KFTK in St. Louis. WPGB in Pittsburgh is beating KDKA 25-54. FM Talk, the t and a variety, didn't work.

 

[newsgodaz]

Congratulations to the pros at KFYI! Job well done! Yet again!

 

[DrAkbar]

KFWhyEye is good, but KT'R is badder and that keeps 5~Fifty on top. The Master Blogger has only managed to screw it up more during the past year and will find a large lump of coal in his stocking this Xmas! If TMISU want to win, the M.B. needs to blog for someone else. As Nurse Jeff and I've said all along, the best man for the job is the Chick Boss. Someone needs to remind her that it doesn't snow in Phoenix in the winter!

 

[KOHS]

I wish I could recall the exact date and time that I was flipping between the TOH newscasts at KTAR and KFYI, but I can't. Suprisingly, KTAR--which boasts the best local coverage--lead with a national story and barely covered any local stories. KFYI, however, with its depleted news staff, lead with a local story and focused mainly on local stories.

 

[DrAkbar]

I wish I could recall the exact date and time that I was flipping between the TOH newscasts at KTAR and KFYI, but I can't. Suprisingly, KTAR--which boasts the best local coverage--lead with a national story and barely covered any local stories. KFYI, however, with its depleted news staff, lead with a local story and focused mainly on local stories.

F.U.B.A.R.

 

[Legend City]

Russ is not doing a good job.

Does this mean he will revamp everything again?

After all, its been nearly 3 months since the last major change.

 

[ajhenderson]

KFTK in St. Louis.

They do well enough for an FM station, but KMOX and KTRS beat them 12+. I believe Glenn Beck, for example, beats KMOX in his one hour in 25-54, but although this station does fairly well and is probably better for the market and for Emmis than having a tertiary music format, I wouldn't say it's setting the world on fire.

WPGB in Pittsburgh is beating KDKA 25-54.

WPGB is a very successful talk station but not because it's on FM. It's actually rather similar to KFYI, with Rush and Hannity, Savage, and Glenn Beck. Only difference is the baseball PBP. If there was more than 1 quality AM signal in that market, CC would have put talk on that and done just as well as KFYI has done overtaking KTAR on the same band.

Meanwhile, CC Twin Cities thought they could replicate PGB's success, but it ain't working. Minneapolis listeners have largely rejected 100.5 there. This is interesting because basically like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis has only 2 (alright 3, with KFAN) good AM signals, both of which are doing local talk and both of which do very well. CC could have done just as well putting their talk station on AM, but there were none that covered the entire market (or close to it) available.

FM Talk, the t and a variety, didn't work.

Some shows did, some didn't. It's hard to have a format where only five hours out of the day gets any listenership. In Washington, that's Don and Mike. In California/Arizona it's Tom Leykis. If "t&a talk" had dozens of Tom Leykis clones like political talk had a new Hannity wannabe every month, it would succeed, too.

 

[Lil Birdie]

Russ is not doing a good job. Does this mean he will revamp everything again? After all, its been nearly 3 months since the last major change.

Next move: Crummey replaces Mac Watson in PM drive early January. Dukes it out with J.D., the guy who replaced him at 550 KFYI. The smart money's on Crummey to win this slugfest.

 

[DrAkbar]

Next move: Crummey replaces Mac Watson in PM drive early January. Dukes it out with J.D., the guy who replaced him at 550 KFYI. The smart money's on Crummey to win this slugfest.

The Master Blogger is incapable of consuming that much crow...but it would be interesting :

 

[KMGX]

Some shows did, some didn't. It's hard to have a format where only five hours out of the day gets any listenership. In Washington, that's Don and Mike. In California/Arizona it's Tom Leykis. If "t&a talk" had dozens of Tom Leykis clones like political talk had a new Hannity wannabe every month, it would succeed, too.

You know I couldn't just let this go:

There are dozens of "T&A Talk" or as I call them "Stern ripoffs" doing /hot talk/. Guess what? Most of them are duds, without debating the merits of Tom Leykis, who has failed 4 times in Phoenix since departing KFYI (whether by his fault or not), the fact of the matter remains that hot-talk is a smaller, niche audience and subsequently even the best 'clones' have only marginal success. Look at Frosty, Heidi and Frank--no ratings in San Diego, no ratings in Phoenix, MARGINAL ratings in L.A. They attempted Syndication and it flopped miserably. Don & Mike's syndication was very similar to the response of FH&F, wherein they do okay in their home market and fail elsewhere for the most part.

Now on to KTAR / KFYI. Everyone was all over KFYI when they had one bad trend, but again they have continued to demonstrate their dominance in the market, there are two primary reasons why they dominate. 1) Content: They have good shows (even though I don't like Rush he's a big winner in the ratings) that overcome their awful IBOC'd sound that appeal to the general demographics of Phoenix. Jacobs, Young, Limbaugh totally dominate in the key demos 18-34M, 25-54M, 12+, etc. Even JD Hayworth--who everyone on this board said would last three months is doing pretty well . They put on CONSISTENT programming and have little variance of their elements/personalities which helps to establish a very loyal (high AQH) audience.

The other factor that keeps KFYI at the top is that they have competition that doesn't know it's ass from a hole-in-the-ground. Examples of their primary competitor's (KTAR) blunders are as follows:

1) KTAR has not had a consistent lineup since day one - While Ankarlo has been anchored into the 8:30-Noon slot since January, this is about the only thing that's held constant. Glenn Beck replaced Pat McBland, McBland replaced Ded Simons before that, Ded went to the afternoon snooze, Heidi was let go and replaced by Jamie West, the afternoon snewz was replaced by Mac Watson--yet another out-of-town guy who has some personality but does a basic toaster-talk/this is our topic for this hour type of radio; Mac is also very limited by the format of the afternoon clock where he is interrupted at every turn by traffic, weather, endless spots, news and clutter. Gaydos replaced Kidd who replaced Dave Burns. Phil Hendrie replaced Gaydos which replaced Clark Howard. The only consistent element is that the programming is completely inconsistent.

2) Tape delayed shows: Good lord, you have a talent like Phil Hendrie and you can't even figure out how to properly air his show. The show airs live from 11pm-2am MST, KTAR runs it from 10pm-1am MST--meaning the first hour of today's airing is actually the last hour of the previous day's show! A whopping 21 hour tape delay! Then the following two hours are live, any bit that Phil teases in the third hour won't be heard until TOMORROW (or later today in 21 hours). Glenn Beck is delayed 5 hours now (6 during DST). I understand that you can't interrupt that precious morning snewz that's getting trounced in the ratings, but maybe if you're going to go for the jugular on KFYI, you might want to actually put yourself in the best possible position to do so.

3) The great spinning wheel of format/philosophical programming ideas: Initially the focus of KTAR-FM was news with talk as the secondary feature. Obviously, KTAR felt that their news product was stronger than KFYI (or any other news/talk station in Phoenix) and I would say that overall such /was/ the case. Then, they decided to change the focus to a 50/50ish relationship where talk was more prominent, but still news had it's equal time (morning and afternoon blocks). This lasted all of a few months before KTAR went more toward KFYI with a very heavy emphasis on TALK. Too bad their emphasis on talk had many branches; first they touted themselves as not talking politics--but of course that's all Ankarlo did, so they shifted to "we're not republicans, we're not democrats" and they proceed to play clips in these promos wherein they have very conservative individuals speaking... huh? Then they completely did a 180 from the "because there's more to life than politics" platform by having a big batch of election imaging promoting their hosts would be "rocking the vote". Wow, talk about your radical inconsistencies.

4) This really ties in with all the rest, but deserves it's own bullet-point. KTAR can't even keep the same positioner for more than one ratings book. "News without the static", "Arizona's news, traffic and weather station", "FM News/talk 92-3, it just sounds better", and many others. While KFYI has hald the same positioners/sub-positioners the entire time.

I'm sure with all of those millions of dollars you threw into researching the move to FM, you must have run across the portion where listeners overwhelmingly say that they like consistency. The Phoenix market (and all markets for that matter) is much better with a good competition between stations, unfortunately the powers that be at KTAR are trying to re-invent the wheel rather than just stick with an idea for more than a few months and see how it goes. Right now the KFYI / KTAR battle is a hammer and nail relationship, wherein KFYI is the hammer and KTAR is the nail... believe it or not folks, there was a time when this wasn't the case, but that was pre-2002/2001.

 

[DrAkbar]

This lasted all of a few months before KTAR went more toward KFYI with a very heavy emphasis on TALK. Too bad their emphasis on talk had many branches; first they touted themselves as not talking politics--but of course that's all Ankarlo did, so they shifted to "we're not republicans, we're not democrats" and they proceed to play clips in these promos wherein they have very conservative individuals speaking... huh? Then they completely did a 180 from the "because there's more to life than politics" platform by having a big batch of election imaging promoting their hosts would be "rocking the vote". Wow, talk about your radical inconsistencies

You nailed it, KMGX.

The Master Blogger further alienates sports listeners with his on again off again approach to carrying the Cardinals post game show on FM. Most of the time the program goes to Sports Parking Lot 6~Twenty while 92~Three runs the audio portion of Sunday morning TV talk shows. Go figure.

If anyone thinks the M.B. is a creative programmer, give a listen to the Ankarlo/Pamela Hughes Xmas promo. Beyond sophmoric, it stoops to Gaydos level. What a joke!

Nurse Jeff and I feel sorry for those who drank his Kool Aid and cling to the dream that KT'R will regain past glories simply by being on FM. Aint gonna happen.

 

[Legend City]

Send Darryl to do special reports from Dallas, but don't hook up his mic, and don't tell him.

Play reruns of Dr.Demento in his place.

Hire back Scott Connor.

 

[j henry waugh]

Now on to KTAR / KFYI. Everyone was all over KFYI when they had one bad trend, but again they have continued to demonstrate their dominance in the market, there are two primary reasons why they dominate. 1) Content: They have good shows (even though I don't like Rush he's a big winner in the ratings) that overcome their awful IBOC'd sound that appeal to the general demographics of Phoenix. Jacobs, Young, Limbaugh totally dominate in the key demos 18-34M, 25-54M, 12+, etc. Even JD Hayworth--who everyone on this board said would last three months is doing pretty well . They put on CONSISTENT programming and have little variance of their elements/personalities which helps to establish a very loyal (high AQH) audience. ……………

/agree with just about the entire assessment here.

KFYI has an identity for conservative talk that's well established and now it seems that KTAR is settling for a "wannabee" competitor status, with inferior offerings (at least in that realm)…

…and they are suffering from an extreme identity crisis. Goodness, it take more to garner listenership than "news without static" or "it sounds better" because you're on FM, a state that probably hurts them, given that most all of the other talk stations (sans NPR daytime) are on the AM dial. It's "live and local", but that got battered before it even got a chance to get off the ground… …as did the non-politics, and now they're not even KFYI-lite, they're a wannabe never was…

But I will give them one point of consistency — no matter which theme du jour they wrap themselves in, it's still the same cookie cutter, statically scripted one/two topic per hour deal, with callers treated as fodder for the hosts to climb on their soapbox…

And are all the traffic/weather updates really needed when you can punch that up on your cellphone in seconds (and if not a majority now, by next 2 generations of cellphones (2-4 years), it will be a reality for 90%+ of people). Maybe once or twice an hour, but every 10 minutes?

 

[MASTER_CONTROL]

i was sure hoping ktar would start sounding like ksl (newsblocks).

 

[thenewz]

i was sure hoping ktar would start sounding like ksl (newsblocks).

let's review your posts for the last 4 years.

ktar sucks for having heywood
ktar sucks for not having heywood
ktar sucks for having preston
ktar sucks for not having preston
ktar sucks for having femino
ktar sucks for not having femino
ktar sucks for doing news shows
ktar sucks for not doing news shows
ktar sucks for having mcbland
ktar sucks for not having mcbland
ktar sucks for having dedsimons
ktar sucks for not having dedsimons

at least you been consistant in hating everything they have done for the last five years. i'm glad they got rid of mcbland and the snooze news.

 

[MASTER_CONTROL]

let's review your posts for the last 4 years.

ktar sucks for having heywood
ktar sucks for not having heywood
ktar sucks for having preston
ktar sucks for not having preston
ktar sucks for having femino
ktar sucks for not having femino
ktar sucks for doing news shows
ktar sucks for not doing news shows
ktar sucks for having mcbland
ktar sucks for not having mcbland
ktar sucks for having dedsimons
ktar sucks for not having dedsimons

at least you been consistant in hating everything they have done for the last five years. i'm glad they got rid of mcbland and the snooze news.

wrong.

go ahead and review my posts for the last five years..

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=536;sa=showPosts

 

[Legend City]

Wow, imagine that, another brand spanking new poster who knows everything!

gutless