Talk veteran David Gold- KLIF Dallas- subbing in Tampa

[Don62]

It wasn't a backhanded way. Many morning shows don't take calls.
It was good radio. I'm surprised that caliber of host isn't on in the afternoon drive.

I could care less about sports talk but hearing 560 in Miami go up against Glenn Beck on 610 was like Ruth Chris vs. McDonalds. 560's topics or the parody song the host ran -for the 20 minutes or so I listened - and it wasn't entirely about sports - ran circles around the satellite station.

Looking at 610's ratings, they're barely above 940, so that blows the theory that liberal talk doesn't work. And it also blows the theory that syndicated shows automatically are better and higher rated than local shows.

After all, Cheap Channel owns 3 of the market's biggest stations. I see little real radio in that outfit. Just money. Nothing more.

 

[Faraway]

Of course, the so-called satellite station beats everyone, but you're right, no one exactly kills. I don't think anyone in the industry has a hard time understanding why any kind of English speaking spoken word radio has a tough time in Miami.

I'm disappointed but not really surprised you ignored the other points I made which respond to your overall premise about talk radio.

One other thing - You say CC owns the "three biggests stations" in Miami. Please explain what you mean.

 

[Don62]

I read your post and yes, you make some good points. Sorry I neglected to say that.
Others here don't comment on many of my posts, like my reference to KMBZ-Kansas City.

Regarding my statement that CC owns the three largest stations in Miami, I should have phrased that "the three most rated talk radio stations."

http://******************/ratings.asp?market=429

Looking again, I noticed I lumped WJNO-1290, another talker, into the Miami market. It's in the W. Palm Beach - Boca Raton market, which still is essentially the same market.

Allow me to rephrase: CC owns the two highest rated talk radio stations in the Miami market.

 

[Radio_Realist]

I have to explain the importance of localism and programming to a city or community?

No, but we'd like to hear you explain how having someone park his keister in a local chair while he talks about the exact same things as the syndicated hosts talk about is truly "local". The "importance of localism and programming to a city or community" is local content. If the host isn't talking about local issues, then it where he sits when he talks doesn't mean a damn thing, and neither does how many other cities he's heard in at the same time.

If it isn't about local issues, then it isn't really "local".

Calling for hiring more "local" talk hosts who don't really do truly local shows is one of the silliest things I think I've ever heard, unless the person doing the calling happens to work as an agent for a large number of mediocre talk hosts who aren't good enough for syndication.

 

[smedge2006]

Just because a talk host isn't syndicated doesn't make him mediocre. Would you characterize Neil Rogers as mediocre? Ronn Owens? Everybody at WGN? Some hosts have an act that works in one city and doesn't work nationally. That's what a good local host is: somebody who gets the quirks of a particular community, and who can put issues -- local, national or otherwise -- through the prism of the unique culture that exists in Miami, San Francisco or wherever.

Another advantage to local hosts is that the ideological makeup of the lineup can reflect the ideological makeup of the community, rather than be dictated by what syndicated offerings are available. Before widespread syndication, talk radio in conservative cities was mostly conservative, in liberal cities mostly liberal, in middle-of-the-road cities a mix of the two.

 

[Radio_Realist]

Just because a talk host isn't syndicated doesn't make him mediocre.

No, but just because someone only works in local radio doesn't make him an icon, either.

However, all in all, succeeding in syndication is more difficult than succeeding in one market. I do not doubt that there are some hosts who prefer to work local over being syndicated. And some of them might have the talent to succeed in syndication, but they don't want the big paychecks.

But generally speaking, overall, looking at the big picture, and all the other appropriate cliches, it is reasonable to observe that the companies that syndicate talent successfully spend a great deal of resources on finding the best talent available to recruit to work for them. Syndicators seldom pursue the mediocre.

While the fact that someone who has been local for a long, long, time and never moved up to syndication might be because of a reason other than not being good enough to make it, that's still the safest bet to make. If you put your money on a local host being local because he's not good enough to go national, you won't win every time, but you'll end up on winning more bets than you'll lose.

 

[TheSpinMan]

Regardless of when he started, Gold wasn't good enough to make the jump to the major leagues of syndication. He remained at the level where his talent took him, which was no higher than being a local host.

That's your opinion.
There may have been many reasons why a host didn't go syndicated. There weren't as many syndicated networks then. He may not wanted to have relocated from Dallas, etc.

I'd like to know where your program airs and how many stations its on.

Or how many hosts you manage.

Reading your posts, you obviously haven't heard many local talk show hosts or seem to care, since you think they can't possibly have anything to say any different than the mouthpieces for Bush fed to stations by automation.

Man, you are really something. On every post where there is disagreement your response is to not address the issue and to turn it around as some kind of insult to whomever is disagreeing with you. You are a true David Gold fan.

 

[TheSpinMan]

Gold was pre-Limbaugh, his talk career began in 1976 and he was name-calling with the best of them when Limbaugh was still with the KC Royals. I'll believe Hewitts and Bennetts are the future when they start getting RATINGS (and when Bennett sounds more awake).

My point is that, whether they preceded him or not, talk radio was going nowhere until Limbaugh came along and revolutionized it. All kinds of minor talents benefitted from the explosion of talk that followed, with Gold being one of them. Now times have changed. I think if local talk is going to be successful, they will have to produce more thoughtful shows ala Hewitt and leave the name calling baloney to the nationals who can appeal to a national segment.

 

[Don62]

Regardless of when he started, Gold wasn't good enough to make the jump to the major leagues of syndication. He remained at the level where his talent took him, which was no higher than being a local host.

That's your opinion.
There may have been many reasons why a host didn't go syndicated. There weren't as many syndicated networks then. He may not wanted to have relocated from Dallas, etc.

I'd like to know where your program airs and how many stations its on.

Or how many hosts you manage.

Reading your posts, you obviously haven't heard many local talk show hosts or seem to care, since you think they can't possibly have anything to say any different than the mouthpieces for Bush fed to stations by automation.

Man, you are really something. On every post where there is disagreement your response is to not address the issue and to turn it around as some kind of insult to whomever is disagreeing with you. You are a true David Gold fan.

And you are a true Gold opponent. All you can do is bad mouth him and tell us how bad he is.

Gold was one of Dallas' top hosts when few stations were doing talk. I think KLIF was the talk pioneer then.

You say you hate to hear name calling, yet you get all rattled about a comparatively harmless word such as rats.

FemiNazi means nothing to you nor the other insulting words used by shock jocks.

Why not hold those hosts to standards higher than Gold who only apparently called some political hacks rats?

 

[TheSpinMan]

You just don't get it, do you? Dude, the only thing I am interested in is selling tires. Of course, since you are such a true believer, without even attempting to engage me in an exchange of views, you define who I am in some way that works for your world view. If not completely buying your line of crap, I must be some "political opponent of yours" or someone "who hates Gold". Hey, man, the world is a whole lot more complex than that. I'm trying to tell you why this guy is going boots up - I am not in business to piss off my potential customers, I'm in business to gain customers.

National talkers can get away with some insults (even that has limits, witness Imus) because they attract audiences that are profoundly in agreement with their views and do not attract many who are not. We don't get a whole lot of complaints about them. Local shows, pretty much always on at drive time, are talking to a much different audience - just about anybody is dialing in to get a weather report or check traffic. If worked correctly (Chris Baker is a good model), these people can become regular listeners. But having someone repeateding continually, and when Gold gets going it is continuous, that they or Uncle Fester are "rats", yeah, that's really nice when my ad plays next. When someone asks me the question "Why are you paying some guy to get on the radio and call my Aunt Rosie a rat?", I have a pretty hard time coming up with an answer. The post above that states the real failure is the inability to achieve national syndication is precisely right. It's the only place that style is going to work. Otherwise you get just what Gold has got, fired in one market after another and finally banished to the weekend slots and guest gigs. Follow my logic, and you will figure out why Dennis Miller, topically funny but not offensive, appealing to the right while still entertaining listening to the left, it was a smart move by the PM.

 

[Don62]

Insulting stupidity appeals to a limited, and now shrinking demographic. If you think you can grow an audience with that drivel, good luck.

Some generalizations there.

If you don't like Gold's radio show, then by all means don't advertise with it.
And no one's forcing you to listen to him either.

You seem so immature and unable to cope with name calling, yet you engage in it yourself and try to define my existence.

It's not like Gold hurls insults all the time. I didn't hear him call names while I listened to him recently.

Gold is a talk giant who helped lead the way for the many that are doing it today.

I don't personally care if you don't like him. Not eveyrone loves Rush or Boortz.

 

[Don62]

You've never heard of that rat-fink Mark Levin?

That's all he does most of his show is insult people and call names like the one I just used.

But then an industry like broadcasting is bound to get these types when it sells its soul to right-wing talk hosts.

 

[Radio_Realist]

If you don't like Gold's radio show, then by all means don't advertise with it.

And if enough advertiser decide not to advertise on Gold's show, guess what? It goes away.

Gold is a talk giant who helped lead the way for the many that are doing it today.

Wrong verb tense. That statement should be "Gold was a talk giant who helped lead the way for the many that are doing it today." Now, he's a has-been. It happens.

Not eveyrone loves Rush or Boortz.

No, not everyone loves them, or even likes them. But enough people do like those two that they can draw quite a large audience. Gold, on the other hand, doesn't have enough fans to draw a similar sized audience, especially now.

David Gold is yesterday's news.

And, what's more, for all of your kvetching about the "local" super talk host David Gold, according to his website, his show is (or maybe was) syndicated. According to his website, which doesn't appear to have been updated in several years, his show from Dallas was also aired in San Francisco.

This is the second entry that comes up in a Yahoo search for "David Gold Talk Radio Dallas":

David Gold Talk Radio CHAT
... website of Dallas based, Nationally-syndicated conservative talk show host David Gold. ... Home Discussion Resources About David Gold Show Announcements ...www.goldtalk.com/chat/goldchatb.html

You've been going on and on and on about what a great local talk host this guy was, and here he's been trying to become a nationally syndicated talk host. And, apparently he hasn't been all that successful.

And, to those of you who said I was wrong about local hosts being not good enough to make it in national syndication, maybe you are right about some of them. Maybe there are some local hosts who remain local only because they want to. But clearly, this guy wanted to make it in the big leagues. The fact that he couldn't make the cut nationally wasn't an indication of lack of ambition.

But then an industry like broadcasting is bound to get these types when it sells its soul to right-wing talk hosts.

According to his own website, David Gold is a right-wing talk host!

Now Don, before you launch yet another thread about how great local hosts are, could you please explain why your #1 local host hero was trying so hard to become one of the evil, nationally syndicated, right-wing talk hosts that you hate with such passion?

 

[Don62]

Now Don, before you launch yet another thread about how great local hosts are, could you please explain why your #1 local host hero was trying so hard to become one of the evil, nationally syndicated, right-wing talk hosts that you hate with such passion?

That's bunk. I can name many local hosts that haven't tried to go national.

Just because they're not big in syndication doesn't mean they're not any good.

Kevin McCarthy - perhaps Dallas' top talk radio host - is universally reknowned as a great host.
He never went natiional, as far as I know.

Mike Murphy - another great - from Kansas City.

Where's his syndicated show?

Guess they're all washed up, as some radio dummiies condescendenly assume.


Where springs this dogma that the only good local hosts are national hosts?
You're so blinded by automated syndicated programming run on the Cheap Channel Cumulus Cox model that you can't see reality.

And you spew your venom out at great hosts like Gold.

Using your "logic," the only good TV news reporters or anchors are the ones that make it national, right?

You know nothing on this issue other than the small cache of local hosts you have listened to.

 

[Don62]

While the fact that someone who has been local for a long, long, time and never moved up to syndication might be because of a reason other than not being good enough to make it, that's still the safest bet to make. If you put your money on a local host being local because he's not good enough to go national, you won't win every time, but you'll end up on winning more bets than you'll lose.

What a whopper of a lie to tell.

Sure. Anyone in any other industry who isn't big time in the industry is immediately suspect, right?

How 'bout getting off your holier-than-thou attitude?

 

[Radio_Realist]

How 'bout getting off your holier-than-thou attitude?

I'll make you a deal. I'll refrain from any sort of "holier-than-thou-attitude" if you'll actually answer the questions I raised in my post of June 13, 2007, 08:59:59 pm instead of attempting to change the subject by talking about other talk hosts who were never mentioned in this thread before.

Now Don, before you launch yet another thread about how great local hosts are, could you please explain why your #1 local host hero was trying so hard to become one of the evil, nationally syndicated, right-wing talk hosts that you hate with such passion?

That was the question. So, are you going to directly answer this question without changing the subject or not? Don't tell us about other hosts. You started this thread about Talk veteran David Gold of KLIF in Dallas who was substituting in Tampa. So, I think we'd all appreciate reading your answer about the subject you started. I believe the term for what I'm challenging you to do is "put up or shut up". Can you do that?

 

[Don62]

How 'bout getting off your holier-than-thou attitude?

I'll make you a deal. I'll refrain from any sort of "holier-than-thou-attitude" if you'll actually answer the questions I raised in my post of June 13, 2007, 08:59:59 pm instead of attempting to change the subject by talking about other talk hosts who were never mentioned in this thread before.

Now Don, before you launch yet another thread about how great local hosts are, could you please explain why your #1 local host hero was trying so hard to become one of the evil, nationally syndicated, right-wing talk hosts that you hate with such passion?

That was the question. So, are you going to directly answer this question without changing the subject or not? Don't tell us about other hosts. You started this thread about Talk veteran David Gold of KLIF in Dallas who was substituting in Tampa. So, I think we'd all appreciate reading your answer about the subject you started. I believe the term for what I'm challenging you to do is "put up or shut up". Can you do that?

You've told some big whoppers here. I guess that's not unusual for the whiners and radio wannabees who spook this site.

I never said all syndication was bad.

Please point out where I said it's wrong to try to take your show national.

Good for Gold for trying to expand his audience.

A good station has a good mix of imported material.

I like stations such as KOA, KHOW, KLIF, KRLD, WBAP, KMBZ, WLS, WBAL, WBT, WSB, KSL, etc., that feature a mix of syndicated and local shows. They give their listeners a real host who can talk about news or events affecting the region that wouldn't normally interest a host based in New York or LA.

But PDs who only fill their stations with piped in or canned programming make a mokery of the profession, such as it is today.

So-called PDs who fill their entire broadcast day outside of morning news with satellite programming also limit opportunities for up and coming hosts. National hosts have to come from somewhere. You destroy the "farm system" (i.e. Top 100 markets) of talk radio and you make the product sound mediocre and staid.

 

[Radio_Realist]

Good for Gold for trying to expand his audience.

But he's expanding his show by dropping local content from his own show in order to make it appeal to all markets, and every new station that picks up his show is taking away another time slot that could go to a local host.

Do you realize that almost every syndicated host in the entire country is also a local host somewhere? If your favorite local host gets his show syndicated, and becomes the syndicated show that knocks off a local host in some other city, but remains "your" local host because he's still doing his show from the same city that you're in, is he still "local"?

What if your favorite local host gets a syndication deal but has to move to a different city to do his show? What if you can still turn on your local station and hear him in the same time slot on the same station, but now his butt is seated in front of a mic in a distant city? Is he still "local"?

Do you realize how lame your argument sounds now that you've backpedaled so much?

 

[Don62]

What if your favorite local host gets a syndication deal but has to move to a different city to do his show? What if you can still turn on your local station and hear him in the same time slot on the same station, but now his butt is seated in front of a mic in a distant city? Is he still "local"? ?

Who cares. So what.
You're picking nits.

So Neal Boortz goes national from an Atlanta radio station.
He's not moving from local to national from anywhere but the station he worked at. Only one market. Big deal.

In talking with other people, do you go round and round and pick nits and try to redefine words and meanings?


Next thing you know, you will try to redefine the word local and local talk radio.

A local host on a blowtorch signal discussing national issues isn't a local host? Right?

What a waste of time.

And this from the man who said "local hosts have nothing to talk about."

 

[Don62]

My point is that, whether they preceded him or not, talk radio was going nowhere until Limbaugh came along and revolutionized it. All kinds of minor talents benefitted from the explosion of talk that followed, with Gold being one of them. Now times have changed. I think if local talk is going to be successful, they will have to produce more thoughtful shows ala Hewitt and leave the name calling baloney to the nationals who can appeal to a national segment.

So I'm to assume you got all hot and bothered about talk legend Bob Lassiter?
After all, according to this other post in the NT board, Lassiter called his listeners names.

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,75651.0.html

I heard Lassiter on WLS. he could be very compelling, but part of his schtick was calling conservatives morons, idiots and every name in the book. I guess i could see part of the station's audience not likeing a guy who was calling them morons and idiots for three hours. I think that's what some of you FD proponents want..on every talk station, right after Rush, someone screaming "hey Rish listeners,...you';re all a bunch of MORONS, IDIOTS, RACISTS SEXIST AND HOMOPHOBES. YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES FOR VOTING THE WAY YOU DO BUT YOU"RE TOO STUPID TO KNOW WHAT IDIOTS YOU ARE" Which, come to think of it, was a lot of Lassiter's act.

Did you scream and raise a fit when Lassiter was on the air?

What about Field Marshal Mark Levin? He screams and calls people names much worse than rats.

Or is it just selective indignation you have?