The NEW News Talk 720 KDAWN

[allvetsnv]

The morning news show sounds like what KNEWS used to do but on steroids. Has anyone heard for sure what Hart, Jim, and Pete's status with the station is???????

 

[richiegecko]

I tried listening this morning, and I couldn't stand it. The news was entirely too fast, and there were far too many commercials. Not to mention they booted the best morning talk show host in Vegas.

*Sigh*...I would also like to know the status of the local hosts. Anybody have any idea where any of them stand?

 

[Sollozzo]

There is now a big void when it comes to local talk here in Vegas...I wonder who is going to step up and deliver us local talk now that KDWN is gone?

This new station sounds like a total KXNT ripoff, only with second-rate syndicated shows compared with KXNT's powerhouse lineup. I managed to listen for all of 30 minutes and heard the same things repeated five times before I changed stations. I predict that this format does not last long. There will be no ratings and there is really no reason to listen to this station anymore.

 

[LVRadioguy]

From All Access:

KDWN/Las Vegas Unveils New Lineup, PD
BEASLEY's newly acquired Talk KDWN-A/LAS VEGAS unveils its new lineup and staff, with SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO's MARTHA STEWART LIVING RADIO VP/GM CHARLOTTE BURKE named PD and a schedule featuring COX/JONES' NEAL BOORTZ, TALK RADIO NETWORK's MICHAEL SAVAGE and JERRY DOYLE, and a local morning news block anchored by former WNNK (WINK 104)/HARRISBURG newsman JOHN PAUL SHAFFER and DICK SHANNON. The station is affiliated with FOX NEWS.

What a waste.

[EDIT-click on the following URL to read more on the story]

http://www.allaccess.com/

 

[richiegecko]

How sad...

 

[accessdlp]

Re: The NEW News Talk 720 K-DAWN

As a person in Los Angeles who gets KDWN at night loud and clear, may I say that this might just be the best thing to happen to it.

As much as many of you love localization, most of what KDWN has been the last few years was a lot of casion/betting/sports informercials, and station souning so small market it was pitiful.

Las Vegas, whether you want to belive it or not, IS a major market. #32, in fact. And a major market deserves a station that sounds it. The owners of KXNT knew that, and so did Beasley.

It will be interesting to tune in tonight to hear the changes.

Question, has the website been updated? http://www.kdwn.com does not reflect the changes.

Don

 

[dagrudt]

WOW. A radio station that IS starting a news department. When was the last time you heard that happening! While it may dissapoint some that local talk is being cut back - it is refreshing to see Beasley create an 8 person news department. Let's hope they hire good people and get out on the streets and maybe even do some enterprise reporting. This will be good for Las Vegas.

 

[Jay F]

Will the K-DAWN news department be open 24/7 or just 6a-7p Monday-Friday?

I noticed that KDWNs new positioner is "News, Traffic, Weather station". We rarely have weather events here and when we do they aren't always in prime radio hours.

I remember in 1997 KXNT ran promos about being the weather station. and how they would be there for you in a weather emergency. I actually believed their hype, Then one late Saturday afternoon there was a major flood. Cars were being swept away, it was like Noah's Ark. So I turned on KXNT, afterall they were the "weather station", but instead of giving information they were running some tape delayed syndicated health show. That's when I realized that Las Vegas news/talk stations will only report anything if it's during regular business hours.

 

[JoeyK]

Since Savage is all live 3-6 now The 6-8 slot will be filled by Mark Levin who replaced Savage at WABC when he moved to WOR. Very New Yorkish and boring. 8-9 Clark Howard consumer show from WSB Atlanta perfect program to listen to and save money on your sleeping pills. 9-11 Roy Masters who has been on KDWN forever but now 2 hours. Decent talent Jim Bohannon 11-1a. Overnight something called America in the morning. Pete. Hart, and Jim stick around town. This lineup does not impress.

 

[nic]

From All Access:

KDWN/Las Vegas Unveils New Lineup, PD
BEASLEY's newly acquired Talk KDWN-A/LAS VEGAS unveils its new lineup and staff, with SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO's MARTHA STEWART LIVING RADIO VP/GM CHARLOTTE BURKE named PD and a schedule featuring COX/JONES' NEAL BOORTZ, TALK RADIO NETWORK's MICHAEL SAVAGE and JERRY DOYLE, and a local morning news block anchored by former WNNK (WINK 104)/HARRISBURG newsman JOHN PAUL SHAFFER and DICK SHANNON. The station is affiliated with FOX NEWS.

What a waste.

[EDIT-click on the following URL to read more on the story]

http://www.allaccess.com/

patrick...is that you...?
;D

 

[Jay F]

I was never a fan of the infomercials K-DAWN ran, but I could appreciate that they made a lot of $$$ for the station. Now that most of the paid programming is gone, they will have to get ratings and sell spots the way that normal stations do. I'm not so sure if this lineup of fast paced news and second rate syndicated talk shows will pull numbers. Then again they can't do much worse in the ratings than they have been doing.

 

[smedge2006]

was never a fan of the infomercials K-DAWN ran, but I could appreciate that they made a lot of $$$ for the station. Now that most of the paid programming is gone, they will have to get ratings and sell spots the way that normal stations do. I'm not so sure if this lineup of fast paced news and second rate syndicated talk shows will pull numbers.

You may be right. Beasley doesn't know news-talk. It's hard to imagine them selling enough spots to fuel
an eight-person news department from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I think a radio newsroom in this day and age is great. I just wonder whether it's sustainable. Perhaps they have a long term plan to flip the station to Clear Channel, which owns a number of heritage news-talkers?

This sounds a lot like it could go the path of WFTL in West Palm Beach, which started out with heavy news but cut back after disappointing ratings. I HOPE not. I'm rooting for this crew, even though I might not have done everything the way they did.

Who said the "delivery is too fast"? That's what radio news is supposed to be. KDWN's previous leisurely approach only gave it a poli-grip on an aging demo. Perhaps 720's new slogan can be "If it's too fast, you're too old!" There's been entirely too much romanticizing of the old KDWN. You can measure a station's importance by the number of hosts it has sent to national and big-market glory. The old WNWS in Miami gave the world Neil Rogers, Tom Leykis, and Al Rantel. The old WKIS in Orlando developed Gene Burns and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. WFLA in Tampa gave the world Bob Lassiter, Lionel, Chuck Harder, and Glenn Beck just for starters. KDWN brought America Art Bell and... who else???

 

[richiegecko]

was never a fan of the infomercials K-DAWN ran, but I could appreciate that they made a lot of $$$ for the station. Now that most of the paid programming is gone, they will have to get ratings and sell spots the way that normal stations do. I'm not so sure if this lineup of fast paced news and second rate syndicated talk shows will pull numbers.

You may be right. Beasley doesn't know news-talk. It's hard to imagine them selling enough spots to fuel
an eight-person news department from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I think a radio newsroom in this day and age is great. I just wonder whether it's sustainable. Perhaps they have a long term plan to flip the station to Clear Channel, which owns a number of heritage news-talkers?

This sounds a lot like it could go the path of WFTL in West Palm Beach, which started out with heavy news but cut back after disappointing ratings. I HOPE not. I'm rooting for this crew, even though I might not have done everything the way they did.

Who said the "delivery is too fast"? That's what radio news is supposed to be. KDWN's previous leisurely approach only gave it a poli-grip on an aging demo. Perhaps 720's new slogan can be "If it's too fast, you're too old!" There's been entirely too much romanticizing of the old KDWN. You can measure a station's importance by the number of hosts it has sent to national and big-market glory. The old WNWS in Miami gave the world Neil Rogers, Tom Leykis, and Al Rantel. The old WKIS in Orlando developed Gene Burns and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. WFLA in Tampa gave the world Bob Lassiter, Lionel, Chuck Harder, and Glenn Beck just for starters. KDWN brought America Art Bell and... who else???

Well, I'm 27, and it was too fast for me. Heck, could they at least slow it down to KXNT speed?

 

[Jay F]

They were talking about the new K-DAWN on a political board I visit (it's an offshoot of the old KDWN message board). It was interesting to see what non-industry, longtime KDWN P1 listeners had to say about the re-launch. Here was the most typical response, it's from the KDWN caller who started his calls saying "Yo yo yo", he was one of the younger KDWN callers.

"They think this is good? It sucked all day. Plus real hard to get in. Ain't like it was, call whenever and get in".

It wasn't the most articulate post but I understood what the Yo Yo Yo man was trying to say. He appreciated the local shows KDWN had and how easy it was to call in and participate.

Earlier I wondered if the KDWN news department would be open 24/7 or just during the daytime hours Monday-Friday. To my surprise it sounds like it's going to be 24/7. During the 3AM hour Brian Shapiro was giving live news and traffic reports.

 

[Rockin Rob]

Same here in Philly. Beasley had gotten its paws on our heritage talker (WWDB). What did they do?


1) Put sales in charge of on air content. Hence, infomercial city.
2) Banished all heritage local talkers to a daytime-only AM peashooter.
3) Brought in Tom Leykis.....who lasted 2 shows.
4) Established a morning all-news format....against a heritage all-news outlet (KYW).
5) Allowed the big shows (Rush, in particular) to go to the upstart AM talker (WPHT - the former WCAU).
6) On the day before the biggest news story of the time (the 2000 Presidential Election), they dumped the format and went to their version of 80's (trust me, a far cry from Star 102.7).

It would appear to me K-Dawn's days as a talk station might be numbered.

 

[Whozyergrl]

Nic,

Is that you? It's Char. I notice the guy who posted the Inside Radio stuff did some kind of interesting editing to it...and hey, get back to work!

 

[VegasJack]

What is a K-Dawn?

Love,

Jack

 

[Jay F]

What is a K-Dawn?

Love,

Jack

One of the changes they made is always calling themselves 720 K-DAWN. They probably think that it's easier to remember than the call letters. They are going back to the stations roots for this change as years ago they called themselves K-DAWN as well.

 

[doublecashkgb]

was never a fan of the infomercials K-DAWN ran, but I could appreciate that they made a lot of $$$ for the station. Now that most of the paid programming is gone, they will have to get ratings and sell spots the way that normal stations do. I'm not so sure if this lineup of fast paced news and second rate syndicated talk shows will pull numbers.

You may be right. Beasley doesn't know news-talk. It's hard to imagine them selling enough spots to fuel
an eight-person news department from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I think a radio newsroom in this day and age is great. I just wonder whether it's sustainable. Perhaps they have a long term plan to flip the station to Clear Channel, which owns a number of heritage news-talkers?

This sounds a lot like it could go the path of WFTL in West Palm Beach, which started out with heavy news but cut back after disappointing ratings. I HOPE not. I'm rooting for this crew, even though I might not have done everything the way they did.

Who said the "delivery is too fast"? That's what radio news is supposed to be. KDWN's previous leisurely approach only gave it a poli-grip on an aging demo. Perhaps 720's new slogan can be "If it's too fast, you're too old!" There's been entirely too much romanticizing of the old KDWN. You can measure a station's importance by the number of hosts it has sent to national and big-market glory. The old WNWS in Miami gave the world Neil Rogers, Tom Leykis, and Al Rantel. The old WKIS in Orlando developed Gene Burns and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. WFLA in Tampa gave the world Bob Lassiter, Lionel, Chuck Harder, and Glenn Beck just for starters. KDWN brought America Art Bell and... who else???

Are you kidding?. A semi-large market who brought to the forefront Art Bell. That nearly trumps all the others in view of the market size. Remember Vegas acts much like market 68 instead of market 38. Plus you listed some real losers like
Chuck Harder (isn't he on Shortwave radio?) and Al Rantel. Hardly world beaters, in addition most of these stations did not develop the talent. KDWN was a nut house owned by a crazed old man and run by his ex secretary. That's the friggin' bottom line. Beasley doesn't have a clue either. Savage will produce numbers but advertisers are gun shy of his style.
THe rest of the talk lineup is strictly 2nd or 3rd tier. 8 person news staff, wow. I don't think they can monitize that kind of operation. After all as bad as the old KDWN was, this is not that much of an improvement.

 

[Jay F]

KDWN and AM 1280 KDOX have swapped news networks. KDWN is the new Fox radio affiliate and now 1280 runs the USA radio network. I had a feeling this might happen when I saw Fox news on the K-DAWN logo on the Beasley corporate web site weeks before the re-launch took place.

Speaking of 1280, I was very surprised to hear Jerry Doyle on KDOX at 1AM. I have never heard a syndicated show run on two stations per market before with the exception of Roy Masters who was on both KDWN and KLAV in the late 90s.