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The Torch Has Been Passed
- Thread starter johndavis
- Start date
johndavis said:
Yup, and the coverage was so good, I made it through two of the listener calls before gagging and punching out. Do they have an actual call screener? The two I heard never should have made it to air.
When I punched out, I tuned to a music station that was also covering the storm, and airing callers, but at least the callers were entertaining and relatable.
Seems KTRH is doing what they have done for several years...several years ago while driving home in NW Houston, I tuned to KTRH for updates. I got my update: several roads under water in Northwest Houston, go to KTRH dot com for a list. Didn't need to go on line...I found one of those roads on my way home, then another and another.
Like I'm going to get my I-phone out and log onto KTRH.com for road information when I'm already busy dodging the idiots who drive and text in the rain. I stayed with KROI all day while driving from one appointment to another. They jumped right on the tornado story in Texas City. It was weather news all the way for them; with only brief moments of other newsworthy events. They really came through in a big way today.
johndavis said:
I switched over to 740 for the first time since KROI flipped, and the first thing I heard was a spot ensuring that KTRH was Houston's news station, and brings you the news when it happens... then... Rush Limbaugh's bumper music. I guess Rush is more important than keeping the local listeners informed during a major weather event
Good Job News 92 FM!!!
poops said:
Well, yeah, he is. Any nimrod could look outside their window and see it was raining - hard. Not surprisingly, the low lying areas that always flood got flooded too. Shocking! If that's "news" it's awfully boring, and it certainly wasn't "news" to me. I don't need to tune into a station and hear a bunch of wannabe reporters on their cell phones telling me it's raining hard in their neighborhood.
I'd liken KTRH cutting off Rush for coverage of the rain to TV meteorologists breaking in on top of primetime programming for the same type of stuff.
KTRH obviously presented coverage of all the weather info that was actually news as they're the EAS LP1 for Houston. If an official watch or warning went out from an official source, like the National Weather Service, they carried it. What they didn't carry was hours of Billy Joe and Bubba calling in to report that there was water falling from the sky in their neighborhood.
[EDIT]
I work in the market in a management level position, but not for Clear Channel or Radio One. I just call them like I see them.
From my perspective, when it comes to News 92 threads here, there's one of two types of posters cheering News 92 - washed up has-beens who were clearly flushed out of KTRH at some point, or people who simply hate right-wing talk radio. It's really less about praising News 92 and more about bashing KTRH. The new station simply gives these people a vehicle for their vengeance.
I gave the coverage on News 92 a shot yesterday, and what I heard was awful. I heard calls from listeners that were either poorly screened, or a radio station airing calls that weren't really qualified because they were desperate to fill the airtime with something. I heard a host letting morons ramble on and on with their opinions of the weather. Is that news? I'll admit that I didn't listen long. I suffered through a few minutes of that before punching out and tuning in to one of my music stations, which was doing a much better job with the callers it was airing.
The difference was the hosts on the music station were interviewing the listeners and asking specific questions about what they had seen. They kept the calls short unless the caller was especially witty or entertaining. If this is what News 92 thinks news is, they should probably listen to some of the personality driven morning shows on the music stations and take notes on handling callers.
[EDIT-reference to deleted material]
I work in the market in a management level position, but not for Clear Channel or Radio One. I just call them like I see them.
From my perspective, when it comes to News 92 threads here, there's one of two types of posters cheering News 92 - washed up has-beens who were clearly flushed out of KTRH at some point, or people who simply hate right-wing talk radio. It's really less about praising News 92 and more about bashing KTRH. The new station simply gives these people a vehicle for their vengeance.
I gave the coverage on News 92 a shot yesterday, and what I heard was awful. I heard calls from listeners that were either poorly screened, or a radio station airing calls that weren't really qualified because they were desperate to fill the airtime with something. I heard a host letting morons ramble on and on with their opinions of the weather. Is that news? I'll admit that I didn't listen long. I suffered through a few minutes of that before punching out and tuning in to one of my music stations, which was doing a much better job with the callers it was airing.
The difference was the hosts on the music station were interviewing the listeners and asking specific questions about what they had seen. They kept the calls short unless the caller was especially witty or entertaining. If this is what News 92 thinks news is, they should probably listen to some of the personality driven morning shows on the music stations and take notes on handling callers.
[EDIT-reference to deleted material]
radiogooroo said:
And your bias for KTRH is so obvious, Stevie Wonder could see it. Thanks for the preaching though. Regardless of which category you want to put me in, A.) KTRH-Hater, B.) KTRH-Has been, C.) Right-wing talk hater, or whatever, the fact remains that News 92 is DOING news much better than Cheap Channel's heritage AM.
[EDIT-reference to deleted material]
Drucifer said:
I have no bias for KTRH. I do enjoy talk radio. I enjoy right-wing talk, home improvement shows, car shows and that gun talk show that airs weekends on 950. KTRH is the vehicle for most of that type of programming here in Houston. I also enjoy listening to Clark Howard on 650, and get to quite a bit during baseball season. (I wish the Astros could find their way onto a sports station and not screw up the talk radio I enjoy for so much of the year.)
Being a fan of talk radio, I simply see no point wasting time airing call after call from listeners who are talking about something as obvious as rain and flooding.
When it comes to news, I want to hear it - in small, well packaged pieces. KTRH screws that up fairly regularly with their pre-recorded, outside the market talent, but I'll tolerate it to hear the talk radio that I enjoy. Do I wish KTRH would do a better job with the news they carry? Yes, I do. I wish they would utilize local talent exclusively, and pay some experienced local talent what they're worth to do it right. I think most of their talk radio audience would appreciate that.
I don't however see any benefit to the talk radio listener to bump Rush Limbaugh off the air to carry rain reports from Billy Joe and Bubba.
I agree. KTRH is a good TALK station. So why is it they say they are the News station; the station people can count on for news? It seems they have a real imaging problem.
If putting calls on the air to report details on weather isn't news, then what is? Certainly with radio's stronghold of in office and in car listening would you suspect that anyone listening might like to know what is happening in their neighborhood or the area of town they're headed toward?
Seems to me KTRH is a good TALK station and pretty lousy on news, which has been the issue for many years in my opinion. Why not be the talk station of Houston and leave it at that.
To be honest, during the Hurricane Rita mass exodus, I felt nobody had much on radio or TV, including KTRH. I tuned to KLBJ in Austin and learned how traffic was moving or not, where to find gas, alternative routes, etc., etc. I recall scratching my head wondering why KLBJ was doing wall to wall coverage but was sure happy they were. Then TV was doing a great job during T.S. Allison where KTRH provided few details aside from the EAS firing off frequently. I'm sorry but "The Flash Flood Warning has been extended...major flooding is occuring" is not much to go on when you're trying to get home from work. I realize everyone was overwhelmed during both events but either Tv stations or a distant AM station, were, in my opinion, able to outshine local radio.
If putting calls on the air to report details on weather isn't news, then what is? Certainly with radio's stronghold of in office and in car listening would you suspect that anyone listening might like to know what is happening in their neighborhood or the area of town they're headed toward?
Seems to me KTRH is a good TALK station and pretty lousy on news, which has been the issue for many years in my opinion. Why not be the talk station of Houston and leave it at that.
To be honest, during the Hurricane Rita mass exodus, I felt nobody had much on radio or TV, including KTRH. I tuned to KLBJ in Austin and learned how traffic was moving or not, where to find gas, alternative routes, etc., etc. I recall scratching my head wondering why KLBJ was doing wall to wall coverage but was sure happy they were. Then TV was doing a great job during T.S. Allison where KTRH provided few details aside from the EAS firing off frequently. I'm sorry but "The Flash Flood Warning has been extended...major flooding is occuring" is not much to go on when you're trying to get home from work. I realize everyone was overwhelmed during both events but either Tv stations or a distant AM station, were, in my opinion, able to outshine local radio.
To answer your question about putting callers on air and whether it's news or not, unless the person is an official of some sort, I'd say no, it's not.
Dispatching trained reporters to problem areas is covering the news. Letting Billy Joe and Bubba drone on and on about the weather at their house is not.
If the weather IS the news, put a meteorologist on the air. Put your traffic reporters on air to talk about problem spots and flooded roads. Heck, put Billy Joe and Bubba on if you must, but record them, edit out the useless rambling, air that then get back to the meteorologist.
Airing listeners for minutes at a time makes it sound like you're desperate to fill time and don't have the news resources to do it properly.
Dispatching trained reporters to problem areas is covering the news. Letting Billy Joe and Bubba drone on and on about the weather at their house is not.
If the weather IS the news, put a meteorologist on the air. Put your traffic reporters on air to talk about problem spots and flooded roads. Heck, put Billy Joe and Bubba on if you must, but record them, edit out the useless rambling, air that then get back to the meteorologist.
Airing listeners for minutes at a time makes it sound like you're desperate to fill time and don't have the news resources to do it properly.
radiogooroo said:
I have an admitted bias against KTRH, Cheap Channel and Opie Erickson. Having said that, I would also agree that KTRH is excellent at what it does. Right-wing talk. It is NOT a news station and has not been for quite sometime. If we are going to compare apples to oranges, the torch has, indeed, been passed. As for the comment about rain and flooding being obvious, I can accept that to a degree, however, seeing that it has not rained in these amounts in Houston in more than 400 days, it is probable that at least a few folks may not be aware of the flooding danger here in the Bayou City. Additionally training thunderstorms and rain exceeding 6 inches not to mention tornadoes IS news in any market in the country.
I do agree that it would be a waste for KTRH to even try to bump Rush or even Michael Ego Berry pretending to be something they are not which is a news station. KTRH needs to just suck it up and realize the glory days of their newsroom are OVER and News 92 is doing a fine job at putting nails in the coffin.
I had KROI on at my desk for most of Monday for one reason: I had to fly out of town that afternoon and I wanted to figure out how to get through the parts of town that I know will flood between work and the airport.
I heard a few cringe-worthy listener calls during the midday, but they seemed to give up on those quickly. After that, it was a steady stream of PIO's reporting what they knew: HFD, HPD, Harris County, Fort Bend County, HISD, Fort Bend ISD, the Houston Airport System. When the reports of the tornado at the mall in Texas City came in, they had the fire department down there on the phone. In between were various reporters and staff calling in reporting what they saw.
It wasn't amateur hour on the air, and I made my flight. In other words, I got what I needed out of the news station. The station with the billboards touting breaking news that Houston depends on, on the other hand, taught me new derogatory terms for the Occupy movement that I hadn't heard before when I punched in. So I suppose I learned something on Monday from KTRH, although it certainly wasn't very useful.
KUHF fired off EAS from the weather service, but otherwise they rolled on with NPR when I punched over. No points for the Schweddy Balls crew. I'm sure they had some fabulously produced piece with lots of nat sound during a break in All Things Considered, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out.
I heard a few cringe-worthy listener calls during the midday, but they seemed to give up on those quickly. After that, it was a steady stream of PIO's reporting what they knew: HFD, HPD, Harris County, Fort Bend County, HISD, Fort Bend ISD, the Houston Airport System. When the reports of the tornado at the mall in Texas City came in, they had the fire department down there on the phone. In between were various reporters and staff calling in reporting what they saw.
It wasn't amateur hour on the air, and I made my flight. In other words, I got what I needed out of the news station. The station with the billboards touting breaking news that Houston depends on, on the other hand, taught me new derogatory terms for the Occupy movement that I hadn't heard before when I punched in. So I suppose I learned something on Monday from KTRH, although it certainly wasn't very useful.
KUHF fired off EAS from the weather service, but otherwise they rolled on with NPR when I punched over. No points for the Schweddy Balls crew. I'm sure they had some fabulously produced piece with lots of nat sound during a break in All Things Considered, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out.
Well gooroo... I guess you've schooled this "nimrod" in what real radio is supposed to be in your world... but in mine, a couple friends and family members were trying to navigate thru Houston during the rains, and they tuned in to KROI at my urging, and it seems that News 92FM was of some help. So... if what KTRH is doing is News.... I'd much rather listen to static (or someone running their fingernails down a blackboard).radiogooroo said:
poops
Thumbs up to KROI for helping out Houstonians stuck on on the roads where they didn't have access to TVs nor would it have been a good idea to starting using their smartphones.
Good for KTRH with their biased talk programs. I'll stick to KROI where I can hear news and not a bunch of negative banter all day.
Good for KTRH with their biased talk programs. I'll stick to KROI where I can hear news and not a bunch of negative banter all day.
Applause for the amiable crew at News92FM.
That said, will this translate to ratings success? Will they beat the snot out of that AM station that's on a band nobody's listening to anymore, except people over 40? That's the question. If it does not translate to numbers their sales team can pitch to Mattress Mack, MD Anderson, Fred Haas, McDonalds and Whataburger, will KROI remain viable? Or will the station become the little engine that could but didn't unseat the once-monolithic 740? That's the real litmus test here.
Do people know 92.1 is where you turn for news? Have people outside of radio-wonk blogs been informed enough? An article or two in the Chron is not nearly enough when KTRH is plastering billboards all over the place. Nobody's gonna know the cool and very pretty girl exists if she is too shy to socialize but the has-been b_tch is the one who goes to all the parties.
That said, will this translate to ratings success? Will they beat the snot out of that AM station that's on a band nobody's listening to anymore, except people over 40? That's the question. If it does not translate to numbers their sales team can pitch to Mattress Mack, MD Anderson, Fred Haas, McDonalds and Whataburger, will KROI remain viable? Or will the station become the little engine that could but didn't unseat the once-monolithic 740? That's the real litmus test here.
Do people know 92.1 is where you turn for news? Have people outside of radio-wonk blogs been informed enough? An article or two in the Chron is not nearly enough when KTRH is plastering billboards all over the place. Nobody's gonna know the cool and very pretty girl exists if she is too shy to socialize but the has-been b_tch is the one who goes to all the parties.
stan said:
I don't think the Darwin Award candidates that would drive into high water would be listening to news or talk.
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