Watson Gone Again

[FredLeonard]

Seems like nobody noticed John Watson has been "retired" again, replaced by the syndicated Dave Ramsey Christian financial advice show (Jesus will make you rich but only if you take Dave's seminar). Looks like nobody noticed he was there and nobody noticed he's gone. Watson can concentrate on yelling at kids to get off his lawn full time again.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Racist comment from Fred in 3....2.....1......

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Fred's right. Watson is gone from WDEL's airwaves, replaced by Dave Ramsey's from the bird show.

My guess is a cost cutting thing, as the couple of times I tuned in to John's show on WDEL he got a bunch of calls, so someone was listening AND calling in. WDEL has a pretty large staff of on air talent for a medium sized market station [Peter/Melany, Allan, Al, Rick, their Saturday morning talk host - used to be Spencer Graves a few years ago] plus a news room full of reporters so Watson may have been an easy cut to save a few bucks. Maybe WDEL wasn't able to sell local spots for Watson's show, but can with Ramsey's show thus being a real win/win for the station. Of course it might simply be that John decided he really wants to retire and not be working 5 nights a week [when the Phils aren't playing in his time slot] and simply retired.

 

[FredLeonard]

Various posts here have said that Ramsey's show is pay to play. I would not be surprised, given that Ramsey's show is used to promote his various "products." So, maybe the accountants decided they'd rather get paid for a brokered show than pay even a part-time host.

One problem Watson had long faced was his show tends to feature "the usual suspects," the same old, same old callers night after night.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Fred, if Ramsey pays to play, that's an even bigger win/win for WDEL. Make money simply by airing the show, run from the computer/bird automation, sell local avails, no salary for P/T host or producer, a win/win all the way around for WDEL. Watson was preempted quite often for Phillies games anyhow that do make money for the station, plus probably helps WDEL's ratings in the night parts whereas any local talker isn't going to pull big numbers at night. You are correct, John had a loyal following, but may not have been the younger demo the advertisers want making selling local spots difficult.

 

[TheBigA]

It's increasingly difficult to support local AM talk after 7PM.

 

[FredLeonard]

I don't know how loyal a following he had. There was/is a small bunch of people who kept calling his show, and calling the show on opposite him when he was on in the morning and even calling shows in Philly. It seemed like these weren't listeners, just callers. And hardly anybody else ever seemed to get through.

I guess you can't expect much from small market talk show hosts. Maybe that's why so many stations were willing to embrace syndicated shows. Much as I might get nostalgic for the days of local radio, outside of major markets most of it was pretty awful.

If the numbers keep dropping, it will become increasingly difficult to support talk BEFORE 7pm.

All baby boomers have left the money demos. And only the first half of the baby boom grew up listening to AM radio and now they are past or close to retirement age. AM dies with them.

 

[davideduardo]

All baby boomers have left the money demos. And only the first half of the baby boom grew up listening to AM radio and now they are past or close to retirement age. AM dies with them.

Boomers are the money demos. The greatest amount of free, unencumbered consumer spendable income is among 50-65 year olds. But they are not a desirable target for advertisers.

But Boomers, the last of whom were born in 1963 if you take the "1946-1963" years as the start and end of the Boomer generation, are now 51 or older. All of them will be out of the sales demos in another 3 years. Or, with the current buying trend to 18-49, then all of them our out of the sales demos.

Even a good percentage of Boomers grew up on FM, not AM.

 

[FredLeonard]

Blowing smoke again? Nobody refers to boomers as the money demos any more. Time passes. And disposable income doesn't matter. Actual disposing matters. Apparently you know as little about marketing as you do about broadcasting.

 

[davideduardo]

Blowing smoke again? Nobody refers to boomers as the money demos any more. Time passes. And disposable income doesn't matter. Actual disposing matters. Apparently you know as little about marketing as you do about broadcasting.

Demographically, boomers have the highest disposable CSI per household of any broad group. They have the money. They are the "money demos".

You are confusing the "Sales Demos" with "money demos". Sales demos are those age ranges where transactional business is placed... 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34 and their subsets are the "sales demos".

By the way, my knowledge and experience in broadcasting, marketing and research are just a click away. Your history of posting wrong data and fabrications speaks for itself.

 

[FredLeonard]

All of a sudden, Eduardo is visiting sections of this board for markets with which he has never had a connection, apparently just because I have posted there. One might call this stalking. He is not content to try to refute what I have posted with facts or logic (his ploy is to contradict with statements from on Eduardo the authority), he has gone on to scour this site to try to out me and personally to attack me. Although he resents any criticism of the industry or people with "experience" like him, he has posted snide comment about a radio station just because I mentioned once upon a time I had worked there. Since he can't deal with my comments, he wants to talk about me and engage in some warped psychoanalysis to find out how anyone can hold such "warped" ideas (any idea that differs from his is by definition warped).

I have had enough of Mr. Big Font. He's been added to my ignore list.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I have had enough of Mr. Big Font. He's been added to my ignore list.

At the end of the day, there will likely be a lot more people attaching the name Fred Leonard to their IGNORE BUTTON than people deciding to ignore David Eduardo.

 

[davideduardo]

All of a sudden, Eduardo is visiting sections of this board for markets with which he has never had a connection, apparently just because I have posted there. One might call this stalking.

I am interested in Philadelphia and Wilmington for several reasons. The principal one is because in 2000 I was invited to be part of an Arbitron "panel of experts" which was created to look at the Wilmington PPM test results (yes, there was PPM in Wilmington... it was just to see if the technology side of the system worked) and then to participate in the development and progress of the PPM test in Philadelphia. After multiple years of tracking stations on PPM as well as comparing with the diary results, I have a good familiarity with the market.

Of course, my involvement with the Philadelphia market goes back even further if you count my membership in the Beautiful Music production alliance that included Jerry Lee, Art Kellar and several other in-house or syndicated producers of Beautiful music formats. Because of that, I tracked the market going back over 35 years.

I have had enough of Mr. Big Font. He's been added to my ignore list.

I knew you would manage to say something nasty, derogatory and demeaning about my dyslexia when you got a chance...