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WERE and talk radio in general

V

vjm

Now that a week has past and WERE has established their identity and their schedule, what do you think so far?

Also, just to throw something else out there, there are now 4 talk stations in Cleveland and each has their own niche:

WKNR 850-sports talk
WTAM 1100-general talk
WERE 1300-urban talk
WHK 1420-conservative talk

Do you like how it is set up?

If not, how would you tweak things?<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by vjm on 02/06/06 07:23 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> Now that a week has past and WERE has established their
> identity and their schedule, what do you think so far?
>
> Also, just to throw something else out there, there are now
> 4 talk stations in Cleveland and each has their own niche:
>
> WKNR 850-sports talk
> WTAM 1100-general talk
> WERE 1300-urban talk
> WHK 1420-conservative talk
>
> Do you like how it is set up?

Hell no.

> If not, how would you tweak things?

Here's how:

* WKNR's sports programming moves to 1420AM as WHK "ESPN Radio 1420." Maybe LMA it, programming-wise, to the local group that tried to buy WKNR last year. Otherwise, keep only Brinda, Roda and/or Catan and Karlovec. Add Tony Rizzo and Les Levine.

* WHK's conservative talk moves to 850AM as "News/Talk 850 WKNR." Add Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and carry Savage live. (Even though I can't stand him.) a local show or two. Promote the damn station.

* WTAM actually becomes a true "general talk" station that just happens to carry the Indians, Cavs and Browns. Keane, Triv, Rado and Allison would all get canned - rather swiftly. Resurrect the "Monster on the Lake" nickname, too.

* WERE benefits from having Radio One infuse money and resources into developing them as a full-time urban talk station, and WERE achieves WJMO status in the community. (That doesn't mean that all the brokered programming would go, BTW.) Such success could - even in a small way - cut into WTAM.

- Nathan Obral
 
BTW, WEOL is in Lorain County but constitutes the Cleveland market and is a nice operation that deserves inclusion. If you owned WKNR and WEOL under Nate's and my strategy (see below), you could have Hannity on at 50kW to cover the whole market, allowing 930 to get the more regionally appropriate Ed Schultz or go local in PMD. WEOL has a strong heritage of superserving Lorain County and should keep that up... "Lorain County's News, Weather, and Traffic station".

> * WHK's conservative talk moves to 850AM as "News/Talk 850
> WKNR." Add Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and carry Savage
> live. (Even though I can't stand him.) a local show or two.
> Promote the damn station.

Hey! That's mine. :) WKRC without the Tony Snow borefest.

Get those three big names and make it local the rest of the day. And that means overnights, too, at least until WTAM relinquishes Coast. Which is about as likely as any of the things they talk about on the show.

> * WTAM actually becomes a true "general talk" station that
> just happens to carry the Indians, Cavs and Browns. Keane,
> Triv, Rado and Allison would all get canned - rather
> swiftly. Resurrect the "Monster on the Lake" nickname, too.

Would you bring back Jeff & Flash, too?

I have to say, though, that the Secret Broadcasting name is rather intriguing at first glance.

What I'd do with the Salem cluster depends on how benevolent I was at the moment. 1220 makes too much money to experiment with change, but putting sports back there wouldn't kill me. Only if 1420 could flip to liberal talk (with a heavy infusion of brokered crap on the weekend and overnights to justify the possibly short-lived format). In fact, whatever WKNR's running during a game on WTAM is rather negligible... why not have "You can host your own sports show" and charge average Joes $150-200/hr to host sports talk shows. Kind of like what they're doing now, except money is coming in.
 
> BTW, WEOL is in Lorain County but constitutes the Cleveland
> market and is a nice operation that deserves inclusion. If
> you owned WKNR and WEOL under Nate's and my strategy (see
> below), you could have Hannity on at 50kW to cover the whole
> market, allowing 930 to get the more regionally appropriate
> Ed Schultz or go local in PMD. WEOL has a strong heritage of
> superserving Lorain County and should keep that up...
> "Lorain County's News, Weather, and Traffic station".
>
> > * WHK's conservative talk moves to 850AM as "News/Talk 850
> > WKNR." Add Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and carry Savage
> > live. (Even though I can't stand him.) a local show or two.
> > Promote the damn station.
>
> Hey! That's mine. :) WKRC without the Tony Snow borefest.
>
> Get those three big names and make it local the rest of the
> day. And that means overnights, too, at least until WTAM
> relinquishes Coast. Which is about as likely as any of the
> things they talk about on the show.
>
> > * WTAM actually becomes a true "general talk" station that
> > just happens to carry the Indians, Cavs and Browns. Keane,
> > Triv, Rado and Allison would all get canned - rather
> > swiftly. Resurrect the "Monster on the Lake" nickname, too.
>
> Would you bring back Jeff & Flash, too?

Ha! Oh, and Ed "Flash" Ferenc still does the "AFL-CIO Hour: America's Workforce" show, which was on WERE until last week, now on two little stations: WELW/1330 and WKTX/830 at 8am. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

> I have to say, though, that the Secret Broadcasting name is
> rather intriguing at first glance.

I guess WFUN/970 in Ashtabula uses it now. WWWE/WTAM was stupid to give it up.

> What I'd do with the Salem cluster depends on how benevolent
> I was at the moment. 1220 makes too much money to experiment
> with change, but putting sports back there wouldn't kill me.
> Only if 1420 could flip to liberal talk (with a heavy
> infusion of brokered crap on the weekend and overnights to
> justify the possibly short-lived format).

Again, that would be if Salem wanted to LMA out WHK in order to run libtalk. Good luck otherwise. (And think of this: if Ed Schultz were to wind up on 1420L, having him on a WEOL would complement the western side of the 1420 listening area that is seriously nulled. The same COULD be said of Hannity, too.)

The reason why I thought of floating the "putting WKNR's format on 1420" would be twofold.

* First, it allows Salem to continue running sports/talk on the cheap, if not as a 24-hour ESPN station. (And again, they COULD LMA out WHK to another suit to handle it - maybe they flip the sports/talk to lib talk... hmmm...)

* Second, putting the conservatalk on 850 - ideally, it should be 1220, with the WHKW "Word" format going to 850 and WHKZ/1440 full-time - would signal that both Salem and Radio One want to take out WTAM on different counts. WERE would be aimed at the inner city with their urban-talk format, while either 850 or 1220 for Salem would carry the programs WTAM can't (Hannity, Savage) or won't (Beck).

But, again, the ball's in Salem's court. And the best time for them to do this would be in the summertime.

In fact, whatever
> WKNR's running during a game on WTAM is rather negligible...
> why not have "You can host your own sports show" and charge
> average Joes $150-200/hr to host sports talk shows. Kind of
> like what they're doing now, except money is coming in.

Oh, c'mon! You mean a Neal Bender or Eddie Mulars would have to PAY the station? ;D

- Nathan Obral
 
Honestly, there's NO reason to flip formats or change signals. WKNR is making a butt load of money, and WHK's ratings have improved 1000 percent in some cases from last year. I mean, WHK is beating Q104 in m 25-54 in quarter hour share! Yes... I know Q sucks hard core... But STILL!

Medved is 9th in cleveland in his time slot for m 25-54, and laura is 12th! Not too bad considering the .2 share they had a year ago. For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY local political talk show on that station) with the news guy Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9 share in that hour, up 125% from a year ago!

Ok, so you have a growing News Talk station, a cash cow in WHKW 1220, WKNR is on remote 9 times a week... I don't see the problem...
 
> Honestly, there's NO reason to flip formats or change
> signals. WKNR is making a butt load of money, and WHK's
> ratings have improved 1000 percent in some cases from last
> year. I mean, WHK is beating Q104 in m 25-54 in quarter
> hour share! Yes... I know Q sucks hard core... But STILL!
>
>
> Medved is 9th in cleveland in his time slot for m 25-54, and
> laura is 12th! Not too bad considering the .2 share they
> had a year ago.

You may have missed the point. I advocate such a move on two tiers:

First, the talk format moves to either 850 or 1220. Preferrably the latter, but the former is still okay, even though 850 can't really reach Akron.

Secondly, I'm astounded that Medved places THAT well. (By God, Salem's put him on any possible station in the market they can find since 2000!) Scuttle Medved, Prager and Hewitt to the overnights and weekends only, and add cats like Hannity and Beck, and clear Savage live.

WTAM is SO vunerable in the talk catagory, that if Salem programmed the conservatalk format **right** (w/o Luczak) they could makes inroads at 1100 even without the benefit of a 100-loss Indians season or a 4-12 Browns season.

> For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY
> local political talk show on that station) with the news guy
> Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9 share
> in that hour, up 125% from a year ago!

But what on in that slot before? Ah, a Medved rerun! No kidding!

> Ok, so you have a growing News Talk station, a cash cow in
> WHKW 1220, WKNR is on remote 9 times a week... I don't see
> the problem...

Neither do I. What I would like to see is for Salem to **adjust** their formats onto signals that better serve the market.

- Nathan Obral
 
> Honestly, there's NO reason to flip formats or change
> signals. WKNR is making a butt load of money, and WHK's
> ratings have improved 1000 percent in some cases from last
> year.

When you have no listeners and add one, that's a 1000% gain.

> I mean, WHK is beating Q104 in m 25-54 in quarter
> hour share! Yes... I know Q sucks hard core... But STILL!

Wow, a station geared towards conservative men beating a station geared toward young moms and younger professional women. Way to go Salem!

> Medved is 9th in cleveland in his time slot for m 25-54,

HOLD IT. Stop...the tape, as Rush would say.

#9 men 25-54 in PM drive. Wow. Shocking. That means he is beaten by WTAM, WKNR, WNCX, WXTM, and WMMS (all the male-geared stations), plus WMJI and a couple female-geared stations that men just happen to listen to.

That's not much to write home about.

> and
> laura is 12th! Not too bad considering the .2 share they
> had a year ago.

12th in men, 25-54, in 9am-12noon. Wow again. let me sit down, these numbers are too amazing for me to stand.

> For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY
> local political talk show on that station) with the news guy
> Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9 share
> in that hour, up 125% from a year ago!
>
> Ok, so you have a growing News Talk station, a cash cow in
> WHKW 1220, WKNR is on remote 9 times a week... I don't see
> the problem...

I do...you're being beaten in your male demo by non-male demo stations. That's a problem. I don't care how much you've grown, #9 in-demo would be cause for dismissal in any other market. This is after a year and 1/2.
 
> When you have no listeners and add one, that's a 1000% gain.
>
>

Normally I would agree, but they're not only up in QHS, but also TSL and QH persons, about 14,500 now. For a 5000 watt AM conservatalker that's not too bad... with the amount of (or lack of) advertizing done for the station...


> Wow, a station geared towards conservative men beating a
> station geared toward young moms and younger professional
> women. Way to go Salem!

Hey, a small crappily advertized AM station beating an FM giant in ANY demo is good...
>
> > Medved is 9th in cleveland in his time slot for m 25-54,
>
> HOLD IT. Stop...the tape, as Rush would say.
>

Buuttttt, remember, no one is going to turn off music and listen to AM talk if they're not ALREADY an AM talk listener... To be 9th in this market is huge especially since they beat MMS is their own demo in Medveds timeslot!

>
> That's not much to write home about.
>
> > and
> > laura is 12th! Not too bad considering the .2 share they
> > had a year ago.
>
> 12th in men, 25-54, in 9am-12noon. Wow again. let me sit
> down, these numbers are too amazing for me to stand.

I mean, again, point is it's a 5000 watt AM syndicated conservatalker. It's NOT, repeat NOT WTAM... Nor will it ever be, nor will it ever COMPETE on ANY level with WTAM. MY point is, it's doing fine for what it is. As the great Mr. Belfi would say... It is what it is! It's showing improvement, it seems like you want it to be another TAM, it's just NOT going to happend.


>
> > For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY
> > local political talk show on that station) with the news
> guy
> > Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9 share
>
> > in that hour, up 125% from a year ago!
> >
> > Ok, so you have a growing News Talk station, a cash cow in
>
> > WHKW 1220, WKNR is on remote 9 times a week... I don't
> see
> > the problem...
>
> I do...you're being beaten in your male demo by non-male
> demo stations. That's a problem. I don't care how much
> you've grown, #9 in-demo would be cause for dismissal in any
> other market. This is after a year and 1/2.

No... there's a difference here. First off, you're NEVER going to beat an FM music station with an AM God-Talk station. You're NEVER going to beat the FLAG SHIP news station with a 5000 watt WHK. It's not cause for dissmissal, there are times when being 9th is ok, again, it is what it is. For what they are, they're good, and they're doing the best with what they have to work with. All you guys who say "bring less levine and rizzo!" are on crack. Riz makes a TON of money, and salem WON'T pay him, Les HAS been approached, but he wants $$$$$ and Salem won't pay. They won't broker his program because they have no reason to. They're like any other biz, they want to make money with the smallest investment.

Look, maybe you don't understand how ratings work... Being #1 in your demo isn't as important as capturing a "niche" demo (when we're talking about smaller stations and niche programming). For instance, 1220 has the MOST christain listeners in the city. IF you want to reach them, you advertize on AM 1220. Doesn't matter if they're #22, the point is they have THAT demo. Same with WHK; they have the "buisnessman" cornered. It doesn't matter that they're # 9 in the market, they have lower ratings because they appeal to a smaller niche group of people. Buuuut, again, they are able to appeal to advertizers not because of high rating, but because they appeal to a specific group of people, not just "m 25-54".

Get it?
>

Let me know if you agree!
 
> You may have missed the point. I advocate such a move on two
> tiers:
>
> First, the talk format moves to either 850 or 1220.
> Preferrably the latter, but the former is still okay, even
> though 850 can't really reach Akron.

I would agree, but I just like talk more then sports... I think Salem is afraid to go after WTAM though, they're happy where they are.

>
> Secondly, I'm astounded that Medved places THAT well. (By
> God, Salem's put him on any possible station in the market
> they can find since 2000!) Scuttle Medved, Prager and Hewitt
> to the overnights and weekends only, and add cats like
> Hannity and Beck, and clear Savage live.

Yeah. Medved is doing EXTREMELY well! I was shocked too. I do agree, Beck would be a MUCh better choice for entertainment purposes, but he would alienate the "Core" audience that Salem is trying to reach. Look at it from a programming standpoint. Salem has programed that station to reach the finantially secure buisness man, not the audience that Beck appeals to for the most part. The reason they're content with their hosts is 1) They don't have to pay for them and 2) they appeal to their "niche" demo.


>
> WTAM is SO vunerable in the talk catagory, that if Salem
> programmed the conservatalk format **right** (w/o Luczak)
> they could makes inroads at 1100 even without the benefit of
> a 100-loss Indians season or a 4-12 Browns season.


Agree! Springer SUCKS, and Rush is tired. But, remember, WTAM has a different "niche" demo then WHK. TAM may have the same (m 25-54) demo on paper, but the "M" that they appeal to are different. So, WHK grabs the finantial listener market, WTAM grabs the lower brow blue and white collar market. Yes, TAM is better and higher rated because they have sports AND talk formats which have a broader appeal, but the people they leave out go to WHK. To give credit to Salem, they've done a GREAT job at getting the on the fence "left over" listeners to tune to their stations. I mean, WHKW captures the ENTIRE conservative christian audience in cleveland!


>
> > For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY
> > local political talk show on that station) with the news
> guy
> > Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9 share
>
> > in that hour, up 125% from a year ago!
>
> But what on in that slot before? Ah, a Medved rerun! No
> kidding!
>
> > Ok, so you have a growing News Talk station, a cash cow in
>
> > WHKW 1220, WKNR is on remote 9 times a week... I don't
> see
> > the problem...
>
> Neither do I. What I would like to see is for Salem to
> **adjust** their formats onto signals that better serve the
> market.
>
> - Nathan Obral
>


I don't know, I don't think they could serve the market any better. I think they found a hole and filled it with just enough crap to make money.

I'd LIKE to see a ratings war with WTAM and WHK, but honestly there's NO reason for salem to make that move (other then it would be cool!)

~me
 
I was always of the thought that on the AM side, Salem was taking a 2 pronged approach to going against WTAM.

Jock talk on 850, political talk on 1420.

Kind of the "sum of the parts being greater than the whole" theory.

1100 tries to be all things to all people.

They have:

an ultra liberal (Springer)
an ultra conservative (Rush)
2 local talkers (Wills, Triv)
a sports guy (Kevin "I love everything the teams do" Keane)
sports coverage (Tribe, Browns, Cavs, Notre Dame football)

WKNR tries to go after the blue collar sports guys by having sports talk and the Ohio State football/basketball package.

WHK goes after the white collar poltical junkies by having their conservatalk line up.

and WERE, while not a part of Salem, goes after the urban (and liberal) listener by having their lineup situated as it is.

I guess the question I was trying to ask before was:

Do you like the fact that (1100 not withstanding) the talk stations in Cleveland
are set up for particular listeners, or would you rather have all stations be all inclusive?
 
> I mean, again, point is it's a 5000 watt AM syndicated
> conservatalker. It's NOT, repeat NOT WTAM... Nor will it
> ever be, nor will it ever COMPETE on ANY level with WTAM.
> MY point is, it's doing fine for what it is. As the great
> Mr. Belfi would say... It is what it is! It's showing
> improvement, it seems like you want it to be another TAM,
> it's just NOT going to happend.

Your "5kW conservatalker" argument doesn't make sense. WTAM's signal reaches tons of places that are nice for egostroking, but insignificant to the sales department. WHK's signal isn't horrible. Mind you, if WTAM keeps making stupid decisions like putting Jerry Springer on, it will be vulnerable. Perhaps the sports will keep them at the top, but stations like KFI/LA and KFYI/Phoenix have much better ratings today than they did before with different, more boring approaches. While I suspect WHK could be more of a 55KRC to WTAM's WLW, to say that WTAM could continue to be complacent and an aggressive WHK couldn't beat them is not true.
 
> Yeah. Medved is doing EXTREMELY well! I was shocked too. I
> do agree, Beck would be a MUCh better choice for
> entertainment purposes, but he would alienate the "Core"
> audience that Salem is trying to reach. Look at it from a
> programming standpoint. Salem has programed that station to
> reach the finantially secure buisness man, not the audience
> that Beck appeals to for the most part. The reason they're
> content with their hosts is 1) They don't have to pay for
> them and 2) they appeal to their "niche" demo.

Most news/talk listeners are better off "financially" than people listening to, say, hip hop.

What is Beck's core audience? He's 3rd nationally in 25-54. Who is he turning off that Salem wouldn't want him? While he is somewhat independent, he's much more in Bush's camp that Michael Savage, and much less vitriolic. Meanwhile, Savage is on a number of Salem stations, including in LA and Chicago... and Cleveland.

I understand Salem's model appeals to right-wing Christians (don't think they're all so financially secure; it's probably more of a Dave Ramsey audience) who are over 50 and remember the good old days of KDKA-type "At Your Service" talk radio where hosts were polite and acted more like BBC presenters than entertainers. The fact that I hear Beck made fun of on every libtalk show these days should show that his show is actually resonating, unlike the SRN personalities, who half the radio business hasn't heard of. But it's important to know that Salem doesn't run stations to get listeners; they buy them as real estate investments, for national buys from Christian groups used to stations with no ratings, and to sell time on the weekend (at ridiculous rates, mind you). Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't buy the old WERE a long time ago!

> > WTAM is SO vunerable in the talk catagory, that if Salem
> > programmed the conservatalk format **right** (w/o Luczak)
> > they could makes inroads at 1100 even without the benefit
> of
> > a 100-loss Indians season or a 4-12 Browns season.

Yeah; they'd probably bring in the Lake County Captains to counterprogram the Indians.

> Agree! Springer SUCKS, and Rush is tired. But, remember,
> WTAM has a different "niche" demo then WHK.

WTAM doesn't have a niche. They may not have a lot of 18 year olds or single mothers listening, but it's a pretty broad audience. Mind you, Beck had pretty good female listeners for a news/talk show.

> > > For god sakes, Kelley's Corner (THE ONLY
> > > local political talk show on that station) with the news
> > guy
> > > Adam Kirk on WHK 1420 (sundays 5 pm) is getting a .9
> share

OK; so O'Reilly peaked at a 1 share when he was on... against Trivisonno, mind you. That didn't make WERE anything of a player or any more legitimate.
 
> 1100 tries to be all things to all people.
>
> They have:
>
> an ultra liberal (Springer)
> an ultra conservative (Rush)
> 2 local talkers (Wills, Triv)
> a sports guy (Kevin "I love everything the teams do" Keane)
> sports coverage (Tribe, Browns, Cavs, Notre Dame football)
>
> WKNR tries to go after the blue collar sports guys by having
> sports talk and the Ohio State football/basketball package.
>
> WHK goes after the white collar poltical junkies by having
> their conservatalk line up.

Clear Channel, unlike Salem or Radio One, is in the broadcasting business with an emphasis on "broad". They are appealing to the largest audience, and their cume reflects it. Our CC talk station in Phoenix is pro-Bush morning and night, with no sports of any kind. Whenever I talk to the PD, she's always saying how people want more and and more political talk, and she has cancelled all of the home and garden type shows. However, that's the mentality in this part of the country. Cleveland cares a lot more about sports, and (said lovingingly having lived 19 years in Cleveland) the general public is more personified by Mike Trivisonno than a Rhodes Scholar.
 
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