What are Pittsburgh's Biggest Radio Failures?

[FreddyE1977]

The above was probably the most interesting post I have read on these message boards. No offense to anyone. But this is exactly why I love to read these boards. Kudos Mr. Starr. 8)

Yes, I agree. A fascinating read!

I understand quite a bit of "Spy vs. Spy" went on between KD and TAE back in the day.
To the extent that TAE management initially refused to believe the Nick Perry Lotto story
because it broke on Channel 2, and hence was seen as just another "gotcha" attempt
by Group W.

 

[Boss Radio]

Considering that virtually everyone in the WTAE building had been interviewed by law enforcement during the investigation of the lottery fix, no one should have been surprised when the grand jury announced its finding.

 

[Pratte4Life]

We played music on KDKA because it kept the demographics down where the agencies liked them. All-talk stations tend to have a very old listenership; it was even more noticeable and less forgiven back then. Now that things are more fragmented it's more accepted. It wasn't about having people "listen to us for music", it was not chasing away all the 40 year olds who didn't want talk shows jabbering in their ears while they made lunch for the kids. KDKA had a vast cume. Not chasing them away was a strategy.

Love it when Rick posts and would love to meet him someday.

But I want to comment on this.

This speaks to me of a "by the book" move that relies on stereotypes instead of any creativity or forward thinking.

Tell you why.

I was in grade school when you were at KDKA and I listened to the talk shows and the baseball and hockey games. You couldn't get me to listen to the music on the station.

To a young teen, I felt the soft-pop format that was played on KDKA was boring. It sounded like the stuff a grandmother would listen to to stay young.

Meanwhile, other 50KW blowtorches in other cities were all talk, all the time. And having a lifelong interest in sports and politics, I would have been much more inclined to listen to a talk show at that time than hearing the music that was played.

I remember when I was in college and a broadcasting professor who had been a DJ dismissed talk radio as being for old ladies. He dismissed Limbaugh as being a passing fad.

Meanwhile, here I was wanting to be a sports talk show host, sitting in his class, and wondering who these old ladies were that were calling the talk shows I heard to stay on top of the Pirates and Steelers. The one caller Bill Currie used to flirt with?

While I'm well aware that there were plenty of old ladies that called up the likes of Perry Marshall, there haven't been that many that call up the likes of Scott Ferrall.

What I'm trying to say is that I truly believe if someone had realized that music on AM was going out the window in the '80s, that talk was the future of the band (at least for the next 20 years, though I do think KDKA-AM's signal will keep it competitive for as long as there is an AM band), and that talk can also draw a younger demographic depending on the host and the content of the show, that a younger, hipper talk show on KDKA-AM would have served the demos you were after and been more effective at combating the trend where KDKA and Lawrence Welk's demographics were the same.

True, you would have lost some listeners on elevators, but I would like to think radio is more than that.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Most sports formats were not instantly successful; indeed, in the early days most tried to emulate WFAN and failed. That station, it should be remembered, already had a successful morning show (Imus) from the WNBC format, onto which they grafted another 20 hours a day of sports. They started from a strong AMD; others who tried started from no morning show, and did not hit their stride for several unprofitable years. On the AM dial you make your money in AMD and to a lesser extent PMD. All the rest is filler. (As formats continued to fragment it became more obvious that a 2+ share could work, but that took time - both for owners AND for advertisers.)

And I'd like to comment on this, too.

What all-sports radio stations tried to emulate WFAN and failed? I'm not saying there weren't any; when Imus began to syndicate his show lots of sports talkers picked him up (they even had a recorded bit they would play on Imus' show that would say "The revenue and audience generating portion of this station's lineup is now over" when the show ended).

But WIP didn't. WIP pretty much started the idea that the callers were ancillary, limiting them to 90 seconds a call, while WFAN often embraced the caller to the point many of them were as well known as the hosts and one of them, Joe Beningo, began a career as a sports talk show host on the station at the management's urging.

And I think WIP was the second all-sports station.

WKNR in Cleveland was the most popular sports talk radio station in the '90s, ratings wise.

These stations went all-sports rather quickly and were successful. In fact, though WKNR is not the station it was in the '90s, it continues to be the station that won't die and I'm inclined to believe it's because of the format in a sports lovin' town.

I'm sure there were some failures- 1210 in Philly was one I can recall failing despite a superior signal (I've forgotten what their call letters were- the former WCAU)- but I think the real reason there was the fact the talk shows they had weren't as good as the ones on WIP.

A Pittsburgh sports station wouldn't have had that problem.

I just can't believe that in a city where half the stations were playing polka on Saturday mornings all-sports radio in Pittsburgh would be dismissed for so many years because it was "too formatted." This is Pittsburgh! The old ladies I spoke of above know who is playing tight end for Penn State!

Again, it was so successful so early in all of the neighboring cities. How successful would all sports radio have been in 1992, when all the local teams were winning and there were no newspapers and the format was taking off everywhere else (Case in point, WSCR started in Chicago on a day to dusker in 1992 and by 2000 they had removed the mighty and historic WMAQ from it's 50KW perch at 670, just as WFAN did going from 1050 to WNBC's 660. And Imus wasn't on WFAN when they were generating the momentum on 1050 to make such a move- forgive the digression)? When Stan and Guy were so successful on KBL WDVE would give them an hour of air time on weekends?

The market was crying for such a station, yet it took years for it to come to fruition! And when it did it was initially on Prime Sports 1360, which was all-automated (though their hourly updates did provide a start for several sportscasters).

One guy I know who now works in sports talk even asked me during this era "Why doesn't a station around here pick up an all-sports format, put on Imus- who would be huge in Pittsburgh- and reap in the benefits?" I had no answer other than the fact it seemed all the good AM signals were taken and talk on FM was practically unheard of then, so it just wasn't on our mindset then.

But wasn't the fact all the good AM signals were taken the reason why 104.7 came to be in Pittsburgh and somewhat revolutionized what talk radio could be on FM nationwide in terms of drawing an audience and making it work? Wasn't WAMO-FM the home of the Pittsburgh Maulers in 1984? Weren't, as I said before, Stan and Guy on WDVE and the Steelers on 96.1?

Why wasn't it on our mindset then?

It would have been huge, and that's why I will always say the powers-that-be's hesitancy to establish a sports talk radio station in town has to be one of the biggest failures in the market's history.

 

[RickStarr]

I'm going to reply to two of Pratte4Life's posts, but it may take a while. If it bores you, just ignore and move along. I'm sick with laryngitis, but I can type, so here goes.

You couldn't get me to listen to the music on the station.

Don't make the (common) mistake of thinking your behavior is in any way typical. Middays on an AM station played to the available audience, which even up until the 80's was women at home or people in cars. We used to get into buildings, but that was before FM and before fluorescent lights, electric typewriters, and other static inducing stuff.

We often ran simulations and comparisons with other heritage stations in other markets, and we typically had far better demos (and usually higher shares, to boot.) We also acknowledged that we could get even bigger shares 12+, but we would have smaller shares 25-54, and that's what agency and national sponsors bought on, so that's where we stayed. Talk stations also tend to have much smaller cumes (and consequently much higher time-spent-listening), which was not where we wanted to be. (I might point out that both WBZ Boston and WOWO Ft. Wayne also had music in middays until long after the KMOX's and WGN's had reverted to talk, and we kept higher (demographic) shares than them by a factor.

For the record, "younger, hipper talk" has been a miserable failure every where it's been tried, with only a few exceptions such as Howard Stern and Morning Zoo type shows, none of which interested Westinghouse, as you might imagine. There were consultants who made a wonderful living going showing owners how to do "younger hipper talk" and it bombed, time after time. It seemed like such a good idea. It never was.

There was never "a right time" to throw out the music and move to all talk. We looked at it in the 70's, in the 80's when I was there, and they finally made the change some years after I left. It was probably time, perhaps even past time. I only note that WTAE under Captain Showbiz was as well programmed a station as I ever competed against, and managed a 7 share (or something. Don't quote me, it's been 30 years.) They had O'Brien & Garry and Myron Cope, and not much else (PMD was OK, I suppose). I am sure that Ted Atkins, if he thought he could have done better with talk - especially in midday, would have tossed out the music on the AM side and done it. He didn't, and probably for much the same reason.

 

[RickStarr]

What all-sports radio stations tried to emulate WFAN and failed?

Almost all of them, including (it will surprise you to know) WFAN. Now specifically? I don't remember individual markets. But there were a bunch of "me-toos" who jumped in, mostly in smaller markets such as had some local teams (Lexington? Indianapolis? I don't recall) and fell right on their nose. I remember one NAB Convention where there was a panel called something like "Can the Sports Talk format be successful?" (It was easier for loser stations in small markets who were floundering; the bigs were that much more expensive to run, and failure more costly.)

This, of course, was after WFAN already was (and panel title was doubtless to stir interest), but here's, as Paul Harvey says "the rest of the story." WFAN started at 1050 on the dial (the old WHN, 50,000w/d) and, well, let him tell it:

According to Lev (1990), it looked like those industry predictions of certain doom were correct. WFAN lost approximately $7.5 million in its first year of operation and was near collapse on numerous occasions. On the brink of failure, Smulyan devised a plan to save the station. In July of 1987, he and Emmis Broadcasting bought the holdings of the NBC radio network for $39 million, including the legendary New York station WNBC.

http://tinyurl.com/98jxmut page 46

A side trip: Don Imus was successful because he was great, but also because he was on WNBC, a 50kw/d Top 40 station with an immense cume and great promotion which caused hundreds of thousands to sample him. When WNBC was bought by Jeff Smulyan and Emmis, they kept Imus (because of his already existing ratings) and grafted the rest of the failed WFAN format around him. Imus had tremendous male appeal (counter to WABC's female demographic) so the graft worked.

Now stations in smaller markets which went "all sports" found themselves with tiny shares and lousy signals to boot, since they tended to be already unsuccessful stations. Add "no morning ratings" and you have failure. So the next iteration was "broadcast Imus via satellite, you know, just like WFAN", which also didn't work, because in Portland and St. Louis nobody wanted to hear about the Mets, the Nets, the Mets, the Jets, and sometimes the Yankees, but mostly no sports at all. Imus was never as successful anywhere else as he was in NY for all the obvious reasons. Some kept him for want of anything else, some dumped him and went local, I have no idea where it all stands today. Imus is a great talent, but like Bogut and KDKA, some things just work together, and in isolation - don't. (Conan? TBS? Hello?)

The (advertising) industry took time to come around to buying discrete but modestly rated stations for their demographics; prior to FM's arrival they just bought the big guys and went home. It was easier. Hardly any buys to monitor, lots less paperwork. (I know. I worked at KDKA, remember?) Eventually that changed, but change comes hard there in ad world; just ask the cable TV programmers who get 55% of the viewing but only 40% of the advertising.

Eventually, of course, it did work, but it wasn't automatic. Heck, WFAN almost went under more than once, and they're the prototype! Now I'm not going to get into "should Pittsburgh have had an all sports station in 1990? Or 1992? Or whenever. I don't know. I was long gone by then and didn't know the market, the owners, or any of the rest of it. But it is too facile by half to say "put on sports talk, make a fortune." It didn't work that way. It probably still doesn't.

 

[tce]

I'm going to try to re-post the link in Rick's message that seems to have disappeared: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1831&context=etd

 

[Pratte4Life]

Rick- Thanks a lot for your replies and I hope you get to feeling better right away.

All I can tell you is something that might not impress you much, but it's all I have to go by, and that's my gut.

And my gut tells me the younger demos you were seeking could have been found within the news/sports/talk format the station was best known for. You were the station Mario Lemieux played on and you even mentioned you went after Myron Cope- admittedly no spring chicken- but a guy who sports fans of all ages listened to and called in to.

I can't counter with what the ad agencies were telling you, or cume numbers, or any of that.

All I can say is I remember songs like "Send in the Clowns" or "Wouldn't You Like to Ride in My Beautiful Balloon" being played on KDKA at that time. And nobody under 40 had those in their record collection.


As for full-time sports talk, I've given plenty of examples of how it worked in neighboring cities years before Pittsburgh got the format. And you're right- morning sports talk radio really never found its way probably until Mike and Mike started their show somewhere around 2000.

But Doug Hoerth was the morning guy, if memory serves, when WTAE went all-sports and the station grew from that.

All due respect on the panel at the NAB Convention, I remember when WFAN was announced and they had the same discussion on "Monday Sportsnite," a national late-night sports talk television program on ABC that ran briefly in 1987, with a panel that included Bob Costas wondering if 24 hours of Mattingly vs. Hernandez was a good idea.

In hindsight, any skeptism of a format such as all-sports back then plays like Ron Burgandy's Sportscenter audition ("Sports all the time? That's never going to work! That's like a 24-hour cooking network! Or an all music channel! Ridiculous! That's really dumb!"). And, come to think of it, ESPN was a money loser at first, too.

There's no question that Pittsburgh was late to get into the all sports talk game. And if you're telling me, roughly, that Pittsburgh was late because 1330 in Youngstown had a tough time making it work (yeah, they had a Houston Oilers fan as their big gun host) or because of a panel at an NAB Convention, well . . . .

What you've explained to me is that

Poor signal (1050) and inferior programming won't work

Good signal (660) and good programming will.

That's pretty much universal for any format on radio.

 

[Pratte4Life]

TCE- Thanks for the link. I'll enjoy reading it.

In skimming through it now, the first thing that comes to me is on page one- ONE!- the sentence reads of WNBC's transition to WFAN in 1988:

"WNBC was the last of a dying breed, the last major AM station in New York to
play music."

Do you see where I'm not buying that it was a good idea for KDKA to keep playing music in the middle of the day up until 1992?

 

[clangham]

then what really killed the station was the guy who was absolutely terrible in the afternoons from 3-6, syndicated out of Philly. I cannot recall his name, but that was the final spike in the K-Rock coffin.

Ah yes, the days of Kidd Chris broadcasting for K Rock from the studios of Phillys WYSP FM.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Was it Kidd Chris? I never could remember if it was Chris Kidd or Kidd Chris.

Which should tell you something about the man's talent. The one time I heard him he was talking about rap music on a rock station, and that was enough for me to never listen again.

This said, K Rock I thought added a sometimes exciting alternative to the WDVE playlist, and was years ahead of WDVE in putting newer and even contemporary rock into the playlist. They were innovative in this regard.

Unfortunately, as time evolved, K Rock did scant rocking and more talking. From 6-10 it was Opie and Anthony. From 3-6 it was Kidd Chris. From 11-1, Loveline.

From 6 am to 1 am, the time when people are actually awake, it was just about 50-50 talk- and nonsense talk at that- and music.

That was a recipe for disaster. And it was.

 

[Parttimer]

But wasn't the fact all the good AM signals were taken the reason why 104.7 came to be in Pittsburgh and somewhat revolutionized what talk radio could be on FM nationwide in terms of drawing an audience and making it work?

Sort of. More specifically, it was because Clear Channel didn't own an AM with a good signal (they only have 970 here). And they were the only owner outside of CBS with enough FM signals in the market to take the chance on it. 104.7 never sustained any success in any of its multitude of music formats.

And that also dovetails into why sports talk wasn't tried earlier, you had mostly small operators here with small groups of stations. In Tampa, for instance, CC, CBS, Cox and Salem essentially own everything of value in the market. Sports talk, aside from the few early examples you cited, has mostly flourished as a part of large clusters, where they could have low 12+ numbers, do well in men, and provide enough revenue to justify their slot in a 5-7 station cluster for that ownership group.

 

[Pratte4Life]

I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true. I know of some other markets without large clusters and they were late in getting sports radio, too. Tampa was, in fact, one of the first sports talk markets.

But on the other hand, it was a small operator, 1360 in McKeesport, that tried the format first.

But here's something that I hear about your point and it goes hand-in-hand with radio failures.

I have often heard people talk about how radio went downhill when the corporations took over and allowed multistation ownership in a single market.

I've never been one to believe that. I think the reason why is because when I was out of college and looking for a job in radio, I would go to the smaller stations and see small minded philosophies. "We did it this way for 50 years, you can say "ding dang" but not "gosh darn" on the air, FAX machines are just fads, etc."

I longed to work at a station with professional standards. Or just some place that would give me a phone line for a producerless talk show that wasn't the same as the business line.

But I'm pretty sure everyone has that kind of story concerning working in radio.

The point is it took the dreaded "corporate radio" to come up with some professional standards, or talk formats (sports or otherwise), or in many cases modern and functional equipment.

On another thread we have a list of radio stations that are out of business. Half of them, honestly, I'm not surprised. Many of them I went to out of school, took a look around with my resume and "anything I can do for you to help, sir," and saw not the enthusiasm for the industry so many of the posters on here who run or operate smaller stations have, but instead resignation or, sometimes, sheer stupidity and lack of courtesy and vision.

And I'm sure the powers that ran those stations will say that they are out of business because of their signal, or their market shrunk, or some other factor that was out of their hands.

But a lot of them simply were so set in their ways that they were not able to adapt to the changes in the industry or even see them coming.

I'm not really saying anything new here. But if it took a radio station clusters to bring and commit to Pittsburgh a full-time format the market was years overdue for, then it speaks highly of corporate radio.

 

[Parttimer]

I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true. I know of some other markets without large clusters and they were late in getting sports radio, too. Tampa was, in fact, one of the first sports talk markets.

But on the other hand, it was a small operator, 1360 in McKeesport, that tried the format first.

I don't think that 1360 really counts, there was no investment in talent there. For practical purposes, I think you have to look at 1250 ESPN as the first sports station. And no, they weren't part of a cluster but they were an ESPN O&O. And remember, on day one when Disney bought 1250, the intention was to run Radio Disney. Only after realizing what a hole there was in the market did they go sports, and farm RD out to 540.

Another factor that made this market different was that there was so much sports talk available in various places. For years the best sports talk show in town wasn't even on the radio, it was Stan & Guy on TV. And make no mistake, aside from the fact that you needed a TV rather than a radio to tune it in, it was a radio show. 90% of the video was the hosts sitting motionless while a caller spoke... not exactly scintillating TV, but it had a solid audience for many years.

 

[Boss Radio]

Renda was running 1360 as a sports station because there was none in the market. He farmed out Bruce Keidan's show to 1360 after Jack Bogut signed on for afternoons at WJAS and they dropped the sports show in PM drive.

The instant 1250 went full-time sports, Renda dropped out and switched 1360 to regular talk, seeking to pick up the small audience that WTAE had built with Lynn Cullen and Doug Hoerth.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Boss- was 1360 owned by Renda back then? I remember Prime Sports 1360 still had the old studio in McKeesport and so many of their ads were McKeesport based.

As such, I remember driving from Pittsburgh to the Glassport Shop and Save because with their specials and double coupons a full size can of coffee for $4.20 was not a bad deal, but the point is the station had not moved into the Greentree studio.

Admittedly, I do not know when WIXZ was sold. Keidan also was on 1320 for a long time and I want to say as late as 1998 (by which time WTAE had switched to all sports). Prime Sports 1360 was not built around Bruce Keidan, at least not initally and very briefly when he made the move.

The reason I remember this is because Keidan had Mark Madden pinch-hit for him in 1998 for a few shows, and Hoerth was still at WTAE then.

I remember because Keidan and Madden's personalities were so different and thinking Madden was an odd guest host for Keidan. It spoke of recyling talent, but, in defense of all parties involved, this is also how Republicans choose their Presidential candidates.

But don't be so dismissive of 1360's all-sports move. Yeah, it was cheap programming with network programming almost completely filling the air, save for the top-of-the-hour updates and the occassional high school football game.

But as you say, it did fill a niche that wasn't there. There were a few sportscasters that went on to bigger and better things; Don Rebel, Phil Elsin (now a prominent sportscaster in Little Rock), and Kevin Henry, who according to his website has won four Emmys in a career that has taken him to Virginia.

In an era before going to the web for news, there was a time where Prime Sports 1360 was the place to go to for a sports fix and to get the latest news that broke during the day. No, you didn't get the signal at night. No, it was never going to lure a major play-by-play contract and the network programming wasn't going to influence the local sports scene.

Yes, we probably deserved better, which was my point all along.

But it served a need. They sold a lot of commercials, maybe not big money sponsors, but they had a bunch of sponsors. And being "Prime Sports" it probably helped advance the local sports cable TV network of the same name that evolved into today's Root Sports.

It was the first all-sports radio station in town, circa 1994-95 or so.

It proved to the market the format was viable before the bigwigs decided to make a move that was literally years overdue.

 

[Pratte4Life]

Part- I don't know if there was "so much sports talk available." In 1992, which I have referenced would have been a perfect time to develop such a station with the newspaper strike, KDKA had I believe just a weekend show.

Myron Cope was on Monday and Tuesday and Bruce Keidan for the rest of the week were on WTAE but that was always an awkward mix and was just two hours a day and not on the weekends, and then you had Stan and Guy on KBL, which as you said was not only not on the radio but about an hour or so a day.

I swear, one of the most influential radio shows in terms of shaping sports opinion in those days was Paulsen and Krenn on WDVE. And while they may have had a sports content, it still was only a fraction of the makeup of the show among the music, comedy, news, and everything else.

So one of the reasons I'm so adamant that the lateness in turning a station to all sports was such a big local radio failure was because under the circumstances, there was really very little local sports media going on at the time.

Other reasons include the fact I think we're just a bit hampered in terms of developing our sports talk around here. It seems too many guys have the feel of broadcasting with their bags packed or simply lack the personality to be all that memorable or, in certain cases, listenable.

We went from Myron Cope and Stan and Guy to Trivia Trains and "I'm a journalist," which is a noble endeavor but a rather lousy radio program. Finally what took was Mark Madden giving the attitude, and though he may have done it better than anyone who has ever attempted the style (Rome and Franklin included), it simply isn't all that original (witness Rome and Franklin doing it).

And then what happened was that everyone started trying to copy Mark's style to a certain degree. And Thor Tolo couldn't be Mark Madden, and Eartha Jackson on a promo trying to act ticked off and rude was painful to listen to, and by the time everyone went off the deep end we realized that we're really still trying to find our way with this format.

I just wonder, if a station had started earlier, if we could have. I have reason to believe we could.

 

[Parttimer]

I swear, one of the most influential radio shows in terms of shaping sports opinion in those days was Paulsen and Krenn on WDVE.

And Clear Channel agreed with you, always has. That's the #1 reason they never put a serious sports station on the air, because they felt those listeners would come from DVE, and the mantra inside the flashcube is "protect the mothership".

 

[Pratte4Life]

Fine. But they aren't the only place that could have gone with the format.

But let's say they did. Did Clear Channel have 970 back then? I think they were just simulcasting oldies on there.

How would that have hurt Paulsen and Krenn if they had switched earlier? We know that when 970 went all sports with "The Burgh" in 2000 it didn't mean the end of Jim and Randy.

What it might have done is actually GROW the mothership. Imagine the Penguins going to Clear Channel instead of WTAE during that era. Would have been HUGE!

 

[Parttimer]

How would that have hurt Paulsen and Krenn if they had switched earlier? We know that when 970 went all sports with "The Burgh" in 2000 it didn't mean the end of Jim and Randy.

What it might have done is actually GROW the mothership. Imagine the Penguins going to Clear Channel instead of WTAE during that era. Would have been HUGE!

Agreed 100%, but that's not how they thought. I know people who were involved in creating "The Burgh" and, for instance, they never put a viable morning show there specifically so it wouldn't infringe on DVE. And really the only reason it existed was that they gave Paulsen a job so that they wouldn't have him surface as a competing morning show somewhere else.

Clear Channel has a history of being more interested in limiting competition than in actually winning.