Why is KAMP failing?

[ericdxx]

CBS should have flipped KTWV to Top 40 and kept KLSX as Hot Talk?

OK, maybe the Smooth Jazz format is in decline but KTWV was still one of LA's top 10 earniing radio stations in the 2008 BIA listing. (2009 isn't out yet.) Meanwhile Hot Talk is more expensive to run and KLSX wasn't earning what The Wave brings in.

The Wave has recently updated its presentation and reduced instrumentals, so let's see if these changes work.


Gregg
[email protected]

Ok, KLSX had one bad billing year

And it also had only one successful show. Leykis was the only one who was doing well in the ratings.

Do you have ratings to prove that?

Adam Carolla didn't place in the top 20 for morning drive time in key demographics:
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/27/news/wk-radio27?pg=2

Tom Leykis was no. 1 in Men 25-54
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/21/entertainment/et-klsx21?pg=2

 

[ericdxx]

Don't get me wrong, I want KLSX back but I'm also angry at CBS who put their money on the Adam Carolla show. That show killed any chances that station had. It was an on-air disaster. Almost as bad as David Lee Roth in N.Y.

 

[Buckethead]

The switch to AMP is a great success by all reasonable standards. I don't see the point of this thread.

 

[musicfan101]

Hey Kevin Weatherly, how are you?! Unless you consider being way out of the top ten in the mornings a "reasonable" success, or getting murdered by KIIS-FM,this thread is here to stay - and will most likely keep growing.

 

[davideduardo]

Hey Kevin Weatherly, how are you?! Unless you consider being way out of the top ten in the mornings a "reasonable" success, or getting murdered by KIIS-FM,this thread is here to stay - and will most likely keep growing.

First, in PPM mornings is not even the first or second most listened to daypart, so a station does not have to be #1 in mornings to be a very successful biller. In any case, morning shows take longer to build than music dayparts. In general, AMP is a very successful launch.

In 18-34 Amp has been around 4th, 5th or 6th (the differences are tenths of share points) and in 18-49 the station is well inside the top 10 consistently.

LA is a market where even being inside the top 12 to 15 in any of the sales demos is good for nice billing.

 

[musicfan101]

Hey Kevin Weatherly, how are you?! Unless you consider being way out of the top ten in the mornings a "reasonable" success, or getting murdered by KIIS-FM,this thread is here to stay - and will most likely keep growing.

First, in PPM mornings is not even the first or second most listened to daypart, so a station does not have to be #1 in mornings to be a very successful biller. In any case, morning shows take longer to build than music dayparts. In general, AMP is a very successful launch.

In 18-34 Amp has been around 4th, 5th or 6th (the differences are tenths of share points) and in 18-49 the station is well inside the top 10 consistently.

LA is a market where even being inside the top 12 to 15 in any of the sales demos is good for nice billing.

People on this very board have been saying that you need to have a decent rated morning show to be a good biller, I could've sworn you mentioned the same thing. If I mixed up what you said, I apologize. Then what was the controversy about Carolla being 17th, 13th, or whatever it was of his final months at 97.1?

 

[davideduardo]

People on this very board have been saying that you need to have a decent rated morning show to be a good biller, I could've sworn you mentioned the same thing. If I mixed up what you said, I apologize. Then what was the controversy about Carolla being 17th, 13th, or whatever it was of his final months at 97.1?
[/quote]

KLSX flipped in no small part due to the much less attractive numbers it got in the PPM, which became currency in September of 2008. The PPM was the game changer, showing higher listening in middays and afternoons than in the morning. And many stations have discovered that reducing the chatter in the morning results in higher numbers (as KIIS found out last year when, momentarily, Amp beat Seacrest with a pure music play).

The big morning show helped in the diary, where such a show was memorable enough to get written down later in the day when the diary was filled out... not the case in the passive measurement world of the PPM.

 

[Buckethead]

Musicfan,
You need to be reminded that 97.1 was at a 1.7 overall at the end of talk radio and it carried the burden of many high salaries.
AMP has effectively doubled the ratings with a fraction of the overhead. I would call that a success.
One would love to see KW fail but the truth it is, this is a success.

 

[davideduardo]

One would love to see KW fail but the truth it is, this is a success.

Why would "one" like to see Kevin Weatherly fail?

He's a very good, maybe brilliant, programmer. He's doing exactly what CBS wants... helping to make the LA cluster successful.

And, today, it's pretty amazing to see two greaat programmers, Kevin and Jhani Kaye, at the same cluster. It shows the programming and product focus of Dan Mason and CBS radio.

 

[Buckethead]

I'm referring to musicfan's assertion that I am KW. He seems to have some ax to grind.
I have to tip my hat to the success KW has had at KROQ, AMP and Jack.

 

[musicfan101]

It was a 1.8 - and growing when the station flipped. The problem I have is that, CBS should have given 97.1 more time to see what else it could do in the ratings books. Again, the ratings were indeed going up since about October of 2008 (when CBS first spoke of killing the format), and it seemed pretty unfair for CBS to pull the plug on a station in that predicament. FM Talk was really beginning to figure out the PPM.

I do have a question, what about the big salaries of Carson Daly, Booker, or Stryker (before he left)?

@Buckethead: I was just being playful, when I made the comment referring to you as Kevin Weatherly. Personally, I have never met the man, so I have no ax to grind at all.

 

[davideduardo]

It was a 1.8 - and growing when the station flipped.

The station was in the 1.8 to 2.5 range in 25-54 for the PPM months before the flip; it now has more than 50% more in the sales demo than it had at the highest point as a talker.

The problem I have is that, CBS should have given 97.1 more time to see what else it could do in the ratings books. Again, the ratings were indeed going up since about October of 2008 (when CBS first spoke of killing the format), and it seemed pretty unfair for CBS to pull the plug on a station in that predicament. FM Talk was really beginning to figure out the PPM.

They were still hovering around 21st in 25-54, and there was no indication that the slight increases were not just the effects of Arbitron fine tuning the PPM.

And there have been no indications in any market nationally that the kind of talk KLSX was doing has any future, on AM or FM. Traditional "Rush-like" talkers have been migrating by the dozens to FM, and nearly all have met with improved 25-54 numbers. But there is no such "hot talk" trend and there won't be.

 

[Buckethead]

@musicfan "I do have a question, what about the big salaries of Carson Daly, Booker, or Stryker (before he left)? "

The salaries are not as high as you might think, and there aren't multiple off mic people to pay such as producer, board op, assistant, booker etc.

 

[ericdxx]

It was a 1.8 - and growing when the station flipped. The problem I have is that, CBS should have given 97.1 more time

Oh my god. What kind of logic is that?