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WLS Cuts Steve Cochran, Local Programing

Today there are only a finite number of AM stations left in any market that will do well ratings wise. Some only have one.
Milwaukee has WTMJ and WISN.
Chicago has WSCR, WGN and WBBM (although it can be argued much of the combined ratings are predominantly for the FM simulcast.)
All other AM's are pretty much also rans that are merely squeezing whatever revenue they can out of the signal to stay on the air or clear national programming.
 
Nathan Obral said:
And sports betting is still not legal in California, which really goes to show how absolutely moribund the talk format was.
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None of that matters. National ad buyers are only interested in the market and target demo. Talking sports? Check. Males 25-54 appeal? Check. Online sports betting is hot right now? Check.
 
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Kelly A said:
None of that matters. National ad buyers are only interested in the market and target demo. Talking sports? Check. Males 25-54 appeal? Check. Online sports betting is hot right now? Check.
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Missing in this is the fact that KGO's prior format of predominantly local talk was just not viable in ratings or revenue, and a sports betting format run totally off the bird is. Because zero overhead. (The potential of KGO getting 25-54 males does exist... assuming a marketing budget even exists to make that demo aware the station, let alone the band, even exists.)

That sports betting is not legal in California is an amusing postscript and was meant as snark.
 
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Nathan Obral said:
I'd argue that happened when Disney owned the station and let it get stagnant along with the other ABC-owned talkers. By the time Don Wade and Roma left, WLS was already a sinking ship.

For the longest time, WISN's "local" newscasts originated from WTAM in Cleveland. Not sure if that's still the case.
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I agree that WLS had been slipping when Cumulus took over, but AQH share was much better in 2010 (when Citadel still owned it) than any point in the past five years.

Don Wade and Roma posted healthy numbers in morning drive at times back in 2010.
 
JJSPC said:
Today there are only a finite number of AM stations left in any market that will do well ratings wise. Some only have one.
Milwaukee has WTMJ and WISN.
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And that is usually because most markets only have one or two AMs with a decent, full market signal. The rest, hampered by their signals and increasing interference, opt for paid programming or ethnic and religious options.
 
JeremyAndrews said:
It's cheap and easy to run network talk programming. No music licensing. Infomercials on the weekend.
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There is music licensing... covers bumpers, music in commercials, etc. Less costly, but still significant.
 
JoeU said:
Again, the elephant in room is what the promotion of right wing talk has done to our national discourse for well over 30 years. We may very well become a dictatorship rather than a democracy because of what Cumulus, iHeart etc.. are forcing down are throats.
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Clear Channel, now iHeart, put a whole bunch of good signals on a progressive talk network about two decades ago. It got no salable numbers. So they dropped it after several years of trying.

On the other hand, the conservative talk stations such as WLW and KFI and many others that iHeart owns make good money and most are top 10 billers in their market.
JoeU said:
The current day demographics don't support going down this road any more. What I read are just excuses for what are poor programing choices.
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Those stations make money because there are plenty of local accounts that like them and some, enough, agency accounts that want to be on foreground formats.
JoeU said:
The only logical explanation is that the message is in line with what the corporate ownership wants to promote for their political benefit.
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It has nothing to do with that and everything to do with revenue. Look at the top 10 billing stations in the US and note how many are conservative talk!
 
MarkW said:
It's so sad to see what's become of the once mighty WLS (AM).

Cumulus drove the station off a cliff.

iHM manages its large and major market heritage news/talk outlets far better than Cumulus. WISN 1130 in Milwaukee is a great example.
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And KFI in Los Angeles...
 
TheBigA said:
They're basically doing the exact same thing. They just have a stronger base of syndicated hosts.

WOR is getting killed in NYC.
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I don't know if it's exactly fair to compare WOR to WLW or KFI. WOR effectively changed format in 2013 when it became a clearinghouse for Rush and Hannity, et al, and brokers out the entirety of their weekend lineup. WLW and KFI have been predominantly local for decades and (excluding KFI's removal of Rush) neither have drastically altered their lineup in decades; both also have a second AM (WKRC and KEIB, respectively) to dump the national Premiere content onto.
 
On the Progressive side of things, Westwood One used to syndicate a few shows, particularly Ed Schultz and Fox had Alan Colmes. Both passed on. There are no major networks syndicating any progressive shows as far as I know. Many of the progressive talk stations have their own programming instead. There are a couple, Stephanie Miller in specific on much smaller networks.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Clear Channel, now iHeart, put a whole bunch of good signals on a progressive talk network about two decades ago. It got no salable numbers. So they dropped it after several years of trying.

On the other hand, the conservative talk stations such as WLW and KFI and many others that iHeart owns make good money and most are top 10 billers in their market.

Those stations make money because there are plenty of local accounts that like them and some, enough, agency accounts that want to be on foreground formats.

It has nothing to do with that and everything to do with revenue. Look at the top 10 billing stations in the US and note how many are conservative talk!
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WLW is not entirely conservative talk, but none of it's really liberal. There is Reds baseball,nightly Sports Talk, Bearcats, etc. Some of the talk hosts are MAGA (I think Cunningham just pretends), a couple more mainstream. I heard a caller call morning host Mike McConnell a RINO a couple of weeks ago since he argued against the MTG wing on the non-passed border bill. Sister WKRC has the major syndicated talkers.
 
WLS steady in the basement with a .9 in the book released today.

https://ratings.****************/co...EiqZS8tzctGv2Qt3To3xemufOngCHaqbtVf1sjbVWcPdS
 
TheBigA said:
They obviously knew this before they made the changes last week.
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And after the changes, the numbers will not be any better, probably worse. But, they will proudly wear the badge of the most conservative radio station in the country. They will more than likely have more listeners in down state Illinois than in the Chicago metropolitan area which goes against the market the ad buys are for.
 
Nathan Obral said:
I don't know if it's exactly fair to compare WOR to WLW or KFI. WOR effectively changed format in 2013 when it became a clearinghouse for Rush and Hannity, et al, and brokers out the entirety of their weekend lineup. WLW and KFI have been predominantly local for decades and (excluding KFI's removal of Rush) neither have drastically altered their lineup in decades; both also have a second AM (WKRC and KEIB, respectively) to dump the national Premiere content onto.
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Interesting however that WKRC does get decent ratings, especially since WLW has the lions share of not only the AM market but the market in general. Also the city is starting to outgrow WKRC’s night signal especially in the Anderson Twp area. A lot of ingress on that side of town.
 
In the 1960s-1980s, KMOX in St. Louis got 27-30 shares with Cardinals baseball and other sports, heavy news and what they called At Your Service, which was mostly talk about local issues and events.

I wonder why adults were interested in such programming in the past, but today‘s generation of under 55 adults would not be.

I could be mean and say that we have been “dumbed down” over the last 40 years and too many adults are interested in the same things they were as kids and have not matured past adolescence. Growing up, my dad who worked at a truck line and never went to college, read both daily newspapers every day. Today people get their news from social media and would rather watch you tube videos of people getting hit in the head.
 
But do they get it from other sources?

Sticking with St. Louis as an example, do you really think the average adult in 2024 is as informed about their community and the world as one who in 1974 listened to KMOX all day, read both the Post Dispatch and Globe Democrat and came home and watched Walter Cronkite?

Or in Chicago, listened to WGN all day, read the Tribune and Sun Times and maybe the Chicago Daily News, watched Walter Cronkite and then saw the excellent local news on WBBM TV with Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson?
 
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