Many of these program directors and market managers also head up far more profitable and popular FM stations because multitasking. To them, the AM talk station is an afterthought they just plug in a satellite, set, and forget.
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WLS Cuts Steve Cochran, Local Programing
- Thread starter JoeU
- Start date
A Barrett News Media article "Steve Cochran Isn't Looking in the Rear View Mirror After WLS-AM 890 Exist" has a couple of interesting observations.
“So in talk radio, AM should be treated like every other content platform. It’s just another content platform. It should have as much of the same opportunities and revenue streams as well. Cameras in studio, a video guy, social media people to monetize all of that,” he said. “I think the companies who are gonna win this — the remaining companies that may feel like they’re stuck with these big AMs — will figure out a way to treat them like content platforms and not like ‘Grandma’s down on the corner, the light’s on so I guess she’s ok.'”
“When I left (WGN) — that was not my call, or my desire, though I hated the way the company was being run at that point, and still being run, frankly, it’s half the radio station once was. And (WLS) and I were never a natural fit, but I really believed — and I believe they believed — that we could do something and deliver something,” Cochran said. “But it involved a lot of promotion, a lot of focus, and everybody wasn’t rowing the boat the same way.
He continued by noting that welcoming each side of the political aisle to talk radio needs to be much more prevalent than it has become, stating “Unless we get back to talking to each other, we’re done and everything in politics now is about not doing that.”
The promotion and focus comments are very similar to what Mark Thompson said after he was let go at KGO back in 2022.
“So in talk radio, AM should be treated like every other content platform. It’s just another content platform. It should have as much of the same opportunities and revenue streams as well. Cameras in studio, a video guy, social media people to monetize all of that,” he said. “I think the companies who are gonna win this — the remaining companies that may feel like they’re stuck with these big AMs — will figure out a way to treat them like content platforms and not like ‘Grandma’s down on the corner, the light’s on so I guess she’s ok.'”
“When I left (WGN) — that was not my call, or my desire, though I hated the way the company was being run at that point, and still being run, frankly, it’s half the radio station once was. And (WLS) and I were never a natural fit, but I really believed — and I believe they believed — that we could do something and deliver something,” Cochran said. “But it involved a lot of promotion, a lot of focus, and everybody wasn’t rowing the boat the same way.
He continued by noting that welcoming each side of the political aisle to talk radio needs to be much more prevalent than it has become, stating “Unless we get back to talking to each other, we’re done and everything in politics now is about not doing that.”
The promotion and focus comments are very similar to what Mark Thompson said after he was let go at KGO back in 2022.
He'd say no thanks
Hopefully, start with the realization that it's 2024 and not 1974, and so the way he was able to dominate a market amidst the limited choices 50 years ago isn't going to be economically viable with today's infinite dial.
The verb tenses are going to get really complicated here because we're dealing with a hypothesis grounded in the distant past.
The first thing Hyland would have done would have been to micromanage the hell out of the place. Hyland's attention to detail at KMOX was legendary. He had enough energy not only to spend any or all hours there but he also became a part of the St. Louis power structure. Which leads to another difference: the Chicago power structure is different, much more political and union-dominated, and less likely to have been amenable to a top media executive. St. Louis was more provincial in Hyland's day; Chicago more cosmopolitan. KMOX was the only network O&O in St. Louis; Chicago had the full complement. KMOX's competition for the news and information audience was mostly KSD, which in the 1970s, seemed to be an afterthought in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's local empire, taking a back seat to KSD-TV. Hyland traveled in a relatively small media world compared to what was in Chicago. While Hyland was corporate, he had an unusual degree of involvement in the station that he ran; today's transient media leaders seem to bounce from market to market. CBS gave Hyland free rein because what he did worked...and possibly because the prestige that the station gained, as well as the revenues, were a relatively small part of a rich corporation. Most of today's media corporations are so indebted that their accountability is to their debtholders. Hyland wasn't indebted to anyone.
Hyland also had the ear of August "Gussie" Busch Jr., president of the Anheuser-Busch brewery and principal owner of the St. Louis Cardinals. Gussie was one of the key movers and shakers in St. Louis. That relationship, plus a business card emblazoned with the CBS eye logo, probably opened a ton of doors.
The real question for someone like Hyland to ask would be budget. KMOX was, and still is, a high dollar operation. With Steve Cochrane's show being cut, WLS 890 is now essentially a zero dollar operation.
Once they go bankrupt, they're OWNED by their debtholders.
That's a step up from KABC.
Randy Michaels took over WKRC, then later WLW in the 80s. At WLW, he taught the Grand Old Lady to dance, made the format younger, with more irreverent personalities and programming. In the early 00s, he tried the same thing with WGN, even importing a WLW talk host (he was going to import 2). It was an abject failure.
What you're missing here is that Hyland was a mover and shaker in his own right.
If you won't listen to me, even though I went to high-school in the St. Louis area, listen to Scott: times have changed, there are more choices for consuming media, and no one is ever going to have KMOX's kind of dominance again. KMOX isn't nearly as dominant as it used to be either; in fact, I often refer to KSHE as "the new KMOX" though it's not quite the same. But that's what my generation and the one following listened to as our go-to (sorry, KWK), not KMOX.
Hyland would not have had the CBS eye on his KMOX radio business card.
In the Frank Stanton era, the eye logo was exclusive to TV, and the corporate design standards were extremely strict. It would have had the CBS Didot wordmark.
KMOX-TV would have been more likely to use the Eye, but it was used sparingly even at the O&Os.
In the Frank Stanton era, the eye logo was exclusive to TV, and the corporate design standards were extremely strict. It would have had the CBS Didot wordmark.
KMOX-TV would have been more likely to use the Eye, but it was used sparingly even at the O&Os.
Appreciate the responses.
Hyland also believed in retention advertising. For years when driving into St. Louis, there were can't-miss billboards on all the interstates with a simple message: KMOX taking up 90 percent of the sign, with a smaller 1120 and perhaps a Cardinals or Blues logo and a "News-Traffic-Weather" line. Last time I rolled into the town, they were gone.
Hyland also believed in retention advertising. For years when driving into St. Louis, there were can't-miss billboards on all the interstates with a simple message: KMOX taking up 90 percent of the sign, with a smaller 1120 and perhaps a Cardinals or Blues logo and a "News-Traffic-Weather" line. Last time I rolled into the town, they were gone.
In NYC WOR loses to WABC which became primarily live and local after Cumulus sold WABC to Red Apple Media a couple years ago. Since then, WABC became primarily live and local throughout the day except for 3 hours of Mark Levin in the evening. Even the graveyard shift is live and local 7 days a week. This resulted in WABC rising to KFi cumes and achieving nearly double the WOR audience. Before this change, WOR was slightly ahead most months. Both audiences are old, but WABC has shown that live and local can still achieve high ratings on AN in a big city.
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