Would radio stations abandon overnight broadcasting?

[davideduardo]

When I worked at WLW in the 90's we had a very successful over night show - The Truckin Bozo (Dale Sommers)
Bozo focused on and programmed to OTR truck drivers. The show was it's own product - with its own marketing and sales people and website. An d brought in quite a cheerful revenue. Dale worked hard on the show and the results were good.

At some point ten to fifteen years ago, Clear Channel (now iHeart) dropped this in favor of another show aimed at truckers (Maybe Road America or something - I don't listen or work there any more so i don't know.) I think Dale's son Steve carried on the Bozo show for a while but my understanding is that it is now all gone.

Victim of the early 00's launch of satellite radio with a variety of things truckers like.

One may speculate why. Maybe OTR truckers use their phones for everything now so a large nighttime AM signal is of less value - don't know. As WLW's signal was more than useable most places in the US east of the Rockies this was a popular and lucrative program.

When I was in charge of 5 of the XM channels, I was party to some of the initial push to get truckers to use satellite. It even included campaigns to get truck stops to offer satellite radios. You see very few long haul truckers that don't have satellite, even those owned by larger trucking companies; hiring is competitive and having "free satellite radio" is a measurable benefit.

On our other 50 kw am signal in Cincinnati - WCKY - we ran syndicated religion programming overnight. That signal covered much of the eastern seaboard and was in some demand as a vehicle for this type of targetted programming. we had several sales people who made most of their commissions from these shows, so it was pretty lucrative too. And cost us nothing to originate - just play the tape. One of the regular preachers had, in fact, been dead for several years, but his church still paid to run his sermons (eternal life???).

Reports from "all over" are that, as AM listening declines the donations that support those shows have disappeared. It is a sign of the times.

Again I don't know if a large signal has any value for this type of programming anymore. Perhaps it has been taken over by groups like EMF who have FM translators just about everywhere.

Two key letters: A and M. A dead radio band. Why listen to static and fading if you can get the same thing from satellite or hundreds of Internet streams?

My take on AM (and FM) radio is that if you have programming that the audience likes, you'll be able to sell it and make money. I know several small broadcasters who still do. My guess is that the owners of the big signals just haven't been able to come up with that kind of programming.

It was once common to have radio advertisers who wanted evenings and weekends. Today, nearly everything specifies 6 AM to 7 PM Monday to Friday. Even local sales for nights and weekends is tough... and sellers have to focus on those who can benefit. For example, car dealers see Saturday and Sunday and evenings as point of purchase radio advertising as that is when many people have time to visit a car dealer. But most local retail won't touch nights and is shy about weekends.

 

[TheBigA]

I think Dale's son Steve carried on the Bozo show for a while but my understanding is that it is now all gone.

There's a thread about this on the Cincinnati board:

https://www.radiodiscussions.com/threads/iheartmedia-fires-steve-sommers-of-700wlws-americas-truckin-network.730366/page-2#post-6358695

He apparently had stopped doing what had made the show so unique and was instead becoming just another conservative talker.

Even the cable news networks run repeats in overnights. They have access to a bigger audience than WLW.

 

[TheBigA]

Today, nearly everything specifies 6 AM to 7 PM Monday to Friday. Even local sales for nights and weekends is tough... and sellers have to focus on those who can benefit.

I'm hearing this is an even bigger problem since the economy took a dive in May.

 

[SarahB98]

theres some radio stations that don’t broadcast 24/7 which aren’t daytimer stations which is very rare in this day & age

 

[b-turner]

In speaking of selling beyond 6am to 7pm weekdays, even in a small market, I have a difficult time selling after 7pm (even 6pm) on weekdays and all weekend. Only a few businesses with healthy Saturday business want spots and they like to cut off at Noon ot 1pm on Saturday. Even restaurants with strong evening sales and places like ice cream shops, prefer daytime weekday hungry hours even when evenings and weekends are strong sales periods. They know the audience is not as ample during those times. Filling 12 units an hour daytimes on weekdays compares to maybe 2 units an hour or less outside those times.

 

[vw86]

I wonder if any stations throw any "curve balls" during those hours? Even one song or so that is out of the ordinary. Some pop stations are more "cutting edge" during those hours, but I wonder if any stations play things totally out of left field.

I know our classic rocker (15+ years ago) used to schedule some album cuts and harder songs from 10p-4a. We had a local "Big Hair Saturday Night" show and song categories from that would play once an hour in that time frame, as would a category for album cuts that got played every other hour from I think 7p-4a, as well as the occasional specialty weekend or fulfilling an "oh wow" request when they took them during the lunch hour and the 5p hour.

 

[gr8oldies]

In speaking of selling beyond 6am to 7pm weekdays, even in a small market, I have a difficult time selling after 7pm (even 6pm) on weekdays and all weekend. Only a few businesses with healthy Saturday business want spots and they like to cut off at Noon ot 1pm on Saturday. Even restaurants with strong evening sales and places like ice cream shops, prefer daytime weekday hungry hours even when evenings and weekends are strong sales periods. They know the audience is not as ample during those times. Filling 12 units an hour daytimes on weekdays compares to maybe 2 units an hour or less outside those times.

I can remember being told in the 90s that Saturday midday was the gaming the highest dayparts of the week, and the log was always full on an oldies station

 

[vw86]

We always sold Saturday 10a-2p at the same rate as weekday morning drive. But by 4p on Saturday we'd have room for an extra song each hour, without fail.

We also had success selling Sunday morning sponsorships that bundled Casey Kasem, Bob Kingsley, and Flashback. Local avails were half of a regular hour since those shows all had national spots included. But the exclusivity of the local spots combined with each of those shows having a pretty good P1 following helped weekends for sure.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Listeners expect someone to be there - SOMEONE - I doubt the garbage run overnight on most stations now is building any loyalty. Yes the station is "on" but no one is home. Used to always put on WBZ when up late with live overnight talk - now I'll stream WECK with live overnight host or put on WABC also now live overnight. That has directly led to me rarely listening to BZ when I used to have it on 80% of the time so I suppose this partially proves the argument that overnights can build loyalty - but can also destroy it when the content is garbage. Its not just a matter of leaving the transmitter on. At least we have WECK and WABC. TV is really bad wall to wall infomercials overnight. I would rather watch a test pattern. No choice but to go to the DVR or a streaming app.

Listener here. I expect no such thing.

 

[davideduardo]

In speaking of selling beyond 6am to 7pm weekdays, even in a small market, I have a difficult time selling after 7pm (even 6pm) on weekdays and all weekend. Only a few businesses with healthy Saturday business want spots and they like to cut off at Noon ot 1pm on Saturday. Even restaurants with strong evening sales and places like ice cream shops, prefer daytime weekday hungry hours even when evenings and weekends are strong sales periods. They know the audience is not as ample during those times. Filling 12 units an hour daytimes on weekdays compares to maybe 2 units an hour or less outside those times.

In a big market (top 15), even before the internet and the like, agencies asked for Sunday for free as a bonus. So I made Sunday "commercial free" so I did not have to give away time. Agencies, which were 95% of our business (and of which there were over 120 in the market) understood and did not ask for a free day. But to get the desired Grips, they increased the Monday to Saturday schedule, so we made money by not selling Sunday.

You have to read your market.

 

[gr8oldies]

Listener here. I expect no such thing.

I don't....but there are times I wish there were.

 

[Mikey Radio]

Listeners expect someone to be there - SOMEONE - I doubt the garbage run overnight on most stations now is building any loyalty. Yes the station is "on" but no one is home. Used to always put on WBZ when up late with live overnight talk - now I'll stream WECK with live overnight host or put on WABC also now live overnight.

When it comes to music stations, I'd wager that at least 95% of the typical listening audience (i.e. non-techs and non-industry people) could not tell if a particular station had a live jock or if it was voice tracked. I remember back in the early 90s when satellite-fed stations with local automation were becoming a thing, I had a few buddies who really liked one of the stations and even had favorite announcers. When I tried to explain those jocks were located a few thousand miles away, they were in disbelief and simply didn't buy it...And that was back when the satellite-fed announcers would host the show, while the local automation system would drop in some local liners every several minutes, voiced by those same people. On some stations it sounded better than others, while on other stations the volume, cadence or tone of those local drops were so far off, it was blatant that they were local inserts or at least that they were voiced by the "talent" at a different time and not being done live.

For talk, I used to enjoy local talk since it was more topical to what was going on in the local area, but once I moved to a different city and didn't really have a strong connection, that didn't matter so much to me anymore. That said, since most talkers owned by larger corporations use much of the same shtick and talking points, even the local talkers don't always sound so, well, local.

 

[TheBigA]

That said, since most talkers owned by larger corporations use much of the same shtick and talking points, even the local talkers don't always sound so, well, local.

It's not because of ownership. It's because even local conversation is based on national issues. Since talk radio is primarily conservative, the talking points are basically the same.

 

[Kelly A]

When it comes to music stations, I'd wager that at least 95% of the typical listening audience (i.e. non-techs and non-industry people) could not tell if a particular station had a live jock or if it was voice tracked.

Several years ago I built a new Class A just on the east side of the I-90 pass between Bellevue and Ellensburg, WA. We were running syndicated Classic Hits from (at the time) Jones. A couple nice ladies stopped by with cakes and a pie to welcome Mr. Sky Walker to the area, and to tell him how much they liked his show. I was a little concerned these two listeners might be upset to discover their new favorite personality was actually in Denver. They weren't, leaving the deserts behind anyway.

 

[OLDRFGUY]

So I see the consensus is that these AM signals are just not that valuable anymore, not surprised; I don't listen to them. You may want to check out Radio World this past week. There is an article by Mr. Lapidus who is a promotions expert which refers to Nielsen data which pretty much confirms this. To everything ...

 

[gr8oldies]

When it comes to music stations, I'd wager that at least 95% of the typical listening audience (i.e. non-techs and non-industry people) could not tell if a particular station had a live jock or if it was voice tracked. I remember back in the early 90s when satellite-fed stations with local automation were becoming a thing, I had a few buddies who really liked one of the stations and even had favorite announcers. When I tried to explain those jocks were located a few thousand miles away, they were in disbelief and simply didn't buy it...And that was back when the satellite-fed announcers would host the show, while the local automation system would drop in some local liners every several minutes, voiced by those same people. On some stations it sounded better than others, while on other stations the volume, cadence or tone of those local drops were so far off, it was blatant that they were local inserts or at least that they were voiced by the "talent" at a different time and not being done live.

For talk, I used to enjoy local talk since it was more topical to what was going on in the local area, but once I moved to a different city and didn't really have a strong connection, that didn't matter so much to me anymore. That said, since most talkers owned by larger corporations use much of the same shtick and talking points, even the local talkers don't always sound so, well, local.

I remember running Westwood One Adult Standards/AM Only in the 90s. A guy stops by and wants to leave something for Jeff Rollins, morning host on the network. I had to explain that Jeff and all the announcers are broadcasting from somewhere else. I explained that a 250 station in Ohio, we wouldn't be able to afford even one of those guys, but when stations like ours pool their resources, we can all have top announcers, while keeping you abreast with news, weather and sports. I guess he bought it. I call that my "I ain't the Wolfman" moment

 

[CaliRadioFan]

Listeners expect someone to be there - SOMEONE - I doubt the garbage run overnight on most stations now is building any loyalty. Yes the station is "on" but no one is home. Used to always put on WBZ when up late with live overnight talk - now I'll stream WECK with live overnight host or put on WABC also now live overnight. That has directly led to me rarely listening to BZ when I used to have it on 80% of the time so I suppose this partially proves the argument that overnights can build loyalty - but can also destroy it when the content is garbage. Its not just a matter of leaving the transmitter on. At least we have WECK and WABC. TV is really bad wall to wall infomercials overnight. I would rather watch a test pattern. No choice but to go to the DVR or a streaming app.

Not sure how it is in your TV Market, but in LA overnights are most local stations are Sitcoms, Daytime Show reruns and syndicated News and Reality based shows. Of the 8 stations combined where Informercials once ruled the overnight roost, it's down to 48 hours total....per week!

 

[kevtronics]

I remember running Westwood One Adult Standards/AM Only in the 90s. A guy stops by and wants to leave something for Jeff Rollins, morning host on the network. I had to explain that Jeff and all the announcers are broadcasting from somewhere else. I explained that a 250 station in Ohio, we wouldn't be able to afford even one of those guys, but when stations like ours pool their resources, we can all have top announcers, while keeping you abreast with news, weather and sports. I guess he bought it. I call that my "I ain't the Wolfman" moment

When the computer running the network feed dies, you become the Wolfman:

 

[vchimpanzee]

I remember running Westwood One Adult Standards/AM Only in the 90s. A guy stops by and wants to leave something for Jeff Rollins, morning host on the network. I had to explain that Jeff and all the announcers are broadcasting from somewhere else. I explained that a 250 station in Ohio, we wouldn't be able to afford even one of those guys, but when stations like ours pool their resources, we can all have top announcers, while keeping you abreast with news, weather and sports. I guess he bought it. I call that my "I ain't the Wolfman" moment

After he was let go one station DID hire Jeff.