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Would Stern Have Made in Atlanta?

R

RTibbs

We all like to have fun and name the number of syndicated morning shows that have failed in this market Bob & Tom, MJ, Imus, Big D and Bubba, Greaseman etc. The latest is Elvis Duran on Groove 105.7. Most deem it DOA. Who would want to listen to some morning show out of New York? They don't talk to my values or live the life I lead. I am sick of hearing about NYC. I don't need an out of towner to listen to in the morning, etc.

Many a syndicated shows are pumped into top 20 markets as an outsider they seem to me to be more successful that any syndicated morning show has done in the market. My one caveat on this might be the urban stations. I think Steve Harvey has some success here and Ricky Smiley is doing alright himself.

So I ask, had Stern been brought to Atlanta at his height of his popularity would he have dominated Atlanta like he dominated some markets and rose to number 1 in the mornings. I am not so sure. While he dominated in some markets he did not kill it in all markets. I am not a radio insider so I don't know the exact reasons for some his market failures whether they were signal driven, lack of promotion or was a successsful, male-oriented radio show already established in the market.

The only parallel I could draw would be Imus. He came out of the New York market. And despite your opinions on Imus he was very successful in NY like Stern and had also expereinced and some decent success in many other markets. At one point in the 90's he was the number one program on the number one billed station in America. Imus appealed to a older male demographic and in general the business executive type. Stern was more of a youthful male demo.

Imus never succeeded in Atlanta nor did ther rest. Put you stern bias aside. Could he have made inAtlanta had he ever come here. Could it really be the Jesse Helms rumor that prevented him from coming here or did CBS Atlanta feel he would not wwork here? I always wondered and with the recent Elvis Duran comments I wonder again what would have happened had Stern come here. Could V and Z been 1 and 2 in the market. I guess we will never know.
 
Face it, if Stern had a fighting chance in Atlanta, CBS would have plunked him on Z-93 at the drop of a hat.

Of course, they thought the "Free-FM" concept would fly in his absence...
 
DToTheJ said:
Face it, if Stern had a fighting chance in Atlanta, CBS would have plunked him on Z-93 at the drop of a hat.
Click to expand...
Assuming the Jesse Helms/Infinity thing wasn't an issue.

The prevailing conventional wisdom at the time was that Stern would have been too raunchy. Not sure I agree--considering Z93 put in the Greaseman instead of Stern, although Stern could be more explicit (topic-wise, while being careful with his word choice) while Grease would hide behind his, ahem, "bomb bays", "snarlings", and "ppppppppppft!" euphemisms while rehashing middle-school jokes that were comparatively tamer once you took out the euphemisms.

I remember listening to Stern on a business trip to NYC--I didn't get it, although I liked his books and knew all the players. So much of the show seemed like an inside joke. (It wasn't particularly dirty.) Imagine taking an early version of TRG and placing them in another market. Would Larry Wachs' line "He said he fought in 'Nam--that probably means he really just got in a bar fight in Chambodia" get a laugh in another market? ATL thought that John Boy & Billy was an inside (Charlotte?) joke they didn't get--Stern would have done worse if JB&B did so poorly in that respect.

I think the real question, then as now, is whether or not ATL is a big enough market to deserve a morning show with sufficient local color as opposed to being stuck with watered-down, generic syndicated stuff. Speaking of Grease, in the latter days of Grease's syndication of ATL he added a significant amount of localized patter to his show on Z93--chatting back and forth with the news and traffic guys, etc.
 
It is strange noting that while Stern was considered too controversial for the number 7 market in America (Atlanta), even smaller markets like Charleston S.C. carried his show down there. For some reason, Atlanta is definitely an unusual market, since FM Talk has done mostly decent in most of the Top 10 Markets.
 
No matter how much it's been denied over the years, Mel cut a deal with the FCC not to plug Howard into Atlanta. He did it because The Commission was ready to hang up transfers of license in other markets over Howard. The show would have killed here, especially at its height: the late eighties and early nineties...when it attracted not only men, but women and gays as well. The Morning X had yet to establish itself; 96Rock had the kind of local show that Howard preyed upon; and 94Q was becoming Van-Mom-Kid-Safe. There were and are only 7 signals worth having in this town and 92.9 has always been one of them.
 
I think Stern would have stood a chance on Z93. History might have been on his side. In the past 92.9 had Ross & Wilson (IIRC they ended up in New York) and they took on Gary at 94Q and did OK. Z93 (pre CBS) always seemed to me as an “outsider” station which had large following among the non Georgia transplants. I know there is no proof of this just an opinion. Greedy Kilowatt brought up the 7 FM signal issue and I think he is correct. That has “limited” Atlanta. I wish the commission would rework the FM Tables so Atlanta had a set of stations like Phoenix.
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=phonix&sid=&x=19&y=8
Let the “move in” C’s change their COL to ATL. And go at least 75 KW @ 900 ft. before the fm band is jammed with LPFMs. I know this is only a dream.
 
secondchoice said:
I think Stern would have stood a chance on Z93. History might have been on his side. In the past 92.9 had Ross & Wilson (IIRC they ended up in New York) and they took on Gary at 94Q and did OK. Z93 (pre CBS) always seemed to me as an “outsider” station which had large following among the non Georgia transplants. I know there is no proof of this just an opinion. Greedy Kilowatt brought up the 7 FM signal issue and I think he is correct. That has “limited” Atlanta. I wish the commission would rework the FM Tables so Atlanta had a set of stations like Phoenix.
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=phonix&sid=&x=19&y=8
Let the “move in” C’s change their COL to ATL. And go at least 75 KW @ 900 ft. before the fm band is jammed with LPFMs. I know this is only a dream.
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Someone mentioned a while back that ATL's biggest problem with more powerful stations is Hartsfield and tower clearance (insert Airplane! joke here) issues, although I can't see how other cities wouldn't have a similar problem, unless it's due to Hartsfield's sheer volume of traffic and requisite approaches.

ATL does have a shortage of full-power FMs for a market this size, though. Probably another legacy from allocations handed out back when ATL was much smaller...similar to how we only got 4 VHF (analog) TV stations instead of the theoretical max of 7 like the Friscos and Chicagos and NYCs.
 
"Under-signaled" is the word that best describes Atlanta.

It's intentional: The owners of the 70's and 80's -- SJR, Taft, Jeff-Pilot, etc. -- knew what they had and aggressively fought CPs. That left a handful of good signals chasing a ton of money. Most times, Atlanta billing out-paced it's market rank. (ie-When Atlanta was the 13th market, it was 9th or 10th in billing.)

In terms of personnel and conditions, the town was unique: sales people never hitting the street, other than happy hour or an afternoon at the mall. They just sat and watched the fax machines spew orders, and tossed them to Traffic. Air talent phoned it in. GMs on the golf course. Because of the lack of sticks, you didn't need an immense outdoor, TV or direct mail budget. No one got fired, people stayed here forever.

Secondchoice, interesting you chose Phoenix as it's the diametric opposite of The ATL: perhaps the most over-signaled market in the country. In the 60s, The Commission opened the town up to get radio in Arizona. You were on a hideously crowded dial, fought like hell for one-tenth of point, and bludgeoned baby seals just to get noticed.
 
Greedy Kilowatt said:
Secondchoice, interesting you chose Phoenix as it's the diametric opposite of The ATL: perhaps the most over-signaled market in the country. In the 60s, The Commission opened the town up to get radio in Arizona. You were on a hideously crowded dial, fought like hell for one-tenth of point, and bludgeoned baby seals just to get noticed.


I just wonder if there has been as much personnel “bloodletting” in Phoenix as in Atlanta. If the market is completive and you mess with your product (entertainment that lets you sell commercials) you will pay the price in billings. I feel there is no way a gutted WGST type of station could survive in a completive market. With the lack of signals the Atlanta market is paying for the ownership of the past, rather than the individual stations that messes it up. Like Greedy Said you had to fight for tenth of a point, and I’ll bet just about any one of the Phoenix stations would kick its Atlanta counterpart’s butt and still make money. I know in the pre cluster days the even the Cincinnati stations could do it.
Click to expand...
 
I couldn't see Stern on the air in Atlanta...way to extreme for Atlanta radio. Not to mention it's not as easy to rip off a show like his when it's a few clicks down on the dial...becomes rather obvious.

my .02
 
It certainly would have been a shot worth taking, looking back at it. Look at how many times new stations and PD's, change formats (insert Z93---->Dave here) take the same talents and regurgitate them to another station only to have the same sub par results as they did before. I could make this a long paragraph with many more current examples. Atlanta has some real issues with using the same people over and over with little impact. It is definitely a "who you know city", when it comes to hiring on-air talent.

It's like its impossible to create a hit show in this town from within anymore. But Stern would have killed it here imo, and I am not even really a big fan myself.
 
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