More likely they just asked to have the radio retuned to KGO, where, ooh, look at that!
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Yikes…97.1 😱
- Thread starter Loverofradio
- Start date
The sports talk format is really aimed at older white males. Sure, some of the hosts are African-americans or other minorities, but the aim of the programming is to go after older white males.
I'm saying this because Los Angeles is now a majority minority city with most of those minorities being Hispanic followed by Asian- and African-american people. The sports talk format, no matter where it's at, has never really attracted these listeners, and I really don't think that putting sports talk on FM is going to make any difference.
The one football team this audience liked (when it was in Los Angeles) was the Raiders. While the Rams drew in a lot of white fans, my late father (who was a Rams fan and never liked the Raiders) actually attended a Raiders game in the late 1990s as the result of getting a free ticket through friends. He told my mother after he returned to Phoenix that he was surprised by how many black, Hispanic, and Asian faces were in the Raiders crowd--he never saw those large numbers at Rams games back in the early 1970s before we moved to Phoenix.
But I digress. I just don't think that sports talk, no matter who has the format, is ever really going to be a big factor in the Los Angeles ratings of today--the demographics of the listeners it's aimed is not as big as they were years ago and the current demographics just aren't interested in sports talk stations.
I'm saying this because Los Angeles is now a majority minority city with most of those minorities being Hispanic followed by Asian- and African-american people. The sports talk format, no matter where it's at, has never really attracted these listeners, and I really don't think that putting sports talk on FM is going to make any difference.
The one football team this audience liked (when it was in Los Angeles) was the Raiders. While the Rams drew in a lot of white fans, my late father (who was a Rams fan and never liked the Raiders) actually attended a Raiders game in the late 1990s as the result of getting a free ticket through friends. He told my mother after he returned to Phoenix that he was surprised by how many black, Hispanic, and Asian faces were in the Raiders crowd--he never saw those large numbers at Rams games back in the early 1970s before we moved to Phoenix.
But I digress. I just don't think that sports talk, no matter who has the format, is ever really going to be a big factor in the Los Angeles ratings of today--the demographics of the listeners it's aimed is not as big as they were years ago and the current demographics just aren't interested in sports talk stations.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
Ted, don't apologize for digressing about your late father's experience at the Raiders game. I think it makes a point about how certain teams attract certain demographics and others attract different demos.
The question here is: Absent the Raiders, and with all of the other teams in town largely attracting white fans in larger percentages than the well-chosen phrase "majority minority" citizens, is there enough potential audience for a Sports-talk station, with (apparently) no live games planned for the schedule, to get a piece of the usual white male demographic that the existing Sports stations attract?
Because if they can't, Audacy just took on an expense they didn't have to and prove nothing in the process.
The question here is: Absent the Raiders, and with all of the other teams in town largely attracting white fans in larger percentages than the well-chosen phrase "majority minority" citizens, is there enough potential audience for a Sports-talk station, with (apparently) no live games planned for the schedule, to get a piece of the usual white male demographic that the existing Sports stations attract?
Because if they can't, Audacy just took on an expense they didn't have to and prove nothing in the process.
It hadn't been a factor before TheFanLA. We predicted this in 2017. The fact that it's on FM doesn't change a thing.
When the station signed on, posters asked where are all the experts who said this wouldn't happen. The answer is we're still here.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
And we will be here to say "we told you so" when this disaster bombs.
Here's the thing, though---reading the Barrett Media piece with Andrew Williams that I posted this morning, it looks like the focus here is profitability, not ratings. Success is likely to come down to what the margins look like, and we don't know what the timeline and set goals (if any) are.
Sports Talk always bills well beyond what the numbers would suggest. If it were just shares, KSPN would be a disaster---and they're 23 and a half years in.
My beef historically has not been with the idea that someone could make money with another sportstalker, it was with people who swore they could get a three share and a top ten ranking if they'd just let them have a crack at it.
Sports Talk always bills well beyond what the numbers would suggest. If it were just shares, KSPN would be a disaster---and they're 23 and a half years in.
My beef historically has not been with the idea that someone could make money with another sportstalker, it was with people who swore they could get a three share and a top ten ranking if they'd just let them have a crack at it.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
Those are the same people who think 6+ numbers accurately define a station's worth, when it's the demographic breakouts that actually do the defining.
As @davideduardo has pointed out many, many (MANY) times, there are some advertisers who specifically give the ad buyers directives to buy Sports stations, regardless of ratings. Now, whether or not that applies to a brand new Sports station, time alone will answer.
They could go active rock. Have they tried count - never mind. I don’t want anyone to compete with Saul
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
I think the most likely scenario is that this joke of a format will go on until Audacy has lost enough money on it, and then 97.1 will go back to simulcasting 1070.
How would they get active rock fans to throw away their phones and buy radios?
As I've said, any new format will have this device problem that exists, where fans of certain genres have already left radio.
Listen to K.M. he knows what he is talking about
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
Thank you for that vote of confidence, Patrick. I needed that boost after dealing with personal attacks in another thread which the moderators refused to accept as such.
Your welcome...Just curious K.M. How come you don't agree with my comment about Carson Daly and their problems amp 97.1 started when he left You could very well be right. His departure could have nothing to do with the station amp 97.1 suffering...I don't know It just seems that that's when all the problems really started multiplying when he left the station
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
I'm not convinced that the problems were connected to his leaving, and it was just coincidence that they began around the same time. You might remember that he posted on Instagram about his departure, saying that he was tired of his kids growing up without their father at breakfast in the morning. You will also recall that he had three other "meal tickets" on his plate ... he was host of The Voice, co-anchor of Today, and also doing Last Call. Even Ryan Seacrest hasn't tried to do that much all at once.
CBS was already starting to phase out the "Amp" brand and 97.1 was the very last to drop it ... and that didn't come until 2015, by which time it was not CBS but Audacy. So it is my opinion that being the last station using a brand that was created under different ownership and management contributed more to the situation than anything else.
If anything, Carson Daly picked a good time to exit. I think the switch to the "Now!" brand under Audacy would have happened anyway, and I don't see anything that would cause me to think they wouldn't have shown him the door at that point.
Just my opinion, but thank you for asking.
Further, at the very low listening levels those stations have, those variations of +/- 0.5 to 0.8 down at the bottom are not unusual. A share of 0.5 can be a 1.1 or a 0.9 without representing anything but the inherent error / variation in a random probability sample or a panel.
Same goes for cume. Just look at how much the cume of the bigger stations may change from month to month and you can see that one or two listeners in the PPM environment can cause a 50,000 person change in cume. That is why, to establish a trend, we have to see average increases over 4 or 5 months, not one month to another.
For the record I was joking. I should’ve added that. My apologies
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
I thought it sounded rather tongue-in-cheek ...
I know I am ignored, but listeners do behave totally logically. But that logic is according to their standards. That is, fundamentally, why different people like different songs.
One thing that we notice with radio stations reflects on what the PPM showed us clearly: people often have two or three "favorite" radio stations, and they tend to listen more toy each in cycles.
So, and particularly with lower rated stations... but also with major stations... the month to month books tend to vary significantly. For those of us who have access to the weekly ratings, we see even greater wobbles... yet in the PPM it is essentially the same panel each week.
This is why month to month comparisons are so dangerous to place any credibility on.
No, it is aimed at 25-64 male sports fans. You are putting a racial twist on what is a simple marketing reality.
The fact is that, for example, different groups may have different interests in sports. A huge percentage of Hispanics don't follow ythe sports that American all sports stations carry. And all-sports has not been successful to any great extent in Latin America.
The Hispanic percentage is now over 50% in the sales demos. Asians and Asian Americans are not well measured in ratings due to language (no recruiting of PPM materials in any Asian language). The Black population is so small that it's not viable to target them (that is why The Wave, while called Urban A/C, is principally targeted at the 94% of the market that is not Black.
Generally, sports talk does pretty well with Blacks, particularly if the station has a local team on with play by play. Sports talk does not do well with Hispanics, even in Latin America.
You are looking at ratings as a sign of success. It's about billings. And sports stations have access to sports marketing dollars that are not radio-specific.
Please don't make so much of everything you post in some manner about race. Radio has always been a less racially affected industry. Going back 67 years, my first radio job was as the token minority at an R&B station in Cleveland where, despite being only 250 watts high on the dial, it outbilled several general market stations because businesses wanted to reach Black people.
You're right about the age, but MRI-Simmons says it's 80% white, 9% black, 10% Hispanic.