2. What's the odd feud involving "Sarah and Vinnie"? My mole is on it since I rarely listen to the dynamic duo of CBS SF-FM.
3. Now that the KGO traffic dummies in Dallas are positively horrible, you can imagine some listeners are irate but Cumulus doesn't give a shit about you guys, sorry to report.
4. There's significant, albeit civilized, mayhem at KRON, sort of par for the course only this latest steam seems to be intensifying.
5. That Chinese New Year's Parade on KTVU received the lowest ratings ever since 2 began airing it. Maybe its time for a little self-reflection. I'm sure the consultants will weigh in--they have to get paid you know.
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That's right. No one will be fired for gross incompetence. The only people let go at Cumulus are quality people who make more than the minimum wage. Replaced by incompetence. People who can't say "Vallejo" or "Corte Madera." These people really think they're building a successful news operation in San Francisco? Everyone I have spoken with over their is looking for new work, and all the new people are just passing the time.
ReplyDeleteIn the most expensive city in the country, in a Top 5 market, a useless news station run on the cheap, where everyone hates their job. Way to go you assholes.
P.S. NO one will be fired for the hockey blunder because you're right, Rich. No one cares. It's just a numbers game. One Cumulus will ultimately lose.
P.S.S. I ask again: How is NASH-FM doing, boys? Have you given up yet? Do they not quite have a zero in New York City?
-J
It's doubtful anything will happen at The Sports Bleeder. The talking heads will say that hockey is a cult sport, people only care because it's the Olympics and they'll get their panties wet when the Giants start Spring Training games.
DeleteBecause that's all that matters on The Sports Bleeder: the station for the sports fan. Right.
Exsqueeze me, but NASH may have only a 1.4 share in New York City -- the worst ever since it's launch, but it has a 930,000 cume. Guess what? No one gives a shit about "share" -- it's all in the "cume" and nearly a million YOUNG DEMO souls in the buying demographics are tuning in. The biggest station in NYC has over a 3-million cume and NASH is mid-pack. Impressive so far, though that 1.4 share out of 80 signals sucks. Again, no one cares. It's nearly a million sets of ears -- mostly women -- who are listening. Sad, but true. It is Cumu-less, after all.
DeleteMostly young women on NYC? Couldn't be further from the truth.
DeleteThe simple reality is this moronic NASH formula is based on the belief that simple minded country fans are the last bastion of radio listeners, and while true today, that will dry up. The country fan is always late to the party, but at best NASH has 3 years until even that audience will move on to digital music.
These guys are trying to use their radio platform to push sweetjack. How sad is that? And now they are in the traffic business with Radiate at a time when most people are using GPS?
Over a year ago they lost air traffic in the Bay and people here said "so what." Now they've lost local as well.
What do these guys do right? The one area they could actually be successful in its talk because it can't currently be matched online, and yet they're doing nothing there as well.
A bunch of clowns who grew up with money who wish they were running a real media conglomerate like Time Warner. All they do is bleed money, cut costs to limit the damage, and destroy whatever they can in radio.
I watched the Chinese New Year's Parade on KTVU. I am not surprised at the low ratings. It just seemed like the "dynamic duo" of Ben Fong Torres and Julie Haener has lost steam. Perhaps it is due to the scripts they read about the floats and plugs they do for advertisers. At one point talk of horses came up and Julie mentioned how she likes her horses. Ben then interjects they have a photo, which appears on screen, of Julie on a horse.
ReplyDeleteOnly Robert Honda appears unscripted when he talks to people.
That telecast was a three-hour commercial. It was self-serving and probably served to fulfill a bunch of favors to people.
DeleteJulie Haener is a solid individual but the other bozo was there because of past family connections.
It doesn't matter anyway. Why? They're going to do whatever they want, idiot TV viewers will watch whatever is thrown at them and that's that. However, someday the viewers will arise from Zombieland and finally grasp that they're being brainwashed.
Yes, and donkeys fly.
> Julie Haener is a solid individual
DeleteI've worked with her. Scarecrows are smarter.
I guess as someone whose only area of expertise in the media field is what I like to listen to - I'll never understand how owners of radio stations whose success depends on ONLY ONE THING - LISTENERS - can in fact have Z-E-R-O regard for what the listeners do / do not like!!! The "traffic reports" as given by these idiots on KGO are worse than no traffic reports at all, and certainly are of NO use if someone really wants to know the traffic conditions in a given area. And the "Slaughter of 2011" took off the air the people we most liked to listen to - and on and on. How can "we" listen to a station with poor quality staff with ratings in the toilet and for which we have no respect, and how can Cumulus get quality advertising from sponsors who KNOW how we feel and that we are NOT listening and will most likely NOT buy their product??? Sigh.
ReplyDeleteDear 7:36 - My sincere apologies, but you are headed to Broadcast School 101 for your post. You have it all wrong, even as a casual observer of "media" as you know it.
DeleteListeners to any radio station do not matter whatsoever. Nada. No way. Zilch. Zero.
First of all, "Ratings" are nothing but "Estimates" of listeners. Secondly, not only can that "universe" be calculated outside of "science" and other voodoo numerology, and a little "people meter" that merely "hears" but doesn't "listen" to the radio -- you've missed the most important point:
Radio stations do NOT depend on you. They depend solely for $$$$$$$$$$$$$ and lots of them. Advertisers, ad agencies, businesses, organzations, promotions -- that's it. I know, "Bullshit. The more they have listeners, the more money they make." Not true. KGO has less than 450,000 people out of 8-million people in the area listening. It is rated 26th. In the "sellable demos" it is 28th or below. Yet, it makes $30-million a year in revenue.
KQED, which cannot sell advertising, per se, but is "underwritten" by industry and corporate sponsors, as well as being "listener supported" is, for all intents and purposes, the top radio station in the Bay Area. KCBS, with a listenership of 300,000 more than KGO makes about $35-$40-million a year in revenue.
It's the bucks.
So, why? Why be just about corporate dollars? Because that what corporations do. They make money. That's why Ronn Owens makes a half-million (or more) a year and Karel makes, oh, minimum wage. There are more paying sponsors, more listeners available and more popularity when Ronn is on. Karel? Not so much.
Get it out of your head that just because you "get" radio for free -- that it's "free." No, it's there to make money. And lots of it. Even the lowest rated station(s) have bills to pay inside and outside The City.
Now, the more listeners, it helps. But it's only numbers. It has no bearing on "reality", actually. It's about $elling to advertisers and making them "believers." That's it.
Hey, shill, KGO in its heyday, didn't make $30M, although close...They most certainly now do NOT bill anywhere near that mark, you're punch drunk and a fool.
DeleteHey, Rich, I have no idea how much the stations bill, but the person you replied to does have a good point when he says it's not only about the ratings. TV and radio stations can sometimes make more money if they are satisfied to be in the middle of the pack than they can trying to be #1, especially if the top-rated stations are locked in an eternal battle for a winning margin of a tenth of a rating point. In the memorable words of a former colleague, "If quality is not an issue, anything is possible."
DeleteTotally off topic, but John Rothmann is filling in for Dr. Bill on 910 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m tonight. I just tuned in, thinking John might just be filling in, I listened a little to Karel, before that. As always a pleasure to listen to John, and he is doing "rating the Presidents" as he use to do on Presidents day on KGO. Also John will be on with Ronn tomorrow on KGO, the first hour I think. I will tune in for sure.
ReplyDeleteWhy not automate the traffic reports? My GPS has a nice female voice with a British accent, very easy on the ears. And it is actually better an pronouncing most of the names that the Dallas cowboys mess up. Just a quick computer program to link WAZE to voice, and the fine fellows in Atlanta can siphon off more of that sweet blind-man ad revenue.
ReplyDeleteThe parade telecast is still better than dealing with the mass crowds and hearing loss from the infinite firecrackers exploded
ReplyDelete> 4. There's significant, albeit civilized, mayhem at KRON, sort of par for the
ReplyDelete> course only this latest steam seems to be intensifying.
So many of us hope that Pero and Eva Braun--I mean Stacey Baier--walk the plank. And since 4 and 7 are merging, they can take Tracey Bitchkowski and Stephanie Adroopy with them.
Sarah and Vinnie fueding huh? Would be intereted in hearing more about that. I don't listen much either, but they have been around a long time and have a fascinating story/relationship. Vinnie made a wonderful life and work comeback. Enjoy the blog, keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteI thought this years Chinese New Year parade on KTVU was a lot lighter and brighter then in past years. The picture looked as bright as daylight for the Macy's block at Union Square. I just didn't see as many shadows as I recall seing in years past. Does anyone know if they used different lights or more lights this year then in the past?
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese New Year Parade is the WORST parade EVER! PERIOD.
ReplyDeleteIt so boring that even good editing and shiny commentary can't make it interesting. It's nothing but a bunch of commercials for businesses that couldn't buy their way into any REAL parade. The only reason that it still exists is because Rose Pak as enough puppets to ensure that the SFPD will close the streets and inconvenience thousands...of course if you don't like it you're a RACIST!
Think back to the incident that resulted from the airliner crash at SFO. Possibly the majority race of viewers, for this telecast, have deleted KTVU-2 from their radar.
ReplyDeleteAnd we have a winner. Gotta wonder what sales have been like since that whole thing happened. They might still get decent ratings but if people are refusing to buy ads it doesn't matter what the numbers are. And more heads could roll as a result.
DeleteWhen you are airing 10 or so traffic updates an hour - and they are lacking - it's only a matter of time before whatever remaining listeners you have switch to a station that doesn't outsource their traffic and even more doubtful they'll keep switching back to your station. What's next outsourcing Giants talk to Atlanta?
ReplyDeleteSarah & Vinnie are arguing? I listen to them quite often. I'm surprised their work marriage of years hasn't yielded more arguments.
ReplyDeleteThe KRON atmosphere is the same dustup as usual – management wants everybody to constantly be generating new content without decent cameras, computers, graphics, reporters, resources or sufficient staff to fill all the hours, and most of the people they’ve hired in the past year are fresh out of J-school and don’t know what the hell they’re doing to begin with. They’re working the entire morning team (except Darya) nonstop for 8+ hours without breaks or lunches and then Pero still shouts at them for not doing enough.
ReplyDelete