Sometime in the next few weeks; probably the middle of July in a downtown hotel near the Embarcadero, two senior executives from Cumulus will meet and go over, in detail, a model they see as a "last-ditch" business plan to keep KGO Radio afloat and relevant. Or at least, what in their mind, is relevant. If the two execs have it their way, theoretically, the idea is to clear the air, maintain some degree of civility at the besieged AM 810 outpost, and finally, allow current staff people to breath a little and not have to worry about what lies ahead in the immediate future and down the road. Perhaps Cumulus, YOU should look in the mirror.The two execs, believed to be both John and Lew Dickey, who effectively run the company, have made it clear that they're both unhappy with KGO's performance and that the constant uncertainty that the station has been operating under, will have to cease immediately.
John Dickey himself was in the Bay Area recently meeting with KGO management --staff too, saying in no vague terms that "if you can't make this go in the next few months, we're done!" Maybe he was referring to Cumulus stock, whatever the case, and however dubious and ridiculous it may have come across, it was direct and left no vagaries.
The upcoming meeting later in July, (which I was tipped to) will involve both Dickey brothers taking inventory on KGO and its weak performance. The latest ratings have KGO in a most precipitous ratings free fall; a mother of all dire-straits that shows no signs of improvement; a situation that has the station's staff on emotional egg shells --and all of this at a time when KGO is in the middle of union negotiations with Cumulus.
"We haven't had a decent raise in years, " said a longtime news reporter. "And they (management) offered up a package that was frankly, embarrassing and unbecoming." From Cumulus? Gees, and here I thought they were just like Levi Strauss!
The next month or two could be, as Arte Johnson says, veeeery interesting.
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Radio staff meetings scheduled off site, usually at a hotel, rarely end well for the employees.
ReplyDeleteIf KGO wants to return to ratings greatness, they need to return to programming greatness. Cumulus is still reaping the seeds of the December 2011 disaster. What people miss about KGO is the old KGO, plain and simple. First of all, they should immediately return to the old "Newstalk 810" moniker and pre-2011 sounders. They should tap the familiar Mike Amatori to do all station promos, and dump the canned Cumulus guy. Secondly, they should attempt to go retro, programming-wise. If they can snag Rothmann, Tillem, Wattenburg on Sundays, offer Ray Taliaferro the overnight shift again, they just might have a fighting chance at returning to the coveted #1 ratings position.
ReplyDeletedemographics -
Deletenoun
1.
(used with a plural verb) the statistical data of a population, especially those showing average age, income, education, etc.
I looked this up for you because I don't think you know what it is or what it means
Now, sir, sir, sir, just a minute now, take a breath, my good sir: What makes you think that the respectable Dick brothers, yes, the very two responsible for taking this once-great station of ours, where the sound of my voice went up and down the west coast of North America and parts of Canada and Mexico, in a different direction, would want to steer the course of this flagship back to the Straits of Greatness? My dear sir, the eternal darkness of the corporate mindset is rarely illuminated. As the great Spike Lee once said, "Hey, who left the barn door open?!"
DeleteStill not funny 2:41. You're still a shmuck and a creepy one at that. How about a little maturity instead of mediocrity for once? Even DreX is funnier than you and that says very very little, asshole.
DeleteGood to hear from you, 10:44! It wasn't me that made the "Ray-Tee" posting, but nice to know you're thinking of me. As Gary Sinise would say, "Happy 4rh of July, Fuckface."
DeleteThis wreaks of whiney employees who equate getting raises to not performing to the best of their abilities. If you don't like not getting a raise and, together, it can't be achieved, then quit and find another job. It's that simple. No one is holding a gun to your head to stay at KGO. It happens in business everyday. "But it's not fair." No, of course it's not. However, you know what is said about "Life being fair," right?
ReplyDeleteClear the air, look for no changes, a nice lunch with the honchos, then more layoffs and syndication by mid-October. This boat has already sailed, unfortunately. Quit hiding being AFTRA. They will not help you in this market or situation. Sorry.
AFTRA will, of course, want your initiation dues before you're terminated.
DeleteIn my opinion, the worst thing they could do is try to reach the standard 25-54 audience. They will NEVER listen to AM radio on a regular basis, no matter what. They should focus on trying to reach (and sell to) an older audience, some of whom still listen to AM radio. The chances for some success are quite a bit greater.
ReplyDeleteThat, of course, is the popular myth. I've got a stack of Neilsens that say otherwise.
DeleteA "stack of Neilsens" represent the past. What about the future? What is the listening trend of 25-54 as you chronologically sequence through this stack? I'd bet the trend is downward.
DeleteThis whole KGO debacle is like a bad comedy skit. We have two incompetent brothers and buffoons by the name Dickey who destroyed perhaps the greatest radio station in history by gutting it and giving the finger to the community and somehow have the gal to give ultimatums to the remaining employees who most likely suffer from PTSD or at worst Stockholm syndrome. It would be as if the new ownership of Tommy's joint suddenly said: "our inside poll says that YOU want more sushi and tacos so we will change our menu and serve sushi and tacos! we will maintain some of our popular menu items but it will be a hybrid!". Schmucks! I curse the Dickies!!!
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that by mid 2016, most of the news folks and the format will be dumped. Syndicated talk radio with a few local hosts who are 'independent contractors,' plus a maybe 5-6 news folks who do updates and a cursory glance at local news. Everyone else will be thrown out on the street. Cumulus is bleeding money big-time, and they have ruined 'legacy' stations in other major markets. Don't be so shocked, we saw this coming when they first showed up in the Bay Area back in 2006. It's a truly bestial company.
ReplyDeleteHere's a quick Nielsen 6+ rundown of the Cumulus effect on once-legendary stations:
DeleteWABC - New York 1.5
KABC - Los Angeles 0.4
WLS - Chicago 1.1
KGO - San Francisco 1.4
3 of these stations are 50 kW signals on good frequencies.
Want a good sports analogy....the 'Dickheads' are like that nutty owner of the Knicks, what's his name..something Dolan? He took one of the league's premier franchises and absolutely ruined it. Steve Kerr was actually ready to sign on as their head coach when Warriors GM Bob Myers came calling on a desperate mission to OKC (where Kerr was getting ready to do a TV broiadcast), and offered him the Warriors' job which he fortunately took.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there are no 'rescue' or success stories in radio these days. The visionary companies are no more...the great stations are gone, and almost all of the 'real' broadcasters got out of the business while the getting was good.
Former KGO honcho Jack Swanson is over now at KCBS, one of the few professionally run stations left in this market. He'll help keep that place afloat admist a sea of waste, but even he will have to do budget cutting.
Listen to some of the dreck on commercial radio today. Info-mercials or whatever you want to call them up the yin-yang. Part time, obscure talk show hosts who work for peanuts and no one has ever heard of them, (remember Tim Montemeyer who is now BTW in Salt Lake City?) 7 minutes of commercials and a few PSAs before we get back to programming. Infantile chatter about women's ' tushes' on sports talk radio. Embarrassingly bad, and really sad.
A once great profession has gone to the dogs. The Dickheads are merely part time players in this national dramatic tragedy. And the public gets screwed. But Americans are asleep. They don't even know what's going on in their own country, nor do many seem to even care anymore. They're too busy tweeting, texting, facebooking, and doing what I'm doing right now...responding to a blog post!
First thing with any successful talk radio station is a strong research staff. Spend the money and hire one. People want to hear original cutting edge factual information on topics that are usually hidden from the public eye. I’m not speaking of conspiracy theories, I’m speaking of things that are actually happening and can be proven with facts. The listening audience is desperate for the truth and wants to understand why things are the way they are. Mundane topics that play no relevant role in gaining insight or expanding the consciousness must be avoided. The only purpose they serve is to confuse and divide the common goal, which should be for all us, is to advance in our depths of understanding reality.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, a strong line up of orators/hosts is needed, ones that can verbally dance and ignite new visions of thoughts within the audience. Nobody likes to hear callers repeating the same opinion nor a host that drones on about topics that are as deep as a plate full of water.
Also, it’s talk radio, which means the audience is listening to a voice. That voice needs to have a certain sound and rhythms whether it’s male or female. Pitches and octaves are very important. A harmonically tuned voice that resonates is crucial for success.
And lastly the ingredients for a good soup is personality. Humor, wit, vulnerability, intelligence, curiosity and most of all, love for things they do, see and hear.
This is a simple formula I believe will attract all ages, genders, races and creeds. Truth does sell.
Cumulus is debt loaded pig that bought another debt laden pig in Citadel. Even if they refinanced all their debt at record low interest rates, the checks they scratch to their lenders are huge. What to do? Cut costs. And be absolutely stupid about it so listeners run away in droves. I fully expect them to declare bankruptcy at some point.
ReplyDeleteWhere will the CASH come from?
ReplyDeleteThey need to sell a station for some operating capital, because the cash is GONE.
Time for a bailout...but from whom?????
I agree that this is the real situation. It's cash-panic mode, and they're likely thinking along the lines of setting the station up somehow for a sale, maybe to Salem, Family Media, or a foreign (non-English) language provider, such as Liberman. Changes of any kind there will likely be made along the lines of making it attractive to a buyer, which likely means trimming losses and coming up with more income avenues, such as more infomercials. It won't be pretty for the audience, if this is the scenario.
DeleteFirst Cumulus came for the traffic reporters: "we'll do traffic out of Texas" they said. "It's cheaper." So we got 30-minute time-delayed traffic reports by people who have never been to California and don't know how to pronounce the local landmarks, much less know anything about our commute routes and bottlenecks. Then, they got the idea that the Texas Traffic Troop could also do "local" news in the off-hours, right? Rip and Read, Rip and Read. OK, so what if the guy behind the mark couldn't find Menlo Park on a map to save his life. But wait, there's more!
ReplyDeleteTime to further cost-cut: have you noticed there is NO traffic on KGO or KSFO on the overnights, lately? Yeah, they cut that; the Texas traffic center is CLOSED on the off-hours now. Oh, and they stopped doing the news out of there; never really worked anyway, but now you got NO news in those hours either.
Some six or so months ago on this blog, I commented that the Dickeys' business model is much like a guy who buys a house, and decides that rather than pay for heating oil or firewood, he'll just burn the furniture. And the siding. And the stairs. Didn't cost him anything, so he had a good quarter. Ah, don't worry about next year; just make your numbers this quarter, right? Sorry guys, winters a-comin, and we're running out of stuff to rip off the walls and burn....
@ 2:17 re: where's the cash gonna come from:
ReplyDeleteIt's a simple, time-honored formula, and one that is utterly lost on the Dickey Bros:
1) Provide a valuable product and attract an audience.
2) Competently sell that audience to advertisers who will actually benefit from said exposure.
3) Execute a good and generous campaign for your paying customers, so that they get results. DO NOT SCRIMP ON THIS STEP.
4) Show your paying customers how they got bonafide value for their investment by demonstrating that you CAN and DO get RESULTS. Notice I didn't mention ratings, I said RESULTS.
5) Rinse and repeat: Good, correctly placed spots reaching a viable audience with a valid message offering any kind of value WILL get positive results for the advertiser, which will make for happy advertisers who become repeat customers. As this cycle repeats and confidence grows, both volume and rates go up: you've got cash!
The Dickey sales model ignores results in favor of a quick buck. The sales guys pride themselves on how little they can deliver for how much money: there is no customer focus, no emphasis on results for the advertiser. The advertiser feels fleeced, sees no return on investment and leaves. It's short sighted and backwards, and it's run out of Atlanta.
Unless Swanson comes back somehow (uber-large salary, guarantees, etc., or he heads a buyout team) KGO as a reborn talk station has no hope.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing would be to bring back old listeners, then build from there. Otherwise, expect some day for KGO to be bought for [1/4] pennies on the dollar.
Oh please. He understands demos and did nothing to change them in his last years. He was content like the rest and lucky enough to be working at a powerhouse that lacked competition. He's fine at his job but let's not pretend he is some creative genius. He was a good manager of people for sure.
DeleteOh really??? Didn't he discover Savage?
DeleteOne of the national radio trades and Newsmax says that Sussman is now the #7 ranked talk host in "local" American talk radio. It does not count nationally syndicated tonsils like Rush, Hannity, Savage, Levin, etc.
ReplyDeleteRonn Owens is ranked 22st. Gee ... no DreX. No Chip Franklin. So bad ... so sad.
http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/influential-talk-radio-hosts-shows/2015/06/30/id/652849/
And that's it.
Clearly they haven't seen Sussman's ratings
DeleteNewsmax is a right wing website. Of course they are going to list other right-wingers like Sussman high on the list. Neither a neutral nor a reliable source.
DeleteFunny 12:14 and though accurate on your point, it's amazing that the Dems can't do the same. Why? Libs just aren't that entertaining and there aren't any successful "progressives" on KGO. The 1.4 rating proves it.
DeleteHappy 4th of July to Cumulus! After every stock fail the company gets, there is always a "secret" meeting or terse text.
ReplyDeleteSame thing happened under Citadel.
This joint will be bankrupt in less than three months at this rate.
Here is today's latest stock quote:
https://www.google.com/search?q=cmls+stock&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=ubuntu&channel=fs&gws_rd=ssl
So much for "The Bay Area's News and Information Station."
Goodbye, DreX and Heather. You, too, Ronn. Better get those number up, Chip -- and fast.
NASDAQ investors have about had enough of Cumulus.
Here's proof that KGO is reaching for a demographic on AM that isn't working, nor ever will ....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Census-shows-Calif-median-age-at-record-SF-older-2372237.php
Should have considered those 45-64 year olds, Mr. Dickey. They have now abandoned KGO and the "youngsters" of the "new" KGO find it not relevant. They have other choices in music, news, talk (not doing well in the maket), satellite, online, TV, etc.
Enjoy that knife twisting in your heart, Cumulus. Put a fork in it. You're well done.
2:41, this is 6:26. Good to see you're still tuned in to "the issues of the day" as your esteemed colleague used to say. Disagreed with you politically 97% of the time, but always found your interactions with callers you considered to be "idiots" to be entertaining. May be a pipe dream, but I hope to hear you back on 810 AM again as the overnight voice of KGO. Props to you for all the years at the mic of that once-great station. And for all those brainiacs who are crowing about "demographics" -- I'm in the under-40 crowd myself.
ReplyDeleteIf that really is you, Ray, (which I doubt) this 60-ish conservative always enjoyed you because you give good radio. Your program was always very entertaining, and I enjoyed listening to you. Like the person above said, I hope to hear you on KGO again someday (but I doubt that will happen because the current brass there are so out of touch as to what made KGO so great).
DeleteThe problem is, KGO may have a few under-40 fans, however, not enough of them. Various reasons. Not enough stimulating conversation and programming, it's AM, which most under-40s don't know or care about, and the loyal older audience has flown away. KGO will not be what it used to be as it is too expensive. Advertisers don't want an older audience to put huge money into. It's out of the "sweep spot" of 18-49 or 25-54. Money isn't flowing like it used to -- espeially on AM.
DeleteThen, there is the idiocy of programing. There is little to no "recycling" of audience daypart-to-daypart. The go from Ronn to Chip which is tolerable at best. then to news for three hours, then ... into the hideous DreX and Heather, whih forces audience away for the night. There is no "service" and the station is stale, has poor imaging and the cutbacks are obvious.
KGO still has a few fans (342,000 of them.) Just not enought of them (600,00 and more like it used to. Times have changed.
So you think the "bring back" crowd is wrong?!? :-)
DeleteNone of them have ever sold a nickels worth of radio.
Sir, don't be a moron. 2:41 is a fake name and is not Ray T. He's a phony troll who thinks he is funny and doesn't realize he isn't. He's listed under a dozen different "log ins" on the blog. You've been pawned.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Cumulus will go bankrupt before they throw virtually everyone from KGO out onto the street. Let's hope so!!!!
ReplyDeleteA distinct possibility. The Dickey's ego goes only so far and at $2.01 a share and dropping, it's Citadel all over again. The "move the deck chairs" meeting won't help much. More threats and low esteem for the employees coming.
ReplyDeleteSurely the solution is to beat on the remaining programming staff some more -- clearly they're doing it wrong! do it right or you're FIRED! (hey you: what do you do again? You're fired! Lee Hammer will add it to his duties! Get out of here!). How come our ratings suck? Hey! Something Shiny! Dude, your program is cut short because we got a better offer from Prevogen. They can't be bothered to produce any new content, so here's the same 25 minute program we've aired 87 times before again, twice in a row. Followed by 3 mattress adds and a Kars for Kidz ad. How come our ratings our so bad? It must be the programming staff's fault! Fire someone quick!
ReplyDeleteYou can't make chicken salad out of chicken s...kin.
ReplyDeleteI will listen to any station that will tell me things I don't know. KCBS, KQED, KALW, will do that. When I am thinking about sports, KGMZ and KNBR fill the bill.