No live and local talk in the late evening/overnight hours on KOA...

It's probably a no-brainer that we think this sux...but it's not like we will NEVER listen to Rick Barber ever again, huh!

Cheap Channel replaced the local late-night/overnight KOA hosts with C2CAM.

So where was C2CAM airing in Denver before it was moved to KOA? Another
station in CC's cluster? KHOW?

It had aired on KHOW before, yes.

This is too bad. I listened to Rick Barber's show late at night driving home from work many times. He always had interesting guests. Usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays were reserved for politics.

Why is another blowtorch airing Noory? You can spin the dial at night and pick up the show on multiple frequencies.

Why is another blowtorch airing Noory? You can spin the dial at night and pick up the show on multiple frequencies

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Because it's cheap. Local radio doesn't give a fig about being live or local anymore.

Don't know if it's bad or good, but KOA replays the first hour of Coast to Coast and the Noory news update at 5 Eastern, which is usually hard-science-based in the first half-hour and not spooky UFO stuff. Other blowtorches pitch to the Wall Street Journal Report.

I have commented on another thread about Denver Radio's glaring lack of local night-time programming. It's a sad symptom of the costly business radio has allegedly become. Yet how ironic that smaller investment teams, even individual owners, used to offer ample doses of local overnight programs, while stations owned by today's corporate giants can't seem to afford this service. Maddening!

I myself pay dearly for Denver's barren after-hours venue. My job requires me hit the road very early, around 4 AM. Winter mornings can be rough here, with difficult driving conditions due to snow and ice. Some days require my services in mountain towns, like Evergreen and Genose, where conditions can be even worse than Denver's. But no local shows in Denver focus that early on road conditions, save for often-outdated reports and forecasts on the hour and half-hour. Until 5-AM, all you hear in Denver is syndication. Overhead highway billboards are helpful, but located only sparsely; easy to miss them, especially on Rt 6. Driving in blinding snow and predawn darkness, I find myself at the mercy of my wits til the local shows start at 5.

I know this thread is several years old and unfortunately since the last post nothing much has changed in regards to overnight local Denver radio BUT..I did overheard this conversation today between two people ( a young man and a young woman ) and a third ( an older man in his 50s ) while talking the "H" Light Rail line to downtown Denver....

Girl.....Gawd I hope I don't end up doing the overnight shift at KRKS.

Young Man...I hear ya...my buddy Gary works overnight on a station in Fort Collins ( OK which station in Fort Collins still sports an overnight dj ?? ) I have an interview next week to do a late night show in Denver. It'll be fun taking their requests.

Girl...that is so cool..which station may I ask ??

Young Man..... can't tell ya !! sorry !!

Girl....I know the guy who does overnights at 93.7 The Rock ( funny I have never heard anyone live during that shift at 93.7 The Rock ).

Older Man...sorry to but into your conversation but I used to work at KOOL 105 years ago ...I can tell you nobody does any live overnight local music show on the radio in Denver today.

Girl...( stuttering )..well I..ah well maybe he works for ...I think...maybe..at ..well...maybe it was at FLO 107.1...that's it..ah...FLO !!!

Older Man...very interesting..VERY interesting...I work in the same high rise where that station and 101.5 are located...they don't have any overnight announcers. Oh and Salem is nearby ( KNUS & KRKS )..they are totally automated at that hour too. You are supposed to do an overnight show at KRKS ??

Girl..did I say KRKS ?? ( she did !! ) I meant KS-107.5. That's right...107.5 !! They are in the same building as KLZ ( the reality is that they aren't BTW )

Older man...whatever !! ( and he gets off at the Broadway station ).

...once that man had left the train the young girl and young man didn't say a word. I almost had to laugh at the look on their faces. Busted !!

I will confess I worked the overnight shift for one month early in my career. I was in the union, and I got penalty pay for working that shift. And I quit after a month. I hated it that much. You can't pay me enough to work overnights. It screws with your life, it screws with your family, and it screws with your body. The body was not meant to work at night. Even Larry King had to stop because it was killing him. At the same time I understand why owners don't want to staff it live. We had no real spots. Audience drops off at 7PM. Computers are very dependable. If an emergency happens, we all have cell phones and we can be in in 15 minutes. Putting on a live show for a handful of listeners, who KNOW they're among a handful, who will tell you when they call that they're regulars, and they'll make the same request every night (remember Play Misty For Me?), can drive you crazy. It did me, after just a few weeks. I never worked it again. Thankfully never had to.

TheBigA said:

I will confess I worked the overnight shift for one month early in my career. I was in the union, and I got penalty pay for working that shift. And I quit after a month. I hated it that much. You can't pay me enough to work overnights. It screws with your life, it screws with your family, and it screws with your body. The body was not meant to work at night. Even Larry King had to stop because it was killing him. At the same time I understand why owners don't want to staff it live. We had no real spots. Audience drops off at 7PM. Computers are very dependable. If an emergency happens, we all have cell phones and we can be in in 15 minutes. Putting on a live show for a handful of listeners, who KNOW they're among a handful, who will tell you when they call that they're regulars, and they'll make the same request every night (remember Play Misty For Me?), can drive you crazy. It did me, after just a few weeks. I never worked it again. Thankfully never had to.

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I totally agree. I used to work 12 midnight to 6am, two nights a week at KWVE for a few months and just those two days took a toll. It screwed up your body clock on the other days and made for an awkward sleeping schedule. Sleeping in til noon? No thanks. I love radio, but not to the extent of killing yourself in the process. Overnights should be automated only, or like in the old days...just be off the air.

I guess that is no big surpise and I am sure your right anybody that has to work that shift it must mess up their body clock to get to it that is not used to being up in those hours

staggmovie said:

I guess that is no big surpise and I am sure your right anybody that has to work that shift it must mess up their body clock to get to it that is not used to being up in those hours

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I agree and it's not just radio but really any job where working the late night hours can mess you up and not too mention being unhealthy too. I live across the street from a Kroger ( OK..King Soopers here in Denver ). Until a few months ago they were open all night. Now while there are some who will say that shopping at say 3AM is a lot less drama and more peaceful such as the lack of screaming kids running around and less adults screaming about something but still....having to jump over boxes just to get a box of corn flakes or a bag of potato chips because of the stockers and since the store had their back doors locked up to pass the employees standing by the front door smoking their Marlboro or whatever and walking through clouds of smoke just to enter the store plus seeing the employees being "out of it" such as the female cashier who had actually fell asleep while ringing up my purchases...ah no I would rather deal with the screaming kids. apparently King Soopers/Kroger had got the message. Not worth being open all night. At least with our local store anyway.

Anyway going back to radio. Other than filling in for someone every once in awhile I never really had a permanent overnight radio gig. I was lucky to have the 7-Midnight gig though. Looking back for an airshift that never had much in the way of listeners that shift seemed to have the most drama attached to it. Whenever something gets stolen from an unopened office usually it would be the overnight jock who would get blamed for it. The constant threat of having your shift automated and you out of a job, rumors of the overnight jock having "guests" in the studio at 2AM or some joker would call the program director during the day and say that they heard the overnight jock use the "F" word at 3:30 in the morning or claiming to hear a song the overnight jock had played that wasn't part of the format getting the PD upset....having somebody live on the air in the middle of the night really isn't worth the drama. At least with a computer and a good security alarm its one less thing to worry about.

oldiesfan6479 said:

Cheap Channel replaced the local late-night/overnight KOA hosts with C2CAM.

So where was C2CAM airing in Denver before it was moved to KOA? Another
station in CC's cluster? KHOW?

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KHOW 630 (Also owned by iHateMedia AKA Clean Channel)

Cheers & 73

I got tossed on a Midnight to 6 gig at a top 40 in 1984 in a college town. I was told I'd be doing 6-10pm but when I got there was told I was really going to do 2-6am because I was the most inexperienced of the staff. No union here and the pay was decent. My PD had no concept of working overnight (Production 10 to Midnight; shift 12M-6am).

My PD would aircheck me during the first hour of the morning show. I'd get home about 7am. It was not unusual for him to have a meeting at 10am, then ask me to go on a remote at 3pm, etc. Simply put, I could get, at best, a couple of hours of sleep at a time. It was not long before that caught up with me. Luckily, the 10pm-2am shift jock got moved in and for a few days my shift was 2-6am with production at midnight. Then there was a rift between the GM and the PD. My PD was fired and I got a daytime shift. For the first time in weeks, I got my first uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep. Yep. Overnights is not for me either.

I seemed to have quite a few listeners overnight and we usually filled about 8 minutes an hour in spots but this was a college town. In fact, I don't recall a bunch of really drunk or stoned callers either...guessing they weren't listening but those who were studying were. I recall Taco Bell paid a premium to run 4 sixties in the 2 am hour, my only hour with 4 stop sets. The station effectively sold some 24/7 plans where essentially you bought a 6am-7pm spot and got an overnight spot for about $2 more. There were many businesses open late in that town.

I can see why so many stations are on computer overnight...little revenue, fewer listeners, etc. It would be nice to be 24/7 live but with all the other media choices tugging at radio's revenue, it's harder today to get the revenue and enough of it to go live 24/7.

The worst was my first job. I was the only jock. I did 5:30 to 9am, pinned up automation and had to be back at 11 to prepare for a one hour 'Midday Report'. At 1pm I pinned up automation. At 5 I had to prepare for a 30 minute newscast at 6. Then I played top 40 until 10pm. Anybody that has done a shift, especially back in the day of carts and turntables, knows it takes a bit to unwind and you are usually ready for a meal by then. Short naps are the norm and maybe 5 hours overnight for sleep. I did that about six months. Finally it was 6 to 9 on the air, selling advertising 9 to 3 and an afternoon shift 3 to 6, then production and copywriting. I wasn't a good salesman and most other salespeople gave their stuff to the 9-3 jock so they could call back the client to play back the spot that day so I was usually out of there by 7. Then again I was new to radio and loved every minute of it.

The number of radio stations doing local programming overnight is slim. When it comes to overnight Talk on AM, the only station I know doing it is WBZ Boston. And only two Sports stations do overnight local Sports Talk... WFAN-AM-FM NYC and WZGC Atlanta.

Of the nine fulltime All-News stations, eight have live overnight anchors (WCBS, WINS, KNX, WBBM, KCBS, KYW, WTOP, KOMO), but not on WWJ Detroit, where overnights are an hour of prerecorded news repeated till dawn. In Canada, the three fulltime All-News stations (CFTR, CKWX and CHQT) are also live overnight, I think. But I don't think Canada has any live overnight local talk shows.

I think every large to medium market does have a few FM music stations with overnight DJs. But only a few. I know in Hartford CT and Springfield Mass, where I sometimes travel overnight, a few stations have live DJs, such as WZMX and WAQY.

KOA had hung on for a long time but I guess Denver isn't big enough to justify a live talk show overnight.

Gregg. said:

KOA had hung on for a long time but I guess Denver isn't big enough to justify a live talk show overnight.

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Yes and no. If we are talking about the other Denver talk stations such as KHOW, KNUS and even KLZ then yes Denver by itself isn't big enough for a late night local talk show. If say for example KNUS would start a live and local talk show during the overnight hours they would more than likely have the same problem KLZ has...few if any callers..and KLZ seems to have that issue during the daytime as well. KOA is a different animal because of their massive signal where they may get few late night callers in Denver but they more than make up for it reaching those who tune in from the states surrounding Colorado and even moreso. Rick Barber when he had the overnight KOA show and likewise with that guy who ran a pizza place in Denver who had the overnight weekend show on KOA quite often they would get calls from well beyond Denver such as Omaha, Texas, California, Phoenix and even Tennessee.

hamster said:

KOA quite often they would get calls from well beyond Denver such as Omaha, Texas, California, Phoenix and even Tennessee.

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As we've discussed elsewhere, the quality of long distance AM signals has deteriorated over the last 20 years to the point where they're unlistenable. Also long distance listeners don't count in the ratings, or towards audience that would attract local advertisers. If there isn't advertising to pay a local host, you run syndication, and that's what's happening.

Well, I wouldn't say unlistenable. KOA still got good ratings in the Colorado Springs and Pueblo markets up until Arbitron stopped showing out-of-market signals (unless the station pays for the service). Some folks are still listening to distant signals at night, especially in areas where there isn't a lot of electronic noise. WLW Cincinnati still has an all-night truckers' show.

And lack of callers shouldn't be a problem. A decent host can get around that. Many hosts today don't take that many calls. And even in very small markets, there are people calling in. Unfortunately, a GM is always looking at his bottom line, trying to see where he can squeeze a bit more profit. And with Premiere, Westwood One and other syndicators calling station GMs and begging them to carry their programs, I'm sure it's hard to resist. Do you pay a local host a salary and benefits for a daypart that isn't even rated?