KNX Talk at Night?

[DavidEduardo]

But speculating for just a moment… what would really be wrong with bringing back the intelligent talk format that KNX had from approximately 7-11:30pm back in the early to mid 60s

What's wrong is that neutral talk is a position owned by NPR affiliates and commercial stations that have tried that, even with just a single host, have pretty uniformly failed.

Part of the success of all news, all day, all night is that you can "dial them up" whenever you need a news fix or whenever there is a big news event or bad weather or a closed highway.

While WBZ in Boston succeeds with a blend of all news all day and talk all night, that has been its tradition for many years. Messing with some very big stations right now seems to be an absurd idea.

 

[DavidEduardo]

It's being done now on KPCC.

And WBZ. But both have a history of this sort of programming.

 

[DavidZ]

WBZ dropped their overnight talk host quite sometime ago. They only have Dan Rea from 8 - Midnight.

The overnights now have prerecorded news along with live traffic reports on the 3s.

When there’s a big news story or the recent election night, they have a live overnight anchor.

 

[Nathan Obral]

WBZ dropped their overnight talk host quite sometime ago. They only have Dan Rea from 8 - Midnight.

The overnights now have prerecorded news along with live traffic reports on the 3s.

When there’s a big news story or the recent election night, they have a live overnight anchor.

Which is coincidentally how Audacy now handles overnights on the majority of their all-newsers.

 

[DavidEduardo]

WBZ dropped their overnight talk host quite sometime ago. They only have Dan Rea from 8 - Midnight.

And that is the "night" daypart most of us refer to. Night is 7-Mid, and Overnight is Mid-6 AM

The overnights now have prerecorded news along with live traffic reports on the 3s.

Many of us who go back to the late 50's and 60's and even the 70's know that the main reason for staying on all night was to be sure the transmitter was on and working at 6 AM. There was a bigger chance that it would fail in some way upon being turned on than failing right at the start of morning drive if left on always.

At the first station I owned, at the second 6 AM phone call of "Sir, the station won't turn on" I hired an overnight jock and went 24/7 with one Sunday morning a month for cleaning, maintenance, tube rotation or replacement, etc.

 

[TomásEstefan]

And that is the "night" daypart most of us refer to. Night is 7-Mid, and Overnight is Mid-6 AM

Many of us who go back to the late 50's and 60's and even the 70's know that the main reason for staying on all night was to be sure the transmitter was on and working at 6 AM. There was a bigger chance that it would fail in some way upon being turned on than failing right at the start of morning drive if left on always.

At the first station I owned, at the second 6 AM phone call of "Sir, the station won't turn on" I hired an overnight jock and went 24/7 with one Sunday morning a month for cleaning, maintenance, tube rotation or replacement, etc.

Ha Ha, indeed light bulbs will actually last longer by keeping them on 24/7 !

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Larry was on KOH in Reno when I got off the air at midnight at KOLO. I didn't think it was all that great, until he told the Carvel story.

And that's when, at age 22, I came to appreciate his ability to tell a story and to do 15 minutes without a phone call.

Yes, Larry did a great job of telling that story, and it also was in his autobiography except...it wasn't true according to Sandy Koufax. Koufax said he'd never been to New Haven and had never met King until Larry was already on the radio: https://slate.com/news-and-politics...ell-when-larry-king-is-telling-the-truth.html

 

[ercjncpr]

It's being done now on KPCC.

I am aware of that but I was speaking of KNX

 

[Andy Ludlum]

I certainly hope this is unfounded. I can only see Audacy doing this as short-sighted, cost-savings attempt and I'm not sure it would even save that much money. KNX is already replaying its "In Depth" program in the evening and for the most part it holds up. (Which in itself is a problem in as much as the program isn't going deep into any breaking news.) It would be difficult to find a neutral, non-political talent with enough star power to have success on the company's major market all-news stations. Overnight news blocks have been recorded in this market and the experiment couldn't end soon enough. All news is expensive and a lot of times you are just running "fill" waiting for something to happen. But if you are under-staffed and stuck in a network show or recorded news block, you aren't going to be ready to immediately give local listeners the information they need when news breaks overnight. All-news radio needs to be on top of a major story. Breaking news can bring new or casual listeners to the radio station for hours, even days. But if you are not serving those listeners right away, the moment they turn on the radio, they'll go someplace else and likely won't come back.

 

[TheBigA]

But if you are under-staffed and stuck in a network show or recorded news block, you aren't going to be ready to immediately give local listeners the information they need when news breaks overnight.

There are lots of ways to handle that. The way Audacy handles it now is to keep at least one staffer in the newsroom when they run the recorded hour. That's also the way the TV networks handle overnights and west coast refeeds. It's a system that has proven to work well.

The mistake I think these Audacy all-news stations make is attempting to staff 24/7 local news without any in-house national staffing. In the old days, KNX had access to the CBS news bureaus. Not any more. I thought when Audacy hired a company VP of news that he'd create some exclusive hard news content for these very profitable and successful stations. Perhaps use the combined resources in an efficient way to cover those less profitable dayparts. It can be done without hurting the quality or expectations of the audience. They don't need to change formats or run talk programming to save money. There are other ways to use resources more efficiently.

 

[DavidEduardo]

. Breaking news can bring new or casual listeners to the radio station for hours, even days. But if you are not serving those listeners right away, the moment they turn on the radio, they'll go someplace else and likely won't come back.

That's the key. Credibility is established and enhanced when a news source provides needed information in a critical breaking news situation. Most of those are not predictable, so a station has to be able to act instantly 24/7.

I worked with two all news stations in Puerto Rico, and management killed the second one by failing to staff the news department during periods when they decided to do block programming at night (sound familiar?) and could not cover off-hours events.

 

[TomásEstefan]

On the occasion that an earthquake happens in the middle of the night, I hit the on button on a nearby radio, and usually KNX is already talking about it...If this stops...well...KNX is finished...

 

[DavidEduardo]

On the occasion that an earthquake happens in the middle of the night, I hit the on button on a nearby radio, and usually KNX is already talking about it...If this stops...well...KNX is finished...

Agreed. That is the Litmus Test of a news-based station. All it takes is one fail in a critical moment to destroy cred.

 

[michael hagerty]

On the occasion that an earthquake happens in the middle of the night, I hit the on button on a nearby radio, and usually KNX is already talking about it...If this stops...well...KNX is finished...

Now, take that and apply it to San Francisco. Especially with the demise of KGO, EVERYBODY punches KCBS when the ground shakes overnight in the Bay Area. Another reason I'll be surprised if Lieberman got this one right.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Another reason I'll be surprised if Lieberman got this one right.

The term "this" is extraneous

 

[TomásEstefan]

That's the key. Credibility is established and enhanced when a news source provides needed information in a critical breaking news situation. Most of those are not predictable, so a station has to be able to act instantly 24/7.

I worked with two all news stations in Puerto Rico, and management killed the second one by failing to staff the news department during periods when they decided to do block programming at night (sound familiar?) and could not cover off-hours events.

This is the beauty of the immediacy of radio... you don't have to wait for anything to boot up...you don't have to wait for an internet connection...you just turn it on and listen... and the best part of all: it's Free !

This medium is now more than a hundred years old, but when done correctly it can sound brand new and completely relevant.

 

[Weiserguy]

On the occasion that an earthquake happens in the middle of the night, I hit the on button on a nearby radio, and usually KNX is already talking about it...If this stops...well...KNX is finished...

Let's get even more specific on this nuance. On August 24, 2014 - almost 25 years from the major Loma Prieta quake of 1989, a magnitude 6.0 happened in Napa (the city, within the county) at about 2:30 am. That was early on a Sunday morning, and by coincidence, I'd woken up a few minutes before that event (pee break), and was still wide awake when it hit. I live on the Peninsula, about 55 miles south as the crow flies, and it nearly jolted me out of bed. So I grabbed for my little bedside radio and started dialing around. KGO was on autopilot, KQED too, and KCBS was running one of those canned "CBS News in Review" programs. It took their overnight anchor close to 15 minutes to get the station out of autopilot and back live - he was probably having a lunch break - and start taking calls from listeners and their own newspeople, who immediately swung into coverage mode and started hitting the ground to file live phoners.

There was a time when KGO would have been live and local, and would have immediately started taking calls from listeners. The value of the callers' testimony was sorta limited, but at least the anecdotal reports of perceived strength and damage (or lack thereof) across the vast listening area helped quantify how big an event it had been until the USGS could publish something official. But KGO by then was a shell of its pre-2011 self.

Back then, KQED had been running off their server 11pm-5pm 7 night a week, and NPR's Weekend Edition didn't start until 5am, so there was no local coverage until someone got into the building sometime in the 4am hour. In fact, they were caught so flatfooted, and were so embarrassed, that they re-staffed the overnight hours and to this day have that shift covered.

And in an admirable example of "No Good Deed Going Unpunished", that KCBS anchor, who was caught with his pants down - I'm guessing literally, in a bathroom stall, thinking he still had a half hour for his "biobreak" - was laid off a month or two later. I won't mention a name, but he was a station veteran.

So yeah, quakes do happen in the middle of the night, and they wake people up, and on occasion cause damage, injury and even loss of life. But if a tree falls in the forest and there's no live body left to report on it, does the medium retain any credibility?

 

[Andy Ludlum]

Let's get even more specific on this nuance. On August 24, 2014 - almost 25 years from the major Loma Prieta quake of 1989, a magnitude 6.0 happened in Napa (the city, within the county) at about 2:30 am. That was early on a Sunday morning, and by coincidence, I'd woken up a few minutes before that event (pee break), and was still wide awake when it hit. I live on the Peninsula, about 55 miles south as the crow flies, and it nearly jolted me out of bed. So I grabbed for my little bedside radio and started dialing around. KGO was on autopilot, KQED too, and KCBS was running one of those canned "CBS News in Review" programs. It took their overnight anchor close to 15 minutes to get the station out of autopilot and back live - he was probably having a lunch break - and start taking calls from listeners and their own newspeople, who immediately swung into coverage mode and started hitting the ground to file live phoners.

There was a time when KGO would have been live and local, and would have immediately started taking calls from listeners. The value of the callers' testimony was sorta limited, but at least the anecdotal reports of perceived strength and damage (or lack thereof) across the vast listening area helped quantify how big an event it had been until the USGS could publish something official. But KGO by then was a shell of its pre-2011 self.

Back then, KQED had been running off their server 11pm-5pm 7 night a week, and NPR's Weekend Edition didn't start until 5am, so there was no local coverage until someone got into the building sometime in the 4am hour. In fact, they were caught so flatfooted, and were so embarrassed, that they re-staffed the overnight hours and to this day have that shift covered.

And in an admirable example of "No Good Deed Going Unpunished", that KCBS anchor, who was caught with his pants down - I'm guessing literally, in a bathroom stall, thinking he still had a half hour for his "biobreak" - was laid off a month or two later. I won't mention a name, but he was a station veteran.

So yeah, quakes do happen in the middle of the night, and they wake people up, and on occasion cause damage, injury and even loss of life. But if a tree falls in the forest and there's no live body left to report on it, does the medium retain any credibility?

Unfortunately, senior management doesn't know, or doesn't care about the risk they are taking with a station's credibility. It's really quite simple. If an all-news station airs recorded programming overnight the chances of one of these embarrassing failures increases significantly and is probably inevitable. There's no better way to respond to a quake than to have your mic open when your chair starts rocking!

 

[Larry]

Considering our local (Philly$ Audacy all news KYW runs prerecorded news 2 or 3 hours overnight but cuts in with live local traffic reports every 10 minutes, I would hope the traffic reporter could temporarily report on local breaking news (if urgent such as an earthquake)) until another reporter or news anchor can get to the microphone.

 

[Andy Ludlum]

There are lots of ways to handle that. The way Audacy handles it now is to keep at least one staffer in the newsroom when they run the recorded hour. That's also the way the TV networks handle overnights and west coast refeeds. It's a system that has proven to work well.

Too often, experience has show "the staffer kept in the newsroom" is slow or hesitant to respond and not properly trained in the techniques needed to go live for a significant amount of time without breaks and without supporting staff.

As for "west coast refeeds," having spent my entire career outside the eastern time zone, networks do a horrible job of updating west coast refeeds. To the New York desk, we're "out West" and it might as well be Mars. Local affiliates are hesitant to update the network program, leaving the only the option of total local takeover of the time.

The mistake I think these Audacy all-news stations make is attempting to staff 24/7 local news without any in-house national staffing. In the old days, KNX had access to the CBS news bureaus. Not any more. I thought when Audacy hired a company VP of news that he'd create some exclusive hard news content for these very profitable and successful stations. Perhaps use the combined resources in an efficient way to cover those less profitable dayparts. It can be done without hurting the quality or expectations of the audience. They don't need to change formats or run talk programming to save money. There are other ways to use resources more efficiently.

I think KNX still probably has all the national news content it needs and no longer being CBS-owned, the path is clearer to building relationships with any network source they choose. I remember I pissed off CBS bigwigs by having (NBC) David Gregory on KNX once a week. They begged me to use Bob Schieffer instead, who really didn't want to commit to doing regular piece with us and let us know that. Over the years, the CBS, now Audacy, news stations would try to provide each other with reporters on breaking news stories in their respective markets. But, if it was a huge story, the station often couldn't handle the requests, even from just the other O&O's. More commonly we'd take an ISDN feed of their air. I monitored and clipped both WINS and WCBS on 9-11. In the 70's and 80's I think, the O&O's had a more formal exchange of news pieces. They were nice, but still just as fill as local stations want local news of interest to local listeners.