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New KVOI owners expanding local talk

This is a very unusual talk station that is running NO syndicated talk programming on weekdays. It has five different local hosts from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Then it runs Bloomberg Radio from evening to early morning. Bloomberg is a business news service, not a talk format.

I wonder what sort of business model this station is projecting? These days, even large market talk stations run syndicated talk most of the day, with a local voice in AM drive and maybe PM drive. Can a modest AM station (10,000 watts days/1,000 watts nights) in Market #82 work?

The iHeart talk station, KNST, is #4. It runs the iHeart/Premiere Networks line up... A local morning show, followed by Rush, Hannity, Beck, Coast to Coast plus Mark Levin from Westwood One. Then there's a Scripps FM talk station with second level talk hosts, Dave Ramsey, Laura Ingraham, Joe Pags, Chris Plante, Lars Larson and Chad Benson. It has a local morning show that only lasts two hours. It's near the bottom of the ratings.

Then there's 1030 KVOI, which doesn't subscribe to the ratings. I wish them well!
 
Gregg. said:
The iHeart talk station, KNST, is #4.
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But it is around 12th in 25-54, which is low in a smaller market. But since only about 10% of business in Tucson is out of market agency stuff, the fact that the station leans very old is not as big an issue.

Then there's a Scripps FM talk station with second level talk hosts,
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It's soon to be a Lotus station, so look for changes.

Then there's 1030 KVOI, which doesn't subscribe to the ratings. I wish them well!
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Because the market is so dependent on local dollars, they may be able to get better revenue off selling local talent, particularly since much talk carries the stigma of the recent mid-term hostilities.
 
It wasn't long ago that iHeart gave KNST an FM simulcast, a Class A FM station powered at less than 2,000 watts, at 97.1 FM. But then iHeart figured it could make more money running a music format on 97.1, so it switched to Country as KYWD. Usually Country KIIM 99.5 is #1 in Tuscon, so iHeart thought it could challenge the ratings leader. But while KYWD is less than 2,000 watts, KIIM is nearly 100,000 watts. iHeart's Country station is hardly putting a dent in KIIM's ratings.

So KNST now goes it alone on the AM dial. 5,000 watts days/500 watts nights, which is not as good as KVOI's 10,000 watts days/1,000 watts nights.
 
Gregg. said:
So KNST now goes it alone on the AM dial. 5,000 watts days/500 watts nights, which is not as good as KVOI's 10,000 watts days/1,000 watts nights.
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If you look at KNST, it is a bit better daytime signal than KVOI since KVOI is highly directional. The 5 mV/m of KNST covers a bit larger population, too.

And KNST has its site better placed and has a "nicer" night directional than KVOI.

And being 220 kHz lower on the dial favors KNST also.
 
Agree. KNST has the better of the two signals. In addition, KVOI is hampered by significant co-channel interference in fringe areas (like Sahuarita/Green Valley) from pre-sunset to post-sunrise. Too bad they can't move up one channel to 1040kHz.
 
::chuckle::

1330 might be available
 
I predict that the all local talk format will last a few months at most. It will prove to be overly expensive and the ratings will be no better than what the nationally syndicated talkers delivered. My hope is that John C Scott's program will continue regardless of what happens to the rest of KVOI. Unlike other personalities, Scott has a list of advertisers who follow him wherever he goes and that can make a big difference from a business standpoint.

1330 is an interesting situation and it may be a long time before we hear any local station on 1330. My information is that the Yuma doctor who owns KWFM is balking at paying the FCC's regulatory fee and may forfeit the license by simply failing to pay the fee. Dr. Sprei won't lose because the real estate that his towers sit on has appreciated in value tremendously over the years. It is surrounded by houses that are likely worth the better part of a million dollars each. The land is worth far more than the radio station is worth. Someone could take over the frequency if they could find another transmitter site, ideally big enough to hold two or more towers. Ideally it would have to be well to the north of Tucson. The signal would be beamed generally south.
 
CAVEMANager said:
I predict that the all local talk format will last a few months at most. It will prove to be overly expensive and the ratings will be no better than what the nationally syndicated talkers delivered.
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Almost 90% of Tucson radio revenue local direct. Most of that does not buy based on ratings. And even if ratings are looked at, the prime driver is relationship based and the metric is sales, not Nielsen.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Almost 90% of Tucson radio revenue local direct. Most of that does not buy based on ratings. And even if ratings are looked at, the prime driver is relationship based and the metric is sales, not Nielsen.
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It would be nice if a listing of radio markets by percentage of local-direct/agency revenue were available, as it might better inform a lot of discussions about mid-sized markets like Tucson. I'm in a mid-sized market -- Hartford -- as well, and I have no idea if radio advertising here is local- or agency-driven. You jump into discussions like this and volunteer the data free of charge, so there must not be Nielsen constraints on the data, right? So how about it?
 
$700,000 of real estate value (per the assessors records...), but it sits in a flood plain - tough to see where there'd be future use for that.

Probably the reason the original 1979 drawings note the site was originally zoned for "radio tower uses only"
 
CTListener said:
It would be nice if a listing of radio markets by percentage of local-direct/agency revenue were available, as it might better inform a lot of discussions about mid-sized markets like Tucson. I'm in a mid-sized market -- Hartford -- as well, and I have no idea if radio advertising here is local- or agency-driven. You jump into discussions like this and volunteer the data free of charge, so there must not be Nielsen constraints on the data, right? So how about it?
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Nielsen does not provide radio revenue data.

In general, most revenue in all markets is local. Even the top 10 markets average about 75% local revenue, with the rest being national agency.

Local, in larger markets, includes local ad agencies when such exist. But local ad agencies do more than straight transactional buying... they frequently look beyond just the numbers. While a major station in a top market might have a majority of agency business, much of that will be local agency buys.

Example: I was, among other things, DoS for a station in a top 15 market a while back. We did virtually 100% agency business, but 95% of the agency business was placed by local agencies. Good ratings were the first hurdle, but not the only one. Service, promotions, relationships and other factors came into play... but we had the chance to get on buys where we were not the best rated station because we gave the best agency and client service.

On the other hand, the trend towards programatic buys by national and regional shops means that it is 100% about the numbers for that kind of buy. Right price, right demos equals a guaranteed buy.
 
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There are at least a dozen ad agencies in Tucson and some do buy radio. It is certainly true that having the best sales rep (con artist) is a major part of any station's financial success but sooner or later the client will figure out that he is or is not getting a good return on his radio buys. The station with few listeners will usually deliver poor results unless their rates are dirt cheap. I was listening to KVOI this afternoon and they had far more freebie PSAs on the air than paid advertising. I still think that the local talk format will give way to something that can be done on the cheap.

Regarding 1330: If their transmitter site north of Sunrise Drive is in a floodplain so are a good number of houses surrounding the towers. The land is almost certainly worth far more than the radio station is worth. If you take a look around there you'll see that this ain't no slum district! If 1330 ever returns to the air it won't be from that site and it probably won't be anytime soon.
 
CAVEMANager said:
There are at least a dozen ad agencies in Tucson and some do buy radio. It is certainly true that having the best sales rep (con artist) is a major part of any station's financial success but sooner or later the client will figure out that he is or is not getting a good return on his radio buys. The station with few listeners will usually deliver poor results unless their rates are dirt cheap. I was listening to KVOI this afternoon and they had far more freebie PSAs on the air than paid advertising. I still think that the local talk format will give way to something that can be done on the cheap.
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Local agencies buy with a mixed criteria. They are in the market, so they are very close to the client who is also in the market. They talk with the client about results, and know the kind of people who patronize the companies they are the agency for. So they buy based on relationships, results and ratings.

I was DoS of a station in a top 20 market that had, at any given time, around 120 local agencies. Some were one-man (or woman) shops. Some were names like McCann, JWT, BBD&O and Saatchi. But despite being overwhelmingly #1 in ratings, we only sold if we could convincingly demonstrate that our listeners were the client's consumer target. And we had to build trust and confidence; we had daily sales meetings that were mostly training about the businesses our customers were in so that we could present properly with clients. We often had business owners come in for a "briefing" about what was important and what was of concern to their company. We did everything from participating in the local Pantry Check research to on-site familiarization with clients.

When you want repeat sales, you can't have "con artist" sellers because radio is all about repeat business.
 
CAVEMANager said:
I predict that the all local talk format will last a few months at most. It will prove to be overly expensive and the ratings will be no better than what the nationally syndicated talkers delivered. My hope is that John C Scott's program will continue regardless of what happens to the rest of KVOI. Unlike other personalities, Scott has a list of advertisers who follow him wherever he goes and that can make a big difference from a business standpoint.

1330 is an interesting situation and it may be a long time before we hear any local station on 1330. My information is that the Yuma doctor who owns KWFM is balking at paying the FCC's regulatory fee and may forfeit the license by simply failing to pay the fee. Dr. Sprei won't lose because the real estate that his towers sit on has appreciated in value tremendously over the years. It is surrounded by houses that are likely worth the better part of a million dollars each. The land is worth far more than the radio station is worth. Someone could take over the frequency if they could find another transmitter site, ideally big enough to hold two or more towers. Ideally it would have to be well to the north of Tucson. The signal would be beamed generally south.
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Perhaps if/when KQTH flips formats that will move some listeners KVOI's way. Thought that might happen Dec 1st but not yet. One of KQTH's weekend shows has already announced an upcoming move to KFFN.

I haven't heard KWFM on the air now for over a year, and I tune by 1330 quite often just to check.
 
KVOI is losing one hour of daily local talk to Dave Ramsey (ugh!) between 9-10am. "WakeUp! Tucson" is dropping it's expanded 4th hour.
 
KVOI to this day has very few paid commercials and runs more free PSAs than ads. I have serious doubts about all the sports talk they run. Even if it's local sports, about the only real interest is the university teams. Not much pro sports in this area. KVOI might be better off leaving the sports talk to 1290. 1450 and 1490/104.9. I can't see this programming lasting much longer unless the absentee owner has bottomless pockets and doesn't care about the balance sheet.
 
KVOI recently moved their two hour daily sports program from early afternoon to 5-7pm.

I see where Dave Ramsey is also on from 7-9pm. Too bad they didn't pick up Clark Howard instead.
 
I think Clark Howard is quite good. But Ramsey has the better station roster. I only know of a few stations carrying Howard, apart from his flagship station, WSB/WSBB Atlanta.

Even that station doesn't run him live. He does his show in the daytime but WSB runs it 10pm-Midnight. Which means WSB doesn't carry his third hour.
 
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