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Markets Where Travis & Sexton Are NOT Available

G

Gregg.

Premiere Networks, the syndication arm of iHeartMedia, says Clay & Buck are being heard on 400 stations, the largest launch of a talk show in years. I wonder if they're also selling some lovely swamp land as well. How can they be on 400 stations if iHeart owns about 150 talk outlets?

Rush was reportedly on 600 stations. In markets where iHeart didn't have a talk outlet, or like Dallas and Hartford where the iHeart talk station is weak, Rush got picked up by plenty of stations not owned by iHeart. Cumulus, Audacy, Cox, Saga, Hubbard and others all paid Premiere Networks to have Rush on their stations. Clay & Buck are on only a handful of stations not owned by iHeart. So I'm not sure how Premiere came up with a 400 station roster.

Here are the large markets where Clay & Buck have no outlet....

#3 Chicago -- WLS owned by Cumulus, had run Rush for years. But Cumulus has Don Bongino in that timeslot now. WGN runs no syndicated shows.

#4 San Francisco -- Cumulus owns the two major talk stations here, KSFO (Rush's former affiliate) and KGO.

#5 Dallas -- Again, Cumulus owns WBAP and KLIF. Interesting to note iHeart owns a poorly rated outlet, KFXR 1190, but that station runs brokered programming in middays. Is KFXR just waiting for the brokered contracts to end before putting Clay & Buck on in Market #5? Or the station doesn't want to pass up the income from the paid shows?

# 8 Washington -- WMAL is a Cumulus station, so no Clay & Buck in D.C.

# 9 Philadelphia -- WPHT is owned by Audacy, which is going with a local host in middays. And WKXW Trenton runs no syndicated shows.

#12 Seattle -- Bonneville owns KIRO-FM and KTTH, Rush's former home. Sinclair owns KVI. Neither owner has picked up Clay & Buck.

#14 Detroit -- WJR is owned by Cumulus. iHeart has an AM station in Detroit but its running the Black Information Network.

#21 Charlotte -- WBT, the 50,000 watt talk station, is owned by Urban One. So no Clay & Buck here.

#23 Baltimore -- WBAL is owned by Hearst and has only local shows on its weekday schedule. WCBM, Rush's former home, and locally owned, has a local host at noon. It used to run Buck Sexton's solo show at night. But now it runs Dan Bongino in that 10pm - 1 am slot.

#24 St. Louis -- KMOX and KFTK, the two talk stations in St. Louis, are both owned by Audacy. Nobody has picked up Clay & Buck.

In the top 25 markets, not counting #18 Puerto Rico, Travis & Sexton are in 14 of them and missing from 10 of them. The only non-iHeart station in these large markets that picked up the show is WFOM Atlanta, owned by Dickey Broadcasting. It's a 1,000 watt station at AM 1230 and with a translator at 106.3. Not much coverage in the sprawling Atlanta market.


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Gregg. said:
How can they be on 400 stations if iHeart owns about 150 talk outlets?
Click to expand...

There are 16,000 radio stations in the US. Only about 15% of them are owned by the major owners. There are LOTS of little AM stations around the country that need syndicated content. They can't afford local hosts, and they're mostly individually owned. They may not be powerful, they may not have any listeners, but they have a signal. That's all they need.
 
Gregg. said:
Premiere Networks, the syndication arm of iHeartMedia, says Clay & Buck are being heard on 400 stations, the largest launch of a talk show in years. I wonder if they're also selling some lovely swamp land as well. How can they be on 400 stations if iHeart owns about 150 talk outlets?
Click to expand...
There are over 250 rated markets, and iHeart has traditional news/talkers in about 120 of them. Many of the 145 n/t stations they have are translators for AMs in the same market, and in a number of cases like Cincinnati, they have two talkers, so they can only clear a show on one of them. Further, they have about 10 stations listed as n/t that are on their new Black talk network.

The rest of the stations are in the roughly 130 rated markets they are not owners in as well as lots of unrated markets. That is what Premier's business is: getting wide, salable coverage for its shows.
 
There's very good reason to believe the "400 stations" number is significantly padded by counting the same station multiple times - AM signal, FM translator(s), and even FM HD simulcasts each counting as a separate "station."
 
Gregg. said:
Premiere Networks, the syndication arm of iHeartMedia, says Clay & Buck are being heard on 400 stations, the largest launch of a talk show in years. I wonder if they're also selling some lovely swamp land as well. How can they be on 400 stations if iHeart owns about 150 talk outlets?

Rush was reportedly on 600 stations. In markets where iHeart didn't have a talk outlet, or like Dallas and Hartford where the iHeart talk station is weak, Rush got picked up by plenty of stations not owned by iHeart. Cumulus, Audacy, Cox, Saga, Hubbard and others all paid Premiere Networks to have Rush on their stations. Clay & Buck are on only a handful of stations not owned by iHeart. So I'm not sure how Premiere came up with a 400 station roster.

Here are the large markets where Clay & Buck have no outlet....

#3 Chicago -- WLS owned by Cumulus, had run Rush for years. But Cumulus has Don Bongino in that timeslot now. WGN runs no syndicated shows.

#4 San Francisco -- Cumulus owns the two major talk stations here, KSFO (Rush's former affiliate) and KGO.

#5 Dallas -- Again, Cumulus owns WBAP and KLIF. Interesting to note iHeart owns a poorly rated outlet, KFXR 1190, but that station runs brokered programming in middays. Is KFXR just waiting for the brokered contracts to end before putting Clay & Buck on in Market #5? Or the station doesn't want to pass up the income from the paid shows?

# 8 Washington -- WMAL is a Cumulus station, so no Clay & Buck in D.C.

# 9 Philadelphia -- WPHT is owned by Audacy, which is going with a local host in middays. And WKXW Trenton runs no syndicated shows.

#12 Seattle -- Bonneville owns KIRO-FM and KTTH, Rush's former home. Sinclair owns KVI. Neither owner has picked up Clay & Buck.

#14 Detroit -- WJR is owned by Cumulus. iHeart has an AM station in Detroit but its running the Black Information Network.

#21 Charlotte -- WBT, the 50,000 watt talk station, is owned by Urban One. So no Clay & Buck here.

#23 Baltimore -- WBAL is owned by Hearst and has only local shows on its weekday schedule. WCBM, Rush's former home, and locally owned, has a local host at noon. It used to run Buck Sexton's solo show at night. But now it runs Dan Bongino in that 10pm - 1 am slot.

#24 St. Louis -- KMOX and KFTK, the two talk stations in St. Louis, are both owned by Audacy. Nobody has picked up Clay & Buck.

In the top 25 markets, not counting #18 Puerto Rico, Travis & Sexton are in 14 of them and missing from 10 of them. The only non-iHeart station in these large markets that picked up the show is WFOM Atlanta, owned by Dickey Broadcasting. It's a 1,000 watt station at AM 1230 and with a translator at 106.3. Not much coverage in the sprawling Atlanta market.


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Click to expand...
I will bet in the cities Iheart is not airing Buck and Sexton on OTA will only be heard on the Iheart app.
 
I'm sure if I were the owner of a small market talk station, I'd crawl over broken glass to get Rush on my station. He would help me set up listening for the entire day and be at the top of my sales materials. That fact added up to 600 stations.

But now, talk stations around the U.S. have numerous Noon-3pm ET shows begging for carriage... Dan Bongorno from Westwood One, Dana Loesch from Audacy, Eric Ericson from Cox. Salem has two choices for you at noon, 60-something Dennis Prager and 20-something Charlie Kirk. And independently syndicated folks like Dave Ramsey (he's actually 1 to 4 pm ET), Lars Larson, Joe Pags, etc.

If this show CAN'T get in 10 of the top 25 markets, how can they have the carriage they claim? Only one non-iHeart station in the top 25 markets is carrying the program, lowly 1,000 watt WFOM Atlanta. I just have a hard time believing these guys have 2/3rds of Rush's total.
 
Gregg. said:
I just have a hard time believing these guys have 2/3rds of Rush's total.
Click to expand...

So what does that mean? Are you going to sue for false advertising? The only people for whom the 400+ number matters are the advertisers. They will ask to see the actual affiliate list. They will ask to see the audience figures. And yes, those numbers will be quite a bit lower than Rush's. That's why Premiere waited four months to launch this new show. Because up to this week, they could still charge the old price and use the old audience figures. Not any more. Accordingly, the budget for this new show is quite a bit lower. Travis & Buck don't make as much as Rush did. That's fair, right? And the spot rate is quite a bit lower too. So this begins a new day. That's what we kept saying back in March when people were complaining about the highlights show. OK, that's over. Here's the replacement. Satisfied?
 
It's not hard to look at the station map on their web site and have a look for yourself. Here's a few states to get you started:

Florida - 17 markets
Pennsylvania - 10 markets (with neither Philly nor Pittsburgh represented)
North Dakota - 2 markets
Louisiana - 3 markets
Idaho - 0 markets
New Jersey - 0 markets

I think Fybush is likely correct, that there is some double-counting going on.

Local to me, the nearest stations on their list are three 1kW AMs, each at 1200kHz or higher, and each owned by Ma & Pa owners. If I really wanted to listen to Clay & Buck, my options are to try and DX one of iHeart's 50kW talkers, or just use the app.
 
Nashville is listed 4 times with WLAC, WLAC's translators, and WLAC's HD2 simulcasts. They're reaching a bit. Nothing in the Knoxville market, closest affiliates are WPFT, Pigeon Forge and a couple of translators between here and Chattanooga.
 
In San Francisco market I know one of the counties Solano specifically can pick up Clay & Buck on KFBK Sacramento OTA since Solano County is split in two DMA's.

For the rest of the Bay Area it would be via iheart app.
 
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