The post Thanksgiving format flipping is underway. The flurry of “Christmas music but no religion please” formats are under way.
While some stations do this just because it sends ratings way up, many stations have a different purpose. Christmas music is canned music run by automation. Most employees can take their vacations, but get a surprise when Christmas is over. Many of the holiday stations intend to switch formats in January. By having 6 weeks of distraction, regular listeners may forget that their Heavy Metal Rock station didn’t used to play Classic Country. The number who complain about the format switch will much fewer.
So knowing the format is changing, the station owner can fire the staff, not pay a Christmas bonus, and avoid making retirement plan contributions, maybe declare bankruptcy and clean house. Merry Christmas!
Geraldo Rivera has been locked out of the WABC studios in New York, where he continued to do a local show after his syndicated program ended. Geraldo claims that he had a verbal agreement to extend his contract for a year from the Dickey brothers who no longer run the company. Being a lawyer, Geraldo promises a legal fight.
Geraldo’s most recent media splash was him rushing to Paris to be with his daughter, who claims she was a “victim” of the bombing at the soccer match. Contrary to the media reports, there was no panic at the stadium – the match continued for the entire 90 minutes. Most people in the stadium were unaware of the attacks. The only people killed were the three people who exploded their suicide vests after they were detected by security at the gate.
Lots of new year’s changes have taken place in the Denver radio market:
–105.5 FM (ESPN Radio) has been sold to KUNC radio (Public Radio). KUNC will go to all news/info on 91.5 and make 105.5 a 24 hour music station.
— ESPN 105.5 relocated to 1600 AM (a Bonneville station which also owns 104.3 the Fan).
— KOA 850 AM made a number of lineup changes (Mandy Connell replaces Mike Rosen, Dave Ramsey moved over from 760 AM ‘Real Talk’). KOA is still the ‘home’ of the Rockies/Broncos/and Colorado Buffaloes — so lots of sports pre-emptions
— 760 AM ‘Real Talk’ has switched to 24/7 sports “Denver Sports 760 AM”
— 630 AM KHOW has added Ross Kaminsky for morning drive time show (he previously did Saturday mornings on KOA). Tom Martino “The Troubleshooter” was moved from 760 AM to 630 AM.
Clark Howard seems to be the odd man out and he is currently not to be found in this market (was on 760 AM previously)
Some of that is already updated.. Most of the time I don’t act on “is going to”
According to Taylor’s newsletter, CRI dropped most of its Chinese news affiliates. Right now my personal issues are taking priority over format flips
No worries. My post wasn’t meant to imply that your were ‘being slack’. I merely was pointing out an example of one major market that saw quite a number of programming changes after the ‘holiday lull’. I’m sure many other places around the country have similar shakeups happening.
I blame the rash of changes in Denver on marijuana.
I listened to most of Mandy Connell’s show. She took more calls in a day than Rush takes in a month. I don’t enjoy “listen to the host lecture for 3 hours” radio
Another casualty is Pat Carroll, the morning host on WCBS-AM all news in New York.
She was very good at her job – with one exception. Pat always talks in a happy voice. The story she is reading from the screen might say “23 children were killed today in a grinding collision with an LIRR train” and she’ll read it like the Yankees had just won the World Series. I get it that you would go crazy if you emotionally responded to the news in New York…