I need rules

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Fred Stiening

So let’s say the focus of this site becomes more about promoting stations with live “local” programming… What do you think the rules should be?

I added a data field today called “Local Live Hours”. There is no actual data yet until we have some rules!

A few questions to get the rules going…

Over what time of day? 6 am to midnight (Nielsen), Hours per day Monday-Friday, or hours per week including weekends? Does an infomercial count if it is live?

Do we count a local host doing syndication at his “home station” – for example, Howie Carr on WRKO? Since Howie does the Boston show from Florida in the winter, does that disqualify him? I suspect Jeff Kuhner does his “local” Boston show from Maryland… Lars Larson on KXL, Herman Cain on WSB, John Grayson on KMOX?

What about music stations where the “show” is 98% music and ads? How do we rule out voice tracking where nobody is even at the station? Or does it even matter as long as it isn’t Delilah?

There are no right or wrong answers, only apathy – and I don’t care one way or the other if you don’t answer.

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8 Responses to I need rules

  1. Fred Stiening says:
    December 4, 2015 at 10:30 pm

    Here is a good example
    http://am1170theanswer.com/ProgramGuide/Wednesday

    How many hours do you count?

  2. Linda S. says:
    December 5, 2015 at 9:48 pm

    I have no idea how to answer this!!

    • Fred Stiening says:
      December 6, 2015 at 12:11 pm

      I’ve done a first pass of the talk stations in the top 25 markets. Anyone interested in the results? I really don’t want to show the answers first because it will influence people’s opinions

      Here is a shorter quiz. When deciding how much “local” programming WABC-AM has, do I include the 4 hours of Imus in Morning and the show done by Doug McIntyre from Los Angeles (only heard on WABC)

  3. briand75 says:
    December 7, 2015 at 7:30 am

    I would define local as having topics and talk that are local to the coverage of the transmitter. If Joe Shmoo does a show from Poughkeepsie and the transmitter is in Minot, ND – as long as the talk has refences to the local crappy weather, the job situation in Minot and surrounding areas and maybe local elected officials and such – then call it “local”. If it’s all national politics and the callers are from around the nations (e.g. Rush) then it is not “local”.

    I don’t know if that helps, but that is how I would look at it. An example would be Quinn in the Morning – He is broadcast by a station in NY State but he is in his home in PA. He talks national news and occasionally make a local reference – but local to PA. So he isn’t local and live.

    • Fred Stiening says:
      December 7, 2015 at 1:03 pm

      What about a person in North Dakota on a station in North Dakota who only talks about national politics? The typical scenario might be they come to work at 8:55 am, refresh the Drudge Report and that’s their notion of “show prep”.

      This is something of a catch-22. While there have been exceptions like Mandy Connell when she was in Florida, few local hosts are interesting to national audiences.

      My overall impression going through stations is that the exodus of syndicated people has spurred a lot of hiring of local hosts, especially at Cumulus.

      Rusty Humphries has apparently hired himself to do a radio show on USA radio network starting next month. The problem is the network has no affiliates left.

      • briand75 says:
        December 7, 2015 at 1:58 pm

        That should be easy – I have it from a reliable source that no one actually lives in North Dakota 🙂

        As for the other part – I don’t know how much/if I care. Local news is great when you know/want something from that locale. Otherwise, you might as well listen to paint dry. I don’t know how we would determine a “local” host in the first place. I think your starting point had to do with the San Bernardino terrorist event – if you wanted to hear it on radio – where would you tune to?

        I liked your thought about searching for specific terms to find a radio stations – like: “news Turkey live” or similar. Right now, we can search call signs and such. My fascination is I used to do search engine work many years ago – it is complex as the expectations have been raised to the sky these days.

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