Citadel’s WKIM-FM in Memphis, TN has surrendered – GenX folks can’t be lured to radio, a habit they probably never developed.
KIM FM is now joining the growing list of FM stations switching to News / Talk. They haven’t posted a schedule yet – right now I’m hearing Laura Ingraham, which suggests it probably will be Talk Radio Network (TRN) centric – Savage, Doyle, Humphries, Hendrie, America’s morning news
I’m Gen X, and definitely lured to radio. I got tired of the pornography called TV news they tried to get me hooked on.
What’s the last major purchase you made because of something you heard advertised on radio?
It wasn’t gold or food insurance!
How about IRS debt foregiveness, identity theft protection, Work at home schemes that are totally legit!, credit repair, or magic pills you put into your gas tank to improve the gas mileage, male potency cures, or hearing aids? Did I leave anything out?
Advertisers shun radio…as recently as the 1990s a whole range of consumer brands and products advertised on the radio. I worked at an AM/FM combo in a small market in the late 80s and we ran network ads for TV movies of the week, food and consumer products, Buick…you get the idea.
Advertisers, ever afraid of attaching their name to a whiff of scandal, steer clear of talk radio which undoubtedly would deliver a ready made audience. I am weary of bankruptcy, gold and emergency food ads. Even though the motives were clear, I thought it was cool when General Electric and GM were advertising on some talk shows.
We have a new A/C-oldies local FM (the license of the station where I once worked) that’s running a lot of local advertising. I’m hearing the station in many businesses I enter including today a farm store, a gym I attend and a car dealership…so there’s still some kind of audience for radio that’s local but I doubt national advertisers will ever return to the medium.
I’m in agreement that there’s a dwindling audience of listeners. I am an oddity becuase I have always been partial to AM and to even a hard-core DXer like myself, there’s little to hear. I have a sister nearly 9 years my junior – still in her 30s – and I doubt she ever listens to the radio.
I was surprised to hear an ad for Chipotle (fast food Mexican chain) on AM 1000 from Chicago last night. It’s a sports channel so I guess that market still may draw a demographic that’s mostly scandal free and delivers some buying power.
Radio is stratifying even more than it has been. The major market AM news stations (WTOP, WCBS,WINS,KCBS,WBBM) are rolling in advertisers. The music stations who still have a national rep firm are getting those national brand building ads. The mom ‘n’ pop local AM stations who actually know the people in the town they live in are hanging in there, at least until WalMart and Home Depot arrive. They aren’t carrying debt and know how to stretch money during lean times, many having had parents who taught them as children about the horrors of the Great Depression.
One scenario I can come up with very easily is that to avoid the dollar falling apart, the Fed and Treasury will cave on interest rates and let them float upward. The minute that happens, all that debt overhanging the big radio companies that didn’t use this time to refund their debt into longer maturities will be crushed immediately. Not just radio – any corporations using massive LIBOR based credit facilities instead of long term bonds to fund their capital needs.
“I’m in agreement that there’s a dwindling audience of listeners. I am an oddity because I have always been partial to AM and to even a hard-core DXer like myself, there’s little to hear.”
I think it really depends on the part of the country (or which state) you’re in…
Half my year is spent in Arizona, and half in Michigan. In Arizona, there is a good selection of talk radio of high quality, with modern formats. Michigan, on the other hand, seems to be stuck 30 years in the past (few compelling hosts, outdated styles).
A buddy of mine back in AZ (who is from MI) had warned me that I would go into “talk-radio withdrawal” in MI, and was he right. Thank Galt for streaming radio!