Disclaimer: about 10 years ago, Kim wrote favorably about my web site (finds ISP) and I advertised in her newsletter.
I just heard Kim doing an ad promoting a “cleanup service” from AOL. In the good old days, Kim would not have endorsed paying for a program to “clean up” your computer, let alone the pathetic technology company called AOL. The best way to speed up your computer is to delete AOL.
In advertising there is a hierarchy: when I was a kid – the automobile industry along with Bell Telephone were the tops. AOL is a joke by any standard of measure. Can I make a resonable jump in thinking that Komando isn’t doing so well with the higher tier advertisers? I dropped Komando* for Into Tomorrow quite a while back when I wanted to listen to a tech show. I found KKs presentation tedious and I have increasingly become less tolerant of second-rate call screening. Rush has done too many things exceedling well to list – but – near the top after reinventing talk radio HAS to be creating the best screening procedures on Erf.
I think your assumption is correct. Part of the problem is the products and retailers most relevant to her listeners no longer exist or are don’t use radio advertising. CompUSA no longer exists here, Gateway is long gone… I bought my recent eMachine for $400 at walmart, which doesn’t do much advertising. HP is teetering on the brink. Apple probably has lots of money it could spend on ads, but has no need to.
Kim’s program is essentially self-syndicated. Westar is owned by her husband – I had noticed maybe 2 months ago the only other program they syndicated (“The Other Side”) had suddenly gone away.
Curiously, about a week ago, the woman who did the marketing for Kim Komando emailed me to say “Hi”. While I bought links in the newsletter, I could not justify the cost of advertising on her radio show. She didn’t mention why should suddenly was contacting me, and didn’t respond to my response to her.
I think the top tier advertisers are getting extremely skeptical about the effectiveness of advertising on radio. There are exceptions – McDonalds seems to really feel good about advertising on music radio, at least on the web sites. Car advertising was always a big advertiser for the obvious reasons.
Premiere Radio (syndicator of Rush, Beck, formerly Dr Laura, formerly Dean Edell) laid off most of its staff last Christmas. I take that as the largest sign of just how much trouble syndicated talk radio is in.
The AOL Computer Checkup service costs $60 a year. The promotion includes the rather odd comparison that its like the lint that clogs up your dryer vent, and using AOL will suck the lint out of your computer.
15 years ago, I participated in a Usenet group to try to explain that AOL sucks. Now they’re selling that as a feature.
Having lived in Phoenix for over a decade, I’m all too familiar with the schmaltzy schtick of Barry Young and Kim Komando. (she has become quite ‘liberal’ since her marriage to him).
The Other Side? That’s where numerous local listeners were driven (by KFYI) on Saturday nights… the station took a long time to stop the bleeding and/or tell Westar “no mas”.
The irony of KK promoting AOL “clean up” is just too ripe. I lost my respect several years ago when she boasted (on-air) about how she hacked a wifi router at a resort for two weeks and only left a msg to the sys-admin: “thanks for the free ride”.
Leo Laporte has been my preferred tech-show, among others.
I was always a little uncomfortable with her interaction with the pimply nerdy teenager boys, as if she was part of their crowd.
Kim was supposedly a Conservative Babe 🙂
My guess that to the degree you perceive a change in politics, it has more to do with having a son and dealing with school and other parents, etc…
I used to download LaPorte’s iPad video each week, but I started to get bored with it. His radio show is getting very unfocused, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A lot of radio is way too over-produced. I like free-form stream of consciousness.
Yeah, Kim was a conservative babe… but I think Barry is the primary influence. He’s much more of a libertarian (e.g. Neal Boortz).
Her show seems to be more dumbed-down and i-gadget (i.e. Apple) oriented. i.e. The dilution of the show is a result of its popularity.
LaPorte has been telling more people to “bring it to our shop” a la the car shows on Saturdays, so I don’t where to go for a good IT/tech show.
I’m still listening to Kim’s show but I have to agree with The Chairman above that her show has become a hours long ad for Apple products. She still claims to be neutral but the truth has become hard to ignore. You can almost complete everyone of her calls ending in recommending either an Ipad or getting a new Mac or waiting for the next Ipad or Iphone to come out.
Not that Apple does not have some amazing products but clearly the average user is buying the 400 dollar eMachine at walmart NOT the 2000 dollar Mac. The only Android she even mentions is the Galaxy Tab and amazingly I did hear her recommend one once but it’s not often.
I can’t say I care for Leo’s show either so I guess I’ll start looking around. I can’t see her changing her spots at this point. You would think if someone had a show that discussed the gadgets that people could afford it would be a little more popular.
Beyond the two of them, things drop off fast. Dave Graevline is interesting – his show is a bit more general, talking about the future. He would probably talk about the concept of space elevators or using nanotechnology to create military weapons, not just the latest gadget.
There is a computer show on late at night called Computer America on one of the third tier syndicators. You’ll find some local weekend shows, but they’re mostly just looking for customers for their repair shops. With an eMachine including monitor for $400, how much are people really going to spend to repair something? The same thing happened as the VCR was dying. iOS5 is signaling the end of the PC. You’re going to have “the cloud” and a portable wireless device with a touch screen. A hard wired computer with local storage will continue for a while in the business world and niche markets like graphics designers, but your grandma is no longer going to buy a PC to read her AOL email once a week.
It’s funny you mention the cost of repairs…my little Samsung Netbook kicked it last weekend and while I loved it, I’m going back and forth as to if I even want to bother fixing it. Not only are Netbooks super cheap now but would I even want another one anyhow. I’m inclined to just put the money into a good tablet.
Kim even mentioned last week, insightfully I may say, that laptops are becoming disposable and you know I think she is probably right. In my own case…do I really wanna pay 150 bucks to fix a netbook that costs 300 bucks new?
The funniest thing is the amount of old computers that people seem to be stacking up. The family Dell breaks, buy a cheap eMachine, that gets slow (probably because of adware or viruses) buy another…etc, etc
Which brings this topic full circle – given those economics of the costs of computers, why would someone spend $60 just for a service from AOL to “clean” your computer to (hopefully) make it run faster?
Kim used to do things like point to free resources that have lists of things to do to improve performance (like deleting the browser cache).
I’ve heard the same ad being endorsed by others that are less tech saavy (Laura Ingraham is one I remember). Voicing an endorsement is a step above running an ad during the show produced by the advertiser. Typically people with clout in the radio business have the right to reject product endorsements, so it isn’t something her syndicator or the radio stations are making her do (and her show is self-syndicated anyhow)
Agreed, considering the cost and what it actually does it really is hard not to see some hypocrisy here. I am absolutely sure I’ve heard her commenting on the uselessness of “cleaning” and registry cleaners in the past. So, she sold out because they just offered her huge stacks of cash (unlikely considering the source) OR her show needs the ad revenue? Didn’t you say in another post Art that her husbands show was canceled or something?