All the big changes are behind us, the holidays are over, CBS Sports is on the air, the stats are stabilizing. Who has benefitted from all this change?
The big winner is Mark Levin. Without Savage on at the same time, Levin now owns the 6-9 PM (ET) time period. Another winner is Jim Rome – he was and is the only sports radio person significant numbers of people listen to. By now having more affiliates and access to the resources of CBS Sports, he is quickly becoming the franchise player for CBS Sports Radio and is in the top 10 radio shows overall.
The big loser is Sean Hannity. His show carries the heaviest commercial load of those on syndicated radio. His non-stop talking about “taking our country back” and talking election strategy with Karl Rove (who many blame for the 2012 loss – including me) just doesn’t resonate. “We” aren’t the majority. You can only bang your head on the wall so long before you have to stop.
Laura Ingraham is about where she was before taking her unexpected December vacation. Herman Cain seems to have kept most of the Boortz audience. Dennis Miller has slowly built up a strong core audience.
The huge loser is Talk Radio Network. Losing both Ingraham and Savage leaves them with almost nothing. Jerry Doyle has some residue of the Savage audience, but Rusty Humphries has nothing. He picked up the old Doyle time which had no audience to begin with and most of those affiliates moved to Doyle’s new time or were on delayed broadcast and moved Doyle and dropped Humphries. Suzanne Somers talking about her large breasts works better at 11 PM than while mom is driving the kids home from school. Randi Rhodes has about the same numbers as Humphries.
So if Hannity’s audience is dissipating and Humphries has no traction, who are people listening to from 3-6 PM ET? Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Miller and Glenn Beck – all delayed broadcasts.
There is another trend too- podcasts. Many of the national talkers have podcasts of recent shows. Why is that important? As long time subscriber of satellite radio, I am eager to sever the subscription due to rising rates. If I can download a few podcasts before I leave home or work and drive home with my phone feeding my car speakers, why pay $200 per year… and why suffer through Hannity and his bashing of Ron Paul?
Triton Media has basically agreed with Lew Dickey that there is no rational business model for streaming radio.
I’ve long said I don’t have any real idea why radio stations are streaming other than they see everyone else doing it and don’t want to be left behind.
For anyone who noticed that the streaming count went down from 9800 to 9200, that’s due to the automated tester kicking them out as broken or needing manual testing. I neither have the time or motivation to test them. The average # of days since a stream was tested is well over 400.
My listening habits have changed over the last year. Got an iphone and a car with bluetooth. I use tune-in mostly and stream my favorites or podcasts. Sometimes listen to my i-tunes stuff.
Sirius just doesn’t have enough for me right now so that will be a tough thing to justify when renewal time comes in May.
But the streaming off the phone is dominant. Also found Pandora last summer on vacation. (I don’t listen to music much, but on vacation…)
I’m a fifty something so nobody is chasing my thoughts but those are them.
I am a longtime SRG guy, but don’t know how to use it on my phone, sorry.
So if streaming goes away, what then. What is the future of radio. Will it even be radio anymore. (Where is Art Bell when I need him)
I loved listening to Art. He took Larry King’s “yeah… uh huh” nonjudgement style of interviewing and raised it to the power of 10.
The first year I heard his Halloween show, I stayed up all night to hear the show. Instead of two lines- one for east of the Rockies and one for west of them, he had them dedicated for other purposes.
The first line was for people that were living, and the second was for people that were dead. Not many calls on the first line that night. Art interviewed everyone you can imagine. If memory serves, it ranged from President Lincoln to Jack the Ripper. He was stunning in how he could go with the flow.
If you wanted to use the iPhone with this directory, buy the ooTunes app for $5 and select it as the app. When the Tunein app came out, it’s”free” so the popularity of ooTunes fell off a cliff. The guy who wrote it still supports it and we email updates to each other as we spot them, but otherwise don’t have a “relationship”. I would incorporate iHeartRadio and/or Tunein if they consented without requiring legal mambo jumbo. My impression is Tunein was stopped from streaming Clear Channel – I have no interest in getting caught in a cross fire.
RadioSure’s webstite (http://www.radiosure.com/) says “We need iPhone/iPad/Android developer!!!”
They have no phone app nor programming database but are a great free PC app with a great list of stations and streams.
Might be an opportunity to partner somehow.
AM stations stream because their streams are much much better sounding than over the air. Same for FM but to a lesser extent.
You don’t know why they stream and I don’t know why they pay the huge FCC licenses, real estate costs and how power bills to transmit.
I see streaming only as the way of the future.
How is a local station different than a local newspaper? I just don’t see any real differences?
cartoons and crossword puzzles.
as opposed to car tunes and hosts with cross words 😉
They just killed fox talk on my Sirius this am. Knew it was coming but jeez. What am I supposed to listen to anymore. I need Sirius for golf channel, Nascar (not much anymore), not much else. I can get everything else on my phone. Don’t listen to Stern so why do I need them again?
oops- see comment below but with proper spelling: tversity
If you get those two channels on your cable or satellite TV, you don’t need Sirius at all then. You can use a slingbox to your phone or use TVserity on your PC with an audio feed through a VPN that your iphone connexts to.
Steve Malzberg is also occupying the 3:00 – 6:00 ET time slot. I have enjoyed his show this past week. I wonder if it will go. Newmax TV and I think Sirius is also carrying the show. His guests this past week were great. He didn’t get too many calls but that could change if more start to listen or watch.