Radio: August 11, 2017
J.J. Johnson got some big news this week: his book, Aircheck: Life in Music Radio, was selected for and is now included in the archives of both the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio and the Paley Center for Media in New York City.
Aircheck is quite a read, and paints a vivid picture of Johnson’s experience in the radio -- and music -- industry. Reviews on Amazon.Com, where the book is available in both soft cover and Kindle editions, use words like “must-read,” and I agree. It has an obvious appeal to those in the industry, but Johnson’s writing is interesting, fast-paced, and accessible to all.
Johnson’s radio career spans over five decades and started when he was just 17 when he went on the air at Clevelend’s WABQ; he eventually moved to the West Coast and worked at such legendary stations as KFRC/San Francisco. Locally he was heard on such stations as the late, great (original) KDAY (now KBLA, 1580 AM), KJLH (102.3 FM) and KACE (now KRCD, 103.9 FM). At KJLH, he acted as an on-air first-hand reporter during the Los Angeles riots via the station’s street-level studios that included a huge looking-glass window facing the street.
I asked Johnson of his reaction to being selected in not just one but two prestigious archives. "Having my book included in these archives is, obviously, an honor,” he told me. “It's also a sort of immortality. Future generations will be able to glimpse our world and get a clue as to how we thought and lived. Actual audio tells a story. This takes people behind that audio. Naturally, I'm beyond pleased. I'm trying to contain myself!"
Will he ever do a followup? “Probably. I have a ton of stuff to clear off the proverbial table, first. As I stated in the book, it was one guy's picture of this life. I was not attempting to work in everything that happened. So, there's plenty more to tell.”
Happenings at KFI
KFI (640 AM) evening host Tim Conway and his staff got a surprise recently from morning man Bill Handel and crew: cookies.
But not just any cookies. The Conway group thought they were special teddy-grahams; turns out they were -- unknown to the night crew -- Grandma Lucy’s Organic Oven Baked Dog Treats. Yes, dog treats. See the reaction at http://tinyurl.com/ConwayTreats.
Neil Saavadra, host of the KFI weekend Fork Report (Saturdays, 2-5 p.m.) wants to be known as Orange County’s favorite “food influencer” as part of the 2017 Golden Foodie Awards. Voting takes place now through August 21; vote for your favorite via the Golden Foodie website at http://www.goldenfoodieawards.com/vote.html.
Satellite Golf
Through August 13th, SiriusXM is offering hole-by-hole coverage of the PGA Championship from the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. The programming will air on Sirius channel 208 and XM channel 92 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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Radio: August 4, 2017
KOST (103.5 FM) listeners had a big surprise in store when they tuned in last Monday. Instead of morning woman Ellen K, they heard none other than Rick Dees.
Dees, of course, was the longtime morning man on KIIS-FM (102.7 FM) and spent many years with Ellen as his sidekick/news reporter.
Ellen was out due surgery; it seems she broke her wrist while snowboarding with her family recently and the surgery was scheduled for Monday. While she recovers (recovered? ... she may be back as soon as by the time you read this) there will be a different fill-in each morning.
Daly Out
Carson Daly is gone from Amp Radio (KAMP, 97.1 FM); his last day hosting Amp mornings was July 27. The “official” reason is that he wants to spend more time with his family, telling fans on Instagram, “The truth is … The reason I’m going to stop doing radio for now is that I just want to have breakfast with my kids … I want to thank you guys. It’s been really incredible.”
At least one observer refutes that “official” reason. Claims Jerry Del Colliano through his July 31st "Inside Music Media" column, Daly’s contract was not renewed because soon-owner Entercom’s CEO David Field gave the order to CBS executives to not renew Daly’s contract. True? Hard to say, but it does seem a bit more than convenience.
No replacement was selected at press time; Daly will continue with his other duties including hosting The Voice on NBC Television and his syndicated countdown show that airs weekends on Amp.
Readers Revenge
“I have a question about KLOS. If I'm in my car around 5-6:00, I always put on the 5:00 Funnies, which usually comes on about 5:20 or so. The last few times I tuned into the station to hear the comedy, they just played music. Would you happen to know if they stopped the 5:00 Funnies, or did I just miss it --Brian Baldini
It looks like you just missed it. The KLOS website (955KLOS.Com) has the Funnies listed and available as a downloadable on-demand podcast. Find it on the main page, under the On-Air pull down menu; the Funnies were current as I wrote this.
Unfortunately I was unable to get through to anyone at the station to confirm the air time, so I will make an assumption that they are going back to being earlier in the hour, perhaps as early as 5:00 itself.
Short Takes
Kevan Weatherly is out as the programmer of Amp Radio, replaced by Chris Ebbott who also programs KRTH (101.1 FM). This is interesting because Weatherly is credited as the creator of the Amp format; he will remain as programmer of KROQ (106.7 FM) and Jack (KCBS-FM, 93.1).
With KFI (640 AM) no longer using HD Radio on the AM signal, why is the audio so awful? KFI used to be one of the best-sounding AM stations on the air, in the AM stereo days. Now they seem to be narrow-band with extra distortion added into the mix.
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Radio July 28, 2017
Last week’s column on the local ratings brought in a couple inquiries that I think are worth covering. The first has to do with what ratings truly measure.
“Read your article in the Pasadena Star News today. I now realize I don’t understand the translation of the rating to real numbers.
“I had always assumed from TV rating in the Times
That a 7.1 rating equaled 7,100,000 viewers. Your numbers for radio I don’t think translate to millions. Please help me to understand.” -- Terry Smith
Actually Terry has it down perfectly, at least in concept. There are a few differences though.
The TV ratings are basically the same as radio, except that radio counts actual people -- locally -- while television counts whole households -- nationally.
The rating printed last week for radio is a percentage of listeners aged 6 and over. A share of 7.1 in radio, then, with a population of 11,419,500 (Los Angeles Metro of people aged 6 and over) would be .071 x 11,419,500 or 810,784.5 people aged 6 and over tuned in on average during the ratings period. Those ratings also reflect the entire broadcast day even though you can, like television, break down the day into smaller parts.
The details can also change depending on if you are looking at total listeners or subsets; if you split the rating into demographics (men aged 25-35 for example) the available population will be a subset of the 11,419,500. Further, radio ratings are not calculated nationally (not even syndicated shows) so the total number will be less than television ratings calculations.
On television the rating is calculated the same way except that they use households rather than individual people, and they are national rather than local. The 7.1 share equating to 7,100,000 households is from old data assuming 100,000,000 households with televisions in the house in the United States; it is now 115,600,000, so the 7.1 share now translates to 8,207,600 households. Like radio, though, it is a percentage of available households (vs. actual people in radio) tuned to a show.
The second letter had to do with ratings breakdowns.
“I read your column each week and I find the ratings most interesting. This week you added something extra, the Handel 4.2 vs. the Conway 4.5 rating. Could you sometime do a column comparing each show from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on the am talkers?” -- Maurice Sutton
That’s a little tricky, because Nielsen (and it’s predecessor Arbitron) don’t release detailed ratings to the public or the press. All we get are the generic “6 plus” numbers, referring to the overall audience measured of radio listeners aged 6 and older during the entire broadcast day of 6 a.m. and 12 midnight.
And the list we get isn’t even the complete list, as stations that don’t subscribe to Nielsen in the area rated don’t get mentioned even though they are on the list that stations receive, and I am not allowed to mention non-subscribing stations. So when you see different breakouts, it is usually due to a station “secretly” sending me the data.
There’s also the problem of way too much detail. There are a multitude of demographics, time slots, and even ways of looking at ratings that can make the most ardent radio geek get blurry-eyed.
That being said, I am going to see if Nielsen would allow more detail to be published here. In the meantime, I can say that of the AM talkers you mentioned, KFI dominates in all day-parts by a wide margin. Nielsen won’t let me mention specific numbers -- yet at least -- but perhaps I can give them sometime described as an algebra problem.
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