The effect of Laura Ingraham's show ending on KLO.

[CAwasinNJ]

It came out last week that Laura Ingraham will be ending her radio show and going podcast only starting in January. This can't be good news for KLO. She's their morning drive show, which is considered by many to be the most important daypart. Their ratings are pretty bad and weren't helped at all by the huge fervor leading up to the mid-term elections this month. Is there any chance of them going for it and putting a local show on in morning drive? It would be expensive and it would probably take quite a while to see a return on the investment, but it could be argued that they really need something drastic to get some attention. One way of pulling this off would be to lease the morning drive time to someone who would be willing to produce the show themselves and sell the ad time. That's done at a surprisingly large number of AM's in large markets and has been for years. Failing that, what national show might be a good fit that isn't already spoken for? Might they look at something that isn't even a talk show in morning drive? What would you do?

[David]

KLO has an abysmal track record when it comes to live & local talk, so I wouldn't count on them replacing Ingraham's show with anything but another syndicated Salem host. My guess is that they'll move Dennis Prager's program from Saturday & Sunday mornings to the morning drive slot once Laura's radio program ends. KLO got a lot of flak from their listeners when they dropped Prager's show on weekdays for Jim Rome's show, so if they value the few listeners they still have, they'll move Dennis' show back to a more accessible time slot. Seriously, how many people are awake and functional between 4-7 AM on the weekends?

My alternate thought is for KLO to move Jim Rome's show to the 7-10 AM slot so they can quit pre-empting him with other programming. It's already a disadvantage for Rome's show to be on KLO instead of KALL or KZNS, and IMHO they need to air his program five days a week with no interruptions in order to give it a fighting chance at success.

[Terry]

Brian Kilmeade, Fox News Radio

[oldiesfunhouse]

Probably not realistic at all but I'd like to see Tom Barberi come back in morning drive.  It wouldn't fit with KLO's typical conservative fare but neither did Jim Rome.  The problem with putting Rome in morning drive is his show is live from 10 AM to 1 PM local time so if you ran him from 7 to 10 in the morning you'd be playing the show from the day before and he'd be talking about the sports news from yesterday.  KALL when they were still at 910, at one point, moved Jim Rome to afternoons from 2 to 5.  I talked to the program director and he said they were trying to get their best product into a better time slot.  I countered that it was a live interactive show.  He argued that TV news shows and such were tape delayed and I said those shows don't take phone calls or, at the time, faxes, etc. The change only lasted either two or three weeks and after that, when Rome was moved back to 10-1, at the beginning of the first show after they'd put him back live the big-voice guy, I think his name is Jim Cutler, announced "After thousands of emails and tons of phone calls, the clones have spoken.  Jim Rome is back on live."  Why a station would run a show that's supposed to be interactive on tape delay has always been beyond me.  I get they want it in a better slot but that means the listeners in that market never get a chance to participate in the conversation.  I get that most listeners don't do that but still, it's just always bugged me.  As the late Mills Crenshaw, who did afternoons on KLO for a time used to say, "One man's opinion. I welcome yours."

[David]

I wouldn't count on Tom Barberi returning to radio any time soon. Last I heard, he was very ill from battling primary progressive MS over the past decade. He was one of the hosts on Utah Car Cents on KZNS for awhile, but I haven't heard him on that show for nearly a year now.

[David]

FWIW, Salem Radio Networks has replaced long time host Michael Medved with Sebastian Gorka as of January 1st. This is according to an article published on Inside Radio earlier today. Medved will also be moving his show to a podcast format after his dismissal by Salem.