J G Miller wrote:

But with all of the talk radio stations available on AM,
should not public radio be offering something different?

I'd normally agree, except that I've heard the state of commercial talkradio
in America and it's sad. It's made up of uninformed callers pontificating
just to hear themselves speak.

And the topics seem to be mostly politics, and worse, the party-bashing subset
of that. And when you get outside the major cities, if you hear any local
talkradio at all it's likely to be some local psychic or a "swap shop" show.

Agree or disagree, but the talk offered by the major non-comm networks, NPR,
PRI, APM, PRX, MPR, and Pacifica is for the most part top quality.

On Aug 8, 10:04*pm, (David Kaye) wrote:
John Higdon wrote:
Thinking out of the box is not practiced in
corporate radio.

My great mentor in this was Bill Adler of KWUN, a daytime-only station with a
signal so bad and a profile so low that people who lived across the street
from the station didn't even know it existed. *

Yet, without ratings he was able to sell the guts out of the station,
including the nightly signoff.
-*"Though KWUN's day is ending, the night is
- just beginning at John Jawad's Pioneer Inn in Clayton..."

http://www.bayarearadio.org/history/timeline_kwun.shtml


I agree with you 100% that corporate radio does not teach people to think
outside the box. *On the other hand, unless they're in a situation like KGO,
they don't need to. *They can just skim the cream off the top and leave the
creative marketing and selling to the stations that need to invest in doing it
that way. *

It takes a certain kind of personallity to sell a station with no ratings, and
those sellers can be hard to come by because they sell based on relationships,
and often they are quite happy to stay where they are, working their
relationships. *

John Higdon wrote:

News and information formats are among the most expensive to provide in
broadcasting. Unlike KQED, KKUP does not have access to unlimited funds.

Neither does KALW. I've mentioned here in the past that just the interest on
the mortgage for KQED's Mariposa Street studios -- just the annual interest --
is enough to pay the entire staff salaries of KALW management, engineer, and
board ops.

KALW wisely tapped into high school and college intern programs and various
associations with commercial news organizations to build its news staff.
Aside from that, the local pubaffairs programming was/is all volunteers.


Besides, what would all the old hippies who play wind chimes and whale
farts do?


KALW makes time for them on Sunday nights with "Hearts of Space". They may be
the only station still carrying that program.

John Higdon wrote:

There is no use asking if the air is any good if that's all there is to
breathe. The fact is that from inside the industry, the grumbling over
the sample size (and hence the granularity and accuracy) of the ratings
sucks.

Arbitron used diaries. Nielsen does surveys. Pulse and Hooper I believe
relied mainly on telephone calls. Well, Pulse and Hooper are out of business,
probably because advertisers found them lacking.

But Arbitron and Nielsen are still around. And responding to demand, Arb
introduced the PPM to replace diaries. What's amazing is how little this
dramatic change in sampling methodology has changed the standings of stations.

About the only major complaint is that "minority stations" that used to get
credit when people listed them in diaries are apparently hurting. It seems
that people didn't *really* listen to those stations nearly as much as they
listen to the more mainstream stations.


Arbitron remains in business because there is no competition, and the
major broadcasters are too lazy to do anything else.

I'm not so sure about that. Stations have music focus groups which they
either conduct themselves or via an outside agency. Surely they could
contract with some agency to do polling for them if they felt they'd get
anything substantially better than what they get right now.

On Aug 8, 7:24*am, J G Miller wrote:
On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 08:54:19 +0000, David Kaye wrote:

- KKUP could take a page from KQED-FM.
-*KQED, as you'll remember, had a classical
- music format. *They ditched it in favor of the
- news & information format years ago and rose
- to become the #1 (highest share) non-comm
- broadcaster in the nation.

Now KQED-FM "HD" Radio could run an HD-2
Channel and bring back Classical Music.

+ KQED-FM has a 110KW Signal on top of
http://www.kqed.org/
Mount San Bruno gives it a Signal that can be
heard all the way up here in Twain Harte, CA
[125 Miles] 24&7 ~ RHF

On Aug 8, 10:26*pm, (David Kaye) wrote:
J G Miller wrote:

But with all of the talk radio stations available on AM,
should not public radio be offering something different?

- I'd normally agree, except that I've heard the state
- of commercial talkradio in America and it's sad.
-*It's made up of uninformed callers pontificating
- just to hear themselves speak. *

Most people do like to hear themselves talk and
many/most others like to hear 'other' who talk
and sound like them {parroting} and giving a voice
to their views {self-affirmation}.

The Top 10 & 20 . . . 100 Talk Radio Hosts are
real "Liked" by the cast majority of their Radio
Listeners; and a significant proportion of their
Radio Listeners 'hate' them so much that they
too tune-in everyday : Both Count in the Ratings.

- And the topics seem to be mostly politics,
- and worse, the party-bashing subset of that.

Politics, Sex Religion and Sports

Talk-Radio = Political-Speak Radio

Religious Radio is Most Christian Owned Radio Broadcasters

The New and Hotter Sports Talk 24&7 Radio
with Talk Teams and Games On-the-Air

-*And when you get outside the major cities,
- if you hear any local talkradio at all it's likely
- to be some local psychic or a "swap shop" show.

Local Radio with Local Advertisers in each and
every US Congress District Serving the Needs of
the Voters.

- Agree or disagree, but the talk offered by the major
- non-comm networks, NPR, PRI, APM, PRX, MPR,
- and Pacifica is for the most part top quality.

? Top Quality ? -nah- Slanted and Biased YES !
1st a Liberal Voice to the Topics and Programs
2nd a Moderate Voice that for the most part says 'me too'
3rd lacking a True Conservative Voice to give Voice
to a real opposition viewpoint {Point & Counter-Point}

~ RHF

On Aug 8, 10:19*pm, (David Kaye) wrote:
J G Miller wrote:

You could try listening to some for about 5 minutes -- you may feel
yourself unable to listen for any longer than that for some of them
in England.

There are, of course, broad ranges of non-comm stations in the U.S. *Many
cater to very specific slices of audience. *

Here in the Bay Area, KPFA caters to political activists (or people who think
they are political activists). *KCSM-FM caters to jazz listeners. *KPOO is
into mostly blues and affairs affecting black people. *

KUSF is a training ground for new student DJs and musically caters to them,
plus there are blocks of programming catering to Catholicism (KUSF is owned by
USF, a Catholic university).

KQED-FM appeals to news/info hounds, carrying nearly all the NPR and PRI news
and talk programming available. *KALW, an equal member of NPR carries a lot of
the rest, along with BBC, CBC, and other news/info programming.

KCEA caters to people who prefer to listen to big bands music of the 1930s and
40s. *KVHS, also owned by a high school, reaches out toward teens. *

KFJC, KSJS, KSMC, and KZSU do the same thing for college-age audiences. *

The one thing that KQED-FM does great is to
carry the Audio of the PBS-TV 'News Hour" on
the FM Radio at 3PM M~F Listen at Work, or in
the Car, and even at Home with No TV needed.

IMHO the fastest way to get FM HD-Radio accepted
is to find a Local TV Station that will do an Audio
Simulcast of their Programming on the HD2 Channel
and market the Audio Simulcast on TV.
-why- Since TV went Digital the old Analog AM/FM/TV
Radios no longer provide TV Audio. FM HD-Radio HD2
Channels can provide TV Audio to an already existing
at Work and can Listen {but can't watch} and in the
Car and can Listen {but can't watch} TV {radio} Listeners.

~ RHF

On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 05:26:37 +0000, David Kaye wrote:

I'd normally agree, except that I've heard the state of commercial
talkradio in America and it's sad. It's made up of uninformed callers
pontificating just to hear themselves speak.

That is no different from most countries though. Ever had the sad
experience of listening to TalkSport in the UKofGB&NI?

And quite a number of the commercial talkradio presenters in the USofA
and other countries merely pontificate whilst still being uninformed
about the matter on which they are talking.

Agree or disagree, but the talk offered by the major non-comm networks,
NPR, PRI, APM, PRX, MPR, and Pacifica is for the most part top quality.

It is certainly of better quality because the presenters research the
topic which they are presenting, and often it is of a technical nature
eg Science Fridays.

Incidentally, the talk show "The Tavis Smiley Show" did not last
very long on NPR ...

On Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 05:12:38h +0000, David Kaye asked:

But wasn't it listenership falling away and listening to the pirates
that caused the BBC to add extra networks to appeal to the people they
were losing?

Are you referring to the pirates of the 1960s and the introduction
of BBC Radio 1, or to more recent events?

On Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 05:19:59h +0000, David Kaye wrote:

There are, of course, broad ranges of non-comm stations in the U.S.
Many cater to very specific slices of audience.

Here in the Bay Area

Remember thought that the Bay Area is very well served by non-commercial
stations and that the availability is rather different in other, smaller
markets. Often the only non-commercial is an NPR station and maybe one
from a neighboring market, plus perhaps a religious station.