KTAR HeATs Up pHoenix

AL
PETERSON
Issue 14
News • Talk • Sports Weekly
KTAR Heats Up Phoenix
These days, the only thing heating up faster
than the Arizona summer sun is Bonneville's
recently launched Phoenix duo, "News/Talk
92.3" KTAR-FM and "Sports 620" KTARAM. The pair have been picking up steam
since the company revamped 85-year-old
News/Talker KTAR-AM last January, when
it moved its News and Talk programming to a
Russ Hill
newly acquired FM frequency and shifted the
50-kw AM to Sports/Talk and play-by-play for all the city's major
sports franchises. I caught up with PD Russ Hill to talk about the
combo’s growing success story, the challenges of updating a legendary station and the value of establishing a new FM beachhead
to ensure the News/Talk format's continued growth and success.
AP: Give us the Russ Hill quick bio.
RH: I started at KTSA/San Antonio, but most of my career has
been with Bonneville, with 10 years at KSL/Salt Lake City and
the past 18 months here in Phoenix. I came up through the news
ranks: reporter, anchor, managing editor, news director and,
ultimately, PD.
AP: What did you hear when you arrived in town?
RH: To me, KTAR [AM] sounded pretty outdated and without
any contemporary sound to it. It had been beaten, battered and
bruised by its competitor [Clear Channel News/Talk KFYI],
seemed unsure of its direction and was not playing to its strength.
It just didn't sound like a station that was as focused on its News/
Talk product as it needed to be. KFYI took advantage of that by
August 17, 2007
being an extremely aggressive competitor, recruiting everyone
from managers to air talent to behind-the-scenes staffers from
KTAR, and by being very vocal about their intentions to defeat
KTAR. My sense was that KFYI was winning mostly because
KTAR had simply stopped being a very strong competitor.
Today, I think our stations offer listeners a strong alternative and
a better choice than they had just a few months ago.
"We're not FM Talk, we're a
News/Talk station on FM."
AP: What prompted the company to move the station's News and
Talk programming to FM?
RH: I'd just come from the experience of adding KSL's programming to FM in another situation where signal was definitely
not a challenge. The reason I've been such a strong advocate
for expanding News/Talk to the FM band is the opportunity for
growth it offers. In Salt Lake City, it was about growing our lead.
Here, it was about going on offense and realizing that Talk radio
is changing. If you want to do a niche Talk format — religion,
Spanish or other foreign language, sports or all-politics — then
AM is a great place to be. But if you want to build a bigger and
broader Talk station, AM is not the place to do that; you have to
be on FM. In Phoenix, 85% of listening takes place on FM, so it
seems obvious that you should take your programming to where
the listeners already are. Our goal from day one has been to create a broad-appeal News/Talk station, with a lot of local content,
that sounds like it was made for FM.
(continued on page 3)
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News • Talk • Sports Weekly
August 17, 2007
Airchecklets
WMMB/Melbourne, FL morning host Scott Duncan exits, as former AM driver Bill Mick returns to the Clear Channel News/Talker,
following a two-year stint as host and PD at KFIV/Modesto, CA
... Doug Daniels, PD at Cherry Creek-owned AC KONA-FM/
Tri-Cities, WA, is upped to OM and now also oversees sister News/
Talker KONA-AM ... Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Roma
and wide receiver Sam Hurd will join host Timm Matthews as
co-hosts on KLLI (Live 105.3)/Dallas' weekly Inside The Huddle
beginning September 15 ... R.I.P., Harry Shriver, Jr. The longtime Baltimore radio executive died this week from heart failure.
He was 74 ... Emmis Broadcasting has launched IHSAASPORTS.
org, a new website covering high school sports in the company's
home state of Indiana ... Jay Shadix exits KTRS/St. Louis to
join Bonneville's KIRO & KTTH/Seattle as Imaging Director.
Meanwhile, Seattle Supersonics flagship KTTH welcomes Los
Angeles Clippers radio voice Matt Pinto as the 'Sonics new playby-play man. He replace David Locke, who exited at the end of
last year's NBA season ... 33-year Cincinnati Reds’ Hall of Fame
broadcaster Marty Brennaman has inked a three-year extension
that will keep him in the WLW/Cincinnati broadcast booth through
2010 ... Country WJJC/Commerce, GA flips to local Talk under
new owner/GM Rob Jordan's Side Communications ... Former
WGAI and WCMS/Hatteras, NC OM and morning man Steve
Batton is named Director of Operations for Metro Networks'
Richmond, VA bureau.
Network/Syndication Aircheck
Premiere Radio Networks' Rush Limbaugh will be featured in
the opening skit tonight (8/17) on FOX News Channel's Half Hour
News Hour airing at 8pm and 11pm (ET) ... Talk Radio Network's
Phil Hendrie Show gets added at KFMB/San Diego ... Across
town, new Talker XEPE "San Diego 1700 AM" picks up Radio
America's Michael Reagan Show ... The Wall Street Journal This
Morning with Gordon Deal adds KIRO/Seattle; WXTK/Cape
Cod, MA; KIDO/Boise; KXIC/Cedar Rapids, IA; WNTM/
Mobile; and WWSC/Glens Falls, NY. WJBC/Bloomington,
IL; KKTX/Corpus Christi; WRJM/Dothan, AL; and KFBX/
Fairbanks, AK join The Wall Street Journal This Weekend lineup
Page 2
... ABC Radio Networks has ceased production of The Mark Davis
Show. Davis continues to host his highly rated WBAP/Dallas local program ... Westwood One kicks off its 40th consecutive season of Notre Dame Football coverage September 1. Don Criqui
and Allen Pinket will be in the booth, as the Fighting Irish face off
against the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets ... WW One also begins
its 2007 schedule of weekly college football games September 1,
with Virginia Tech hosting East Carolina. It's the Hokies’ first home
game since the tragic shooting on the VT campus earlier this year ...
Psychic Linda Salvin joins the Sunday evening lineup at KLSX/
Los Angeles to host 9-11pm. The Linda Salvin Show is also heard
nationally via CRN Digital Talk ... FOX Sports Radio adds to its
coverage across the Keystone State, inking WMGW/Meadville,
WTIV/Titusville, WFRA/Franklin, and WOYL/Oil City ...
CINW/Montreal, Canada adds ChickChat Radio, distributed nationally by Talk Shows USA and Lifestyle TalkRadio Network ...
Country music star Travis Tritt visits Premiere Radio Networks'
Glenn Beck Show and Beck's CNN television show August 28 ...
KTRB/San Francisco, WGEN/Geneseo, IL and KMJT/Calico
Rock, AR add Talk Shows USA-distributed The Money Pit with
Tom Kraeutler and Leslie Segrete.
Satcaster News
Former Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer joins XM Satellite
Radio's Sports Nation This Morning August 20 as Monday and
Friday show co-host, alongside regular program host T.J. Rives ... A
recently released J.D. Powers and Associates study says that nearly
40% of consumers report they have either Sirius Satellite Radio or
XM Satellite Radio capability in their new vehicle's audio system,
a considerable increase from 26% just a year ago. Additionally,
94% of owners indicate their satellite radio was factory- or dealerinstalled, up from 92% in 2006.
Tough Assignment
ABC News Radio correspondent Alex
Stone shows just how luxurious life on
the road really is for a big-time network
news reporter, as he files a live report for
the network from the site of the tragic
coal mine collapse in Huntington, Utah.
©20 07 News • Ta lk • S p o r t s Airc h ec k ™ — Al l r i g hts re s e r ve d. S e n d n e ws to news@NTSaircheck.com
August 17, 2007
News • Talk • Sports Weekly
(continued from page 1)
AP: What's been the upside for KTAR-AM?
RH: KTAR was doing News/Talk and Sports pretty well,
but not really doing either as well as they could. We had four
play-by-play deals — the Suns, Diamondbacks, Cardinals and
Arizona State University sports — but no local Sports/Talk.
We were bringing all this cume to the station, then sending them
away when the games were over. We've been able to maximize
and extend our relationships with our play-by-play franchises by
creating a station around them that retains sports fans and complements an FM News/Talk station. We're already seeing the positive
results of the move in our first two Arbitron books, where we've
seen a tremendous amount of sharing between the two stations.
AP: How critical is the news component?
RH: It's gigantic. I think it's what makes us different from
stations that have tried to do FM Talk with a lineup of mostly
syndicated shows and a lot of sex talk. We're not FM Talk, we're
a News/Talk station on FM. We retained a local news staff when
we moved to FM, keeping the editors, producers, reporters and
writers, but making the news product more contemporary. I don't
think we would have the potential, or be experiencing the success we are currently seeing, without that big news component.
AP: Lessons learned from this project?
RH: There is a tremendous amount of potential on FM for
News/Talk. You'd be amazed at the number of 32-year-old
Hispanic females, for example, who report listening primarily to
a "Movin'" station and another CHR, but their third-preference
station — in just a few months — is KTAR-FM. We've even
seen diaries from young females where we're a P1 in only our
second book. As a programmer in this industry, I know most of
us have never even thought about attracting that audience. We
figured they like their music stations and that we need to just talk
politics all day to old white men.
I've also learned it is a huge, huge change for listeners to "get." I
am thrilled to be working for a company and management team
that doesn't make a dramatic move like this and then give it one
book to see how it goes. We're taking a long-term approach,
but are already seeing results we, frankly, didn't expect to see
this soon. The audience is there. What I've learned, in both Salt
Lake City and Phoenix, is just how many people there are out
there who will listen to this if you give it to them. But you have
to program it for them; you can't just take your AM News/Talk
station and throw it on FM — they ain't gonna come to you for
that. Do that, and you're still going to just get old white men.
d
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Al Peterson: 858-486-7559
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news@ntsaircheck.com
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