Air America is out - sports will be in at Miami's WINZ

radio-info.com ^ | 04/02/09 | radio-info.com

[raccoonradio]

It was a long-rumored switch, and now we learn it will happen Friday morning as Clear Channel-owned WINZ-AM (940) will drop progressive talk. The new all-syndicated lineup includes ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike in the morning, followed by Dan Patrick from 9am-12pm, Jim Rome from 12-3pm, Chris Myers from 3-7pm, Petros & Money 7-10pm, J.T. the Brick from 10pm-2am, and Fox Sports during the overnight. WINZ is currently the flagship station for the NBA’s Miami Heat. In the latest Miami ratings, WINZ (1.6 share) as a talk station beat all-sports stations WQAM-AM (1.3 share) & WAXY-AM (1.1 share). Overall the addition of WINZ will make 6 sports radio stations in South Florida

[raccoonradio]

The Air America success story continues.

"In five years, we'll be on 600 stations"--then-Air America bigwig Jon Sinton, in a 2004 interview with the Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz. It's five years later (well, four and a half after that article, technically) and libtalk is on maybe 60 stations.

Not counting the hundreds of NPR stations, that is...

[MrEdd]

Pingness

[Made In The USA]

I honestly didn’t think they were still on the radio anywhere. The free market said NO, even with a significant population stupid enough to vote for the Obomber.

Congress of course has their commie lib eyes on ‘fixing’ this...

[raccoonradio]

Yes...yikes.

Meanwhile as MSDNC announces the hiring of libtalker Ed Schultz to their lefty lineup, word comes that he is fired from his flagship KFGO Fargo due to disparaging comments about handling the floods

[N. Theknow]

"In five years, we'll be on 600 stations"--then-Air America bigwig Jon Sinton, in a 2004 interview with the Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz. It's five years later (well, four and a half after that article, technically) and libtalk is on maybe 60 stations.

And the grand total output wattage of all their stations combined is about equal to one of Rush Limbaugh's stations.

[fkabuckeyesrule]

So they are dropping one group of airheads for another group of airheads.

[Made In The USA]

I channel surf and remember listening to that guy (before Air America went off the air locally). He sounded like he desperately wanted to be a left version of Rush. Of course, I just thought he sucked.

Figures he’s going to work for the DNC’s marketing dept. Whatever, I get to ignore him there as well.

[raccoonradio]

A page on the new “Sports Animal” page at http://www.am940southflorida.com (a site plugged constantly tonight by Fox Sports
Radio’s JT The Brick) says, when you click it that prog. radio on WINZ is over:
“WINZ has not made money since it was progressive”. They go on to say that while the audience is loyal it’s
not as big as other stations (even if ratings were halfway decent, billing may be a part of it...) It also blames
the economy, “Randi Rhodes losing her syndication” etc

[mainlib]

You guys are very poorly informed....liberal radio and television garnering higher ratings than ever. Conservative hosts like Limbaugh and O’Reilly routinely overstate their own ratings on the air. Recently O’Reilly said he had the longest running high-rated program!! What a joke. He's losing the main market - 24-44. Mostly conservative old folks watch him now, the main source of the 25% in the polls who supported Bush til the end and who don't support Obama. It's a dying party and badly in need of a vision.

WINZ under Air America is doing better than the prior all-sports format there, and currently enjoys decent ratings, typically maintaining a 1.5 overall share in the Arbitron ratings. That makes it the 4th most popular AM station in the market !!

Don't assume that because it is being dropped it was doing poorly - consider the over-arching financial interests of Clear Channel, that trump ratings.

I will deeply miss Air America in South Florida. The corporate owners of Clear Channel and the other massive media outlets gain more from deregulation and conservative government than by high ratings. Rupert Murdoch has been buying up papers and losing money on them. A sixth sports station here won't make money, but it could stem the tide towards re-establishing proper rules about media ownership. Clear Channel with their hundreds of radio stations would be gone if the old rules were brought back, which prior to Clinton's killing them, limited total media outlet ownership to 36 locations.

Why isn't diversity of opinion valued any more? We - the citizens - own the airwaves. WE NEED TO DEMAND they are used in our interest, so they cannot be controlled by Hearst-type organizations like Clear Channel.

Check out the new WINZ website - it's now at least 3/4 pornography. All we have now from Clear Channel is YELLOW JOURNALISM from inflammatory right-wing radio hosts - the whole reason we made the rules in the first place decades ago was to prevent this dereliction of duty.

The FOURTH ESTATE will die without our action:

1. E-mail Sanda Coyle at Clear Channel to let her know how you feel about this switch: Sanda.Coyle@clearchannel.com

2. go to http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=6 to learn other ways to fight back

[mainlib]

Check out the last entry for WINZ on Wikipedia !!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WINZ_(AM)

“On April 2, 2009, it was reported on radio-info.com that the station would switch to sports the following day, making it the sixth sports station in Miami; this follows Clear Channel’s trend of changing liberal talk formats (regardless of success) to its own Fox Sports network.”

Note the “regardless of success” !!!!

This confirms my analysis.

Also see: http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2009/02/black-monday-continued-winz-flipping-to.html

“The station currently enjoys decent ratings, typically maintaining a 1.5 overall share in the Arbitron ratings. That makes it the 4th most popular AM station in the market.”

I read somewhere else...can’t find the link now...that Air America out-performed the all-sports line-up on WINZ that preceded it.

Blatant disregard for their own profit motive....that’s ideological.

Break up Clear Channel now!!!

[raccoonradio]

I think I tried to put a bit in on the WINZ page at Wikipedia about the format flip but not sure if it’s still up there;
looks like a lib got in and did his/her own version.

Ratings don’t necessarily mean profit. Sports stations can bill very well, as the station’s GM pointed out. Here in New England, WEEI has expanded its sports radio network to a total of 9 stations, and two stations recently added sports
(WMAS Springfield, now ESPN, and WPKZ Fitchburg, Fox Sports at night plus Red Sox and Patriots play by play). Air
America stations in places like Memphis, Akron OH, Portland ME, and New Haven CT all switched to sports.

Which sells more ads, Air America or sports?

I tuned in to Fox Sports’ JT The Brick (here via WEEI
Boston) the night of the flip and he was raving about the
huge new signal, 940 The Sports Animal, that was now
aboard.

[raccoonradio]

>>mainlib
Since Apr 9, 2009

Welcome to FR. I’m on Air America Place and some other lib boards, myself.
O’Reilly doesn’t do his show on radio anymore; it ended
in early March. He was getting killed by Rush in ratings and
many stations put him on tape delayed where he could get pre-empted by sports. BOR may not have had the passion, etc for radio but he does fairly well in TV ratings.

Rush must sell pretty well, and do decently in ratings
(see Radio Equalizer for Rush’s high numbers recently—
thanks Prez Barry!) and he maintains well over 600 affiates, many dominant ones. (Lib radio, meanwhile,
fails even in Boston. As they said in Spinal Tap,
“Well, the show got cancelled in Boston but that’s OK.
I hear there aren’t too many college students there.”
So, must not be too many libs in Boston eh :)

Rush gets lib listeners/callers; so do Hannity and
Ingraham and they’ve been known to call in.

Clear Channel actually gave libtalk a chance in many cities—though admittedly the Boston station(s) may have had a weaker
signal, not as much promotion, and no DAILY local host.
Ironically enough one of the AAR stations CC has in
Boston, WKOX 1200, just got a big power boost/transmitter move, too late to help libtalk. Meanwhile CC wants to
stay with Spanish language programming.

Because it makes dinero.

You’re welcome to find liberal viewpoints on NPR, network and cable TV, newspapers, magazines, music, the Net,
and many other places. If we REALLY wanted to do a fairness
doctrine, there would be 50 per cent conservative content on MSNBC, in the NY Times, in Rolling Stone, at the
movie theater (one Dick Morris movie for every Michael
Moore one), in music,and so on.

If libtalk is well done, great. It means it succeeds in
the free market. But it does not need to be forced in
in the interest of alleged “fairness”. Remember, on one lib message board I saw a post by one lib talking about how they couldn’t stand “the molasses dripped voice of Al
Franken”.

Put on a good product and see it succeed. Otherwise,
“Are You Ready For Some Football?”