February 19, 2009
-
At 5:00PM PST, Feb 20, 2009, Los Angeles California radio station KLSX officially drops it's talk radio format and switches over to a top-40 music format. Which means no more Adam Corolla show, no more Frosty Heidi and Frank, no more Tom Leykis, etc... This is a huge blow against FM talk radio, because the options for that format are very slim, short of going to Satellite radio or AM of course. Ever since Howard Stern left FM talk radio, ratings have most likely gone down and may be the reason for this switch over, but still those shows primarily affected weren't slouches either. The main alternative for morning talk entertainment would be the Kevin & Bean show at KROQ 106.7, which like KLSX 97.1, is also owned by parent company CBS. Hopefully they don't consider getting rid of that show either, because that's the one I listen to regularly.
I suppose the real question that should be asked here is Do we really need another top-40 music station in Los Angeles? There's at least five or more other radio stations that carry that format. How much more pop music do we need on the air? Is CBS really thinking about trying to capture a younger audience by going to that format, when I would just assume that demographic is glued more to their iPods than they are to the radio. Talk radio had mostly adults in their twenties to their sixties listening, and that's not a demographic that should be ignored either. This is simply just a tragedy and those talk shows will be missed by many.
Comments (3)
I'll take the opportunity to plug the bill handell show which is in the corolla timeslot. I've actually gotten tired of Adam over the past year since a lot of it just seems like the same thing over and over. I really liked the Heidi, Frosty and Frank show so I'll miss them quite a bit.
I'm surprised Leykis was dropped but he's syndicated. You'll be able to pick him up on the internet. He's a hit or miss though. I find him 75% lame and 25% on point.
If you get an opportunity to listen to the handel show at 5-6am they don't have their hands as tied by FCC rules and they tend to be really funny. The news segment from 6-7am is basically fark.com read to you but with them making fun of everything. After 7am it gets more serious with segments on different subjects that catch their attention. It gets more interesting as you get more in tune with the rest of the world outside of pop culture (cough cough older...)
http://handel.kfiam640.com/main.html
If you happen to listen at night (7-10pm) you'll probably like Kennedy (the same one from 80's MTV) and Suits. On weekends Leo Laporte (tech tv) is on in the morning and Handel is on to give bad legal advice (it's really him calling people idiots for 4 hrs).
AFAIK KFI has some of the highest listenerships of SoCal. They were beating out FM stations in '06.
Wow... I miss my FM Radio!
@darren_macintyre - yeah, I listen to Handel and Laport too. Great shows. Haven't heard Kennedy's show yet though.
Comments are closed.