Posted on 06/06/2006 7:23:15 PM PDT by editor-surveyor
Sad news ping...
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What was the official reason for his firing? What were his ratings?
Mark Williams was let go because of money. Ratings on evening radio mean nothing. No more money and no more advertising will accrue to a radio station because of ratings, because the available audience is miniscule...doesn't mean squat.
Forget KTKZ...they can't even beat the Air America outlet (well, maybe after the new ratings came in...)
The reason KFBK is #1 is Rush Limbaugh...and only Rush Limbaugh. Their news blocks are dull, boring and repetitive.
It was KNBR-AM who brought Rush to the Bay Area on a daily basis. KGO-AM, the longtime top rated ABC-owned station in San Francisco, played the best of Rush on weekend afternoons when he first went national. KNBR had Giants baseball, Warriors basketball and sports talk in the evening, but still had DJs and MOR (middle-of-the-road) music filling the early morning through evening drive hours.
As music on AM fell out of favor with stereo-craving listeners (especially after the colossal failure of the concept of AM Stereo) and the retirement of morning drive legend Frank Dill, KNBR started with talk shows during the afternoon when there was no sports programming. Although he was exploding throughout the rest of the nation, it was thought Rush would never sell in looney left San Francisco, and KNBR brought him from the shadows on KGO to the Bay Area live five mornings a week. Surprise, surprise -- KNBR beat KGO 9am-Noon for the first time in decades.
KNBR listeners weren't all happy with Rush. One creative attempt to get him dumped was when callers to Giants post-game talk shows used racial slurs about black players, which were then blamed on supposedly racist Limbaugh listeners who stuck around for the games. Nobody fell for it. Rush was replayed Midnight-3am as well as the 9-Noon live slot. KNBR was the top-rated sports station in the nation, and that was partially due to the fact 25% of the programming was Rush.
Rush was firmly ensconced at KNBR until ABC outbid it to get him back in 1999, bringing him to KSFO, purchased by Disney, ABC's parent company. After abandoning a standards/MOR format years earlier, KSFO failed with a mixed-bag of liberal talkers (including Tom Leykis) and Dr. Laura in the evenings and had switched to a lineup of brash, amateurish and almost unlistenable right-wingers (J. Paul Emerson being the most forgettable), and had righted itself (pun intended) with former KGO hosts Lee Rodgers and Jim Eason, Geoff Metcalf, and former ABC reporter Melanie Morgan. Also joining was former KGO fill-in host Michael Savage, who has become a star (and a bestselling author) in his own right.
"KFBK is the most powerful station in the western US."
No kidding. I used to listen to KFBK 45 years ago, after midnight, clear up here in northwest Washington on my little tube radio. Used to pick up one from Ogden, Utah, too.
Called, faxed. emailed mamagement of KFBK 1530 AM. Going after the advertisers next. South Placer county is more conservative than you can imagine. I live in Rocklin and will spead this around about Mark. a true conservative activist.
This looks like an impending crash and burn. I wonder how long it will take for those pesky Arbitron ratings to work their magic?
Your post took me down memory lane. I still have the news articles announcing the beginning of KSFO talk radio...
I'm sorry to learn this about Mark Williams. He covered those conservative events no one else covered.
Well, I will just remove this station from my speed dial buttons in both cars.
Don't blame that one on listeners! That was orchestrated by Gary Radinich, who was quite displeased with rush's sucess at 'his' station. Mike Cleary also made a few attempts to garner support for a 'dump Rush' agenda, but failed.
I disagree. This is blatant discrimination against uninsightful jerks! /sarcasm off/ You're right. KTKZ has the best lineup, esp. Medved and Hewitt, though Hogue is a bit of a simpleton, IMO. I just wish Laura Ingraham wasn't on opposite Rush & it's been a lot better since they started up the FM side, so I can actually get a signal after dark up here in Auburn.
They supposedly wanted a more 'moderate' (read socialist) menu.
Wow! It's worse than I thought if you can't hear them that close.
The selection is getting pretty slim, isn't it.
Wow! where are you...lol
I use the CCrane helps a whole lot.
The poor selection is one reason, I haven't activated my satellite radio gift from Christmas.
I totally agree with you. I listen to Rush and then switch stations.
BRING BACK WILLIAMS!!!
Eric Hogue, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham. Powerful lineup."
Yes, it is a good lineup, and conservatives must exclusively turn to it until the mess at KFBK is straightened out.
What's sad is that KFBK used conservative news/talk to build itself up into a behemoth station. Check out the ratings - it's a GIANT here:
CLICK HERE to SEE RATINGS LIST
And as was pointed out by others, this 50,000 Watt Blowtorch of a station at night reaches about 10 Western States, into Canada and even sometimes into Northern Baja Mexico.
I can't tell you how many times I heard people from San Diego County or Seattle or Portland or Nevada calling in to Mark's show. Now they will be fed a diet of anti-war liberalism by a man who advocates protesting at military funerals. It's just disgusting!
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