The Bobcat Nation

Liberal talk dies quick death for lack of cash
By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian


Liberal talk gives way to - jack rock?

Tuesday's demise of the progressive talk format on KKNS 105.9 FM in Missoula, was the first major change instituted by Salt Lake City-based Simmons Media Group, which took over management of three radio stations run by Mount Sentinel Broadcasting about six weeks ago.

Simmons laid off the station's three-person news staff and switched KKNS late Tuesday to a “jack format,” a term meaning a variety of Top 40, hair band, rock and pop music.


Simmons vice president of operations Alan Hague declined to discuss terms of the deal to acquire the lease of the three stations. Simmons, a growing company with some 30 stations from Tennessee to Utah, has an option to purchase the Missoula stations in about four years.

The liberal talk featuring Air America Radio and local news made waves in Missoula when Mount Sentinel first began airing the format last summer. Air America host Al Franken visited Missoula for a taping of the show earlier this year.

The show had plenty of listeners but few advertisers, said station manager Dave Cowan.

“We lost a lot of money. We couldn't figure out how to sell it,” Cowan said.

“It was an economic situation,” Hague said.

Hague said he's bullish about the other two stations, especially KDTR, “The Trail,” at 103.3 FM.

“The Trail is a wonderful radio station that we're thrilled to be a part of,” he said. He compared it to X96, a Simmons-owned Salt Lake station that blossomed into a market and revenue leader.

Cowan remains proud of what he calls the “great business study” of KKNS.

Missoula's listeners embraced the station, he said. But the revenue didn't materialize. Cowan has a number of regrets: He wishes he could have had a dedicated sales staff for the progressive talk station - to sell to professional companies rather than to retailers, who drive most radio sales.

Self-described loyal KKNS listener Sue Orr was shocked and dispirited to find her favorite station off the air Tuesday.

“I just can't believe in this liberal, progressive Mecca of Missoula that the advertisers won't support this type of radio. It's really, really sad,” Orr said.

Orr liked the local reporting and liberal talk, she said.

When Cowan announced the station in June 2005, he pointed to demographic data that seemed to reinforce Orr's comments.

“We tried to make a go of it. We thought it would work in Missoula. We still think it could,” Cowan said.

Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262 or rstruckman@missoulian.com

Like any business, you have to have some business smarts to make it work. Having a lot deeper pockets and an aggressive and experienced sales team would help as well, and it sounds like they were lacking in those areas.

I personally think the world would be a much better place if all of the partisan talking heads were off the air and were replaced with people who were more interested in talking about truth and objectivity as opposed to caring more about their party than our country and society as a whole. So in a vacuum, I would consider the death of Air America a good thing. However, in the current radio landscape, you can barely find a station in MT that isn't pumping out mindless right wing talk, so perhaps in that context it is unfortunate that mindless left wing talk isn't present to at least balance it out a little bit. Of course, that only works if people listen to both.

It could be the quality of programming on Air America was as exciting as listening to bubble wrap

You think it may have had something to do with an(I'm going out on a limb here) ultra-conservative company doing the buy out. I'm truly making assumptions based on the fact the company buying the station is based in Salt Lake.

RyeCat wrote:You think it may have had something to do with an(I'm going out on a limb here) ultra-conservative company doing the buy out. I'm truly making assumptions based on the fact the company buying the station is based in Salt Lake.

Ahh, good point. I didn't catch that the first time I read that -- I thought the SLC company was doing the selling.

Yeah, it makes sense that if the company doing the buying is a right-wing controlled company (which is a fair assumption, although not a certainty) that they would definitely sooner pull the plug on the liberal talk format as opposed to giving it the resources it would need to become successful. From a business perspective, it's probably less risky to go with a crap-rock format anyway. Crap sells (crap country sells even better, but that market might be saturated).

Do you really think if Air America was making the station money they would have dropped it?

Ponycat wrote:Do you really think if Air America was making the station money they would have dropped it?

They clearly weren't making money as per the article, but it also sounds like they were doing a poor job of selling the advertising. You have to invest in a sales team in order to drive revenue. Like I said, it sounds like it was poorly run, and it also seems likely that if the new owners weren't big fans of the politics, it would be an easy decision for them to go to a generic format as opposed to taking on risk and investing in the business.

No liberal radio in Missoula?

What, they don't have NPR anymore?

I think that, being liberals, they expected to not really have to work to be successful. They were probably hoping for some sort of government funding.

If the station made money and was profitable, most companies would keep the format regardless of their political leaning. The reason the right wing stations are so wide spread is because advertisers believe that the listeners to those stations are the people they want to target. They are people who have money to spend in or at their business. Newstalk 1290 in Missoula is right wing and has been on the air for years and years. It's the free market working. There is a demand for conservative radio and not for liberal radio. I might also add that the number one cable news channel is Fox which leans a little bit to the right.

On another note, the Missoulian and the local TV stations made a huge deal out of the station when it launched in June 2005. This was all free PR that they were unable to capitalize.

I've never listened to Air America, so I can't really speak to the actual programming of the station, but to me, the way the station was marketed just seemed sort of gimmicky from the start. Maybe that's because I can't stand Al Franken; I don't know...

The thing about the conservative talk radio stations is that they don't usually roll out massive ad campaigns and market themselves specifically as "conservative talk radio stations." They are just talk radio stations, and they happen to have a conservative bent. I think similar liberal talk radio could work, but the way Air America was done just made it sort of a joke, imo. It doesn't surprise me a whole lot that businesses didn't line up to advertise there...

Stevicat wrote:I think that, being liberals, they expected to not really have to work to be successful. They were probably hoping for some sort of government funding.

If the station made money and was profitable, most companies would keep the format regardless of their political leaning. The reason the right wing stations are so wide spread is because advertisers believe that the listeners to those stations are the people they want to target. They are people who have money to spend in or at their business. Newstalk 1290 in Missoula is right wing and has been on the air for years and years. It's the free market working. There is a demand for conservative radio and not for liberal radio. I might also add that the number one cable news channel is Fox which leans a little bit to the right.

On another note, the Missoulian and the local TV stations made a huge deal out of the station when it launched in June 2005. This was all free PR that they were unable to capitalize.

The major national media outlets did the same when Air America launched in full early 2004. Puff pieces were abound.

But there isn't a bias in the major media.

There is NPR, but I would guess that the University station (KGBA) probably also took away potential listeners. NPR has an incredibly dedicated and loyal following in Missoula. It does not surprise me that a second-rate, so-called "liberal" talk radio program failed.

Bleedinbluengold wrote:There is NPR, but I would guess that the University station (KGBA) probably also took away potential listeners. NPR has an incredibly dedicated and loyal following in Missoula. It does not surprise me that a second-rate, so-called "liberal" talk radio program failed.

NPR is actually good radio with educated hosts. Their bias, to me, is obvious, but they still present news and information in a reasonable manner.

Air America (AM 620 here in Portland)? Not so much. I gave it a shot and it was Dullsville. On the job training in major markets isn't the best way to break in hosts.

I actually enjoyed the guys in the middle of the day, Ed Schultz and Tom Hartman. Both level headed and well educated guys who, IMO, looked at both sides and didn't get rediculously crazy on air, like Franken and Randi Rhoades.