KZZU-FM, Spokane, WA, was one of the Adult Contemporary stations that got rid of their local Morning show, to replace it with national syndication or podcast-based syndicated shows.
I frequent a couple different online radio forums, and on one of them a guy posted a link to an article in Billboard magazine, dealing with the decline of the Radio morning show.
Radio 'morning drive' shows, along with the 'afternoon drive' shows, historically were the biggest revenue drivers for radio stations. Many stations' fortunes revolved around the ratings of their Morning show especially. If the Morning show team split up, or somehow the hosts/DJ's lost their touch and ability to entertain, ratings dropped, and station revenues would be affected as well.
In this case, the Billboard article talks about several morning shows across the US and Canada losing their Morning shows, and replacing them with podcasts / shows from other regions of the country. This happened even when the shows were still apparently getting decent ratings. The problem is that Radio isn't making enough money to cover salaries.
One radio expert on the forum where I got the Billboard link said that the decline mentioned in the article also pertains mostly to Contemporary Hit Radio stations, whose ratings have seen gradual declines nationwide over the past couple years. Pop stations don't have the same pull that they used to. No one seems to know exactly why this is.
In my view, it's probably a reflection of the decline in Pop music quality since the early part of the previous decade -- but that may just be my own musical preferences coming into play. In the case of the morning shows that are talked about on the Billboard article, the stations are not all Top 40. The Spokane, Washington station, KZZU-FM, is Adult Top 40 (normally known as "Hot AC"). So is CKCE-FM in Calgary -- they are "Hot Adult Contemporary". And, in the case of CKCE Calgary, the station apparently gets good ratings.
Either way, the fact is that there are issues with pop music radio, and Morning shows, and this decline probably will continue in other formats, as the Radio audience continues to migrate to online podcasts and music streaming platforms.
Here is a link to the Billboard story.:
Morning Radio Hosts Are Losing Their Jobs as Stations Struggle (billboard.com)
Here is a link to the Billboard story.:
Morning Radio Hosts Are Losing Their Jobs as Stations Struggle (billboard.com)
CKCE-FM's Logo. CKCE-FM is a "Hot Adult Contemporary" station in booming Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
This loss of morning personality shows mentioned in the article also hit fairly close to home, as Spokane, a city in my state, about 300 miles east of me, is where the KZZU-FM Dave, Ken & Molly morning show cast was let go in favor of a national, podcast based show (called Joey & Lauren).
Here is a link to KZZU-FM's webpage:
And here is a link to Joey & Lauren's show promoting website.:
They also have clips on their Facebook, here.:
THE PODCAST VERSION OF RADIO -- THE FUTURE
Joey & Lauren look like they're an entertaining, young married couple doing podcast radio and having the time of their lives. And this podcast version of radio seems to be the future of Radio, where everything is time shifted, nothing is actually live, and the average listener doesn't care. It's like voice tracking on steroids, because the podcast is often available outside the Over-The-Air Radio medium, meaning you don't actually need Radio to hear it or enjoy it.
In other words, with podcasting, you don't need Radio at all. This is the future, folks. Podcasting and Streaming -- that is where it is all headed.
So, although the title to this blog article may be exaggerating slightly when it says Morning shows are 'fading' -- especially when they are being replaced by nationally syndicated shows and podcasts -- it really is accurate, because the concept of the local Morning show was a driver for radio listening going back to the late 1950's, and probably even further back than that. The local Morning show probably reached its apex in the 1980's and 1990's, when the concept of the "Morning Zoo" became popular -- where there were at least three on-air presenters, usually engaging in on-air pranks, talking about edgy subjects as well as day to day life, taking in a few callers, and the like. Many Morning shows still adhere to a version of the "Morning Zoo".
Here's a Wiki on the "Morning Zoo" concept.:
Now the concept is gradually being replaced, and it looks like it's going to be replaced by the Podcast. Podcasting is king. And a station subscribing to Podcasts, compared to having a Morning air-staff, is apparently a cheaper way of getting content on the air than paying any air-staff. And that's a big deal when Radio revenues are down.
Some shows I've heard, like the Free Beer & Hot Wings Show, a rock radio morning show, are navigating their way towards a completely webcasting and podcasting based model. I first heard the Free Beer & Hot Wings Show on Spokane's KJRB "The Bear" 790, before they drastically cut power at night, and then I heard them when Merced, California's KBRE "The Bear" 1660 adopted the show a few years ago.
Here's the website of the Free Beer & Hot Wings Show, and you can see that there are five presenters, and you need a subscription to watch the web feeds and hear the podcasts (although they do have a free podcast section on their site). It's an example of the Subscription-based audio entertainment model -- which is de rigeur for most content creators and content sites.:
Of course, the subscription-based audio entertainment business model has been a thing since the 2000's. Phil Hendrie had a website where you could subscribe and have access to MP3's of all his funny skits, and that was in 2005. 'Shock jock' talk host Tom Leykis also started a streaming site where he would conduct his show for subscribers only, when his on-air Radio show ended in 2009.
So the notion of a subscription based, web content "Radio" model isn't exactly new. But at the same time, it's not exactly the norm. But it's getting there.
This is the future of "Radio".
RADIO STILL TAKING AN ECONOMIC HIT
It's no secret that Radio has taken a big hit from the post-Pandemic economy, as advertising revenues have dropped. The post-Pandemic economic hit added to the previous decline since the mid 2000's, when Radio made about 60% more revenue than it makes today (when accounted for inflation in real dollars -- in nominal dollars, the drop is more like 25-30%).
This drop in ad revenues isn't just a Radio related phenomenon; it's also affecting other media -- be it print, or even online media like online newspapers and social media sites. Because the internet is the definition of market saturation, the law of supply and demand seems to come into play when it comes to advertising revenues: there is basically an infinite supply, and a nearly infinite number of advertisement slots on all the websites.
I go into some of these factors in my article Who Killed Radio?, which I published three or four months ago. You can read that here.:
The issues facing Radio, along with the processes, people, and decisions that have been aiding Radio's decline -- as described in that article -- are still ongoing today. The decline in Morning shows is an example of lower revenues and increased internet use combining to change the way "Radio" is consumed. And that trend will continue until it is all online, and there will be no FM or AM radio at all.
In the case of Calgary's CKCE-FM, the station replaced their Morning show "Mornings with Bo and Jess" with a podcasted version of another show out of Edmonton.
Here is CKCE-FM's website. It's fairly active with animated stuff, social media chatter, and the like.:
The saddest part of this story -- of Morning shows being replaced with national, podcast based syndicators -- is that most of the on-air staff who worked the Morning shows probably will never find air gigs in Radio again. If they already have a podcast, they may be able to survive via the internet, but -- as any internet content creator can tell you -- competition is nearly infinite, and selling online content is not always the panacea that many make it out to be.
As I've stated before, I'm in the indie, eBook publishing business, part time, and the indie publishing community is full of stories of people who sold thousands of books and maybe made a couple thousand bucks over ten years. It's a thousand bucks they wouldn't have had otherwise, but you don't always make a lot of money doing internet content.
In fact, most internet content creators probably don't make much.
CUTS IN MORNING SHOWS EVEN HAVE HIT CLOSE TO HOME, IN SEATTLE
The ad revenue issue and Morning show cuts have hit locally, here in Seattle, recently. Popular morning show talk host Bryan Suits, who was the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. guy on local station KTTH 770, was let go about two months ago, even though the 6+ ratings for KTTH were OK, and he had a show-related stream that had around 200K viewers. I used to listen to Suits' show many mornings and he and his producer had a humorous way of presenting the news and events of the day from a conservative perspective.
But with the Radio revenues falling as they have been, KTTH's owners were not immune to the idea of doing some cost cutting. They replaced Suits' show with a syndicated, California based show, Armstrong & Getty, based out of Sacramento, with stations in California, Oregon, and now Washington, too.
You can read about Suits' show being cut here.:
And, of course, one could include the slashing of the entire on-air crew at KPNW-FM a couple months ago, when the Alternative/AAA station was flipped to country. Although format flips happen in Radio all the time, KPNW-FM tried to have veteran, Seattle on-air radio personalities to bring in listeners. Their morning show also starred a DJ who was fairly well known in the Seattle area.
However, having DJ veterans, and known Morning show hosts didn't save the station. The Country music replacement for KPNW-FM, "The Bull", seems to be doing a bit better in the ratings, as Country music seems to be on the increase in national and apparently local popularity. Still, it remains to be seen just how long FM radio can survive the same revenue and listener migration storms that AM radio has been dealing with for the past decade and a half.
The revenue problem has even hit public radio, as local NPR affiliate KUOW, a highly rated FM station (they usually are in the top 5 ratings, 6+) has had to cut staff because their revenues -- which had increased slightly -- were outpaced by their costs.
Here's KUOW's story on the cuts, which happened in May of this year.:
It's tough to make it in Radio. Heck, it's tough to make it in any media today. Even news websites are loaded with video ads and all sorts of animated crap that make the websites look like less like a news site and more and more like a Spam-o-rama. It's because they're desperate. Subscription fees don't bring in the revenues that the old print and TV newscast model did, and ad revenues are low because there are literally a gazillion slots, everywhere on the internet.
Welcome to the Future. The Future Is Now.
IN OTHER LIFE...
Recently, the weather has cooled. Right now it's raining out. Light rain. July has been iffy, weather wise, but at least it's not 110F out like it is in Phoenix and Las Vegas. I'm working on an article about my Radio Shack DX-394, a radio I've had since 1998 but never used regularly (I don't know why -- it's a good radio), but have recently been using a lot, especially when monitoring the Shortwave ham radio bands.
I'll try to get that one out within the next week. A couple other radio-related articles are in the works as well.
Until then, my friends,
Peace.
C.C. July 29th, 2024.
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