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austin radio stuff


hayden_horn

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12 hours ago, South Austin said:

104.9 has a huge footprint in a building on 360 in the West Lake Hills area, so I imagine the rent was a huge nut to cover...

10 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

... there is tons of fucking content out there, just waiting for eyes and ears, but they left most of it out there on the table.

but even so, the math should be able to work out...the fuck does an ad spot cost these days?

why are we still doing traditional noise pollution advertising in the first place?

10 hours ago, Pam Cummings said:

I'm not sure anyone listens to the morning drive shows anymore. I'd just put nationally syndicated shows like DP and Cowherd on for the first part of the day ...  by "best talent" i definitely dont mean ...  Babers.

9 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

The "economics of radio" probably shouldn't include a massive spread in some of the most prime real estate in central Texas.  Put 'em in a strip mall in Manor.

Beyond that, I'm not sure the FM/AM signal quality is that big a deal any more -- use the app.

the massive jump in HS coverage ... terrible on-air personalities ...guys that need to be pastured for poor performance ...) to the young guys who just flat out suck ... it's a laundry list of really terrible business decisions.  Good luck to Erin, Craig and Rod.  The rest of them?  ...

Good comments, by all.

Terrible Business Decisions ... 

Exhibit 1:  Westlake? ...location, location, location. Are you stupid or what?

Exhibit 1-a:  Is there a clause in their Westlake Lease Agreement that requires them to honk all the Austin "Lake schools" stuff ad nauseam? Shut the f*ck up already.  

Exhibit 2: FM/AM signal quality is a deal. It is Talk Radio, which I'm guessing is primarily people in cars.  The signal does not even make it to 281, which is pretty chicken shit. This is the worst/weakest radio signal I've heard since FM rescued the world from AM radio. 

Exhibit 3: Each 2-3 hour "show" starts w/ a 2-3 minute instrumental lead-in. Motown perfected music by grabbing you in the first 10 seconds. 2+ minutes of Dead Air equivalent (wasted advertising revenue) is pure stupidity. I hate commercials, but don't play the same tired songs every damn day.

Exhibit 4: Gambling and bookies should be on Sunday mornings, if at all.

Exhibit 0: ... there is tons of fucking content out there, just waiting for eyes and ears, but they left most of it out there on the table. This is what they have to sell, and they blew it. A captive audience between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, and they called the Greg Davis "3rd and 5" play.

I like Rod, his analytics and insight, and the fact that he worked his ass off to be on the field w/ Quentin Jammer, Nathan Vasher & Michael Huff.  He knows what it takes to win at Texas. 

Another in a long list of the idiocy of Austin administrators.  

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14 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

its been a while since this happened, right? 

1300  fell apart in 2007/2008, which is why they all moved to 104.9 once Erin left.  Then a few, Sean (RIP) and Chip, come to mind, switched back to 1300 in 2016ish?

is 1300 still doing local broadcasts?

All I remember during that 07/08 mess with 1300 is that we were forced to listen to some insufferable dipshit from Michigan for awhile. 

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11 hours ago, Blotto said:

 

For the most part when I was listening to it, Austin sports radio was devoid of anyone with an actual sense of humor yet they all felt obligated to sit around cracking shitty jokes all day. Did anybody ever laugh a single time at Chad Hasting's stupid Scottish Guy bullshit?  It was so bad I would immediately change the station or just turn the fucking radio off. Yet they would actually tease that shit like there were bunch of aggy getting all riled up in their overalls to hear it. "Coming up later this hour, you dont want to miss the Scottish Guy's zany takes." No actually, I do...he fucking sucks 

Hey! I loved Chad and Kevin and the Scottish guy back in 2004. I was also a junior in high school in 2004 sooo...nevermind?

Might be a nostalgia thing for me, but it was still kinda nice hearing familiar voices like Chad, Bucky, and Erin on the air, but if I'm being honest the vast majority of my CFB content is from YouTube nowadays. 

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6 hours ago, LateAughtsHorn said:

All I remember during that 07/08 mess with 1300 is that we were forced to listen to some insufferable dipshit from Michigan for awhile. 

Their first show, first show!, they announce that they won't talk about the Longhorns because the other shows on the station cover it so well. Subtext: they didn't know or care. Okay. Fine. Let's see what you talk about.

I just moved here and bought a lawnmower--

You bought a lawn mower?

Yea. I didn't have one, and now I've got a yard.

Dude, you don't ever buy a new lawnmower. You go to a garage sale. Get one cheap.

[They proceed to exercise this subject employing their maximum wit.]

They must have discussed this topic before going on the air. They must have thought it was just the kind of regular guy talk that would immediately endear them to sentient beings. They were way off. Neither interesting nor amusing. I'd rather listen to paint dry.

Thus begins the decline of The Zone which I generally enjoyed, especially on Fridays before football games.

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10 hours ago, Drifterwood said:

Even considering all of that, they still probably could’ve kept it going but they lost the UT contract, so that’s that. No way to keep that turd afloat without that contract. I have no insight into whether UT didn’t renew because of all of the above or just got better terms from the iHeartradio group, but either way, it’s done. I expect E Hogan and Craig Way to end up over there, although that’s not based on any inside info yet, not like anyone would actually give a shit about that palace intrigue at this point.

Who will have the UT games...102.7?  They're Waterloo Media or are they owned by iHeart?

56 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

Ward / Clements and Elling look to be the only locals now on 102.7.  It will be interesting to see who makes the jump from the Horn. Hogan and Babers are the only ones who deserve consideration. The rest of that crew on the station really is bad.  

No, Surly's favorite Chip Brown is on during lunch time.

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18 hours ago, LCHorn said:

I’ve opined earlier in the thread what a local DJ told me but will repeat it; terrestrial radio in general has had a catastrophic loss in ad revenue due to a graying consumer base.  Austin’s market, in particular, suffers for having a very strong NPR station that by itself grabs 60% of the listening audience.  
 

Essentially the Horn sucks because it doesn’t make any money.  It’s not content, shitty hosts, etc., they are just a symptom of it.  
 

This isn’t informed by the person who shared the details above, but I also wonder about sports consumerism in general beginning a descent.  The digital generation just has far more niche interests about which they can indulge and as they don’t begin the next generation of patronage the sports content production machine (teams, schools, broadcasters) look to make up the difference by increasing costs on the existing consumer base (thereby resulting in further fracturing as lower income fans shrink their consumption).  

Ethan Strauss calls this “Fracking the Pie.”  Leagues aren’t even trying to grow their fan base, they now focus on extracting more and more dollars out of each existing fan. Online gambling is a big part of this. 

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2 minutes ago, Duane Moore said:

Ethan Strauss calls this “Fracking the Pie.”  Leagues aren’t even trying to grow their fan base, they now focus on extracting more and more dollars out of each existing fan. Online gambling is a big part of this. 

Yeah, it seems to me it mirrors cable tv distribution (in that a legacy business becomes too pricey/bad value and loses it's audience) and the fact that's such a obvious source of comparison it makes me wonder why the MBA types aren't getting hired by the teams to propose solutions. 

Mostly because of the NFL (fuck Bud Adams), I have to increasingly hold my nose with professional sports fandom because ownership is typically just so divorced from a sense of noblesse oblige. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, PantsTent said:

Who will have the UT games...102.7?  They're Waterloo Media or are they owned by iHeart?

No, Surly's favorite Chip Brown is on during lunch time.

It wouldn't surprise if Hogan and Brown do the morning drive. The latter has high-profile national media contacts (Forde, Staples, Schlabach, Mandel, etc.) that no one else has locally, and it's not close. 

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48 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

It wouldn't surprise if Hogan and Brown do the morning drive. The latter has high-profile national media contacts (Forde, Staples, Schlabach, Mandel, etc.) that no one else has locally, and it's not close. 

Looks like I'm sticking with NPR.

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The producer guy on the Horn's morning show is just another contributor to that overall mess. Hogan spent a few minutes this morning discussing teams that should pursue Ohtani and then made the case for the Rangers - farm system, recent draft, available players, ownership pockets, etc.  Producer then chimes in: "What about the Rangers going after Ohtani?"

 

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On 7/10/2023 at 10:54 PM, DalTxHornFan said:

220, 221 -- whatever it takes to make Bob Cole go away.

"Any change" isn't always for the better -- you might make things worse.

Disinterested-Asshole former Texas Longhorns football announcer (1980s-era) Jerry Trupiano says, "Hi!"  Lulz.

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54 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I just realized last weekend that there’s no Astros broadcast in Austin.  Wtf.  

Opportunity for the new Horn!  I just go to 790am website on phone.  Also can find the same on iHeartRadio app.  It sure cuts in and out a lot while driving though.

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On 7/10/2023 at 9:14 AM, hayden_horn said:

i just don't understand the radio business, i guess. maybe it's the cost of living and rent for studio space has gone through the roof, and from what i understand, they were using some prime real estate. 

but there has got to be a way to balance the books on a sports content terrestrial radio show in austin fucking texas, even if the general consensus is that the medium is supposedly dying. dying like newspapers, in the race to the bottom and the inability to figure out a revenue model not based in the 18th century, it's always the content. you make good content and people will consume it. find a way to make terrestrial radio work without 20 minutes of commercials an hour. that's 1/3 of your listener's time, when there are podcasts and spotify out there.

fuck's sake, get it together, radio. shorter breaks, charge more for ads, fuck i dunno. think differently. oh, and pay talent, stop paying admin. but that's everywhere.

Works for The Ticket just fine. 15 minutes per hour of ads. I’m always surprised how Houston can’t get its local sports radio scene together. Austin is less surprising. It’s not a sports town. It’s sports media is garbage, and it’s on air talent tries WAY too hard to sound like national guys. There is nothing unique about them, and given it’s not a sports town, I’m sure can draw ratings as good via syndication or some other non-sports format. 

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6 hours ago, Porterhouse said:

Works for The Ticket just fine. 15 minutes per hour of ads. I’m always surprised how Houston can’t get its local sports radio scene together. Austin is less surprising. It’s not a sports town. It’s sports media is garbage, and it’s on air talent tries WAY too hard to sound like national guys. There is nothing unique about them, and given it’s not a sports town, I’m sure can draw ratings as good via syndication or some other non-sports format. 

Only a top 30 market as well.

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2 minutes ago, HornsOverIthaca said:

Only a top 30 market as well.

There are no sports teams. College athletics can’t sustain the success of a sports talk station, and Austin isn’t rabid about UT. Austin isn’t a top 30 market for sports. 

Now, they can try something organic and authentic, but instead they emulate national radio, which is what most local “talent” in any market does. That loser formula plus no pro sports = shit ratings. 

Radio isn’t dead. Syndicated radio generally always sucks, and local stations that stick to that formula will always fail. And the signal strength doesn’t matter. People stream. I stream while I’m in my car every day. 

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9 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

Todd and Don to call the games?

Nah, it was at 590 for a loooong time before 1300 and then 104.9 got the games.

The play-by-play guys would just bounce to work for whichever station will have the games, just like what'll happen with Craig Way, again. Craig probably already knows where the next radio home for Longhorns' sports will be.

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IHeartRadio group got the UT contract, but doesn’t currently have any sports programming on any of its stations and doesn’t even know which one of their stations they’ll put the games on.

Meanwhile, Nassour has told a couple of the Horn on-air talent that they’ll still have jobs (not Bucky) but is also doing behind the scenes shit to try and sell the station.

So no one involved knows shit about what will happen other than who will pay UT for the contract. Pretty fitting.

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what i dont understand is how the fuck the university signed a new broadcast contract and it hasnt been publicly announced. 

 

I figured that whole "State School"  public info thing wudda kicked in before now.  instead of us hearing about it at least 3 days after it was signed. 

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10 hours ago, BachelorTrek said:

Seems there's only 3 places Longhorns sports can go now, if it's going to another sports radio station...... 102.7, back to 1300, or back to 590.

Wasn't The Horn part of Austin Radio Network with Koke FM? The football and basketball games were simulcast. I'd imagine football and basketball are still broadcast on ARN, unless their contract was up.

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Sometimes when I leave my car running to step inside somewhere I'll hit the FM button to freeze what I'm listening to on my Bluetooth (if I pause it on my phone it will wind up resuming on some auto-play bullshit at some point and I'll miss where I left off).

Being knee-deep into something like Simmons and Russillo and then stepping back in the car to hear Chad and Zay pontificating on whatever dumbass shit they happen to be discussing couldn't be more of a jarring experience. It's like watching a great porn video and then you get redirected to a clip of a horse shitting in some guy's mouth. 

Austin just doesn't have the market for good local sports radio anymore. There might be occasional flashes in the pan but those guys will always get lured away. 

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