Bill Virgin's Radio Beat - February 22, 2007

Includes archive of Bill Virgin's columns fromJ une 2006 - March 2009

Postby radiofan » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:02 pm

Thursday, February 22, 2007

On The Radio: KPTK adjusts for Franken vacancy

By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER


Now that Al Franken has decided to find out if talking about and making fun of politicians translates into being a politician, stations carrying Air America and similar programming are having to adjust their schedules and figure out what's next for their brand of talk radio.

In the case of Seattle-based KPTK-AM (1090), that's meant moving around some hosts already known to and popular with the local audience, rather than extensively overhauling the lineup and bringing in new voices.

Franken, who left Air America to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota that is up for election in 2008, had been heard locally 5-8 p.m. weekdays. Moving into that slot is Randi Rhodes, another Air America host whose show had been on KPTK evenings. Meanwhile, Mike Malloy is now heard in Rhodes' former slot.

KPTK program director Jim Trapp said the changes were made after asking listeners what they wanted. Moving Rhodes gets her into the afternoon drive, he said, and Malloy had built up a following locally until Air America dropped his show last year. Stephanie Miller remains morning-drive host, followed by Thom Hartmann 9 a.m.-noon and Ed Schultz noon-3 p.m.

Trapp said he didn't want to move the Hartmann and Schultz programs. "Thom and Ed, as different as they are, have really been the anchors of this lineup," he said.

In the realm of liberal or progressive talk, Air America has gotten most of the attention, both because of its financial woes and because Franken was its best-known host. But it's not the only provider of syndicated programming from a left-of-center perspective. Neither Miller nor Schultz is an Air America program; Hartmann, Franken's replacement on Air America, had been doing a nationally syndicated show that the network distributed.

Malloy became part of a startup syndicated service after leaving Air America. Had the worst happened to Air America financially, stations such as KPTK would still have had plenty of programming from which to choose.

Although the issues of whether Air America will continue and whether stations such KPTK could survive if it didn't appear to have been resolved for the moment, another still open for discussion is how well KPTK and others will do without local hosts.

Unlike its local conservative-talk counterparts KVI-AM (570) and KTTH-AM (770), KPTK's programming is entirely syndicated (although Hartmann operates out of Portland, where he also does a local show for a station there).

Trapp said KPTK did consider local hosts in its most recent evaluation of its schedule, but couldn't find anything that was "what we wanted to hear" or promised to deliver better performance than a syndicated show would for the investment (local shows, he noted, "can be quite expensive"). But he said the station will continue to consider adding local hosts.

KPTK finished in a tie for 23rd in the fall quarter overall Arbitron ratings, with an audience share unchanged from the summer book. Trapp said the station does very well when measured by "time spent listening."

"The next 24 months will be highly political," he said. "The task is to get the word out to more people."

In other radio notes:

Tacoma native Jason Tanz discusses his book on hip-hop, "Other People's Property," on "The Beat" at 2 p.m. today on KUOW-FM (94.9).

The Metropolitan Opera performs Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" at 10:30 a.m. Saturday on KING-FM (98.1).

Don Riggs' guests on "Introspect Northwest" at 7 a.m. Saturday on KPTK-AM and 7 a.m. Sunday on KMPS-FM (94.1) include Neal Pollack, author of "Alternadad."

The group Industrial Revelation performs on "Sonarchy" at midnight Saturday on KEXP-FM (90.3).

The Sunday edition of Jim French's "Imagination Theatre," heard at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KIXI-AM (880), includes a new Sherlock Holmes adventure.

Gary Krist, author of a new book on the 1910 Wellington railroad disaster, "The White Cascade," will be on "The Beat" at 2 p.m. Wednesday on KUOW-FM.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat ... Thursdays in the Seattle P-I
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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