Tough week ahead for KIROFM staffers

Speculation is wild. Heartburn is rife. Tip-toes are being applied at the Eastlake suites of KIRO, and KTTH.

Even after the firing of 26-year KIRO veteran, Gregg Hersholt last week, we're assured there are more changes to come.

They won’t be pretty.

Those who know how these things work say key on-air people will be apprised during the week, then Bonneville suits led by new PD Ryan “The” Hatch(et) will apprise the general staff on Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned.

Bonneville is responding to a steep ratings tailspin for the former news talk market leader since the station went FM, (91.3) and flipped the old heritage AM blowtorch spot to all-sports (710ESPN). This happened almost simultaneously with new electronic metering installed by Arbitron. Seattle radio here.

This changed listeners surveyed, and provided, a more accurate (they say) measurement than the old handwritten diaries. This turned the Seattle market upside down. The industry is learning how to sell to these new accurately surveyed listeners, but it takes time. Music is doing it with adjusting of play lists, etc., but talk is seems to be sputtering. To KIRO's credit, they tried their Luke Burbank, their Rons, their Dons- and nothing seems to move those numbers much.

710 ESPN station is doing, well, OK. (they’ve got the Mariners and the Seahawks for god’s sake!) But the news talk post-FM/PPM numbers have not met expectations of a company known for its successes taking talk to the FM dial.

All-news arch-rival KOMO, long an also-ran, is now drinking their milkshake. As are a long list of local music stations.

Terrestrial radio is splitting a smaller and smaller pie. It’s hit the same rough patch as other media: shrinking ad revenue, and learning how to operate in the new media world. Its plight is not as dismal as newspapers', but worse than teevee's.

News talk radio grabbed a bigger slice of the smaller pie recently with the intensity of the anti-Obama feelings fired up by its conservative stars, but the genre hasn't jumped out of its demographic rut: it’s white; it’s male; it’s over 50.

Comments

[Obama is a black man]

BREAKING

Greg Gersholt WORKING at KIRO this morning.

Hood's been scammed!

[Obama is a black man]

OK just re-read Hood's post. My bad.

Greg's last day is Friday. The guy sure sounds upbeat for someone who just got fired.

[Pablos1026]

You have to sound upbeat. If you sound pissed or bitter, you wont ever work for another station. So Hershit is bucking for a weekend job at KOMO, and has to come across as a team player. Surprised they gave him a week. Most programmers wont run the risk of air talend going postal on the air.

[Tommy008]

i would put it in my conrtact that i can't be forced to work one day on the air after being fired.....that's humiliation beyond belief. .....Hersholt sounds like a pathetic cockless foool, keeping up that chim chim cheery voice today after being shown the door already.... no decent prospective nwe radio station employer of the firee should expect them to appear onair post-firing either..

[Tommy008]

hersholt just spun his firing....said he was tired of getting up at 2 am, been doing it for decades, and he has some htings he wants to do...trying to make it sound liek he quit voluntarily?...

[Dana]

So he's trying to put the best spin possible on it. What's wrong with that?

Also, consider this: the week's not over yet! ;-)

[Duffman]

'hersholt just spun his firing....'

Do you know more than Bla'M reported? How do you know he was spinning and how do you know he was fired? Do you think it possible that after 26 years they may have offered him another position and/or a severance package and that possibly he decided to take the latter. Or are you 'in the know' more than anyone else. Excuse me, but I think all we know is that he's leaving KIRO on Friday. Capice!

[Blerf]

Caprice? Yeah, it's being resurrected as a police cruiser. Was the Pontiac G8. Fascinating.

[Pete]

Duffman: I saw the press release from KIRO. He was "laid off" in a cost-cutting move. That's also how all the industry trades are reporting it.

Sometimes there's a thin line between being contrarian, and simply being wrong.

[Duffman]

But, you don't know 'the deal'; only he and KIRO does. 'Laid off' can beget unemployment insurance benefits so why wouldn't it be structured that way. My point is, IT'S ALL SPECULATION and only two (2) parties know the 'details' and we all know that the 'devil's in the details'. But, thanks for that contribution Einstein.

[joanie]

He could simply be too expensive. Wonder if he would have considered a pay cut? I thought he was pretty good.

[Doug from Puyallup]

If there's any justice in this world, Ron and Don will be reported as casualties of Kiro's changes this week. I would love a reason to turn back to kiro for the drive home and R & D ain't doin it for me.

[Othello]

Duffman is the lay-off expert around here

[Duffman]

And coiler obviously isn't. :)

[TomF]

KIRO is unlistenable after 1200pm, but now that it's FM it can't be picked up in lots of places whether you want to listen or not. 710 AM played clear as a bell from one Vancouver to the other. 97.3 FM doesn't even reach the Edmonds bowl. Horrid programming is one reason for the ratings tailspin but the terrain characteristics of FM are right up there too.

In a perfect world they would move the whole kaboodle back to AM, move Dori to KTTH, fire Ron and Don, and put Ron Reagan on 12p-3p... Luke Burbank on PM drive.

[gdog]

TomF....try 1090. Plenty of progressive hand-wringing and navel-gazing over there.

[It's a great fit]

"Obama is a black man" has his head up his ass.

We've been scammed!

OK just took a closer look. My bad. His head is up his penis.

[Tommy008]

Dori to ktth or kvi even Shiers sounds reasonable compared to this guy.....he actully confessed to feeling happy when a home burglar is shot and killed by a homeowner....

[loadstar]

Dori will survive. He mixes clubbing moles with clubbing Mexicans. It's a winning combination. Shiers is too passive aggressive. He ASKS listeners, should moles and/or Mexicans be clubbed to death, drowned, or shot on sight. Problem with Shiers, when he asks, there is no one there to answer.

[Pharm Rep]

There really is no place for Ron Reagan on the radio. He is such a twat and is unlistenable.
And Tommy008, why would anybody, short of the guys mother give a damn about some idiot getting shot by a home owner. You may speculate that it was just a property crime, but the scum may have been there to rape the mans daughter or poodle.
What else can you do, loadstar. They won't let us use good traps anymore. You gotta club them.

[Tommy008]

i'm getting responses from Repug types on this issue that are twisting my words....no , I don't care a whit if the guy was confronted by the gun and hung around long enough in the home to be killed. Do i feel happy and joyful, no...do i giddily announce to the audience that i can't contain my joy and happiness sfter resding or hearing about a burglar being shot and killed, no...Monson wasn't talking about a rapist....do you understand the difference Repug types....decent well-balanced people are not joyful and happy about a burglar being shot to death by a homeownder....they may not be particularly sad, or sad at all.... i certainly am not...but they are not happy over it... a sane person derives happiness from other things than that....

[Tommy008]

by the way i woke up at 3 am once, to see a burglar standing over me in my darkened bedroom.... how did it turn out? ....for me to know and you to find out........

[gdog]

anyone else noticed that John Curley is now doing Don O'Neil's sunergy spots? hmmmmm

[Larry Lovebreath (from the eye of the Needle)]

Excellent analysis, Michael. Seattle says they love Ross when they really just love the idea of Ross while listening to somebody else. Fascinating too that Ron & Don pull the best ratings on the station, that must torque the little midday guy something fierce.

There would be absolutely no reason to have KIRO on my radio pre-sets if Dave Ross is gone. The station has pushed me away one host at a time beginning with the firing of Allen Prell. Wish they would survey me for Seattle ratings, I feel like smart people don't get a chance to vote with our ears...

[A. Gray]

The blame for this mess lies with management, not talent such as Hersholt.

There was enough known about People Meter ratings in other markets to know that KIRO's "talk" product was not going to work on FM. It still sounds like an AM station transplanted on FM.

KIRO needed the boost from play by play sports to make up for the shortcomings of it's non sports programming.

Was the problem with the morning news the talent? Or was it content not compelling to FM audience?

Despite his considerable talent, is Dave Ross still doing a 1980's style talk show?

Other key talent on the station are weak and forgetable.

Someone, perhaps this new PD, needs to have an actual vision of what the station should sound like today -- and going forward.

Just cutting costs without a plan is leaving a once great radio station circling the drain.

[Jo]

Would love to see Dori dropped. Dave would do just fine if they were dumb enough to drop him. The mistake was moving to FM

[Corinne]

Dori can be a bit much at times but I listen because he's a local guy committed to keeping local politicians and the way they spend our money in check. I actually think he's very fair on issues and don't get all the Dori hate that's on this site all the time.... but I still read your blog because it's very informative! It's all about balance.

[Duffman]

Good! and you just have to discount our resident 'Dori-hater', he knows not of what he speaks most of the time. :)