The Re-Rebirth of Radio

If AM radio is in its twilight, then why have three broadcasting companies been in such a whirl of activity lately over what they put on their Seattle stations?

The answer: That’s where listeners—especially men—still are, especially when it comes to a type of programming that is as old as radio itself: sports.

Says industry observer Tom Taylor, “There are [advertising] clients who need to reach the core 25- to 54-[year-old], out-of-home male audience that’s so elusive nowadays. Build loyalty there, and you’ve got a business.”

That’s why, in April, Bonneville International flipped the format of its venerable KIRO-AM/710 from news-talk to all sports. The centerpiece of that move was reclaiming Mariners game broadcasts, a proven ratings driver, which the station under previous ownership lost to KOMO-AM/1000, owned by Seattle-based Fisher Communications, in 2002.

The six-year deal was reportedly one of the richest radio contracts in all of baseball. Fisher used the occasion to switch KOMO to a format heavy on news, traffic, weather and sports reports.

In the end, Fisher executives were publicly noting how much better their financial performance would be without the drag of the Mariners contract.

Bonneville didn’t toss the news-talk format, with such well-known hosts as Dave Ross. Instead, it moved it from KIRO-AM to an FM station where audiences are thought to be younger and larger.

In moving to all sports on the AM side, Bonneville will go head-to-head with Clear Channel Communications’ KJR-AM/950, the home of University of Washington football and men’s basketball.

KJR also added several of its local hosts to its sister station in Tacoma. Morning host Mitch Levy’s program is also heard on a station in Spokane.

For Bonneville and Clear Channel, the challenge is finding sufficient room among listeners for multiple sports talk stations in one market. For Fisher, the challenge is holding on to whatever audience KOMO built when it had the Mariners.

AM radio has been reinventing itself ever since music formats began migrating to the FM band, which allows broadcasting in stereo. “AM is still very vibrant,” says KIRO Program Director Rod Arquette, but increasingly it is becoming home to niche formats, including sports talk.

Taylor, news editor of Radio-Info.com, sees more evolution for radio. “There will be more stratification, with [stations] that are truly lesser signals doing very niche and/or very local formats,” including ethnic and religious formats.

It’s not helping that radio is trying to reinvent itself in the midst of a horrific advertising climate; at least 15 percent of radio’s revenue comes from the car industry, which has taken major hits during the recession. “Things will come back somewhat, advertising-wise,” Taylor says, but likely not to levels enjoyed earlier in the decade. “There’s now far more fragmentation and there are many more competing media outlets and ways for consumers to spend their time and advertisers to spend their money.”   

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