[BC] Audiences (not)supporting Talkers

[WBRadiolists at aol.com]

In a message dated 02/17/2009 11:48:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
dlh at donnahalper.com writes:

> I have the feeling that some rightie talkers 
>  would not be on the air if their companies didn't support them no 
>  matter how poor their ratings (some of those on Salem come to 
>  mind).

That's not quite the way I have seen it work. Since I worked for a Christian 
Talk station for 20 years, which has a Salem station overlapping it's coverage 
area, I am quite familiar with the "inner workings" of the Christian Talk 
format. Believe me, if a program is not "pulling its own weight" financially, it 
doesn't last long. This is pretty much universal for the format.

In my 20 years at WFIF, I saw a significant number of programs having to 
leave the air because of lack of financial support from listeners. WFIF's rates 
were (and still are) *very* reasonable, yet some programs still couldn't afford 
them! They ended up going off the air and leaving an unpaid balance... which 
in some cases they paid off over time, others simply "disappeared" and the 
unpaid balances were written off.

Cost of airtime on that overlapping Salem station was as much for 2 and 1/2 
days, as it cost for a *full month* on WFIF. A friend of mine who is a listener 
of that station, often told me about programs that didn't even last 2 
months... within days, the programmers were "begging" for support... which never came.

Sadly, these folks were not told that it takes anywhere from 18-24 months to 
build a rapport and trust factor with the listeners. Generally, it is only 
after this amount of time passes that they start to support a program... and 
that's only if they like it! At WFIF, since the late 90's, any potential 
programmers were told of this up-front. Yes, a few were turned away by this... but 
invariably, the station ended up with much better programming (from more stable 
organizations) that had greater longevity as a result!

In a nutshell:
Poor ratings = no support. 
No support = no money for airtime.
No money for airtime = no airtime.

Willie...
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