Luke
01-28-2003, 09:07 AM
Posted by Allan Sniffen on January 28, 2003 at 10:51:29: on The NYRMB
Talk on WNEW. An idea that should have worked. After all, Howard Stern pioneered the concept and made millions for himself and the companies he worked for over two decades. Infinity knew that better than anyone since he was on their payroll. To make it even more attractive, the man who drove Stern to the top, Mel Karmazin, was running Infinity. All the pieces were in place. A great idea, talent, management that seemed to understand the concept and a radio station in desperate need of change sitting in the middle of the FM dial in the biggest radio market in the country. It made sense to try a full time format dedicated to "young talk". In fact, some of us predicted Infinity would do just that (see my NYRMB
post dated February 10, 1999-I had the right idea but the wrong station-I predicted Infinity would try it on WXRK).
So what went wrong?
First the obvious: Howard Stern should have been the morning man right from the start. Either Infinity should have moved him to WNEW or, instead, put the format on WXRK. This would have given the new format a solid base in radio's most important daypart. That combined with the strong afternoon ratings of Opie and Anthony (who were at the station before
it became a full time talk station) would have given Infinity a winner in New York. This discussion could really stop right here.
There were supposedly reasons why Stern was not put on this "Extreme Talk" format. We heard speculation that he didn't want to change stations, that he didn't want to be on the same station with Opie and Anthony, that Infinity didn't want to mess with WXRK and that some believed a different morning show would work on WNEW. Whatever the reason(s), it was a bad decision and was the single biggest mistake.
But wait. it gets worse. Because Stern was on an Infinity sister station, WNEW could not program a morning show that competed with him. Translated that meant that it could not program its most important daypart with a show that reaches the very audience it was targeting because Stern was "untouchable". WNEW, instead, had to hope and prey that its
audience would flip from 92.3 to 102.7 after Stern got off while, at the same time, 92.3 was trying to hold on to that same audience. If that sounds ridiculous, you're right! It was a classic example of a "Catch 22" and was bound to fail.
The result was "Mornings Disaster". Mason and Kolinsky. The Sports Guys. Ferrall. None of them had a chance given the situation they were thrust into. All three shows were tinkered with in an effort to do what everyone knew was impossible.PD's Garry Wall and Jeremy Coleman (and their GM bosses Scott Herman and Ken Stevens) were not magicians. No one
would have been able to it work.
Accepting that Morning Drive was a fatal flaw (and that most everything else was a consequence of it), the station made several other mistakes. Here are a few:
1. Positioning the station as "The Opie and Anthony Station". I can understand thinking that the station needed a hook to get people to think of it as a brand. The problem was that the slogan demands the programming of the station live up to itself. Listeners to O&A's brand of "anything goes" radio were disappointed by other shows that were not O&A. When compared to O&A, Don and Mike sounded tame. Leslie Gold sounded forced. Ron and Fez sounded unfocused. It became impossible for the other shows on the station to be anything other than warm-ups to the "Main Event". That wasn't fair to those shows and prevented them from establishing their own identities other than shows that were on the
same station as O&A.
2. Tape delay and bad dayparting. Don and Mike were incorrectly dayparted and tape delayed. Eventually moving the show to live middays was an improvement but, by then they were damaged goods. Ron and Fez were similarly moved and tape delayed to a point where too much of a good thing was just that: Too much.
3. Opie and Anthony should NEVER have been permitted to trash the other shows on the station. That hurt Leykis,
Talk on WNEW. An idea that should have worked. After all, Howard Stern pioneered the concept and made millions for himself and the companies he worked for over two decades. Infinity knew that better than anyone since he was on their payroll. To make it even more attractive, the man who drove Stern to the top, Mel Karmazin, was running Infinity. All the pieces were in place. A great idea, talent, management that seemed to understand the concept and a radio station in desperate need of change sitting in the middle of the FM dial in the biggest radio market in the country. It made sense to try a full time format dedicated to "young talk". In fact, some of us predicted Infinity would do just that (see my NYRMB
post dated February 10, 1999-I had the right idea but the wrong station-I predicted Infinity would try it on WXRK).
So what went wrong?
First the obvious: Howard Stern should have been the morning man right from the start. Either Infinity should have moved him to WNEW or, instead, put the format on WXRK. This would have given the new format a solid base in radio's most important daypart. That combined with the strong afternoon ratings of Opie and Anthony (who were at the station before
it became a full time talk station) would have given Infinity a winner in New York. This discussion could really stop right here.
There were supposedly reasons why Stern was not put on this "Extreme Talk" format. We heard speculation that he didn't want to change stations, that he didn't want to be on the same station with Opie and Anthony, that Infinity didn't want to mess with WXRK and that some believed a different morning show would work on WNEW. Whatever the reason(s), it was a bad decision and was the single biggest mistake.
But wait. it gets worse. Because Stern was on an Infinity sister station, WNEW could not program a morning show that competed with him. Translated that meant that it could not program its most important daypart with a show that reaches the very audience it was targeting because Stern was "untouchable". WNEW, instead, had to hope and prey that its
audience would flip from 92.3 to 102.7 after Stern got off while, at the same time, 92.3 was trying to hold on to that same audience. If that sounds ridiculous, you're right! It was a classic example of a "Catch 22" and was bound to fail.
The result was "Mornings Disaster". Mason and Kolinsky. The Sports Guys. Ferrall. None of them had a chance given the situation they were thrust into. All three shows were tinkered with in an effort to do what everyone knew was impossible.PD's Garry Wall and Jeremy Coleman (and their GM bosses Scott Herman and Ken Stevens) were not magicians. No one
would have been able to it work.
Accepting that Morning Drive was a fatal flaw (and that most everything else was a consequence of it), the station made several other mistakes. Here are a few:
1. Positioning the station as "The Opie and Anthony Station". I can understand thinking that the station needed a hook to get people to think of it as a brand. The problem was that the slogan demands the programming of the station live up to itself. Listeners to O&A's brand of "anything goes" radio were disappointed by other shows that were not O&A. When compared to O&A, Don and Mike sounded tame. Leslie Gold sounded forced. Ron and Fez sounded unfocused. It became impossible for the other shows on the station to be anything other than warm-ups to the "Main Event". That wasn't fair to those shows and prevented them from establishing their own identities other than shows that were on the
same station as O&A.
2. Tape delay and bad dayparting. Don and Mike were incorrectly dayparted and tape delayed. Eventually moving the show to live middays was an improvement but, by then they were damaged goods. Ron and Fez were similarly moved and tape delayed to a point where too much of a good thing was just that: Too much.
3. Opie and Anthony should NEVER have been permitted to trash the other shows on the station. That hurt Leykis,