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Scripps Getting Out Of Radio


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Entercom is already at the 5 FM station limit in San Diego. They could acquire KFMB-AM, but they couldn't acquire "KFM-BFM" without divesting something, and I don't envision Entercom wanting to divest one of its existing stations.

 

Entercom would literally throw KWFN at K-Love at this point for nothing to get away from how badly the Machine and the Fan have done.

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I highly doubt it. Tegna is probably trying to get rid of the stations as quickly as they can. They have zero interest in running radio stations, and only have KFMB-AM/FM because it was the only way they could buy the TV side.

 

Why dump 2 very profitable radio stations housed in a studio that is bought and paid for?

 

The operating cost are almost nothing...and the AM is packed with good local advertisers who make HUGE buys. Can anyone say Toyota of Carlsbad and the Radio Ranch produced spots?

 

Those spots are NOT cheap to produce.

 

Those stations are NOT doing poorly.

In fact...

Radio has not seen the same type of erosion like TV has... radio is still holding solid.

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Why dump 2 very profitable radio stations housed in a studio that is bought and paid for?

 

The operating cost are almost nothing...and the AM is packed with good local advertisers who make HUGE buys. Can anyone say Toyota of Carlsbad and the Radio Ranch produced spots?

 

Those spots are NOT cheap to produce.

 

Those stations are NOT doing poorly.

In fact...

Radio has not seen the same type of erosion like TV has... radio is still holding solid.

 

 

According to Radio Ink:

The San Diego Reader says a reliable source gave them this statement: “Few believe that Tegna intends to keep KFMB-AM/FM. It’s a TV company and its management has shown no interest in running a competitive radio station.” The source told the paper that there was no offer for the morning show to stay at KFMB-FM.

 

No offer was ever made, and the morning show moved across town back to their home on ClearChannel, err... "iHeartMedia" owned KGB-FM. If Tegna was serious about running radio properties, they would have kept the DSC. Right now they've been having "Guest DJs" in the morning to fill the time the DSC used to occupy.

 

I do however like that they've added "News 8 headlines with Eric Kahnert" in the morning.

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According to Radio Ink:

 

 

No offer was ever made, and the morning show moved across town back to their home on ClearChannel, err... "iHeartMedia" owned KGB-FM. If Tegna was serious about running radio properties, they would have kept the DSC. Right now they've been having "Guest DJs" in the morning to fill the time the DSC used to occupy.

 

I do however like that they've added "News 8 headlines with Eric Kahnert" in the morning.

 

DSC is an expensive show to run. Tegna decided that the profit margin was not where they wanted to be...

 

Besides...

DSC was always a KGB show...and KGB needs all the help it can get right now because that 70's classic rock playlist is NOT getting any bigger.

 

DSC belongs on KGB because that's where "home" is.

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  • 1 month later...

WKTI-FM to move from country music to sports under new owner, Good Karma

 

I don't listen to country music, but I appreciated that there was another broadcaster in the area going after iHeart's FM106.1 WMIL, so it's a shame from that aspect to hear this news.

 

Additionally, I think we're over-sports-ed... we'll have ESPN Milwaukee on AM (WAUK) and FM (WKTI), "The Fan" on AM (WSSP) and FM (105.7 W289CB), and "The Big 920" on AM (WOKY). Not to mention the several hours of sports every evening on WTMJ. I can't see this being sustainable, but I could be wrong.

 

ETA: I know that in the event of an overflow, they'll broadcast sports events on WKTI that would normally be on WTMJ. I wonder if the contracts with the teams would permit actually moving them full time to WKTI? And if so, would they?

 

I know that they've been advertising that Green Bay Packers games have been on WTMJ continuously for almost the entire 100 year history of the Packers, so they might not move those over... but maybe the Brewers or Bucks?

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WKTI-FM to move from country music to sports under new owner, Good Karma

 

I don't listen to country music, but I appreciated that there was another broadcaster in the area going after iHeart's FM106.1 WMIL, so it's a shame from that aspect to hear this news.

 

Additionally, I think we're over-sports-ed... we'll have ESPN Milwaukee on AM (WAUK) and FM (WKTI), "The Fan" on AM (WSSP) and FM (105.7 W289CB), and "The Big 920" on AM (WOKY). Not to mention the several hours of sports every evening on WTMJ. I can't see this being sustainable, but I could be wrong.

 

I think it's an indication that WKTI wasn't cutting it revenue-wise in country, and Karmazin wants the FM (full-market) signal to win the sports war over Entercom's 250-watt translator. Good Karma was built on sports in Madison, Cleveland, and West Palm, and it's Craig's wheelhouse (and something he's been able to sell without buying Nielsen numbers). I expect that once the FM's established, 540 will eventually just air ESPN Radio's 24/7 national feed and the FM will be predominantly local (much as Entercom did at WEEI Boston and CBS did with WIP Philadelphia, transitioning the programming to FM and then using the AM for ESPN (Boston) or selling it (Philly). And I expect some of WTMJ's sports programming and play-by-play to migrate to 94.5 as well; might be a hard sell for the Brewers and Packers, but the Bucks might make the move at some point.

 

Regardless, I've heard nothing but cheering from the iHeart people in Milwaukee from the moment the news leaked in the market as a rumor. WOKY's an afterthought, but WMIL shaking the competition off is a welcome development for them...

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I think it's an indication that WKTI wasn't cutting it revenue-wise in country, and Karmazin wants the FM (full-market) signal to win the sports war over Entercom's 250-watt translator...

Regardless, I've heard nothing but cheering from the iHeart people in Milwaukee from the moment the news leaked in the market as a rumor. WOKY's an afterthought, but WMIL shaking the competition off is a welcome development for them...

 

With all the moves of the Packers and Bucks for the Brewers situations this month, it was pretty much the worst-kept secret in Milwaukee radio. Although it's disappointing to see WKTI dump country, mainly because WMIL outside of 25 hours a week in mornings has absolutely no identity or reason to listen (honestly Entercom's WMYX is in the same situation with whatever their dull 'don't outshine WXSS' AC format is and should just get the Christmas music ready and mount a country challenge on December 26), it's a very good upgrade for Good Karma and they would have been nudniks for not taking advantage of 94.5. With WOKY just having relaunched their midday show, it's pretty much attrition for the next two years with sports radio in Milwaukee unless said show literally doesn't do much in the Nielsens.

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I think it's an indication that WKTI wasn't cutting it revenue-wise in country, and Karmazin wants the FM (full-market) signal to win the sports war over Entercom's 250-watt translator. Good Karma was built on sports in Madison, Cleveland, and West Palm, and it's Craig's wheelhouse (and something he's been able to sell without buying Nielsen numbers). I expect that once the FM's established, 540 will eventually just air ESPN Radio's 24/7 national feed and the FM will be predominantly local (much as Entercom did at WEEI Boston and CBS did with WIP Philadelphia, transitioning the programming to FM and then using the AM for ESPN (Boston) or selling it (Philly). And I expect some of WTMJ's sports programming and play-by-play to migrate to 94.5 as well; might be a hard sell for the Brewers and Packers, but the Bucks might make the move at some point.

 

Regardless, I've heard nothing but cheering from the iHeart people in Milwaukee from the moment the news leaked in the market as a rumor. WOKY's an afterthought, but WMIL shaking the competition off is a welcome development for them...

 

KTI country NEVER performed to the expectations that scripps had for it... they envisioned some powerhouse station right out of the gate... it turned out more like a wet fart... it had horrible talent turnover... their first attempt at a morning show ("jake and tanner") completely fell apart after barely a year... not to mention they ran automated for the first several months... while promoting that the station was "personality driven"...

 

scripps put a bunch of money into remodeling part of the building for the talent and sales execs that would focus on KTI... they never really showed up...

 

wexler doesn't know how to run anything outside of news/talk/sports so this should be a good move for him...

 

would not be surprised if they just shuffle every thing eventually... make WAUK news/talk with the current WTMJ 620 talent pool and make 620 ESPN Sports... would keep the WTMJ sports legacy alive and bring the sports team on WAUK into the fold...

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... their first attempt at a morning show ("jake and tanner") completely fell apart after barely a year... not to mention they ran automated for the first several months... while promoting that the station was "personality driven"...

 

would not be surprised if they just shuffle every thing eventually... make WAUK news/talk with the current WTMJ 620 talent pool and make 620 ESPN Sports... would keep the WTMJ sports legacy alive and bring the sports team on WAUK into the fold...

 

It didn't help that Jake & Tanner were always a 'morning zoo' type of show that was more at home on a top 40 station. It originated on WIXX as an afternoon show before the move to KTI...only to come back to Green Bay after it was cancelled and moved to the 'it'll always be behind unless every tower on Scray's Hill collapses' Kiss FM station in the market. It was truly a bad bet on a show that had no business being on a country station.

 

However, I don't see WTMJ dumping their local shows at least for a few years or they lowball the talk show hosts and drive them away. There may even be a contractual thing keeping that from happening immediately. And unless iHeart decides to dump money in WISN to make it sound more local or convert one of their lower-rated stations into a WTMJ clone, there's value in staying with the current format for now.

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Slight tangent: proving that Magnum Broadcasting doesn't have an original bone in their body, they've flipped 92.1 (Racine/Kenosha) over to "92.1 VTY Country," with a logo very similar to the still current "94.5 KTI Country" logo.

 

Those in the area will recall that when 94.5 flipped from "The Lake" variety hits format over to KTI Country, Magnum co-opted "The Lake" tag, logo, and format, causing 94.5's owner at the time, Journal Broadcasting, to threaten to sue. Magnum then switched from "The Lake" to "The Shore" and tweaked the logo, but kept the format.

 

(This flips 92.1 back to the country music format that it had prior to adopting the Variety Hits format.)

 

Edit:

1) correction to the above, Scripps had already taken over 94.5 at the time of the flip from The Lake to KTI Country.

2) This move must be somewhat more collegial than "The Lake"/"The Shore" thing. On my way home, I heard a brief promo saying something like "Hey country listeners! On November 1, If you're in the southern part of the Milwaukee area, tune to 92.1; if you're in the northern part, tune to 92.5."

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If I were Craig Karmizan, I'd arrange for the Green Bay Packers to be on BOTH 620-103.3 and 94.5. Shared AM and FM flagships occur almost everywhere, especially in the Cleveland market, where (for now) Craig's WKNR/850 is a nominal co-flagship of the Browns alongside Entercom's WKRK/92.3 and WNCX/98.5, and iHeart has Indians and Cavs games simulcast on WTAM/1100-106.9 and WMMS/100.7.

 

Side note, WTMJ will be celebrating their 90th year as Packers flagship next year. That's not a typo. They've carried the games on-air in some fashion since 1929.

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I'm a bit surprised at the state of the webpages for the now Good Karma stations. The webpage for KTI Country is still up and running...not being updated, not even with a message about the format shift to ESPN. As far as WTMJ's webpage, it's still the Scripps page - including the Scripps lighthouse logo in the lower corner. The only thing they were able to do was replace the copyright tag with one that says Good Karma instead of Scripps Radio. (Even that took at least a week to accomplish.)

 

Based on what I can see on their Facebook Live broadcasts for WTMJ, it looks like the rest of IT is still also all Scripps stuff as well.

 

They had several months before the purchase closed; I'd have thought they'd have more ready to go at day one.

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I'm a bit surprised at the state of the webpages for the now Good Karma stations. The webpage for KTI Country is still up and running...not being updated, not even with a message about the format shift to ESPN. As far as WTMJ's webpage, it's still the Scripps page - including the Scripps lighthouse logo in the lower corner. The only thing they were able to do was replace the copyright tag with one that says Good Karma instead of Scripps Radio. (Even that took at least a week to accomplish.)

 

Based on what I can see on their Facebook Live broadcasts for WTMJ, it looks like the rest of IT is still also all Scripps stuff as well.

 

They had several months before the purchase closed; I'd have thought they'd have more ready to go at day one.

 

Good Karma usually outsources their website responsibilities to ESPN, but that's because, until now, all of their stations outside of Beaver Dam were ESPN Radio affiliates. I'd have no idea what they even intend to do with WTMJ.

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I'm a bit surprised at the state of the webpages for the now Good Karma stations. The webpage for KTI Country is still up and running...not being updated, not even with a message about the format shift to ESPN. As far as WTMJ's webpage, it's still the Scripps page - including the Scripps lighthouse logo in the lower corner. The only thing they were able to do was replace the copyright tag with one that says Good Karma instead of Scripps Radio. (Even that took at least a week to accomplish.)

 

Based on what I can see on their Facebook Live broadcasts for WTMJ, it looks like the rest of IT is still also all Scripps stuff as well.

 

They had several months before the purchase closed; I'd have thought they'd have more ready to go at day one.

 

If it ain't broke...

 

There's no real reason they can't keep using the Scripps platform, in fact, Scripps is probably making a little money off the deal.

 

It took them almost a year to migrate onto that platform if I recall correctly.

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  • 3 weeks later...

iHeart has issued a volley against Good Karma in Milwaukee...and p***ed off a whole lot of staff and listeners to boot with the abrupt switch of WRNW from Top 40 to "97.3 The Game...Sports Talk That Rocks! overnight. As a pop fan who can take Entercom's KISS FM in small doses...I'm not happy. WOKY is staying somewhat the same with local shows moving to WRNW.

And yes, this now, once the WAUK/WKTI simulcast is done and ESPN goes full time on AM, will make for five sports talk stations in Milwaukee (WAUK, WOKY, WSSP/translator, WKTI, WRNW).

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2019/02/07/good-karma-owner-of-wtmj-wkti-radio-weighs.html

Good Karma might be leaving Radio City, part of the reason is that they're looking for more space. There is already a lot of empty office space when it housed Journal executives. If i'm Scripps I would do everything to keep Good Karma even if they have to move TV stuff around to give the radio group the room they need.  

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did tv reclaim a bunch of radio space before good karma took over??? last time i was in that building (well before the sale) half of the radio space was empty... what happened to the kti country office??? did good karma move people in when they took over???

 

if radio goes... that will be a death blow to that building... it's scripps second largest building... behind WFTS... and lots of the space is unusable... like the second floor (no elevator)...

 

hopefully scripps ponies up the dough for some improvements... but i'm not holding my breath... 

 

hey... if they want space downtown... i hear the Journal has floors to spare... maybe the old WTMJ studios from the 30's are still there... 😁

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 2/24/2019 at 1:25 AM, Webovision said:

did tv reclaim a bunch of radio space before good karma took over??? last time i was in that building (well before the sale) half of the radio space was empty... what happened to the kti country office??? did good karma move people in when they took over???

 

if radio goes... that will be a death blow to that building... it's scripps second largest building... behind WFTS... and lots of the space is unusable... like the second floor (no elevator)...

 

hopefully scripps ponies up the dough for some improvements... but i'm not holding my breath... 

 

hey... if they want space downtown... i hear the Journal has floors to spare... maybe the old WTMJ studios from the 30's are still there... 😁

 

 

 

 

 

Good Karma leases 15,000 sq feet and they want 5000 sq feet more, so it seems like radio is using much less of the building than before the sale, when radio and tv were co-owned almost 2/3rds of the original T-shaped building was for radio (including radio studios that haven't be in use since the late 80's). I'm guessing the space GKB isn't leasing is just sitting empty.

 

I think Craig really wants to move DT, the Milwaukee Bucks want to develop office buildings and Craig is a minority owner in the Bucks and probably wants to be apart of that.

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30 minutes ago, doublejman69 said:

 

Good Karma leases 15,000 sq feet and they want 5000 sq feet more, so it seems like radio is using much less of the building than before the sale, when radio and tv were co-owned almost 2/3rds of the original T-shaped building was for radio (including radio studios that haven't be in use since the late 80's). I'm guessing the space GKB isn't leasing is just sitting empty.

 

I think Craig really wants to move DT, the Milwaukee Bucks want to develop office buildings and Craig is a minority owner in the Bucks and probably wants to be apart of that.

 

if radio leaves... maybe they can tear out the radio studios and put the auditorium back...

 

have a studio audience for the morning blend...

 

put on milwaukee's own late nite talk show "Chamraz Tonite"...

 

😋

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55 minutes ago, Webovision said:

 

if radio leaves... maybe they can tear out the radio studios and put the auditorium back...

 

have a studio audience for the morning blend...

 

put on milwaukee's own late nite talk show "Chamraz Tonite"...

 

😋

This is one of the last radio/tv shows that aired from the auditorium.

No TV station could air something like this anymore.

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  • 5 months later...
On 2/23/2019 at 11:23 PM, doublejman69 said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2019/02/07/good-karma-owner-of-wtmj-wkti-radio-weighs.html

Good Karma might be leaving Radio City, part of the reason is that they're looking for more space. There is already a lot of empty office space when it housed Journal executives. If i'm Scripps I would do everything to keep Good Karma even if they have to move TV stuff around to give the radio group the room they need.  

 

Update to this, sounds like it's a done deal and ESPN and WTMJ radio are leaving for space in DT Milwaukee (I've heard the former Grand Avenue Mall an area that seen a total transformation in the last few years). This follows the news that another former Journal Communications property, the Journal-Sentinel is leaving its long time building and leasing a couple of floors in nondescript office building, it use to be a big deal to have the newspapers or TV/radio station name on top of its building.   

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