What's Up With KLIF and Their Constant Commercials in the Mornings?? (live, store)

[buzzpost]

I have been listening to this radio station in the mornings for years. Lately they've been really whacked out there or something. For example, the Jeff Bolton Mornings show now runs from 6 - 9 am, and not the 5 -9 it had run for years. Ever since that change about a month ago, they seem to run endless commercials, even when Jeff Bolton is supposed to be on the air. Some mornings they run commercials (the same ones too!) from before 6 am until 6:30! And since I have bouts with insomnia, sometimes I'm up in the wee hours listening to coast to coast am, and KLIF will run commercials then for 25-30 minutes straight, pre-empting the regularly scheduled program.

What's up? Does anyone have any idea why they would deliberately run their programs so shoddily? It's as if they had a large turnover or something and have nothing but bumbling idiots running their programming dept.

BTW, I've emailed them and received absolutely no response. Also, I have the radio on KLIF right now and they are currently in the middle of a 20 minute run of commercials. WTH!!???

[catman]

Welcome to modern radio. TV is being eaten alive by commercials too. I've gotten to where I just shut it off when they get too annoying.

[bluescreen73]

I worked in radio for 14 years. I deleted my original post because I (for once) thought "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

I worked for Cumulus, the company that owns KLIF, The Ticket, 93.3, and 99.5 The Wolf. Putting it nicely, they are a frugal company. Their IT deparment at one time (4 stations, 100+ desktop PCs, and four 24/7 broadcast automation systems) was ONE person.

They aren't the only frugal company. Clear Channel, CBS, and Citadel (who just filed Chapter 11) are also notoriously frugal. It's a product of corporate radio. You can thank the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 for today's insipid state of radio. Once the big corporations got their hands on radio, they turned it into a one-size-fits-all medium. Its local flavor almost completely disappeared. Worse yet, what IS local is complete crap because they won't invest anything more than the bare minimum to keep stations running.

I suspect a portion of this morning's problems stemmed from the fact that KLIF had a fill-in host on the air. Most of their fill-ins aren't even in DFW. They're in a studio in some other city and have to be patched into KLIF's board. If the engineers had a problem setting up the link you may have been treated to 20 minutes worth of Public Service Announcements and normal commercial breaks until they got the link online.

[buzzpost]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

I worked in radio for 14 years. I deleted my original post because I (for once) thought "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

I worked for Cumulus, the company that owns KLIF, The Ticket, 93.3, and 99.5 The Wolf. Putting it nicely, they are a frugal company. Their IT deparment at one time (4 stations, 100+ desktop PCs, and four 24/7 broadcast automation systems) was ONE person.

They aren't the only frugal company. Clear Channel, CBS, and Citadel (who just filed Chapter 11) are also notoriously frugal. It's a product of corporate radio. You can thank the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 for today's insipid state of radio. Once the big corporations got their hands on radio, they turned it into a one-size-fits-all medium. Its local flavor almost completely disappeared. Worse yet, what IS local is complete crap because they won't invest anything more than the bare minimum to keep stations running.

I suspect a portion of this morning's problems stemmed from the fact that KLIF had a fill-in host on the air. Most of their fill-ins aren't even in DFW. They're in a studio in some other city and have to be patched into KLIF's board. If the engineers had a problem setting up the link you may have been treated to 20 minutes worth of Public Service Announcements and normal commercial breaks until they got the link online.

Thank you for the response. I was also in broadcasting (TV) for several years.

This recent spat of crap with KLIF is the worst that I've ever heard though; I've never, EVER heard of a radio station broadcasting 30 minutes of commercials, and only four or five of the same commercials again and again. Plus, it's not only because of an out of town host (even though this morning that was the case). I mean THIRTY MINUTES of commercials during the broadcast period meant for the program and NO comment on the miscue???

Really weird. Really, really weird. I predict that this station is going down the tubes, at least with this program. I'm disgusted. As a loyal listener I will not be loyal much longer.

Thanks again for both of your responses.

[Sonorio]

I am so glad that things like computers and satellites make radio unnecessary, if you're willing to spend a few dollars.

My limit is three commercials in a row. I'll switch to the Public Radio juvenile delinquents at that point.

S

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by Sonorio

I am so glad that things like computers and satellites make radio unnecessary, if you're willing to spend a few dollars.

My limit is three commercials in a row. I'll switch to the Public Radio juvenile delinquents at that point.

S

Your post brings up another problem with radio these days. The bigwigs have wasted untold millions of dollars trying to bring HD radio online because they (wrongly) focused on satellite radio as their chief competitior. HD radio is an absolute joke. Precious few auto manufacturers sell HD receivers in their cars and people don't give enough of a crap to convert their standard desktop/clock radios to HD. I would venture a guess that less than 5% of the population of DFW uses an HD radio.

Satellite radio still, after all these years, is a money-losing venture. There's a VERY good chance that SiriusXM will die off soon if they can't turn a profit.

Satellite radio hasn't even been a fly on the ass of regular radio. Terrestrial radio's been getting KILLED by portable media players and internet streaming. Gone are the days when you had to store 6 million cassettes and CDs (or *gasp* 8-tracks) in your car. Nowadays the average person can fit their entire music library on an iPod and play it back through the FM receiver on their car. Hear only what you want when you want to hear it without having to listen to no-talent jocks talk and talk and talk without saying a damn thing.