SABO SEZ: Won’t Work on FM
By Walter Sabo
a.k.a. Walter M. Sterling
Host, “Sterling Every Damn Night”
WPHT, Philadelphia
Host, “Sterling On Sunday,” TMN
“It won’t work on FM.” Country. Country was predicted to be a failing format for the FM band. At the dawn of FM proliferation in the 1970s, the future of the band was viewed with fear and skepticism. Why wouldn’t country music work on the FM band? The conventional chatter said that “country needs to be on AM because truckers drive long distances and AM signals cover long distances. FM does not.”
According to AM management, every music and talk format that thrived on AM was going to fail on FM. Obviously, all AM genres succeeded on FM, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. The ones that succeeded quickly had common characteristics:
In the public’s mind, FM radio had specific, positive traits: Lower commercial load, cooler hosts and jocks, a subversive tone, fewer interruptions of every type. Talk on FM was absolutely going to fail. The first mother of talk hits on FM were “New Jersey 101.5” (which for decades had the largest FM talk cume in the world); WTKS-FM, Orlando; and WLUP, Chicago. GM Larry Wert, brilliant. In 1990 when those stations launched, the industry pundits ordered more drinks and pronounced their doom.
John Kobylt, of KFI, Los Angeles fame, was the first PM drive host on “New Jersey 101.5.” He explained to me the key difference in his work versus that of an AM talk show host: “My competition is 10 music stations playing hit songs. If Ken Chiampou and I don’t entertain this second, the audience is gone.”
Little noticed was that stations like WTKS-FM shared less than 8% of its cume with WDBO-AM (a very serious station!) WTKS sharing was with WMMO-FM and other alt rock and FM AC stations. While radio people think “talk is talk,” the audience perceives FM talk and AM talk to be very different formats. Completely different.
Today, to drive audience to an FM talk station the strategy proven to fail is to air AM shows on FM without making significant accommodations for the differences in the band. Profound differences.
QUICK NOTES:
— New 23-year-old, very good, control board operator for “Sterling Every Damn Night” asked me, “Who is Rush Limbaugh?”
— All-digital 18-year-olds today have no idea what you mean when you say, “The top of the hour.”
Walter Sabo has been a C Suite action partner for companies such as SiriusXM, Hearst, Press Broadcasting, Gannett, RKO General and many other leading media outlets. His company HITVIEWS, in 2007, was the first to identify and monetize video influencers. His nightly show “Walter Sterling Every Damn Night” is heard on WPHT, Philadelphia. His syndicated show, “Sterling On Sunday,” from Talk Media Network, airs 10:00 pm-1:00 am ET, and is now in its 10th year of success. He can be reached by email at sabowalter@gmail.com
Historically, the beginning of the Major League Baseball season has been good to radio stations that serve as flagships for play-by-play, often bringing new cume to their ratings. Today, TALKERS managing editor Mike Kinosian looks at how flagship stations performed during Nielsen Audio’s April PPM survey. He notes, “Generally speaking, Major League Baseball radio flagships enjoyed a solid first at bat in Nielsen Audio’s 2024 rating season (March 28 – April 24). There was a (6+) March 2024 – April 2024 uptick in approximately four of every five applicable flagship cases (81%); 15%dipped; and 4% were flat.” iHeartMedia’s news/talk WLW, Cincinnati (Reds) saw the biggest leap in AQH share rising from an 11.3 share in March to a 13.3 share in April (retaining its #1 rank as well). 
When a new restaurant opens, smart owners put the phone on busy so would-be diners believe the joint is hot, packed and hard to get in to. At street fairs we are drawn to merchant booths with long lines. Crowds give us confidence.
Sell a local advertiser a promotion – a contest which awards a major prize from the advertiser’s inventory – to the winner who creates the best commercial for the advertiser.
the month reaching 3.27 billion total multiplatform minutes, compared to CNN.com’s 1.85 billion, and NYTimes.com’s 1.59 billion. FOX News Media attracted 1.66 billion total multiplatform views, compared to NYTimes.com’s 1.49 billion, and CNN.com’s 1.17 billion. When it comes to total digital unique visitors – similar to radio’s cume – CNN.com still holds the lead with 112.7 million. But FOX News Digital (109.7 million) has gradually been gaining ground on CNN. 
views and minutes, according to data from Comscore. FOX News Digital accrued 20.2 billion multiplatform views (up 9% versus 2022) and multiplatform minutes reached 36.9 billion (up 6% over 2022). FOX topped competitors CNN.com and NYTimes.com in both of those metrics. Importantly, in the multiplatform unique visitors – comparable to radio’s cume – FOX achieved 93.6 million, an increase of 13% over its 2022 total, while news brand leader CNN.com racked up 121 million, a decline of 3% compared to 2022. 
Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jesse Kelly, and Clay Travis & Buck Sexton, as well as Key Networks’ Bill O’Reilly. The story indicates the station’s cume has skyrocketed from about 2,100 listeners per month to 29,000 in the first week after the change (Sept. 7-13). Adell tells the paper he has no regrets about the move, “The more divided we are, the better it is for radio. It comes down to one thing — show business. If we live in a utopia, we have nothing to talk about.” Adell also says he expects cume to jump to 200,000 per month as he continues to promote the new lineup. At the time of the change, the Black community was upset with the firing of the (unpaid) hosts and the format flip, but Adell said it was purely a business move. “[T]he format was no longer profitable and only attracted about 2,100 listeners a month, an abysmally small audience for a radio station. When you look at it, no one supported it. I couldn’t get the community to support it.” 
I asked my pal, longtime radio seller, now retired: “How often were you asked, ‘How much would you charge for ONE commercial?’”
Dependency upon a PPM panel to deliver high time spent listening is a bad business model. Would you rather count on one person listening for one hour or four people listening for 15 minutes? Right.
Amazing fact: In ancient times, from 1962-1972, the highest-paid on-air talent in New York City was “an overnight guy.” He was paid salary plus sales response. I’m talking about Long John Nebel on WOR, WNBC, then WMCA. Long John’s live reads moved product because his audience was captive. One-to-one his listeners were attached to their radios in the truck cab, night watchman’s building lobby, parents pacing with their babies, students cramming. His background was not in radio; he was a skilled auctioneer. Obviously, the same listeners exist today – and are anxious for someone to talk to them. Check out this old clip of Nebel in action: 
By 2009, I had been making my living consulting and coaching talk hosts for 14 years, but I myself had not yet hosted a talk show. Like Rush Limbaugh before he went-talk, I had lots of on-air time under my belt as a music DJ. And that same skill set contributes to talk radio success: “Play the hits” (topics) and convert Cume to AQH (technique).
Every radio sales presentation should start with one powerful number. This number – often found under the Sphinx – will dazzle any buyer, but is rarely revealed. The number is Homes Using Radio (HUR). Once upon a time it was part of the conversation. HUR shows how many people are using radio at any given time, a total number.
In last week’s column, 
