KLOS (95.5 FM) broke a fundraising record – its own – by raising more than $1.27 million in just 26 broadcast hours last month during the 6th annual KLOS St. Jude Rocks radiothon. That beat the station’s previous record of $1.24 million earned in a previous year.
During the event, listeners making donations became eligible to go on adventures with station personalities in addition to receiving specially-designed attire, mainly T-shirts, commemorating the drive that said: The T-Shirt that Saves Lives.
KLOS programmer Keith Cunningham was ecstatic over the results of the drive, telling me how proud he is of both his staff and loyal listeners and humbly stating that “it is very rewarding to be able to help.”
“For many of us, it is the most rewarding two days of the year,” he said.
The money raised benefited St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and will help kids at St. Jude to fight cancer. Also supporting the drive were station sponsors and artists. In a press release, KLOS owner Meruelo Media’s Otto Padron said “(this) is a fierce reminder that live and local radio compels, and deeply connects with the community to make a positive difference.”
Emmis Podcast
My podcast partner Michael Stark and I recently sat down and spoke with Emmis Chairman/CEO Jeff Smulyan and President of Radio Programming Rick Cummings for an open discussion of Emmis, radio in general, marketing and more. It was supposed to last about a half hour but ended up going almost 60 minutes … and in reality, there is so much more to talk about we hope to have them back at a future date.
Emmis is the former owner of Power 106, which was known as Magic 106 at the time they bought it; later creating Power and for a time dominating local radio. The company is what I consider one of the “good ones” in radio, running their stations like they actually like radio. In fact, the love of radio oozes out from both Smulyan and Cummings as they speak.
I realized in speaking with them that my own ideas on how to save radio – especially AM – evolved from my time interning at Magic and Power. Apparently, their corporate structure stuck in my head without me realizing it.
Hear the interview and subscribe to the podcast at https://apple.co/3T8g1ny.
New Morning Show
Speaking of Power 106 – now owned by Meruelo Media and thus a sister to KLOS, by the way – the station has a new morning show.
Called the Brown Bag Morning Show, it airs from 6-10 a.m. and is a former podcast of a similar name hosted by Letty Paniche with co-hosts Rosecrans Vic and DoKnow.
You may remember Paniche as “Rikki Martinez” when she worked with Big Boy on Power mornings from 2011 to 2014; she left to work at KRRL and returned to Power in 2021.
The Brown Bag Podcast also debuted in 2021; the show moved to the Power airwaves on February 16. I’ll have a full review in a future column; in the meantime, if you have heard it, let me know your thoughts.
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Top 10 tweaks
In the past, I covered ratings quarterly, primarily because that is when the full “books” were released. But it’s been years since Nielsen (formerly Arbitron) moved to a new system allowing monthly results to be released, perhaps it is time to update my thinking.
I’ll still do a more in-depth look quarterly, but give the top 10 monthly. This way we are all current without getting too predictable. Here’s the first top-10 of the year for the month of January, recognizing listeners aged 6 and over tuned to a station between 6 a.m. and 12 midnight:
1. KOST (6.8) 2. KRTH (4.9) 3. KTWV (4.7) 4. KBIG (4.6) 5. KLVE (4.3) 6. KFI (4.1) 7. KIIS-FM (3.6) 8. KCBS Jack-FM (2.9) 9. KLAX, KLOS, KNX, KRRL (2.8)
I’m a little late covering the January ratings, released by Nielsen at the end of February; the February ratings will be out in just a couple of weeks.