This morning, I caught a little of 610 as I was waking up and they had waitresses from Hooters on. After doing a "thong check," they asked if they ever had problems with customers acting inappropriately. A guy who was probably a manager stepped up to the mic and said, "Hooters is a retaurant. If anyone goes over the boundries, they are led out. These girls go to college. They're like the girls next door. <b>They deserve respect.</b>" Am I the only one who thinks that, perhaps, the best way to demonstrate respect to these "GIRLS" (not ladies or young women) is NOT to dress them up in short shorts and tank tops while they work at a restaurant called HOOTERS? Ugh. My alarm is changing to another station.
Yo Jeff, you just gave me an idea for a great invention! An alarm clock with a CD player that you can set to go off instead of the radio. That way, you can wake up to whatever you want. You'll even be able to set the alarm to any track on the CD you want... Has this already been done?? When do I pick up my first royalty check??
yup... no more 610 for me, except for Rome when I'm on lunch... otherwise 610 is CRAP now! It was over for me when they started to read dollar bills on the air... I can't believe they would radically change their format to exclude sports talk. rH
i knew the moment Russ Small signed on the end was near. He helped ruin 740 now he's doing to same to 610.
This is just like The Ticket in Dallas and other similar radio shows around the nation. It's no longer sportstalk... it's Neandrethal Talk. Let the cavemen play and switch over to something better... I can't stand listening to the Ticket here in Dallas and have switched to 103.3 and 1190.
610 is really going down the tubes, isn't it? Did y'all read the article about it in today's paper? I really think they're making a misjudgement here. The argument is that they'll pull a bigger share with this, but I think that's flawed reasoning. This "guy talk" is really lame, and if we had wanted to listen to crappy talk radio, there's a ton of it on already. 610 was the station that didn't suck. Now it's a poor excuse for a radio station. I'll listen in the noon hours for Rome, and OCCASIONALLY when Chris Baker is on, I'll switch during the commercials. But hey, I've got a car CD player that I can just plug in and ENJOY rather than listen to the crud on 610.
Vengence: Amen! Personally, I hope it REALLY flops here in Houston. I hope we are different from the rest of the country but I'm not holding my breath.
We need ESPN radio!!! That's the only answer. The Dan Patrick show is supposed to be fantastic...Rob Dibble is co-host. This is extremely disappointing, particularly considering the fact that the hometown 'stros are in the midst of a really great pennant chase. Instead we're doing thong checks...unless i'm in the studio with them, i could care less about thong checks!!!
Here's David Barron's column. Drop him an email to tell him what you think at david.barron@chron.com . While you're at it, don't forget Bill Van Rysdam at bvanrysdam@cbs.com . <i>TV-Radio Notebook: Sports secondary to guy-talk success at Philly's WIP By DAVID BARRON Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Sports secondary to guy-talk success at Philly's WIP PHILADELPHIA -- Given atmospherics and FCC regulations, it's a bit tough to get Houston radio programming here. But word has come through the grapevine that KILT (610 AM) has started its descent into the programming concept popularly known as guy talk. Appropriately enough, the USA Gymnastics national championships have taken me this week to Philadelphia, home of WIP-AM, the great big giant head of guy-talk radio. WIP, like KILT, is owned by Infinity Broadcasting, and you'd have to be either naive or an absolute fool not to assume that Infinity is trying to shape KILT into a ratings -- and profits -- blockbuster in the WIP mold. And thus it is instructive to pick the brain of Tom Bigby, WIP's program director, in an effort to divine the direction in which KILT may be headed. I should note Bigby specifically declined to offer advice for the locals or to say that this is the direction in which they should be headed. But he did have a lot to say about the things that have helped WIP succeed. The first thing to remember, he said, is that men between the ages of 25 and 54 are interested in women, food and then, perhaps, sports. "When sports is important, we become a sports station," Bigby said. "But we find that most days, you can't fill a page in the newspaper with actual sports news that the masses care about. There is a reason there is only two minutes of sports on television, and the reason is that is all there is that the masses care about. We could not survive doing pure sports. We'd have a 2 share." Instead, WIP rates in the 8s and 9s among men 25-54, which is considerably better than KILT's audience in that particular demo. Bigby said the key to programming for men 25-54 -- at least in Philly -- is "don't talk about the things the masses don't want to hear." "Lots of things that are considered sports are actually recreational in nature or one on one things -- like golf, God rest Dickie Rosenfeld's soul," he said of the late KILT general manager. "It's a waste of time. Who cares? What percentage of listeners play golf, and what percentage wants to talk about it, and what is there to say other than the greens are good at Southside Country Club? <b>"Dickie used to tell me he had a golf show every day, and I would tell him and Moose (Rosenfeld's son and successor), What are you doing golf for? It's a fat man's recreational sport. That's all it is." Moving along: "Tennis and soccer are kids sports, and we do not address those at all. Why are you here? A gymnastics meet? Didn't even know it was happening." As for high schools, "We don't touch it at all, and nobody should in any market. If you're talking about a school on the north side of town, people on the south side can't care less, and you limit yourself to the small number of people who do care."</b> Bigby is very clear about the bottom line of his programming concept. "We like to put stuff on the air that even the person who hates sports will listen to," he said. "One of our biggest mistakes was calling it SportsRadio, which indicates that you have to be a sports fan to listen to us. If you add up the numbers, there's less than a 2 share for sports fans, and if you want to expand that niche, you have to find out what they're interested in." Bigby's comments, as I said earlier, were offered and should be taken only in light of what has worked in Philly, and that is how KILT operations manager Bill Van Rysdam receives them. "We are going to be more opinionated, more outrageous, doing wacky things and having fun doing them," he said. "If that's guy talk, that's guy talk. It may be about sports, it may be about an actress and what they're up to. <b>Rich (Lord) and Charlie (Palillo), for example, were talking the other day about who should sing the national anthem at Texans games.</b> "If you want to talk about the Astros, great. If you want to talk about something else, that's fine, too." Van Rysdam said the station isn't about to drop its golf programming, and he is considering whether to start a high school show once the school year begins. And he isn't opposed to guy-talk radio, he just doesn't like the phrase. As for the concept, we will see in the next few weeks how it plays in Houston.</i>
I'm not too happy with the change in format (although I haven't been able to tell that much of a difference in the little amount of time I listen to 610...I've always thought the morning guys sucked, and the afternoon guys still talk sports from what I can tell), but I don't see what's so wrong with what the Hooters guy said Jeff. The girls do deserve respect, and it's their choice to work there. Was there something maybe in particular about the guy that made him seem like a shady character, because just what you mentioned doesn't seem that bad.
You mean to tell me, Houston, the nations 4th largest city, doesn't get ESPN radio? WOW Patrick & Dibble is the best sports talk on radio, no one is even close.
It was the irony. I mean, if the men had to dress in cutoffs and a tank top or that attire was an option, it would be one thing. But, just the concept that this guy set out: We display women as objects in short shorts and tank tops, the name of our restaurant is meant to emphasize their breasts but they deserve respect. If they respected them in the first place, they wouldn't dress them up that way!
I've held off on making any replies on this so far, but I guess its now time to put the $.02 in. This past Arbitron book 610 recorded a 0.9 in the very broad and generic 12+ category. The last time I remember that happening was when Mike and Ed were on in the morning and Rich and Kenny had the afternoons. Other than Astros baseball 610 was all Prime Sports. After some years of tweaking and adding the ratings eventually went up. Now it looks like the station has peaked. They went to local talk 17 hours a day, and apparently it wasn't enough. Either between the host changes, additons and whatever, management must have thought it wasn't working and the listeners, from the ratings, didn't like the latest round of changes (Wierd ass morning setup, dropping of show names, the readding of them). 610's owner, Infinity, is the pioneer of the extreme talk format (Stern, Imus, Opie & Anthony) and now it looks like the station is evolving towards that. Personally, I think its sad that they have decided to push 610 that way. A friend of mine from DFW describes The Ticket (1310/1700/104.1) like this- "Sports is a backdrop for them when there is nothing else to talk about". From when 610 became Sports in late '94 they battled 740's very established <i>SportsBeat</i> and 950 from the bottom to eventually become <b>the place for Sports</b>. Now they have relinqushed that. I remember that when 97.1 in Houston was talk they had Stern and it didn't do too well. Right now ESPN is having some programming cleared on 1540 in Galveston and FOX Sports is not in Houston, yet. Clear Channel after they took over their new cluster in Houston decided to keep 790 its "old people format" (Big Band/ Nostalgia). Now, I bet Ken Charles (PD for CC's 3 AMs) will start rethinking that . The options for other stations to flip to Sports are very limited. Other than 790 the only other 2 English speaking stations with a decent signal are 700 & 1070. They are both long shots to flip--- Even though Dan Patrick is in charge of 700 again he isn't the owner of it (BTW, you can listen to most of the Texas Tech Football games (evening and night) on KSEV----- Shameless plug ) And 1070 is owned by Salem Communications, a company that puts religious stations on the air. Basically the best case senario I see for the sports fan is that either 610 goes back to what it was, or 790 does the flip to sports. If 790 did flip it would most likely use FOX Sports Radio since it's a part of the same corporate family with Clear Channel. On another note: <b>Jeff wrote</b>---- <i>This morning, I caught a little of 610 as I was waking up and they had waitresses from Hooters on. After doing a "thong check," they asked if they ever had problems with customers acting inappropriately.</i> Just thinking about Russ Small talking about "thongs" and "hooters" is a scary thing. Rob
