So why did I Heart’s John Beck jump into the Conservatalker battle with 104.9 The Patriot? For totally different reasons than the Refugees at 101.9 and the Newbees at 93.3. First, a little background.
I Heart is a text book example of a vertically integrated company. They don’t subscribe to any of the music rating services because they own their own: Mediabase. To automate their stations they use RCS, which they own. Traffic and weather is provided to their stations by Total Traffic, which they own. And when it comes to talk they use Premier for most of their syndicated talk shows. You guessed it. They own Premier, which is why a switch to talk for 104.9 is a natural move for I Heart in the STL.
After Rush died KMOX decided to drop network programming for the 11 a to 2 P slot and go local (It’s good to hear Bo on the air on the Mighty MOX). The Rush show was a Premier syndicated show. When the Rush replacement show Clay and Buck was launched the new show was not being carried in the STL. And neither was another Premiere show, Glenn Beck. Nor was the newly minted Jesse Kelly show, another Premier show. Sean Hannity was on in the STL but 97.1 demoted the show to run time shifted in the evenings and not live. Yep, Sean is another Premier talk show. I think you see where this is going.
So I Heart flipped Majic 104.9 (then KMJM now KTLK-FM) over to talk and instantly had a St. Louis affiliate for all of their Premiere Network shows including my favorite “The Jesus Christ Show” (Jesus hosts a Premiere syndicated national talk show on Sunday morning where you can call in and ask questions of Jesus….I’M NOT KIDDING…I told you they were vertically integrated as they have the Big Guy on the payroll). The current line up on 104.9? Glenn Beck from 9A to 11A, then Buck and Clay from 11 A to 2 P, Sean Hannity now live during the day from 2 until 5 P, then Jesse Kelly from 5 until 8 P. All of these are Premier shows ultimately owned by I Heart.
And last but not least there’s Jamie Allman. Jamie lost his morning gig on 97.1 during the transition from Emmis to Entercom/Audacy with just one infamous Tweet. Jamie was going to become part of the Refugee crew. That didn’t happen. Then Jamie was going to be part of the Tracy Newbee crew but they dropped him at the last moment. So Jamie gets a call from his old Boss John Beck and the rest is history.
I’m not a big fan of McRadio (and I Heart is the KING of McRadio, well maybe the Queen behind EMF, but that’s another story), but this is a really smart business move. Super low overhead. They’re only paying salary on one shift, that being Jamie. They’re even cutting corners with Jamie’s show as he’s running his own board (translation: He’s his own engineer pushing all of the buttons and moving the pots…he’s never done this in the past and always had a board op). In the radio syndication biz it’s important to have your shows in each of the top 30 media markets. Now their key talkers are all on in the STL. That means instant money for I Heart as they can now charge a bit more for their national ads on their shows as they’re now being heard in another top 30 market. The lack of national ad revenue is going to be a big problem for Jeff and Joe at 101.9 and for Tracy at 93.3. But do they care? NO! Because it’s just a hobby for Jeff and Joe and an ultra conservative political platform for Tracy and Rick, who are super rich from their real estate business. Now, onto the P’s and C’s
PROS:
- Good signal. They’re on the Super Tower (but they’re a C3, which means lower power…tech data here) in South County and put in a good signal into most of the STL area, although the signal does have some issues in Franklin County and far west St. Charles County into Warren County.
- Jamie Allman. He has excellent name recognition from his years on TV at Channel 4 and his long running morning show on 97.1. He’s been great on the air since he started.
- Glenn Beck. Yeah, I know, he can go off the deep end from time to time. But he’s been great lately. His efforts to get Christians out of Afghanistan were amazing raising $30 million in just a few days!
- Sean Hannity. Back on the air during the day.
- Jesse Kelly. This guy will grow on you. A Marine and former political candidate. Take a listen and I think you’ll like.
- Local news. But see CONS below.
- The presentation is just about flawless. The first day on the air was almost perfect. But hey, this is what I Heart does best.
CONS:
- It’s BROTALK! All DUDES all the time! There are some excellent female talkers around. But NONE on The Patriot!
- McRadio at it’s finest. The same shows (with the exception of Jamie) that run on hundreds of other stations. (The only local show I hear is Jamie, but I could be missing something)
- The local news is not being done locally. Just listen to how they pronounce all of the STL places live “Gravois” and “Ritenour”
- Kind of confusing with both Tracy’s Newbees at 93.3 and The Patriot 104.9 both using the positioning line of “Real Talk”
- No Doug Voss! You can’t have a Conservatalker without Doug Voss on at least 20 times a day on the weekend.
Four STL Conservatalkers! The Grand Poopah hates to be negative but when the smoke clears I think there will only be two Conservatalkers left: 97.1 and 104.9.
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