Sports bringing a fresh profile to infinity news station KFWB.In a bid to boost its lagging ratings and create a distinct identity from sister news station KNX-AM (1070), KFWB-AM (980) has struck a deal with Westwood One Westwood One, Inc. (NYSE: WON) is the largest radio network in the United States based on programming quantity. It is based in the city of New York, and it is managed by CBS Radio, the radio arm of CBS Corporation. History The company was founded by Norman J. Inc. and CBS Radio
The move by KFWB, which already touts its "News, Traffic and Dodgers" lineup, is another step in owner Infinity Broadcast Corp.'s efforts to draw a distinction between the two news stations. "KNX is now news all the tune and KFWB is a news and lifestyle station," said Pat Duffy For other people with similar names, see Patrick Duffy (disambiguation) Pat Duffy is a professional skateboarder from Marin, Ca. He is known for his legendary video part in 1992's "Questionable", by Plan B Skateboards. , the recently appointed vice president/market manager for both stations. Duffy, former general manager of Infinity's KRTH-FM (101.1), was promoted in late August to the new position, where he will be charged with making sure each of the stations boosts its performance without detracting from the other. The football package includes "Monday Night Football “MNF” redirects here. For other uses, see MNF (disambiguation). Monday Night Football (MNF) is a live television broadcast of the National Football League. " and two Sunday games. It is a barter deal, typical for syndicated sports programming, in which KFWB gives Westwood One and CBS Radio the right to sell advertising on slots during the broadcasts. The NFL NFL abbr. National Football League NFL (US) n abbr (= National Football League) → Fußball-Nationalliga deal comes at the tail end of KFWB's fast season as the Dodgers' flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship station is the station which originates a broadcast network, or a particular radio show or TV show, primarily in the United States and Canada. This includes both direct network feeds and syndication, but generally not backhauls. and is an attempt to cement its standing as a player in live sports coverage. Meanwhile, KNX, which aired Monday night games for the past few seasons, plans to play up its ties to CBS News CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. Its current president is Sean McManus who is also head of CBS Sports. Current productions Current television shows
"It's a complicated thing owning two news stations and we want to make sure they are on the right track and not competing against each other," Duffy said. Infinity, the radio arm of media giant Viacom Inc., also owns 25 percent of Westwood One, which owns the CBS radio network The CBS Radio Network provides news, sports and other programming to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by the CBS Corporation, and operated by CBS Corporation's CBS Radio Inc. unit (formerly the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation). . CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. Inc. is owned by Viacom. By shifting to more sports, KFWB will be competing in a crowded field. There are now three stations in the market devoted to sports: Walt Disney Co.'s KSPN-AM (710), Clear Channel Communication Inc.'s KXTA-AM (1150) and Sporting News Radio's KMPC-AM (1540). Another Infinity station, KLSX-FM (97.1) carries Sunday night NFL games. In addition, Clear Channel's XTRA-AM (690), which airs the same programming as KXTA, is broadcast from Tijuana and reaches southern portions of Los Angeles County. Targeting men Although news and traffic listeners tend to jump around the dial, "KFWB has one of the lowest time-spent-listening as any station I deal with in a major market," said Corissa Embro, president of Industry Media Specialists, the in-house media buyer for ad agency Colby and Partners. "They are trying to swipe some of the males back from the Clear Channel sports stations and increase their time-spent-listening." KFWB, citing data collected by Scarborough Research and mgLA Media Research, says 62 percent of NFL radio listeners in Los Angeles are in the key 18- to 44-year-old demographic and more than three-quarters of professional football listeners are men. Median household income The median household income is commonly used to provide data about geographic areas and divides households into two equal segments with the first half of households earning less than the median household income and the other half earning more. of football listeners is above $85,000, well above the market average. In the most recent Arbitron Inc. survey period for Spring 2003, KFWB earned a 1.6 rating, compared to a 2.1 rating in the previous quarter and 1.8 rating in the year-earlier period. KNX has faired slightly better, earning a 2.1 rating in Spring 2003, though that was down from a 2.4 rating in the year earlier period. Ratings are a calculation of cumulative audience and time spent listening Time spent listening (TSL) is one of the measurements surveyed by Arbitron in determining ratings for radio stations in the U.S.. The TSL is the amount of time the average listener surveyed spent listening to each radio station at one time, before changing the station or . Roger Nadel, KFWB's general manager, emphasized the distinction between live games and sports talk, which dominates the lineups of most of the all-sports stations in the market. "When you are doing play-by-play six or seven months a year, there is no reason not to continue that," Nadel said, pointing out that Dodgers broadcasts lifted the station's evening ratings in July to their highest point in many months. "Baseball has been driving our gains." Although KFWB aired the NFL's Thursday night opener earlier this month, it missed the first Monday Night Football game of the season last week because of a conflict with a Dodgers broadcast. In those instances, football is farmed over to KMPC or even Christian broadcaster Salem Communication Corp.'s KXMX-AM (1190). That could create hurdles in trying to become a destination for football fans, where it is not the only game in town. Besides games on KLSX, Clear Channel's KXTA has a deal to broadcast every Oakland Raiders game this season. "There are difficulties for any station that tries to enter an extremely crowded field. We have the luxury here at ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. of having the ESPN ESPN Entertainment and Sports Programming Network brand name," said Erik Braverman, operations director for KABC-AM (790) and, temporarily, for KSPN.
Local Lineup
Radio homes of Los Angeles area sports teams.
Team English Spanish
Dodgers KFWB-AM KWKW-AM
Angels KSPN-AM XKAM-AM
KWKU-AM
Lakers KLAC-AM KWKW
Clippers KXTA-AM KTNQ-AM
Kings KSPN none
Galaxy KCTD-AM KTNQ
UCLA Bruins KXTA none
USC Trojans KMPC none
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