Where Does An Information Junkie Go To Get "Hyper Local" News And Information?

As my regular readers know, I've been calling the Charleston radio market a "talk radio desert" because, with the dismantling of John Raese's Rick Johnson-Mike Agnello conservative talk show from 3-6 on WCHS, Charleston no longer has live, local talk radio. I've been saying that the live local talk format is an opportunity for some enterprising radio cluster to convert one of their underperforming stations (I'm looking at you, Dotsy Klei at LM Communications) to a format they can have all to themselves. I've reminded local radio executives of the Second Immutable Law of Marketing: if you can't be first or second in a category, create a new category you can have all to yourselves. 

I've said here in my blog that the new Executive Director at West Virginia Public Radio, Scott Finn,  has a chance to go live local talk on a statewide basis. 

I was partly wrong.  Instead of promoting live local talk I should have been promoting what some call "hyper local" communications of which live local talk is but one example.  Before all the small town newspapers died and all the radio stations became the personal iPods for programing people who don't even listen to the stations they program, people could get lots of hyper local news and information. But now most of the news and information options are national and world news. You can't get any local news and info on Sirius XM. The Big Cluster radio companies that control Charleston (Bristol Broadcasting, LM Communications, West Virginia Radio Corporation) mostly give you world and national news if any. One Big Cluster radio executive told me over coffee that the cluster he/she runs doesn't have news at all. 

How does an information junkie in Dunbar get news about his city council? He's lucky if he gets a few column inches once a week in the Charleston Gazette or Daily Mail. How does a news and info junkie in St. Albans get information and news about neighborhood watch if he doesn't know about the St. Albans Neighborhood Watch email lists or text blasts or the Public Group For St. Albans Neighborhood Watch? Once in a while a TV crew shows up at a neighborhood watch meeting and there's 8 seconds of neighborhood watch coverage on the 11PM news.

I've started using Twitter to get as live and local as possible. I no longer follow people who tweet about politics or their new TV show, I only follow interesting local people who may tweet something hyper local, something the TV reporters won't cover. For instance, I follow the handful  of local city council members and mayors and WV House and Senate members who tweet. I follow local people who are thought leaders or "tribal" leaders on subjects of interest. And, yes, I follow all the non-sports and non-weather journalists because sometimes they tweet stuff hours before it goes on the air or on their website.

I subscribe to several text messaging services where I can get local news before it's on TV or internet.

And there's the opportunity for an enterprising terrestrial radio executive like Dotsy Klei, Mike Robinson or Scott Finn. People who don't have internet or don't know how to get texts on their phones will listen to live, locally-originating call-in radio. And right now, none of the Big Clusters in Charleston offer it. 

Back  in the 90s I was walking down the street with a radio station GM in Lexington, KY, who predicted that "in ten years" there would be no humans in the radio studios of any Lexington. His prediction was overly pessimistic but he was a lost right, There are still humans in the studios but there is no live, local news on the air in many radio markets including ours. 

One Big Box radio exec told me there is no budget to hire an on-air "personality". I told her/him that the lack of a paid talent provides the station a chance to put hyper-local volunteers on the air. You can't tell me there are people all over the Kanawha Valley who would gladly volunteer to be radio hosts on your live, local, call-in shows. 


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Live, Local, Call-In Talk Radio in Charleston, WV: Who's Gonna Get The Franchise On That Monopoly?

"If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in." (Law 2 of Ries and Trout's 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

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Apparently radio executives haven't read Ries and Trout's 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. If they had, they wouldn't keep pouring money into stations that are the number 3 rock or country stations in their markets when they could be using these under-performing stations to create a new category in which they can be number one.

John Raese's West Virginia Radio Corporation handed some enterprising competitor a gift when they fired Agnello and Johnson and gave up the monopoly they  had on live, call-in talk radio in the Charleston market. Perhaps other radio companies like Bristol Broadcasting and LM Communications have not yet opened the gift because they are afraid West Virginia Radio Corp's Mike Buxser isn't finished giving Mike Agnello "second chances". 

I keep hoping Scott Finn at West Virginia Public Broadcasting will accept the gift of having the monopoly on live, local, call-in talk radio. I know that Secretary Kay Goodwin, who sits on WVPB's governing board, is a fan of talk radio and WV Public Radio can actually put on a statewide show. If they don't want to go head to head against Hoppy Kercheval in the morning, they can take the old Johnson-Agnello slot from 3 to 6. 

But I'd be OK if the new GM at LM Communications, Dotsy Klei,  did it or if Mike Robinson at Bristol Broadcasting did it. 

Somebody needs to do it. Live, local, call-in talk radio.  It's a category somebody gets to have all to themselves in Charleston if they'll just accept the gift given them by John Raese and Mike Buxser. 

Higginbotham At Large reads all submitted comments but only publishes comments from clearly identified submitters. No Ring of Gyges for you.

Keywords: Nitro, WV, West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, 

Why A Charleston Radio Station Can Profit From "The Law Of The Category" And Give Talk Radio Fans An Alternative To Agnello

West Virginia Radio exec, Mike Buxser's,  recent re-hiring of serial brand-killing, conservative talk show hypocrite, Michael Agnello, gives me a chance to ask a question I've been asking radio station owners and program directors everywhere I go: why would a radio station rather be the 3rd country station or the 4th oldies station or the nobody-ever-heard-of-us rock station in a market the size of Charleston, WV when there's an unclaimed format category they could have all to themselves?

Did these radio people not read Reis and Trout's bestseller, 21 Immutable Laws of Marketing? Law #2 is "the law of the category" which says "if you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in."

What is that unclaimed category Charleston, WV station owners are failing to claim for themselves? Here it is: talk radio for talk radio fans who can't stand talk radio hypocrite Michael Agnello.

No, this category doesn't exist in other markets. In other markets the new category might have to be "liberal/progressive talk radio" but here in Charleston all you have to do to create a new category is be the only talk station in town where talk radio fans don't have to listen to MIchael Agnello.

I can think of several Charleston stations that could profit from Reis and Trout's Law Of The Category by making a format change.

First, there's WIHY radio at 1110 on the AM dial. WIHY is one of the few stations in the market that isn't owned by West Virginia Radio, Bristol Broadcasting or LM Communications. WIHY is owned by Big River Radio of Blacksburg, VA. WIHY doesn't even show up in some of the ratings books I've seen so their "Classic Rock N Roll" format doesn't seem to be working very well for them in this market. Seems to me  Big River Radio has 4 choices: 1. they could simply turn off the transmitter. 2. they could sell the station. 3. they could double down on a format that isn't working for them in this market and keep doing what they're doing (and probably keep getting the results they've been getting) or they could make a bold format change. I suggest they consider becoming the talk show station for talk show fans who can't stand Michael Agnello.

Then there's LM Communications which owns a cluster of stations in the Charleston area. At least two of LM's stations - at 1300 and 1410 on the AM dial - aren't showing up in the ratings so, clearly, what they're doing isn't working from an audience size standpoint. One of those stations might make money, however, because it's a listener-supported Christian station which means the content providers actually pay the station for the airtime. The content providers, in turn, ask their listeners to support their "ministry". In case you've ever wondered how a radio station with a 1% market share can survive, this is how they do it.

People who have been around St. Albans for, say, 45 years or so, may know that radio station WKLC AM at 100 Kanawha Terrace in St. Albans was LM Communications' President, Lynn Martin's, first radio station. LM Communications owns clusters in Lexington, KY - where Martin now lives - and in Charleston, SC.

I think Lynn Martin should consider profiting from Reis and Trout's Law Of The Category by reformatting 1410 as the only Charleston talk radio station that doesn't have Michael Agnello.

I even know where LM Communications' Lynn Martin and Big River Radio's Edward Baker can get their first 3PM radio show to air opposite radio talk show hypocrite and serial brand-killer, Michael Agnello. Former Huntington mayor, Bobby Nelson, is already doing a civil, thinking man's talk from the Kindred Communications studios in downtown Huntington. As a former state senator and former Congressman Ken Hechler staffer, Bobby Nelson already has a fan base in Charleston so it would make sense for an enterprising Charleston station owner to simply license the show from Kindred and simulcast it in the Charleston market. Since Huntington and Charleston are only 50 miles apart and Bobby knows as much about the local politics and news in Charleston as he does about what's going on in Huntington, Bobby could easily adapt his show to the geographical expansion.

There's a new sheriff in town at LM's Charleston, WV cluster, cluster manager, Reggie Jordan. I think this is Jordan's chance to do something bold, something that would give LM a category in which they can be #1. They can't be #1 at rock or country or any of the other categories they compete in. Their situation is tailor-made for the Reis/Trout Law of The Category.

For readers who don't know why I call Michael Agnello a "hypocrite" and a "serial brand-killer", just go to Google and find the Charleston Gazette and Charleston Daily Mail articles about Agnello's numerous arrests for assault, drunk driving and driving on a suspended license. While you're at it, look up articles about how Agnello lost his job as a Charleston pastor when he had an affair with a member of the church staff.

On a recent show, Agnello was calling on the Boone County Board of Education to fire teachers they caught using meth even though this Bible-quoting former preacher has been the recipient and beneficiary of unprecedented grace on the part of West Virginia Radio, WCHS and Mike Buxser.

Perhaps Agnello should read the story of the "Unforgiving Servant" in Matthew 18 before he goes on the air and advocates the career death penalty when he only has a radio career because of the long suffering of his employer who has forgiven him numerous times after numerous arrests.