KC Confidential

It’s August, fall and football are already in the air…

Why not, given the sorry state of baseball here? It’s hardly surprising that local sports talk stations were looking ahead to the NFL season. Despite the Chiefsn poor preseason play.

Music heavyweights KCFX and The Rock were softer but still strong. But who tied a lead balloon to alt rocker The Buzz‘s formerly high flying kite? Maybe Lazlo should spend more time in a real church and less preaching politics in his. And now…

KANSAS CITY’S TOP 10 RADIO STATIONS IN MEN 25-54, 6 A.M. TO MIDNIGHT, MONDAY THRU FRIDAY

1)  KCFX FM with a 11.9 share, down from 12.8 in July. Still going strong but awaiting will a shakey Chiefs season take a toll?

2)  The Rock with a 10.1 share, down from July’s 10.6. Johnny Dare still living large with new contract in tow.

3)  WHB with a 7.7 share up from 6.2. This is why you gotta ignore bloggers touting 6-plus and 12-plus seven day ratings that plainly do not matter. And where you’ll find ridiculous headlines like this one: "KCSP STILL AHEAD OF WHB"

4) 610 Sports with a 5.2 share, up from 4.2. See what I mean? A strong showing from Nick Wright and company, but not strong enough.

5) NewsRadio KMBZ with a 5.2 share up from 4.2. Are things starting to gel for KMBZ’s new AM-FM simulcast? They’d better. Entercom forfeited up thousands of paid monthly ad spots on KUDL FM to simulcast KMBZ.

6)  KCMO FM with a 4.5 share up from 3.6. Baby boomers and their kids still living large.

7)  Q104 FM with a 4.3 share down from 5.8. A really bad book, better hope it’s a one off.

8)  Alice with a 4.2 share, up from 3.7 in July.

9)  KFKF FM with a 3.9 share up from 2.6. Hard not to do the math, Q104 down a point and a half, KFKF up about the same.

10. The Buzz with a 3.9 share, rocketing downward from 6.3 the month before.

Let me remind you again that WHB did not lose to 610 Sports.

Bloggers who don’t have access to ratings – and most don’t – have disingenuously or naively reported that 610 topped WHB. However that’s based on nights and weekends when the Royals play and has nothing to do with the head-to-head weekday matchups, where 90 percent of the stations revenues and listeners are won and lost.

You guys did a kickass job of indulging me on my explanation of why the seven day, 6-plus radio ratings are bogus…

Actually, you barely laid a glove on me. Not even Kansas Karl. Obviously, you had other radio things on your minds, which is fine. Not that I couldn’t use the abuse. Anyway, here are the Top 20 radio stations in KC for August in adults 25 to 54, Monday through Friday 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Read ’em and bleep!

1) Who else? KCFX FM, The Fox, with an 8.7 share, up from 8.6 in July and the station’s best month in a year.

2)  The Rock with an 8.1 share, down slightly from 8.5 in July.

3)  K-Love with a 6.4 share up strongly from a 5.3. No two ways about it, these Christians are lions!

4)  Mix 93.3 FM with a 5.6 share, up from a 4.5 share.

5)  KCMO FM with a 5.2 share, up from 4.8.

6)  KPRS FM with a 5.0 share up from 4.8

7)  WHB with a 4.5 share up sharply from a 3.5 share.

8)  Alice with a 4.0 down from a 4.4 in July.

9)  The Buzz, freefalling to a 3.9 from a 6.1 share.

10) Q104 FM with a 3.8 share, down sharply from a 6.0 share a month earlier.

11) Jack FM (4.6 in July), KFKF (4.1) & NewsRadio KMBZ (3.1) all tied at a 3.7 share.

12) KCUR FM with a 3.6 share up from 2.9. Public radio hanging strong with the suits.

13) The Vibe at a 3.1 share, down from 3.3.

14) 610 Sports with a 3.0 share, up from a 2.5.

14) The Point at a 2.8 share down from 2.9 (the lowest month since its spring launch).

15) WDAF FM with a 2.8 share, same as in July.

16) Magic at a 2.6 share up from 2.1

17) KCMO AM with a 2.0 share versus 1.8 in July.

*******

August was rough riding for Q104 – the country station built on the once mighty shoulders of Randy Miller – falling from 4th to 10th place.

And again, how about those Christians? We must be in Kansas or something.

Later…

There’s only on word for the ratings fall suffered by radio station The Buzz in August…argggh!

Five short months ago the local alt rocker was kicking butt and taking names in adults 25 to 54 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a 7.4 share of listeners. In August – during its bitter falling out with music fest Kanrocksas – it plunged from No. 3 in the marketplace with a 6.1 share to No. 9 with a 3.9 share. Ouch!

It gets worse.

In Men 25-54 in that same period, The Buzz fell from a 6.3 share to 3.9 for 10th place. Its morning drive show dropped from 4th to 15th from a 6.2 share in men 25-54 to to 2.9.

Things could be worse…

Vaunted afternoon drive show the Church of Lazlo slipped, but only to 6th with a 4.4 share (down from a 6.2 in July).

If defenders of The Buzz had their say, they’d note in listeners 18 to 49, The Buzz only went from 2nd to 6th, from a 6.6 to a 4.6 share.

That said, the station was up in the 8s in that demo not long ago and maintained a strong grip on second and third place over the course of the past 12 months.

How bad is it?

"For one book you don’t get freaked out," says one observer. "You go, ‘Oh, #%@$, but you don’t freak out."

The flip side of that rationalization:

The Buzz has to hope it’s an aberration (as opposed to bad karma for doing Kanrocksas dirty), but in the PPM metered ratings era – unlike the diary days past – dramatic aberrations such as these just don’t happen often.

Stay tuned….

I’ll give you the correct, accurate, important radio ratings and rankings shortly…

In the meantime allow me to explain why the publically published ratings for listeners ages 6 and older, Monday thru Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight are unimportant. Misleading even. Those are the ratings Arbitron releases to the public and media largely for PR purposes.

They’re free-to-good-home, unlike the key ratings ad agencies and stations pay thousands of dollars to obtain.

If all Arbitron had to offer were the 6-plus numbers, it would be out of business.

The ratings that matter measure key listening hours and specific demographics important to stations and advertisers. And the timeslots where the most listenership and revenues are attained are on weekdays between 6 a.m. (morning drive) and 7 p.m. (afternoon drive). 

Far fewer listeners tune in outside of those hours, with few exceptions.

What’s more, the 6-plus ratings actually distort the real radio ratings and rankings.

Here’s how…

Ninety percent of most station’s revenues and listeners are concentrated in those weekday timeslots, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. That makes for a 65 hour a week sweet spot. That’s where you’ll find the stations top air talent. They don’t pay big bucks to have people hang out at night and on weekends when listeners aren’t listening.

Why would they?

During night and weekend hours, stations tighten their belts and make due with parttime air talent, infomercials and fill in (often syndicated) shows. Shows that generate income and/or keep things on the cheap while business is slow.

Thus averaging in listeners on nights and weekends in a 6 and older demo only serves to muddy the real ratings picture.

Because adding an additional 61 hours of nights and weekends dillutes the key ratings by 93 percent.

Anybody think NewsRadio KMBZ’s night and weekend, paid home repair and male sex performance infomercials are important to the station’s core weekday listeners and advertisers?

Those off hours shows can be very profitable from a revenue standpoint, but mostly they’re inexpensive ways of filling time without increasing overhead.

Only in the case of 610 Sports and KCFX FM – with night and/or weekend Royals and Chiefs games – do those off hours truly matter. And even then, mainly to sponsers, advertisers and listeners of those specific games.

That’s why when 610 Sports up and comer Nick Wright appeared to best WHB strongman Kevin Kietzman earlier this year – because of overlaps of his day part with Royals games or pre game shows – WHB cried foul.

Make no mistake, Wright’s well on his way to giving Kietzman a run for his money. In spite of backlash from the soon-to-be-seniors set. However, the real ratings test will go down after the Royals are interred this fall and it’s a straight up, head-to-head contest.

To that end, KC Confidential will provide and report only key weekday ratings and explain how stations are doing in their specific target demos, usually adults, men or women ages 25 to 54.

The bottom line:

Don’t believe blogger’s grand pronouncements about which station won or didn’t based on those misleading  6-plus ratings.

You’re getting what they paid for those numbers – nothing.

Lost in shuffle and the blistering August heat was a story about banning at KU….

That’s right, banning. I’m not talking about KU football coach Turner Gill‘s banning of Twitter for the team. We’re talking "Banned in Boston" type banning. Or like the time the Plaza tried to banish panhandler Jerry Mazer.

You know, banning.

Take the case of former Pennylane music guru Saul Tucker, aka the KU sports mascot who goes by White Owl…

After pyramiding his strange looks and dance moves into a love affair with the KU football team (when it was good a handful of years back) and a 20-something KU coed, Tucker vaulted from homeless dude to toast of the town.

No mas….

Tucker and his far younger fiance have long since parted company and exchanged restraining orders. His "White Owl" persona was hit with a five year ban keeping him off campus. When Tucker tried to relive the magic a couple weeks back on the first day of school he was arrested by police, escorted off campus and issue a tresspassing citation.

Turns out White Owl isn’t the only one banned from KU…

A Lawrence Journal World investigation recently revealed that KU banned 42 people in 2010. Forty-two.

Twenty-eight more individuals have been banned this year through early July.

"Some of those were banned from the entire campus," KU spokeswoman Jill Jess told LJW, "but the majority were only for parts of campus."

"Under a Kansas Board of Regents policy, the university can ban faculty, staff, students or visitors for activity that obstructs the function of the university or creates an imminent threat or danger to people or property," the Journal World resports.

The Journal World petitioned KU for a list of the banned, but KU blacked out the names of nonstudents like Tucker.

"But what they did release provides a glimpse at the kind of activity that can get you barred from stepping foot on the university grounds, at least for a limited duration," the Journal World reports. "Many of the letters simply stated that a person had been banned from student housing facilities for violating drug or weapons policy, or for criminal behavior. But some of the letters describe more unusual cases."

Take the dude who was banned from campus for five years, "after a series of incidents in Watson Library," LJW reports. "’He came in and was yelling at patrons and telling them how hard it is to digest food after killing people.’

"The letter described how he also defecated on the floor of a fourth floor restroom and, with fecal matter on his clothes, asked library patrons if they had any pants he could use. He then entered Anschutz Library at 1 a.m. and grabbed a library patron’s laptop and threatened to slap him. The person also had an extensive criminal history with the Lawrence police."

Sounds like a good banning…

As for White Owl, Tucker could not be reached for this column.

Stay tuned.

Ready to get star struck?

Find yourself moping and daydreaming all day? Fantascizing becoming the next Matt Donnelly or something?

Mope no more.

KC Confidential is looking for someone to help lighten the onerous burden of almost single handedly carrying the entire Greater Kansas City and Lawrence sports scene upon his back; World’s Humblest Scribe, field marshall Craig Glazer.

That’s right (and he’s always right), this may be the opportunity you’ve dreamed of. The day you prayed for but feared would ever come. And now it’s here.

A word of caution though, two things: You gotta be smarter than me and Craig combined – shouldn’t be a problem – and you positively gotta be able to write. Wouldn’t hurt if you could spell either and keep song lyrics straight.

Finally, in no way is this our contribution to helping end unemployment. On the contrary, this is our way of providing journalistic shelter to a sportswriter with True Grit.

But enough….hit hearne@kcconfidential.com if interested.

READING KU’S "BIG 12" TEA LEAVES

Not every communication re the impending death of the Big 12 is meeted out to sports journalists. Take the email KU Alumni Association prez Kevin J. Corbett dispatched re KU’s plans for a Big 12 afterlife.
 

"Dear Jayhawk," it begins. "Amid the latest round of conference realignment discussions, I want all KU alumni to know that Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little and Dr. Sheahon Zenger, KU athletics director, are aggressively pursuing the best possible outcome for KU."

It doesn’t say much, but the message is clear. KU’s actively pursuing and presumeably considering its options outside the Big 12. And that it won’t be caught with its pants down when and if the nightmare unfolds.

Which is good, but…

It also feeds in to the demise of the Big 12, when pretty much all its teams – with the possible exception of Baylor – are out fishing for new conference affiliations. Can assuring alums that such a process/search is underway help but fuel the fires now consuming the Big 12?

*******

Wanna Save $7, Go to Greenwood

Who doesn’t like a healthy discount?

Especially for something you actually know and want. That’s why businesses like Blanc Burger have kicked major butt at Groupon with its half-off deals.

The flip side of that coin?

Check out the myriad failed deals on the KC Star’s new DealSaver and the litany of let’s-make-a-dealmakers out pimping for restaurants and businesses that in many cases nobody’s heard of. And/or they’re miles and miles out of the way.

To wit, is saving $7.50 on $15, like Tuesday’s Star deal for a Mexican restaurant in Greenwood, Mo. really an incentive?

Buyers must go through the hassel of scouring the fine print in the deal, fill out the signup info, ante up their credit card numbers, then drag down to wherever – like Greenwood – and present what passes for a cetificate to some stranger before they either lose the coupon or it expires.

"At some point – it’s almost embarrassing to show up with one of those things," says one local marketing maven.

*******

GOING WITH FAM TO BRIMINGHAM

Anybody remember that line?

That’s the 1981 slogan for when revered KU football coach Don Fambrough took the Jayhawks to the Hall of Fame Bowl. They lost to Mississippi State, but for decades Fambrough was the tried and true face of KU football in Lawrence.

Until his death earlier this week at age 88, following a fall.

Three things...

Check out the Fall 2011 issue of Lawrence Magazine for a touching tribute by Fambrough to his beloved wife Del, who died 10 years earlier.

"She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen," Fambrough says. "She was absolutely gorgeous. She could have any boy, probably, in the state of Texas. Beauty, brains, she had it all."

The couple were happily married 60 years, and 610 Sports host Nick Wright never so much as tweeted them a salutation, thank heavens!

One anecdote from Fam’s going away magazine tribute worth reliving; his enlistment in the Air Force.

The Lawrence Journal World is reporting that it was vertigo that kep Fam from flying. That’s incorrect.

"I washed out as a pilot because I had no perception," Fambrough told Lawrence Magazine. "One time I teried to land, and I was about 3,000 feet up in the air. The instructor said, ‘Fambrough, I can’t pass you because if you fly an airplane, it’s pretty important you know how to land.’ "

Student newspaper the University Daily Kansan posted a YouTube video of Fam being interviewed by a sideline hottie a couple years back about his "hatred" of the University of Missouri.

"Would you rather have tio eat spam for one week straight or have to go to one class at the University of Missouri – online, it could be an online class even?" the reporter asked.

"I’d eat spam forever," Fambrough shot back. "I disliked Missouri when I played against them. I disliked Missouri as an assistant coach. I disliked Missouri when I was head coach and I dislike ’em now. And I always will."

Even the college scholarship Fambrough set up for great granddaughter Cora has an anti MU clause in it, Fam said.

"Right at the top of the policy it says, if you should by any means, go to the University of Missouri, this scholarship is null and void."

To a large extent Fam’s hatred of MU was tongue in cheek…

Like the time he told the Lawrence Journal World, “Don’t get me wrong, a lot of nice people go to the University of Missouri. But when they spend time there, something happens to them because by the time they graduate, none of them are any good.”

Finally, memorial services for Fambrough will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at First Christian Church in Lawrence.

Lots of things to elbow around today, so let’s get started…

ARE CONCERTS AT LIVESTRONG WORTH THE DAMAGE?

Did you see Matt Donnelly‘s sum up about the horrendous field conditions last night at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, home of the soccer team formerly known as The Wizards?

"LIVESTRONG has recently hosted two concerts on its turf, and the wear and tear has turned the once pristine grass into a total nightmare," Donnelly writes. "Throughout the game, players and coaches were seen tamping down large chunks of turf that made the potholes in Lawrence seem small."

Should Sporting Kansas City owners plan to continue raking in extra dough on concerts, they need to do one of two things – or both.

First, come up with a way of covering it for concerts that doesn’t do irreperable harm. Seemingly, this was all figured out in advance since the stadium was specifically designed to host these type of events. Second, hire someone to take care of the grass like former Arrowhead sod sultan George Toma.

Toma could shore up a bad turf in days and SKC has had weeks but still was unable to get the job done.

*******

TOUGH TICKET SALE ALERT, TAKE ONE

Maybe it’s me, but $402 for a pair of reasonably primo ducats to see (yawn) Michael McDonald & Boz Scaggs at Starlight seems a tad much.

Maybe it’s the $26 per ticket service charge that takes it over the top. Although musically speaking, it would almost have to be at gun point to get me to attend. But there’s no accounting for taste, right?

Still $402 for two tickets?

*******

TOUGH TICKET SALE, TAKE TWO

Might the college football equivalent of the sign of the apocalypse be this year’s KU football team’s Groupon offer for "up to 63 percent off KU football tickets"?

Seems like only yesterday former KU AD Lew Perkins was kicking longtime KU football loyalists out of their seats at Lawrence’s Memorial Stadium to make way for higher dollar donors.

Funny how time flies.

With Sports Illustrated forecasting a 1-11 season, prospective KU football ticketbuyers find themselves in the unenviable position of deciding which of the 11 remaining losing games they wish to attend.

The ironic part being, that many (if not most) of the longtime KU season ticketholders excommunicated by Perkins, were through-thick-and-thin types.

Now that "thin" is back in.

*******

SWALLOW AT YOUR OWN RISK

On the heels of Matt Donnelly noting how expensive the beers were at LIVESTRONG, promoter Jeff Fortier weighed in on Facebook last night – presumeably from the SKC-Galaxy game with this culinary observation:

"The food at livestrong sporting blowz!"

*******

SPEAKING OF INDIAN SPRINGS SHOPPING CENTER…

Return with me now to 1992 when former Pitch editor C.J. Janovy – running the show then at former alt rag The New Times – decided to do a hit piece on  on a beleaguered but still battling Indian Springs Mall.

Local movie powerhouse AMC Theatres was still operating a multiplex there and had recently completed a major overhaul and upgrade of its theater.

Unbeknownst to Janovy, obviously.

Because in an effort to spice up New Times "Best Of" issue that fall, she buried a dagger in AMC by declaring Indian Springs the city’s worst movie house. Based unfortunately on the state of the mall rather than the redo that actually had catapulted Indian Springs to near the top of the city’s best movie theaters.

Worse yet, the New Times – embroiled at the time in a bitter battle against the early Pitch – lost its exclusive distrribution deal with AMC, because not only did AMC feel betrayed by a marketing partner, it was extremely upset at having one of its best theaters wrongly besmirched.

Give it up for fallen Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks…

But first let’s get real. Odds are Hendricks would like nothing more than to poke one of my eyes. Or, in a kinder, gentler mood, cut out my journalistic tongue. Since leaving the newspaper nearly three years ago I (reluctantly at first)  embarked on a course of citiquing it as I do other local media. 

And frankly, there was no easier target than Mad Mike.

His columns – with some exception –  were a paragon of mediocrity. While they shone brightly next to those of also ousted columnist Steve Penn and Mary Sanchez, column writing just wasn’t Hendricks’ thing.

I also remember the lengthy, at times futile search for Star "Metro" columnists long ago that brought Hendricks to power.

And I recall another Mike Hendricks – the other Mike Hendricks…

The one who’s body of work stood out to me in my early days at the Star. That lead to his being annointed columnist. Like the Star Magazine story Hendricks penned in the year of our lord 1996.

"The hills are alive …with the sound of bulldozers Is Mission Hills being built anew – or torn asunder?" its headline read.

"Marble goddesses gaze languidly at the Range Rovers and Jaguars whooshing past on Mission Drive,"it begins. "Sprinklers spritz country club fairways. Tennis balls clap courts of clay. Another serene day in Mission Hills, paradise on the plains – shattered suddenly by a barbarous roar.

"Rrrrrrrrrump! Brick, pine and lath crackle under a bulldozer’s tread. Plaster dust swirls like a demon. Four bedrooms, four baths. Once the residence of a heart surgeon and his wife, the $500,000 home on Overhill Road is pulverized and carted off to the dump like sweepings from the Jewel Ball. A chainsaw snarls from a ridge above the Kansas City Country Club. Hackberry and walnut trees topple into a clearing where a $700,000 home once stood.

"Bugs skitter across a pond forming in what was until recently the basement of yet another posh address.

"Demolition crews thunder down Mission Hills‘ winding lanes like panzers through the Ardennes. They clear expensive split-levels and gracious Colonials from properties valued at three-quarters of a million dollars. Ten in the last year or so. More to come.

"How can they be tearing down Mission Hills?"

Not only was Hendricks’ story dead on and timely, it was wonderfully well-written.

Including gems like his characterization of Mission Hills "as the seat of old money, home to corporate titans, senior law partners and trust-fund loafers." Contrasted with upstart upscale hood Hallbrook as being the " gilded ghetto to the south, where pricey homes sit cheek by jowl on small lots staked with pathetic saplings."

Clearly the dude could write…and report.

That said, Hendricks didn’t much like it when I outted him for (foolishly) trashing his editors at the Star on Facebook after being demoted from three columns a week to two. While taking a one third paycut while losing benefits and a lengthy paid vacation. Nor the time shortly thereafter when he prevailed on said Facebook friends for help find him a high paying, fun job to replace his newly shitty one at the Star.

And of course, he didn’t like it when I wrote about how he became a national PR industry joke for a failed fling at landing a public relations gig in Topeka. An effort punctuated by Hendricks explanation to the lady that would have become his boss that he was better qualified for her position than the she was hiring for underneath her.

See, here’s the deal…

Mostly Hendricks didn’t like what I wrote about him and that I wrote about him, but there was no disputing the facts.

So instead he hung his hat on that I should have called him for a comment. That’s fair. Under many circumstances news subjects must be called for their comment. At other times, when the misdeeds and/or exploits are public knowlege – as in the caseof  the H Man’s Facebook rants, job search and PR faux pas – straight humor and criticism are fair game.

In other words, he called me for a technical – the improper use of journalistic etiquette.

However, it wasn’t absolutely necessary that I call him to see if he got the joke.

Any number of Star columnists – including unnamed writers in its editorial division – deliver jests and jabs sans a friendly call to the subject of their scorn.

But I come here not to bury Mike Hendricks, I come here to praise him.

Because, as evidenced by today’s front page story about Indian Springs Shopping Center, Hendricks is back and he’s bad. And that’s good! He also did a nice job of covering the recent Plaza kidz melee and subsequent curfew action.

So kudos to the former columnist who couldn’t shoot straight.

He’s got a full paycheck again – apparently having escaped  part time purgatory – and while that paycheck is likely far smaller than the one he was cashing prior to the newspaper’s nosedive the past three years, my bet is Hendricks is plenty glad to have it. Lucky, too after dodging all those foot-in-mouth bullets.

So Mike, please accept this attaboy from me. And in lieu of a man hug, or call to you for comment, allow me to say, good luck  and keep up the good work.