No More Franken

Missoula’s Progressive Talk Radio Goes Off the Air

By Dana Green, 2-28-06

Just last summer, a Missoula radio station launched the town’s first progressive talk radio program, throwing down the gauntlet to the conservative radio hosts already dominating the airwaves.

Now operators of KNS, 105.9 on the dial, plan to drop the progressive talk radio format this week, citing weak advertising sales. Update: Air America went off the air Tuesday afternoon.

The talk radio station featured local news and commentary, but the heart of the programming was Air America Radio, a national network featuring well known, left-leaning talk show hosts and comedians such as Al Franken, Rachel Maddow, and Janeane Garofalo.

Dave Cowan is general manager for the local company, Mt. Sentinel Broadcasting, which runs the three stations: The Trail 103.3, adult contemporary 104.5, and KNS. He said Salt Lake City-based Simmons Media, which took over Mt. Sentinel operations just last month, made the final decision to change formats last week.

“I would have liked to try for a couple more months," Cowan said. “But if it were my money it was losing, I don’t know if I could do it."

Getting people to listen wasn’t the problem – liberal talk radio was a huge hit in Missoula from the beginning.

Just last fall, Cowan said, an Eastlan ratings survey in Missoula and the Bitterroot showed the Al Franken show with a respectable 3.6 percent of listeners – ahead of Rush Limbaugh, who runs on two area stations.

“Al Franken was huge," Cowan said. “(He) clobbered Rush. The listeners were there – and the commercials were inexpensive."

However, selling ads during Al’s airtime was a different story.

Cowan said that local businesses were reluctant to commit to the alternative programming.

"There seems to be concern from advertisers with being associated" with controversial programming, he said. "I didn't think that would be a problem in Missoula of all places."

KNS Sales Manager Jim Fisher agreed that business owners were shying away from the format – even if they were avid listeners to the station.

"A lot of them loved to listen, but they didn't want to put their name on it," Fisher said.

But Lesley Lotto, who resigned last week as the news and programming director for KNS after learning about changes in format and her duties, said she believes the KNS sales team didn’t wholeheartedly try to sell the product.

“The sales staff was not supporting it," Lotto said, adding that while some sales team members had tried to market the liberal format, others, she felt, were against the programming and didn't have incentive to sell it.

Cowan admitted that the KNS sales team might have decided it was easier to sell ads on the Trail or the adult contemporary station.

“Some of it’s our fault," he said. “Because we were so new, we maybe didn’t really try to sell the hard one."

Both Lotto and Cowan believe a liberal talk radio station is financially viable in Missoula – if there is enough cash flow to survive downturns.

Mt. Sentinel Broadcasting was a bold venture from the beginning – Kevin Terry, a radio engineer who worked in Missoula in the 1990s and now lives in Salt Lake, bought the three Missoula frequencies at an FCC auction in 2004. He started the company from scratch, setting up shop in Missoula and leasing operations to Marathon Media. Simmons took over operations from Marathon last month.

“If we’d been Clear Channel, it would have been a lot easier," Cowan said, referring to the national media giant which operates 1,200 stations across the country and six stations – three FM and three AM – in the Missoula market. “There’s no doubt there was strong support in the community, but from an economic (standpoint), we didn’t have that luxury."

In fact, Cowan had a business suggestion for the folks over at Clear Channel – pick up the Air America radio program for one of the stations with weaker ratings.

“Clear Channel or Fisher should pick up the format and put it on one of their AM stations," he said.

Meanwhile, 105.9 fans will now have to tune in online to hear Al Franken, who just visited Missoula last month to a sold-out crowd and much media fanfare.

Instead, on the local station they’ll hear a traditional music format, one that Lotto dismissively calls "just an iPOD shuffle."

“They’re going to take off a station that competed with no one (and) had phenomenal ratings, and put on a station that will compete with four others. It just doesn’t make any sense," she said.

Update: Still no word from Simmons Media reps on why they pulled the liberal talk radio format on KNS. Meanwhile, here are two articles on Billboard's Web site on Air America's finances and affiliates turning over to different formats after being bought by different companies.

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