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(1/22/2001) Michael Savage Celebrates One Full Year in Syndication With 150 stations.
Savage, who rose to prominence as San Francisco’s top-rated afternoon drive-time talk show host has skyrocketed this last year into the national spotlight with ratings breakthroughs coast to coast. "Michael’s ratings are no San Francisco fluke!" says ABC’s legendary program director Jack Swanson. "This is the biggest breakthough show in years." Fall Arbitron ratings on San Francisco’s KSFO show Savage with an astounding 5.5 share for all persons 12+ and an amazing 4.3 share for the key 25-54 demographic, making Savage — an edgy conservative talker — the No. 1-rated afternoon show in liberal San Francisco, a market of over 75 stations.
Says Swanson to other PDs, "If you don’t take this show, your competitor will." And they have. In the last month alone, The Savage Nation has racked up Portland’s KXL, Orlando’s WDBO, Nashville’s WLAC, Reno’s KKOH, Spokane’s KGA, Birmingham’s WAPI, Boise’s KBOI, Fresno’s KMJ, Louisville’s WGTK, Sacramento’s KSTE, Grand Rapid’s WKBZ, and Las Vegas’ KDWN, to name a few. "Critical mass has been achieved," says Mark Masters, Talk Radio Network’s CEO. "We have added 50 strong stations in the last 10 weeks alone. He gets on one station in a group, and the word of mouth spreads within that group like wild fire about how really good this show is."
Julian Hudson, TRN’s affiliate director, says, "Almost every station that asks to take The Savage Nation on a delayed broadcast basis has come back to us within 30 days and asked to take it live. For 50k-watt KGA, they took the show 6 p.m.- 9 p.m. delayed starting on January 8. Last Monday, by Wednesday January 11, Dean Allan called me back and said they had to move it live (4 p.m.-7 p.m.) starting January 29. This type of breakthough show only happens once every five to 10 years."
Indeed, wherever Savage’s show has been put on, ratings have often doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. WTMA’s Jason Wilmot saw his 25-54 numbers jump from a 1-share to a 5-share book to book. Says Wilmot of Savage, "If you program talk radio, you must air the Michael Savage Show — it’s the perfect drive-time show."
Bob Sinclair, owner of WNIS Norfolk, VA, said, "The Savage Nation received the quickest reaction to any new show that WNIS has ever put on."
Savage’s personal appeal surprised even his syndicators when Savage rented an auditorium last November in Marin County, CA, and filled it with a standing room crowd of 2000+ Savage fans who were only too happy to shell out $50-$75 each to see Savage in the flesh. "It was amazing to see the power this guy has over an audience and the way his fans can’t get enough," said Toni Howell, program director for Talk Radio Network. "Most hosts wouldn’t be able to get 200 fans to show up for free, but Savage charged and sold out the entire auditorium of 2,000. It was like a rock concert for conservatives."
Praise for The Savage Nation is coming in from affiliate programmers with KSFO’s Jack Swanson leading the pack. Cliff Albert of San Diego’s KSDO says, "I knew the show was good, but I didn’t know it was this good. Michael Savage gets ratings! He’s a pro and knows how to make talk radio interesting and fun."
"The Michael Savage Show is so compelling, you can build your whole station around him," says Bruce Pollock, general manager of the Simmons Radio Group, which airs Savage on their stations in Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. According to Pollock, reaction to Savage has been overwhelming in both markets.
"This is the most explosive talent we have ever uncovered," says Connie Kovis, general manager of WGL in Fort Wayne, IN. Kovis’ station has also seen strong trends in all the demos since Savage joined her lineup.
"We put the show on our 10k-station in Denver and our sister station in Vail," says Ron Nickell, broadcast consultant and senior vice president of Radio Colorado Network in Denver. "We had just changed formats from music to talk so we didn’t expect to make an impact for a while, but after six weeks we were receiving overwhelming response to Savage. But then we got the biggest surprise we could have hoped for in gauging listener loyalty — we had to preempt the first hour of the Michael Savage Show on one Monday night — within 15 minutes the phones started ringing off the hook asking where Savage was. These calls continued all day the next day. This guy had already gained a huge, loyal following in no time at all. It is amazing."
Savage’s out-of-the-box successes have the folks at TRN very excited and optimistic. Although the company has done an admirable job of maintaining and developing a major 24/7 national presence with a variety of respectable personalities since its shareholders sold the mega-successful Art Bell program to Premiere Radio Networks several years ago, it has been anxious to establish another talk radio upper echelon superstar — a feat that is not an easy task for any syndication firm in today’s tight environment. Savage is now clearly fulfilling that promise.
"Michael is an original, the real thing," says Stu Krane, former partner in EFM Media, the company that developed Rush Limbaugh, and now a partner in TRN. "We got into this to be part of something new with real break-out potential — and it’s happening."
At the time of this writing, The Michael Savage Show has quickly grown to over 150 stations since its launch in January last year. The fact that this conservative-issues talker was able to become No. 1 in his time slot in liberal San Francisco is noteworthy. "I’m not your father’s talk show host," says Savage with a grin, sitting in his home studio in the Bay Area. "My background is somewhat eclectic. I also didn’t follow the usual path to talk radio."
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