Friday during John McClain's weekly visit to the J&R Show he made mention to one of his colleagues (David Barron) write up on KILT. Apparently, Mr Barron gave insight of what's going on at 610 and the increase in numbers/ratings. I like to begin by saying, it has always been my belief, if the main station is doing well, others will enjoy the benefits and vice versa.

The first thing about David's article that jumped out at me was

"Under any circumstances, KILT needs a big year from the Texans, and signs are encouraging."

I think I understand David as saying, more revenues for KILT hence higher ratings and selling more.

As I continued to read, the next item that hit me was

"In the August Arbitron report released this week, KILT increased its all-day share among men 25-54 by a third from last month and had doubled its audience shares in morning and afternoon drive from July.

In morning and afternoon drive, KILT hovers around the 4.0 share in men 25-54 that should be routine, and program director Gavin Spittle hopes the money the station has spent since going to a mostly local lineup with the loss of Yahoo Sports Radio is paying off. "

I can not front, I was thoroughly surprised to read this because I have not heard nor seen words like 4. anything in Houston in quite some time. Let me be "frank", by the inter-activeness of other stations, at some points I actually flirted with the thought "is 610 still the true number 1" Well according to David, KILT is smoking. Later in his article he alluded to KILT should "routinely" hover around 4 thereby implying they don't; IMO it's the euphoria of the Texans causing all of this.

WORDS FROM GAVIN SPITTLE

I am assuming, David received a comment from Gavin who's always willing to speak in regards to the station's direction/vision.

"CBS hasn't taken the cheap route. They've filled the holes," Spittle said. "It gives us the ability to build a bench for when our weekday guys are out. People know our weekend and nighttime guys."

Where I come from, that's called "shooting a slug". That boy Gavin is saying, we are not going to go "National" and at the same time we are going to make our weekends just as dominant as your weekday programming. He's knocking like 3 birds with one stone however in my WRAP IT UP section I will expound further on this. Whenever you need an analogy to relate to a real life event, seek Godfather. Gavin has basically pulled a Tom Hagen visiting the Hollywood producer. Offer a deal and if you reject it, oh well, HORSE HEAD IN THE BED. I thought the loss of Sporting News Radio would put a dent in 610 but they bounced back with Local.

Treating Marc Vandermeer like meat

David begin talking about Marc Vandermeer

It also provides options if the Texans take ad sales in house and hire morning drive host Marc Vandermeer as a full-time employee, as a lot of NFL teams have done with their play-by-play announcer.

Money Money Money

No, not my Marc. Texans, you can't have him. Let me stop because honestly, this makes sense. Right now if the Texans were to bounce while Marc is a CBS employee well it becomes a problem unless the Texans flat out say, screw it, we will hire someone else but why do that when you can hire him right now and removed that obstacle in addition to making money on his services. This will be interesting if has not already occurred.

JIM ROME EFFECT

David later said something in my opinion that was "spot on"

But I'm starting to wonder if Houston listeners have become so jaded with Jim Rome that his midday show on KILT is now a liability against local shows on KBME, KFNC (97.5 FM) and cellar-dweller KGOW (1560 AM).

For as much I praise Gavin and company for being "local" the one National Show they have is so 2005. Jim Rome's Show has not been the same since Travis Rodgers left. The Smackoffs are not the same, there's an increase volume of guests host, too much horse talk. Without going negative, the show is not entertaining anymore and I much rather listen to KGOW or KNFC during that slot.

Click here to read David Barron's article in it's entirety.

WRAP IT UP

I am happy for 610, they needed this good news and I am happy for the personalities over there. If the J&R Show really doubled as written by David, then Josh can kill the noise about being out of a job in November.

In David's future articles, I wish he can give us some definitive answers to who is the number one show because 610 and 790 are both claiming it in their promos.

What scares me in David's article is, if we thought 610 was "Kissing Ass" for the Texans the last couple of years, this negotiation period may be disgusting. Hell, it's already being displayed with personalities who were very critical starting to lighten the rhetoric. With this being the last year of their deal, I am expecting sports radio 610 to defacto become the Texans

Hemorrhoids

Now on to the good, HMW has made mention of the minority representation at these stations. As it stands right now, Gavin Spittle seems to be one of the only Program Directors in town trying to do something about it. Gavin Spittle brought in multiple minorities in various roles and he should be noticed for that. I am not saying these recent hires are in high profile positions but who knows if they bust ass and work their way through the ranks maybe they will.

Back to the numbers. after seeing the 4.0 (25-54) I was a little curious to how the numbers look with the 12+ population. Ha Ha, I still have questions about this math. All I can say is, if your over all numbers are say for instance 2 how do you get 8 when you take a portion of the 2's population. I'm like Ralph Cooper, something is not right about these numbers being represented.

Let's be real, will the Texans really leave KILT? I say No but if the Texans catch a wild hair and bolt to another station, 610 will change formats almost overnight. The Rockets alone wouldn't be enough to sustain their audience.

OUT