Speed Gibson

This past I week I recorded the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday editions of the new KTLK morning show. It goes a full four hours from 5 to 9 AM, starring Andrew Colton and Kelly Guest. First, the time breakout:

  Hosts               62%

  Commercials         17%

  Local News           7%

  Traffic              4%

  Weather              3%

  FOX News             3%

  Sports               3%

  Rush Limbaugh        1% (Morning update)

I thought Willie Clark spread himself too thin covering 56 topics over his three day sample of 10.5 hours. These hosts covered 98 topics in their three day sample of 12 hours. Part of that is that this program has less traffic, sports, and no business news, i.e. fewer "drive time" distractions. They also had an additional 90 minutes to fill, since they start at 5 AM.

Willie Clark did not repeat any topics. Colter and Guest repeated several. (I only counted them once.) This isn't necessarily bad, as few people will listen to the entire show in this time period. For a current topic, like the Alito confirmation hearings, this is often a plus.

Besides 50 minutes of banter (happy talk, intros, exits), Judge Alito was the big subject, garnering 31 minutes. Five more topics received more than ten minutes: the Andrews murder (Edina couple who moved to Florida), Iraq, bird flu, whining TSA screeners, and the new St. Paul smoking ban. The last included a live telephone interview of Bob Moffitt, who was undetstandably happy, even happier no doubt when his false statements sailed through unchallenged.

Eleven more topics took 5-10 minutes, twenty more took 3-5 minutes, seventeen took 2-3 minutes, twenty eight took 1-2 minutes, and fifteen were under 1 minute.

While better than Clark at 100%, this show still has an uncomfortably high fluff factor of 42%.

In covering the news, Colton and Guest can't help but give us some insight into their politics, but otherwise the show is pretty much apolitical. I think that's a reasonable strategy, as you have many other programs on KTLK to handle that. If it matters, Colton seems to be somewhat left of center, while Guest somewhat right of center.

Andrew Colton's news experience shows, and Kelly Guest's smooth radio skills are an excellent complement. The chemistry works. They're still sound like they're rushing things a bit, but for a new team, doing very well at not stepping on each other's lines.

It's a good blend of national and local news, and while I could do without knowing if Angelina Jolie is pregnant or not, the fluff at least waits its turn behind the real news.

I'm impressed overall. In fact, it is now my new personal morning choice.

Next up (by request!): the KQ Morning Crew.