I would say it did work out. When they did the split shows, it was syndicated all over the country, including where I lived. That's how I got introduced to the show and started listening.
When they ended the FM show, a lot of time they would have shit planned that they were going over to do on the XM side..and the walkover. It was pretty smart. It made me start listening to XM because I wanted to hear it.
1) It's hard to re-establish a new show, the previous stern replacements also failed. O&A were previously an afternoon show as well, so they were 'new' to terrestrial mornings.
2) terrestrial radio has become total shit. They weren't allowed to say or do anything close to what they did on WNEW.
To add to the station flipping part, O&A did really well in most syndicated markets and in NY. The rest of the stations programming was doing poorly so they decided to flip formats to a top 40 station from the rock station it used to be. tl;dr O&A did fine, the rest of the programming was shit so they booted O&A in an attempt to reinvent themselves as a radio station
According to the Winter 2007 arbitron ratings, Opie and Anthony doubled Roth's ratings with their target demographic of 18 to 34-year-olds. But the improvement merely amounted to an increase of 2% to about 4% of the audience—a third of numbers Howard Stern got in New York City before moving to satellite radio.[17] Following the Summer 07 Arbitron ratings, Opie and Anthony's 18- to 34-year-olds ratings slipped, while their morning drive rating in NYC of 2.1 left them only ahead of sports based WFAN network in the morning.[18] In the spring 2008 under the new Portable people meter ratings system, Opie and Anthony again failed to crack the top ten in morning drive, and their flagship station WXRK ranked 20th out of 24 stations in overall ratings and out of the top ten in the coveted 25–54 demographic.[19]
Rock scream Tuesday, and all the other "day" bits was a joke in itself. They were mocking all of the regular radio bits after being told they needed to do more similar things by FM management.
Most of them were completely stupid, but a few became a regular bit/joke. Rock scream was one. Fun fact Thursday (I think) was another.
And if you've listened to O&A for more than 10 years you'd know that is exactly why they keep doing it. The recent listeners don't know the humor, then pain, then madness of the same repeated bit over and over again to the point where somehow it becomes funny again.
The show changed into something that wasn't fit for mass market after being on satellite exclusively, and when they did try to appeal to larger audiences the result was usually god awful (Antholini).
As an XM customer since 2004, I fucking hated the Free FM years. The show splitting was stupid and hearing the boys try to talk around all the dirty words in the first half of the show was terrible.
I know why they wanted to be on regular radio ($$$$$) but I did fucking jumping jacks when their regular FM show was finally canceled.
O&A is way too guy centric and doesn't have enough mass appeal. That's why they did so well in the afternoons, most people who leave the radio on at work are guys on job sites.
Bad timing and the split format was a terrible idea. They were also trying to re-establish an audience after the David Lee Roth debacle, and by then the audience had figured out how to use an iPod.
At least in Chicago, there was only one talk radio format station. O&A in the morning, then someone at noon (forget) then Steve Dahl in the afternoon. Chicago just wasn't giving them the chance, everyone liked the jocktober shit. So when the other shows were failing to bring the numbers. O&A numbers weren't good enough for the station to stay in business. Why everyone else preferred Eric and Kathy? I have no clue!
There are lots and lots of reasons that could be mentioned, but here are the main ones:
1) From 2000 (which is around O&A's best ratings at WNEW) to 2009 (when they were fired by CBS FM), radio had gone from the number one form of entertainment in their demo to number three behind TV and the internet. Avg. listening hours were about half. So the audience they were trying to win was much smaller, and listening a lot less. This alone is a big reason why a lot of guys left terrestrial, including Stern, Leykis, Carrola, and others. To some degree, O&A basically jumped on board a sinking ship to begin with.
2) The direction of the show's comedy had changed away from what mainstream people wanted. While I probably wouldn't even be a fan of O&A without Norton, he's probably to blame for them moving from mainstream comedy to cringe/insult comedy. It's not a coincidence that guys like Bob Kelly and Vos became regulars, while at WNEW the comedians (prior to Norton) were basically whoever was doing well at the time: guys like Brian Regan, Frank Caliendo, Jim Gaffigan, Jim Breur. Maybe not what a current or die hard fan would like, but fairly mainstream kind of guys. Also, O&A themselves were now rich and did not have relatable anecdotes or a similar lifestyle to their audience.
3) The FCC was much more aggressive at that time, so even stuff they did at WNEW previously was unacceptable at CBS.
4) They tried doing 6 hours of radio a day. 6 hours of any type of performance is hard, let alone doing radio material day in and day out. So naturally they had a lot of repetitive bits and segments where they weren't "all in".
Tough Crowd is one of the few things I can think of that has that same kind of back-and-forth insult humor that's short, quick, and witty - and that was canceled for low ratings. I can't think of one example where that style of humor has worked for a mainstream audience.
The nuclear fallout from the Janet Jackson superbowl incident pretty much destroyed FM radio. Look around, there is NOTHING out there anymore for regular bullshit talk radio. If you're not doing sports or politics, forget it.
because at the time, the public audience really didn't go for hack radio DJs that made up long, boring stories or constantly bombed and tried to say it was a bit, or talked about being a dad.
24 comments
17 Yogurt202 2014-02-08
I would say it did work out. When they did the split shows, it was syndicated all over the country, including where I lived. That's how I got introduced to the show and started listening.
When they ended the FM show, a lot of time they would have shit planned that they were going over to do on the XM side..and the walkover. It was pretty smart. It made me start listening to XM because I wanted to hear it.
And now I'm a piece of garabge.
6 Drunken_Wizard23 2014-02-08
They were castrated. Morning zoos had more leeway to speak freely than they did.
4 [deleted] 2014-02-08
1) It's hard to re-establish a new show, the previous stern replacements also failed. O&A were previously an afternoon show as well, so they were 'new' to terrestrial mornings.
2) terrestrial radio has become total shit. They weren't allowed to say or do anything close to what they did on WNEW.
3) The station flipped formats.
5 [deleted] 2014-02-08
To add to the station flipping part, O&A did really well in most syndicated markets and in NY. The rest of the stations programming was doing poorly so they decided to flip formats to a top 40 station from the rock station it used to be. tl;dr O&A did fine, the rest of the programming was shit so they booted O&A in an attempt to reinvent themselves as a radio station
9 pbpble 2014-02-08
Don't listen to Opie. Their ratings were shit.
4 DannyJRoss 2014-02-08
6 theo2112 2014-02-08
Rock scream Tuesday, and all the other "day" bits was a joke in itself. They were mocking all of the regular radio bits after being told they needed to do more similar things by FM management.
Most of them were completely stupid, but a few became a regular bit/joke. Rock scream was one. Fun fact Thursday (I think) was another.
6 adamtouchet 2014-02-08
RIP, "Cat Noise Wednesday", Love you, miss you.
0 regis69 2014-02-08
acknowledging that it sucks and is terrible radio does not make it not suck and not terrible. it was bad once, and they kept doing it over and over.
1 theo2112 2014-02-08
And if you've listened to O&A for more than 10 years you'd know that is exactly why they keep doing it. The recent listeners don't know the humor, then pain, then madness of the same repeated bit over and over again to the point where somehow it becomes funny again.
3 BlueSkyyyyyyze 2014-02-08
The show changed into something that wasn't fit for mass market after being on satellite exclusively, and when they did try to appeal to larger audiences the result was usually god awful (Antholini).
3 krbin 2014-02-08
As an XM customer since 2004, I fucking hated the Free FM years. The show splitting was stupid and hearing the boys try to talk around all the dirty words in the first half of the show was terrible.
I know why they wanted to be on regular radio ($$$$$) but I did fucking jumping jacks when their regular FM show was finally canceled.
2 brusox20 2014-02-08
Because regular radio sucks
2 Djs3634 2014-02-08
O&A is way too guy centric and doesn't have enough mass appeal. That's why they did so well in the afternoons, most people who leave the radio on at work are guys on job sites.
6 schwoogiejoe24 2014-02-08
YEAH YOU KNOW WHAT DO I KNOW I GO TO THE JOB SITE AND EAT MY SANDWICH OUT OF MY LUNCH PAIL AND DRINK MY COFFEE AND LISTEN TO O&A WHAT DO I KNOW
1 [deleted] 2014-02-08
sSsHeDDEEERP
1 TI-99A 2014-02-08
Bad timing and the split format was a terrible idea. They were also trying to re-establish an audience after the David Lee Roth debacle, and by then the audience had figured out how to use an iPod.
1 VanDamme79 2014-02-08
At least in Chicago, there was only one talk radio format station. O&A in the morning, then someone at noon (forget) then Steve Dahl in the afternoon. Chicago just wasn't giving them the chance, everyone liked the jocktober shit. So when the other shows were failing to bring the numbers. O&A numbers weren't good enough for the station to stay in business. Why everyone else preferred Eric and Kathy? I have no clue!
1 [deleted] 2014-02-08
There are lots and lots of reasons that could be mentioned, but here are the main ones:
1) From 2000 (which is around O&A's best ratings at WNEW) to 2009 (when they were fired by CBS FM), radio had gone from the number one form of entertainment in their demo to number three behind TV and the internet. Avg. listening hours were about half. So the audience they were trying to win was much smaller, and listening a lot less. This alone is a big reason why a lot of guys left terrestrial, including Stern, Leykis, Carrola, and others. To some degree, O&A basically jumped on board a sinking ship to begin with.
2) The direction of the show's comedy had changed away from what mainstream people wanted. While I probably wouldn't even be a fan of O&A without Norton, he's probably to blame for them moving from mainstream comedy to cringe/insult comedy. It's not a coincidence that guys like Bob Kelly and Vos became regulars, while at WNEW the comedians (prior to Norton) were basically whoever was doing well at the time: guys like Brian Regan, Frank Caliendo, Jim Gaffigan, Jim Breur. Maybe not what a current or die hard fan would like, but fairly mainstream kind of guys. Also, O&A themselves were now rich and did not have relatable anecdotes or a similar lifestyle to their audience.
3) The FCC was much more aggressive at that time, so even stuff they did at WNEW previously was unacceptable at CBS.
4) They tried doing 6 hours of radio a day. 6 hours of any type of performance is hard, let alone doing radio material day in and day out. So naturally they had a lot of repetitive bits and segments where they weren't "all in".
0 DannyJRoss 2014-02-08
Good call on Norton. I like him but he is a huge reason why O+A failed
1 [deleted] 2014-02-08
Tough Crowd is one of the few things I can think of that has that same kind of back-and-forth insult humor that's short, quick, and witty - and that was canceled for low ratings. I can't think of one example where that style of humor has worked for a mainstream audience.
1 TankRizzo 2014-02-08
The nuclear fallout from the Janet Jackson superbowl incident pretty much destroyed FM radio. Look around, there is NOTHING out there anymore for regular bullshit talk radio. If you're not doing sports or politics, forget it.
1 [deleted] 2014-02-08
[deleted]
0 NWSquared 2014-02-08
The strict 20 minute breaks with purposeful topics. O&A is meant to flow freely.
-10 opiesucks 2014-02-08
because at the time, the public audience really didn't go for hack radio DJs that made up long, boring stories or constantly bombed and tried to say it was a bit, or talked about being a dad.