talkSPORT brings in big money for UTV/TWG, there is no way they would risk listening figuires and advertising revenue to provide non sports programing. Since talkSPORT switched to full sport they have increased advertising revnue massively, this is because it is an easy sell to advertisers, its a sport talk station 24/7. When it did current affaris as well it wasnt as easy a sell due to differnt demograpics listening at differnt times.

I think that may be true; there's no reason to blow your entire marketing budget in the first 2 weeks, particularly while the presenters are still settling in.

A previous poster asked about the cost of advertising: a full page in the Daily Mail would come in around £35k, £300 per week for each billboard.

I agree with the comments about not shelling out a fortune in advertising until the station finds it's feet. Looking at the traffic figures for the talkradio website it seems to be getting a healthy flow mainly from talksport but also digital spy and wikipedia. This figure is steadily growing day by day which would suggest a general rise of interest and therefore increasing amounts of listeners. I do stand by my statement that it was a huge mistake not to have a free phone number, at least initially for the first year or two just to get the ball rolling. It does not give off a good image of the station having a presenter continually plug the number with virtually no phone calls coming through. It's like shouting out 'is there anybody out there' only to be met by complete silence! They really do need to give anyone tuning in for the very first time a feeling that things are going great with a healthy hive of activity around each show.

Whoever designed the websites for talkRADIO and Virgin Radio needs shooting they really are awful looks like a 12 year old has done them for a school project or something. Even the Virgin Radio one has barely any information about the various presenters. I know you could just use google but wouldn't it be nice to give some background to the people who are effectively the stars of the station. The whole design is dire with only basic information like the programme schedule and how to listen it is absolute rubbish.

I get the SGU as well. Skeptoid, Skepticule, Skeptics with a K, Skeptically Yours, Skeptics Zone are also among my 40-odd related iTunes subs. I work on my own and listen to podcasts mixed with radio 10 hours a day. We sing from the same hymn sheet

With this in mind I have very very little patience for any of Howard's nonsense. I used to find James' show a lot more tolerable but perhaps that's because I was younger then.

Reading through richtea's and blighty's comments made me laugh 'of course we went to the moon 6 times'. How do you know did you go there yourself and see it with your own eyes? How can you be 100% sure about something you haven't experienced yourself and only got your information through the media and other peoples testimonies? It's only your point of view I accept that I'm well aware a lot of people are blinkered and not able to see both sides of an argument. Just like people who are religious they believe something that is written in a book is fact and it really happened. Who knows what has happened in the past unless you was there personally you do not know for a fact what the truth is. Scientists reckon the universe is so many millions or billions years old they haven't got a clue, how do they know did they time it with a stopwatch? Seriously I'm anti-bullshit I can smell it from a mile off, I only listen to Howard Hughes because I'm open minded and like to hear alternative theories and make my own mind up whether it's a load of tosh or whether there could be some truth to it.

Out of interest I tuned into Anna Williamson's show and surprise surprise no calls despite the subject being about dating experiences and her giving out the number several times. I could imagine that would normally get a few people wanting to divulge what had happened to them but no there was not a single taker. Maybe it's the lack of listeners maybe it's down to the expensive number who knows. If they would of had a free number at least you would know it wasn't because the call would cost a listener an arm and a leg, it's simply because the show is atrociously bad. Their producer who earns god knows how much a year and whose job is to go on a laptop and tap away at the keyboard couldn't turn up for work because apparently she had a bad bout of the flu. Yeah right nothing to do with it being a Saturday night and she maybe fancied going out on the piss. Anyway my forecast is Anna's, Bob's and Howard's shows will be replaced in time because I don't think they are really cutting the mustard. Iain's show is going to be the most listened to, Paul Ross's, Jon's, & the Gould brothers will be doing fairly well. Julia Hartley-Brewer and Sam Delaney not so well and The Two Mikes/Extra Time maybe a dozen listeners only because they tuned in by accident not realising they can listen to it on talksport's live feed instead.

There is one reason to listen to the Two Mikes (or any of the simulcast shows) on talkRADIO instead of talkSPORT. The talkRADIO stream was upgraded to 48 kbps during day 1 whereas talkSPORT remains at 32 kbps.

Oh that should help with the listening figures then for those which want to hear low quality banter for 5 hours non-stop, but at a higher sound quality!! If you don't want to listen to that just put virgin on and have music instead.

Somebody posted on here that TalkSport's number is more expensive but they get lots of calls.

Possibly helped by talksport having over 3 million football hungry listeners tuned every week, who can't resist phoning the show and putting the presenter straight about [insert a top premiership team here] because they are usually talking out of their arses.

Is there something about talkRADIO only being on DAB, too, in terms of the very limited number of calls?

I'm happy to be open minded, but not to the extent that my brain falls out of my head and rolls off!

It's all about evidence in the end. As I previously said, I consider myself a sceptic and critical thinker on many issues. I don't instantly take the facts I'm fed and accept them at face value without thought. But you have to come to an opinion in the end on things. I'd be fascinated to know what a moon denier would finally accept as absolute proof beyond doubt of the reality of that happening for instance? A lot of people who hold this fake moon landing thing really have a very strong view in their own mind. You could surely therefore make the same case against them in reverse about how they could know without seeing it first hand. You could apply the same principle to countless other things.

Looking forward to Howard's latest show tonight, which might provide some points for discussion maybe, although I really hope he doesn't neglect his great podcasts too much in the meantime because in this fickle world of radio who knows how long this radio show may or may not last.

I'd say very probably, but then the pro-DAB mafia would be on my case

Think my brain must of done that years ago probably down to listening to Steve Berry and Matt Forde too many times.

It's the same for me I make my mind up depending on the evidence I've seen for both sides of the argument. You can never be 100% totally sure about something unless you personally have experienced it yourself, people can make things up sound clips or video evidence can be faked. But you can make a reasoned judgement based on what you know and I suppose gut instinct as well.

Very much looking forward to Howard's show myself, I do hope it survives the inevitable chop of shows that aren't really cutting the mustard.

That could possibly be a factor maybe they think what's the point, there could be hardly anyone listening to the show anyway.

There will be a big test one day this week when Iain has a "first time callers" show. The majority of the callers so far have phoned him up on past stations so it will be interesting if there is much response. However, some may still have listened on past stations and not yet phoned up so it isn't a definitive test. The ultimate test is to have only callers who have only started to listen to him since he started on talkRADIO.

Jon Holmes doesn't do a phone-in, but has no problem getting people to participate in Lonely Lunch and meat/no meat competitions. Maybe he also benefits from transfer from Radio X.

The motoring show now has a special ending for the Sunday repeat, introducing Kath's show.

Wonder if the bosses suggested that just to test the water to see how many listeners are willing to phone in that aren't die hard fans of Iain's. Is it still be the case that they will call back to limit the charges? Of course some presenters like Iain and Jon benefit from an already existing core of fans who will phone them whichever station they're working on. It's very hard to know how big a part in the equation of the lack of calls to some shows the premium number is playing. This may be a way of finding out knowing Iain's show is probably the most popular how well he will fair with only new callers coming through.

I don't listen to the show but that does not amaze me they haven't thought about altering such things as plugs and intro's on the repeated shows. On the simulcast's overnight you have plugs for talksport shows, when really they should get replaced by plugs for talkradio programmes on the talkradio broadcast.

It's a possibility that the management has mentioned it, but Iain has done "first time caller" shows on LBC and Absolute in the past.

Iain always says they will call you back. Calling back is normal on other stations as well, or at least it always used to be, as it means that producers can pick and choose what callers they want and avoid tying up the phone line with callers waiting on the line for ages. That means getting called back is a bit of a lottery at busy times. I don't think stations are that interested in keeping people on the phone to generate call revenue.

When I phoned Iain last Friday I was phoned back straight away, then "Id" (Ed, the more junior producer/tech op on Iain's show who also works on Jonny & Ash's show) said he would phone me back later as they had just started a round of iPod Roulette which takes quite a bit of time.

Spoke like Randy himself.


I think the answer is no amount of evidence. The thing is, a large percentage of 'moon landing deniers' also believe that 911 was an inside job, that the government is putting chemicals in the sky from plane trails to subdue the population, and that an assortment of people other than Oswald assassinated JFK. Many of them even go down the NWO Lizard Overlord and Roswell cover up routes. This observation alone is a massive red flag and strongly suggests that their motivation is not truth through evidence, but ideology.

I'm sure Iain mentioned that at the start of Friday's show? I'm sure also that a few new callers did phone in subsequently. And then I'm sure it was undermined by the whole MrEthical nonsense. Am I the only person who thought that what started as one of the best shows yet, turned into a farce in the last hour?

When he announced it, he didn't mean that particular show would be a new caller show. He was giving us advance notice.

TalkSport also received plenty of calls when it had the same number during current affairs shows.

I think so. The vast majority of people who call LBC are listening to the station or have listened to the station on 97.3 FM. Had Global Radio launched a separate talk station for the nation restricted LBC's coverage to Greater London and the surrounding area, and moved some of the most popular presenters to the new station, I think the new station would struggle to get calls
.

It would be interesting to see what impact putting TalkRadio on TalkSport's AM frequencies between 9 am and 1 pm for a week or longer would have in terms of call numbers.