All-business radio a tough sell in Seattle — and elswehere

Bill Virgin of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer looks at the tough business news market in radio and why it has had difficulty gaining a foothold in the city.

Virgin wrote, “Scattered around the radio dial are radio shows devoted to the same topics, from nationally syndicated investment and personal-finance talk hosts like Clark Howard, Bruce Williams, Bob Brinker and Ray Lucia to public radio’s ‘Marketplace.’

“But nationally, there are just 25 stations with business news as their primary format, according to M Street Publications, which tracks the radio industry. None of those are in Seattle.

“As recently as 2004, Seattle had a business station and, for a short time in the late 1990s, it had two. What was then KEZX-AM/1150 shifted to a soul/R&B format in 1998, the same year that KNWX-AM/770 went from all-news to a business format. Eventually the latter station’s owner moved the call letters and format to 1210, then sold the station. It now has a Spanish-language music format.”

Read more here.