-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Sarcasm, yes??? (Always wanted to play a round of Gold, the 18 carat course of course!) Haha OK all kidding aside, good for you guys, Mark W.
https://www.newsmirror.net/news/loc...cle_bbe0b41c-806e-11e8-bf6d-e3b239345387.html
Of course not. The license holder is obviously thinking a bit out of the box and hoping that a very familiar voice on his tiny little station will help him to promote and ultimately (hopefully!) monetize the station. Reading weekly crime report logs from the Yucaipa Police department may be more in line with "serving the local community" as some people would describe it, but getting a real audience is what our local owner/hero is after and he is willing to pay Rick for it today to hopefully make a little profit tomorrow. I know you know all of this; I am not sure what your point is.
Keep in mind that by law he CAN'T "make a little profit." My point, as you put it, is I'm just wondering what his deal is, since he can't run barter spots, as is typically the deal. We all know there are basic costs involved with a national syndicator.
You really think the station is paying money for it? Are they running funding announcements? Are they soliciting contributions during his show?
Who says he can't make a profit? Like I said, "non-profit" is nothing more than a tax status, and if they are truly "non-profit" they will soon be "non-existent" unless this it is run as a labor of love, where profit is no object as I previously mentioned. Even non-commercial stations make money, they just do it through other means.
I am guessing the deal with Dees is some sort of barter situation, but I don't know for sure. What does a tiny LPFM have to give Dees except another station to put on his channel distribution list?
The FCC. Only non-profit organizations can apply for LPFMs. And yes, it's a tax status. I've completed those tax forms, I've worked in non-profit radio, and any left-over money must be directed to operating costs. But when you look at most non-religious LPFMs, they have next to no revenue, much less any "profit." So that brings me back to my question. What's the deal here? A radio station that at most can reach a couple hundred people doesn't have much to offer.
Wjile I never lived in LA...I was a fan of Rick Dee's and his TV appearances, disco duck, and of course his radio work.
Seems like he had "clean up" duty at KHJ towards the end of that stations life as an AC/Top 40 station.
Came across this aircheck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkeDooGJCA
My first reaction....crappy music, huh?
Also, not a lot of production that I would expect with jingles, etc.
Anyone know what was going on at KHJ during this time?
I think Dee's was the last morning man before their flip to country, no?
Seems like he had "clean up" duty at KHJ towards the end of that stations life as an AC/Top 40 station.
Came across this aircheck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkeDooGJCA
My first reaction....crappy music, huh?
Also, not a lot of production that I would expect with jingles, etc.
Anyone know what was going on at KHJ during this time?
I think Dee's was the last morning man before their flip to country, no?
Yes, Dees was the last KHJ morning man before the format change. That was November, 1980.
This aircheck (the music was edited back into a 'scoped aircheck) is from June 12, 1979---about two months after Dees arrived.
The music is just what the hits were in the summer of '79...leaning more adult because, hey, it's 6 a.m.
Chuck Martin had been the Program Director for about five months at this point, and was putting personality and production elements back on the air after John Sebastian's minimalist, AOR-style approach. It sounds here like Chuck's jingle package, "The Rhythm of the Southland" hadn't arrived yet.
As for ratings, I only have the fall books. In fall '78, under Sebastian, KHJ was 12th with a 2.7. Other contemporary music stations: KMET 4th with a 4.9, KMPC and KNX-FM tied for 9th with a 3.1 and KRTH (which had gone AC in '76 but was playing most of KHJ's playlist---in fact, Radio & Records categorized KRTH as CHR) 11th with a 3.0. Below KHJ: KFI and KUTE tied for 13th with a 2.6, KDAY 16th with a 2.5, KLOS 17th with a 2.4, KTNQ and KIIS-FM (which was disco at the time) tied for 18th with a 2.1 and KIQQ 22nd with a 1.8.
In fall '79...four to five months after this aircheck, KHJ was tied with KDAY for 16th with a 2.4. KMET was 3rd with a 5.8, KRTH was 8th with a 3.8, KFI was 10th with a 3.3, KIIS-FM and KMPC were tied for 11th with a 2.8, KNX-FM was 14th with a 2.7, KUTE was 15th with a 2.6. Behind KHJ: KHTZ (which was transitioning from Top 40 to AC) tied with KLOS for 18th with a 2.2 and KIQQ tied for 22nd with a 1.5.
Opinions vary as to what killed KHJ, but it was a lousy time to be playing music on AM, and RKO did KHJ no favors by positioning KRTH so close musically.
Of course, a non-profit with a surplus can establish a reserve fund. An example of that is a homeowner association that creates a reserve for future major repairs that don't occur annually but which require a large budget, such as exterior painting, replacement of irrigation systems or roofing replacements.
A non-profit that has an annual event, like a fair or banquet, which happens midway into a fiscal year can reserve for next year's event. From my experience with a station sponsored hon-profit in LA, "reserve funds" whatever they are named, have to be segregated for accounting and the annual filing has to show those monies as a separate category.
Of course, the management of a non-profit can take salaries. Many non-profits are essentially guaranteed employment for the manager or management of the entity and that works as long as there are donors or supporters. I am assuming / presuming that Bob Bittner's WJIB et. al. in Boson and New England runs this way: donors perceive that Bob's work on their behalf is worth of donations that both "pay the electric bill" and provide Bob with and income.
I'm guessing that KQLH has a similar model in mind, where they would provide an interesting enough station that users/donors would cover expenses and a bit a salary for the director.
As to what the "deal" is keep in mind that KQLH is a "super LPFM where the antenna location and the way HAAT is calculated lets the station have 258,000 persons in its 60 dbu coverage. It covers Yucaipa, Redlands, Calimesa and most of Moreno Valley quite well. It's license shows 49' above average terrain, but the average includes the eastern side of a mountainous area which puts them at a thousand feet or more below terrain one one side, and hundreds of feet above the eastern Inland Empire on the other side, for an average of 49 feet.
Usually they pay cash in lieu of barter.
As suggested in the previous post, they pay cash and do not carry the network spots.
This is the same model that has been used "forever" for international sales of syndicated shows. AT40, going back to the 70's, required cash payment outside the US... even for use in Puerto Rico and the USVI at the time.
I understand that...that's why I said "compensate." But most syndicators I know won't deal with LPFMs. Otherwise this would be more common.
There's a big difference between non-com LPFMs and commercial stations outside the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-X_Q_6Wjs ;-)
Seemed like they didn't think too much about this within the RKO chain. In Boston, while WRKO was struggling as an AC, across the hall their FM (WROR) was playing AC music on FM.
There is a lot written about the heyday of the RKO/Drake stations.
I am fascinated by the final years, the decisions made, and how those decisions were made.
They seemed to be a less cohesive company in those days (compared to when they all ran the same format.)
Endless parlor discussions about if and what they could have done differently....
Cash. It's just as good as money.
A man who is hell-bent on getting a syndicated show on a LPFM with little to no current revenue would have to to what some LPFM operators have been doing for years for things they need for the station: Pay out of pocket as a donation to the LPFM organization, use the money you just donated to pay said syndicator. That way it looks good on the books, you get a potential tax write-off, and may help you show financial viability to those (like banks, county/state tax commissions) who'd want to know that stuff.
I also think the LPFM 'local origination' rules are a bit misunderstood by some as well. Pulling a direct satellite feed with no local ID's, underwriting announcements, would be very much against the spirit of the law. Running 24/7 automated programming recorded by other folks with local announcements is OK.
There are a few better-run religious LPFM stations out east who run them that way. Yes, they're getting the shows off the internet/satellite, but they're rebroadcasting them at a time of their choosing with announcements, etc.
"local origination" rules mean the station must program itself in-house a certain number of hours per day, not that the programming itself must be made in-house! If that were the case, the number of LPFMs in full compliance would be less than a half-dozen in today's world
Yes, so once again, what's the deal here? I understand the theoretical ways this could be done. Who is paying to put Dees on an LPFM? Is he or his syndicator waiving their fee for the clear in the market? Is some benefactor paying the fee to have Dees in the market?
All I'm asking is for someone who listens to the station tell me if they hear funding announcements during the show. As I said, I don't know of any national syndicators who deal with LPFMs, even if cash is involved, because typical LPFMs simply don't have the cash to spend.
It was a long, slow fall. Setting aside the legal case that ended up costing RKO its licenses, the turning point was really when Drake left RKO in 1973.
For the previous eight years, Drake and his local PDs were guaranteed no interference from sales or management.
When Drake left, Bruce Johnson made the local GMs kings of their domains again---just like most of their competition. Which made RKO stations (apart from the legacy and their brilliant engineering) just like every other station. Having Paul Drew as National PD helped maintain some level of consistency, but the GMs were driving. Some were better than others, but all were watching market share and revenue slide from the glory days, and engaging in varying degrees of crisis management (apart from Pat Norman, who knew he had the golden goose at KFRC).
KRTH and WROR were the ones that always amazed me. "Leave the AM alone, put an automated or live-assist AC format on the FM and we'll have a one-two sales punch." No, what you'll have is a station playing 80 percent of your playlist with fewer commercials and less talk on FM that will cannibalize your 18-49 females. I believe Bill Drake would have seen that and chosen another path.
Michael - But wasn't the "Hit Parade (year)" format under Drake on KHJ-FM, and I assume other FMs - the same thing you are talking about? While the format was more to the light rock end than KHJ-AM, it was probably 75% Boss 30, and at least for awhile, featured many of the AM jocks including The Real Don Steele, though they were not ID'd by name.
I have station specific radio memories over the years attached to certain songs, and IIRC, the first time I heard Bang a Gong in 1971, it was on 101.1, and the automated back-announcement was Steele's - "That was Teeeeeeeee Rex! Bang a GONG!!!" I'll let you do the voice and intonation in your head.
The following Solid Gold format probably less cannibalistic than Hit Parade, but recurrents and "goldens" were also big on KHJ-AM
Llew: KHJ-FM usually came in around 15th. But as FM became more popular, Drake began looking for ways to avoid competition. When he replaced "HitParade" with "Solid Gold Rock and Roll", the numbers for both KHJ and KHJ-FM went up (KHJ-FM ended up in Top 10 in middays in fall 1971).
KRTH was supposed to be Drake's approach to album rock, but KLOS' "Rock n' Stereo" pretty much stole his thunder before he could launch. So KRTH went '55-'63 oldies, KHJ dumped its "Million Dollar Weekends" and restricted its oldies to post-Beatles and increasingly to material that was only 3-5 years old.
KRTH was huge at first (tied for 4th overall in the fall '72 book and only a point and a half behind KHJ), but as the novelty wore off, the numbers dropped back down to KHJ-FM levels...twos and high ones with rankings in the mid-to-lower teens. By this point (1976), Drake was long gone and Bob Hamilton sold RKO on an AC format. By Fall of '77, KRTH was one-tenth of a point behind KHJ. By fall of '78, KRTH was beating KHJ by 3/10ths.
REELRADIO (which is back, by the way) has an aircheck of KRTH from this era---Brother John in fall of 1977. Musically, it's Top 40.
I am.
- Status