So says the trades... Also stations in New York Washington and other locations...
Cumulus is unloading. 5 stations to EMF and several to Entercom. NYC's WPLJ is worth quite a bit; the idea of it becoming a "K-LOVE" affiliate after its long rock-and-pop history is rather sad. I grew up in NYC in 'PLJ's AOR heyday.
By being embedded in the larger San Francisco market, the San Jose market has been slowly losing commercial radio players. 92.3 KSJO has been brokered South Asian, 104.9 has become non-commercial Classical, now 97.7 KFFG will go to EMF. The deal leaves a top 30 market with only four commercial English language players exclusively targeting Silicon Valley: Empire Country 95.3 KRTY, Bonneville Classic Rock “98.5 K-Fox” KUFX, and Alpha’s combo of Classic Hits “94.5 Bay-FM” KBAY and Hot AC “Mix 106.5” KEZR.
K-Love is currently heard in San Jose on rimshot 107.3 KLVS Livermore and a ten watt translator. Adding KFFG gives them a path to donations in another affluent region.
EMF will retain the call letters of 95.5 WPLJ New York and 105.9 WXTL Syracuse from the Cumulus deal and 102.3 WEKL Augusta GA from the iHeart/Aloha deal. The remainder of the new call letters applied for are:
97.7 KFFG Los Altos/San Jose CA -> KJLV
106.7 WYAY Gainesville/Atlanta GA -> WAKL
102.1 WZAT Savannah GA -> WKZV
107.1 WLRX Ironton OH/Huntington WV -> WAWT
101.7 WSNZ Lynchburg VA -> WAWX
106.1 WSFF Vinton/Roanoke VA -> WLRX
Two of EMF’s current holdings will also change call letters in the process as 88.9 WAKL Flint MI gives up its call letters to Atlanta and will become WKMF and 105.3 KJLV Hoxie AR trades its to San Jose and will become KLFJ.
By being embedded in the larger San Francisco market, the San Jose market has been slowly losing commercial radio players. 92.3 KSJO has been brokered South Asian, 104.9 has become non-commercial Classical, now 97.7 KFFG will go to EMF. The deal leaves a top 30 market with only four commercial English language players exclusively targeting Silicon Valley: Empire Country 95.3 KRTY, Bonneville Classic Rock “98.5 K-Fox” KUFX, and Alpha’s combo of Classic Hits “94.5 Bay-FM” KBAY and Hot AC “Mix 106.5” KEZR.
K-Love is currently heard in San Jose on rimshot 107.3 KLVS Livermore and a ten watt translator. Adding KFFG gives them a path to donations in another affluent region.
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/...for-cumulus-aloha-acquisitions-wrqx-moves-to/
KFFG San Jose to change call letters soon due to the EMF Deal
From the link above:
In the latest San Francisco ratings book, KBAY and KUFX are both ahead of KFOG while KRTY and KEZR were ahead last month (this month, KFOG is tied with KRTY and just slightly ahead of KEZR)
Cumulus' in-house market research evidently remains horrible. How did they miss the Soft AC opportunity that iHeart has so adeptly exploited?
At some point, they will probably blow it up, and you'll see weeks of hand-wringing from the public wondering how such a thing could have happened, and how it could have been prevented.
Cumulus' in-house market research evidently remains horrible. How did they miss the Soft AC opportunity that iHeart has so adeptly exploited?
Most operators vastly prefer to fix a damaged or declining brand. This is because a full format shift is very expensive.
The thing to know is Cumulus just hired a new EVP of Content: Brian Phillips. He will oversee all radio programming. Brian was once a very successful alternative rock PD with Susquehanna, the company that owned KFOG before Cumulus. He ran 99X in Atlanta. Brian knows the format, and how to make it successful. I trust he will come up with a way to fix KFOG.
And when you ask those wringing their hands when they last actually listened to the station on a regular basis, you'll get "Um...it's been a long time, but I thought that was just me. I mean K-Fog's still a big deal, right?"
Happens every time.
Nope. When I ask, I get people who actually did listen to it on a regular basis until one of two very specific events: 1) blowing out most of the staff in 2016 and 2) blowing out the rest of the staff in 2018. I listened almost exclusively until event 1, regularly until event 2, and now I couldn't care less.