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Tavis Smiley Buys KBLA

This idea is intriguing. It presumably will:
* be live and local
* feature current events programming
* counterbalance the excessive amount of conservative talk on 870, 1150, 790, and parts of 640

AM 1580's signal is quite decent - relative to being so high up on the dial. However, with its signal directed southward, it booms into South LA.
The price seems a bit high when benchmarked against WABC's recent sales price with its booming signal and market.
 
david said:
This idea is intriguing.
Click to expand...

To say the least. That a person who is primarily knows as a TV pundit would BUY an AM station is very interesting.

The financing is what caught my attention. When I first saw the story, I thought, wow, I didn't know Tavis had that kind of money. But the fact is he's buying the station on time. It's sort of a glorified LMA. He gets to use the station while he pays it off. That's a pretty good deal. I'd suggest that a lot more people could buy radio stations if they had that kind of financing opportunity.
 
TheBigA said:
Kind of a surprise that Tavis Smiley pays $7 million for KBLA, a 50KW AM station:

He plans to turn it into a progressive black talk station.
Click to expand...

It seems like a very high price unless the transmitter site is included; the site has two other stations triplexed on existing towers (it's a 6 tower parallelogram array). On the other hand, if the real estate is not included, that is about twice what the station is worth.

The signal is good but not great. At night it severely protects the Mexican border (1580 is a Mexican 1-B clear channel) and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the Canadian border as well as several domestic 1590 stations. Daytime, it primarily protects Mexico but also adjacent channels in the US.

It's primary problems are a high dial position near nothing else of interest and being AM, a band particularly ignored by ethnic listeners, both Black and Hispanic.
 
david said:
This idea is intriguing. It presumably will:
* be live and local
* feature current events programming
* counterbalance the excessive amount of conservative talk on 870, 1150, 790, and parts of 640

AM 1580's signal is quite decent - relative to being so high up on the dial. However, with its signal directed southward, it booms into South LA.
The price seems a bit high when benchmarked against WABC's recent sales price with its booming signal and market.
Click to expand...

Historically, that station (both as KOWL and KDAY) always did its best ratings when it was targeting the Black community.
 
michael hagerty said:
Historically, that station (both as KOWL and KDAY) always did its best ratings when it was targeting the Black community.
Click to expand...

But that was in pre-FM days. I think it is a challenge to ask Blacks and Hispanics to listen to AM when there are FM alternatives in the same market. Perhaps the unique progressive focus will attract some, and there may be advertisers who want to be "inclusive", but this looks like an extreme challenge.
 
DrAkbar said:
Talk from the left on the right hand side of the dial. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Maybe it is....

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you
 
DavidEduardo said:
Maybe it is....

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you
Click to expand...

David, maybe you can give him some free advice regarding the historical success of libtalk in LA on the AM dial (or any dial for that matter) like you do for Saul with his oldies channel?

Seems like for all of that money he should just LMA some time on KPFK where the radical left already hangs out so he has a built in audience, and a clear usable channel. Except Isn't it on the non-com part of the band, so selling advertising is a bit tricky?
 
ChannelFlipper said:
Seems like for all of that money he should just LMA some time on KPFK where the radical left already hangs out so he has a built in audience,
Click to expand...

By the same token, he's shown how easy it is for anyone to get a radio station and program whatever they want.

Which just goes to show that if there's such a huge and dedicated oldies audience in LA, they could easily pool their money and credit and buy another station, and play deep cuts all day long. There's no need to be dependent on some benevolent millionaire. Anyone can do it if they have the will and the desire. You don't think Lou Adler has a few spare dollars sitting around so he can hear Johnny Rivers played on the radio again? It's really very easy. It just takes someone with the energy to get up off the couch.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
David, maybe you can give him some free advice regarding the historical success of libtalk in LA on the AM dial (or any dial for that matter) like you do for Saul with his oldies channel?
Click to expand...

I don't track that kind of station, and there are far more experienced people who would likely love to contribute.

Seems like for all of that money he should just LMA some time on KPFK where the radical left already hangs out so he has a built in audience, and a clear usable channel. Except Isn't it on the non-com part of the band, so selling advertising is a bit tricky?
Click to expand...

KPFK, in retrospect, seems to be an angry white guy's station in much of its history. I don't see is as a good environment. Further, it is a non-com and does not pay... it uses volunteers for the most part.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I don't track that kind of station, and there are far more experienced people who would likely love to contribute.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. You know the answer as well as I do. There has NEVER been a successful libtalk station in this town. The most "successful" station was Air America's KTLK, which now broadcasts Rush as KEIB. The other ones couldn't even reach that level of notoriety, err, "success".
 
ChannelFlipper said:
Nonsense. You know the answer as well as I do. There has NEVER been a successful libtalk station in this town.
Click to expand...

Much of the failure of Air America was the non-entertaining intensity of the hosts. They were way to didactic, serious and inflexible.

For some reason, we have not ever seen anyone put together entertainers who who can talk about current affairs in an engaging manner. The Air America host, for the most part, sounded like a labor leader calling for a strike against their employer... god for 30 minutes, but no longer and not 168 hours a week.
 
TheBigA said:
That's no reason not to do something. If it was, Saul Levine would have never tried country on 105.1.
Click to expand...

Levine did country because KZLA abandoned the format along with over $10 million in billing. To Levine, that was a step up while to Smulyan that was too low.
 
ChannelFlipper said:
Nonsense. You know the answer as well as I do. There has NEVER been a successful libtalk station in this town. The most "successful" station was Air America's KTLK, which now broadcasts Rush as KEIB. The other ones couldn't even reach that level of notoriety, err, "success".
Click to expand...

Patently False. KABC during its heyday era (encompassing the 1970s and 1980s) was very much a liberal talk station. In fact, during that era KABC coined the infamous talkradio label. The station was populated by a roster of liberal hosts like Ira Fistell and Michael Jackson, as well as Ken Minyard, who called himself “a Bobby Kennedy liberal”.
 
TheBigA said:
But name the last successful country station in LA.
Click to expand...

KZLA, KKLA. Both are successes. Emmis thought it could do better with the rhythmic oldies format (it failed, in fact) and Levine found he could do better than ever in his four decade history with that station. Neither, though, were failures.
 
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