Bay Area Country Radio Station

[victorres43]

KRTY probably covers a significant amount, if not the majority, of the Bay Area core, despite being a class A signal. Not quite strong in San Francisco, Oakland, or Berkeley, though people in these areas aren't desperate to hear country music, even if there are some loyal fans among people living around San Jose. (Do keep in mind, though, that KRTY is 14th in cume in San Jose, barely edging KITS.)

Country is not doing well overall in New York, Los Angeles, or Miami, either share-wise or cume-wise.

 

[davideduardo]

KRTY probably covers a significant amount, if not the majority, of the Bay Area core, despite being a class A signal. Not quite strong in San Francisco, Oakland, or Berkeley, though people in these areas aren't desperate to hear country music, even if there are some loyal fans among people living around San Jose. (Do keep in mind, though, that KRTY is 14th in cume in San Jose, barely edging KITS.)

KRTY covers 2 million with a 60 dbu in a market that has 7.9 million in the MSA. San Jose is a constructed embedded market which simply takes a slice of the San Francisco radio survey and publishes it as a subset. The SF market ratings, of course, include San Jose in the totals (as well as Santa Rosa) .

The Nielsen SF market is Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma counties. San Jose is just the one home county.

Country is not doing well overall in New York, Los Angeles, or Miami, either share-wise or cume-wise.

KRTY averages between 3rd and 8th in 25-54 in San Jose this year. Because the sample is small, the numbers wobble a whole lot.

Local leader KBRG has wobbled from an 8.4 to a 6.7 in the same period; KQED from 8.9 to 6.4. The numbers there can only be used if one does a 4 to 6 book average like agencies do

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

This is really basic geography. The hillside that separates Fairfield from Vacaville also messes with FM radio reception from San Francisco in Vacaville and to the east. Same goes for Sacramento signals in Fairfield and to the west.

True and another part is that the Walnut Grove location for TV and Radio Transmission for Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto was intended to reach the north end of the San Joaquin Valley. But the signals can reach parts of Solano County due to the signal patterns. This is how the TV Markets map allowed a split on Solano County.

On the radio market maps the entire county of Solano County is on the San Francisco market due to signals and reach but also when I look at some of the Sacramento stations some transmit from different areas besides Walnut Grove as seen in the links here. Another part is that Stockton and Modesto are separate radio markets from Sacramento.

A selection from a decade of visits to tower and studio sites in the Northeast and beyond

A selection from a decade of visits to tower and studio sites in the Northeast and beyond

 

[davideduardo]

Country is not doing well overall in New York, Los Angeles, or Miami, either share-wise or cume-wise.

The NYC country station is a New Jersey rimshot for much of the market, so it is not ever going to outperform. LA is now about 70% ethnic or first generation immigrants (or both!) so there is only a tiny slice of possible partisans. And Miami is over 50% Hispanic and has a huge African American and Haitian population; those are not country prospects.

Country is pretty much a non-Hispanic white format (except in some places where the local Hispanic population has been around for a couple of hundred years). Just as Urban AC won't do well in Fargo, Country won't do as well in the heavily ethnic or immigrant populated markets.

Yet the country station in LA has been the #1 cuming country station in the US with some regularity.

 

[ZantennaG1]

The NYC country station is a New Jersey rimshot for much of the market, so it is not ever going to outperform.

Agreed. If you're not Broadcasting from the Empire State Building, World Trade Center, or some other tall building, you're going to have a fair deal of interference from buildings, unless your an AM station. (Even then, bridges and RFI noise can still cause signals to drop out)

 

[TheBigA]

If you're not Broadcasting from the Empire State Building, World Trade Center, or some other tall building, you're going to have a fair deal of interference from buildings,

Then again, when WYNY was country in the 80s and 90s, with it's antenna on the World Trade Center, it's average ratings were about the same as WNSH.

 

[davideduardo]

Then again, when WYNY was country in the 80s and 90s, with it's antenna on the World Trade Center, it's average ratings were about the same as WNSH.

And there was a reason why WYNY went away. For a full market signal, it was under performing.. I have to say that Ed Salamon truly understood how to make country more broadly acceptable in the Big Apple.

Ed Salamon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TheBigA]

And there was a reason why WYNY went away. For a full market signal, it was under performing.. I have to say that Ed Salamon truly understood how to make country more broadly acceptable in the Big Apple.

He did it mostly in the 70s, when country was a lot more pop, with more cross-over appeal than it became in the 90s.

Plus the city was probably a lot less diverse in the 70s.

But keep in mind that until the late 60s, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, and other country stars got airplay on WABC.

 

[davideduardo]

He did it mostly in the 70s, when country was a lot more pop, with more cross-over appeal than it became in the 90s.

Certainly with groups like FGL there is a pop and even Urban crossover. But formats have become far more focused and specific. In the earlier part of the 70's, AM had most of the audience and with few major signals in each market, formats were much broader. The rise of FM caused formats to fragment... the best example being Top 40 breaking into "chicken rock" (AC) and Album Rock.

Plus the city was probably a lot less diverse in the 70s.

And unity was more stress and uniqueness far less.

But keep in mind that until the late 60s, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, and other country stars got airplay on WABC.

... because Top 40 was mostly "if it sells we play it". That is why we had Dominco Modugno having a top 5 song of the year in 1959 (or was it 1960) and Sinatra and Andy Williams and the like having hits into the 60's. And for every Roger Miller, there was a James Brown. Formats were much wider.

 

[david]

The people at the station know. They get the details from Nielsen. If they had a chance to make more money with a different format, don't you think they'd take it?

Such a passive answer. Creativity is at the heart of innovation. Many novel radio formats that grew to become successful began because an ownership group was willing to take a risk. EX: the novel NAC format in the late 1980s (KKSF), or going back to a format that had been out of vogue for 2+ decades (KISQ - The Breeze), or even the WOW Factor in Phoenix, which took a couple years to find its stride and finally see its ratings blossom in 2021.

 

[TheBigA]

Such a passive answer. Creativity is at the heart of innovation. Many novel radio formats that grew to become successful began because an ownership group was willing to take a risk.

Sorry you don't like my answer, but it's factually correct. Cumulus can see the listenership difference between the AM & FM. They have no reason to blow up a hugely successful and lucrative sports station for country music. Doing so would not only be risky, but also stupid. Commercial radio is a business. Creativity is more of a non-commercial pursuit. Hope you find that to be a less passive answer.

 

[davideduardo]

Such a passive answer. Creativity is at the heart of innovation. Many novel radio formats that grew to become successful began because an ownership group was willing to take a risk. EX: the novel NAC format in the late 1980s (KKSF),

NAC or "Smooth Jazz" developed in its broad national form out of the team that put together The Wave in LA to replace a declining album rock format. It was an evolutionary format, based on a lot of research by Frank Cody, Owen Leach and several Metromedia local programmers, a model evolved out of fine tuning and heavily researching the intents in the prior year to create the format in places like NYC, Orlando and San Francisco but which met with limited acceptance.

or going back to a format that had been out of vogue for 2+ decades (KISQ - The Breeze),

The Breeze was an adaptation of what Cox discovered when trying to do very traditional AC in Miami at WFEZ, basing it on the very old leaning sister station WDUV in Tampa. Realizing Miami was no longer a retirement community, they modified the format and introduced a subtle variant that now regularly ties with WLYF. But the origin of that concept was in Miami, and it is, again, a research based fine tuning of a format, not a new format.

or even the WOW Factor in Phoenix, which took a couple years to find its stride and finally see its ratings blossom in 2021.

This is a case of an obvious format for an audience that nearly no advertiser wants to buy. Companies as large as CBS TV have tried to get advertisers and agencies to buy 55+ to no avail. And this is not a new format... it is just a fine tuning of "oldies" with a more MOR presentation. It's hardly a new format.

 

[victorres43]

Yet the country station in LA has been the #1 cuming country station in the US with some regularity.

Is August 2021 just a bad period for KKGO? KKGO seems to cume less than WUSN and WNSH, according to the latest PPM ratings. Even the Dallas (KPLX, KSCS) and Houston country stations (KILT, KKBQ) have better cumes.

The Breeze was an adaptation of what Cox discovered when trying to do very traditional AC in Miami at WFEZ, basing it on the very old leaning sister station WDUV in Tampa. Realizing Miami was no longer a retirement community, they modified the format and introduced a subtle variant that now regularly ties with WLYF. But the origin of that concept was in Miami, and it is, again, a research based fine tuning of a format, not a new format.

I just recalled that someone on this board said that the Breeze was successful because of its appeal to the Asian-American population residing in the Bay Area. I want to know how much truth there is in that statement.

 

[Cityguy76]

Before WWYZ (Waterbury/Hartford) flipped to country in 1988, Hartford area country fans had only low powered suburban AMs and (until the flip to sports as WFAN) WHN New York. We got no country concerts other than pop crossover acts like Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle at smaller venues. WWYZ was a mom-and-pop operation, the underperforming FM of WATR(AM), so I don't think anyone there did any research other than having a gut feeling that what country music was becoming in the late '80s would appeal to Connecticut listeners who didn't like what pop was becoming. Country 92.5 was an instant hit and remains a winner to this day.

Nice to hear this about the Hartford radio market...

 

[Cityguy76]

Is August 2021 just a bad period for KKGO? KKGO seems to cume less than WUSN and WNSH, according to the latest PPM ratings. Even the Dallas (KPLX, KSCS) and Houston country stations (KILT, KKBQ) have better cumes.


I just recalled that someone on this board said that the Breeze was successful because of its appeal to the Asian-American population residing in the Bay Area. I want to know how much truth there is in that statement.

is KKGO the only country station in Los Angeles?

 

[Cityguy76]

The NEW 105-9 The BULL - KSTN - Stockton,CA.

1059thebull.com

KSTN (AM) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is this the one? KSTN Stockton?

KATM - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

KATM?

Yes thats right. It was KSTN in Stockton at the time. I remember it was an AM station I recall...

 

[Cityguy76]

A significant station needs a cume in the half-million range. A show needs 10,000. big difference.

Or possible simulcast of KRTY?

 

[Cityguy76]

If we were talking about putting Country on an HD-2, there'd be no argument. This is about a full-market FM in San Francisco---and iHeart hasn't done that with Pride.

Unless iHeart does some selling off their stations nationwide and if includes the SF market I don’t see them returning country radio format on the airwaves in the SF radio market...

 

[Cityguy76]

Hmm. Urban Cowboy was 1980. That's when KSAN went country. The thing that killed Urban Cowboy was Garth Brooks and the new traditionalists in 1989. Seems to me KSAN was Top 10 or better with Garth and company, until KYCY Young Country came on the scene in 1994. Three years later KSAN flipped.

at the time wasn’t KSAN 94.9 and KNEW 910 under the ownership of Clear Channel which is now iHeart?

 

[Cityguy76]

Wait 92.7 FM was a dance station prior to Ed Stolz under a court order to sell his stations to VCY America after being named in a label royalties dispute. I don't know if EDM is viable for radio but it was trending at one point online radio.

I wonder how many companies lined up to purchase at the time 92.7 or was it all a package deal of Ed Stolz radio properties... that would be another option to have country radio return here...now of course its VCY and it looks they are happy to be here in SF market...