But my point has to do with adding a sports radio station in LA. If you take a look at the sports station in Las Vegas, it's at the bottom of the ratings.
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KNX onto … 97.1??
- Thread starter Jstnpspck
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But my point has to do with adding a sports radio station in LA. If you take a look at the sports station in Las Vegas, it's at the bottom of the ratings.
I stand corrected. My understanding was The Fan was mostly the NY station and 98.7 was predominantly the National ESPN feed. Just looked it up. In Boston the two stations don't include a national feed/brand. They're both local.
Oh, the station. I'm shocked that the sports stations are so low in Vegas ratings, but it figures since they appeal to a very specific demographic as it is. But with the addition of betting (this is Vegas after all), maybe it'll just be a matter of time before those stations pick up in ratings. The City of Angels, by comparison is over-saturated by sports broadcasts that just turn people off so it'll be harder for them, then it will be for Vegas, a fresh market. We were just recently discussing and debating WGR's ratings in Buffalo, and I think that thread came to the conclusion that despite the announcers being brash, the station survives because of the Bills (regardless of how Buf plays. They went from bottom-feeders to the top in just a few years)
The classic example was WFAN in NY in the 90's.... consistently 15th in the 12+ ratings, and always #1 in revenue.
The purest form of irony.
Small update: KNOU is now KNX-FM. First time those calls have been used in a while.
What a wonderful early Christmas gift: now we can stop the talk and speculation about this callsign once and for all!
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So, now—-will the two “KNX-FM” music streaming services be asked to change?
Equally predictable as disappointing.
Why? They were there first.
Because their branding is based on FCC-issued call letters. Not a problem if those calls aren't in use. But now they are, and, barring one of the streaming services having trademarked the name (they both can't have), or Audacy deciding it's not that big a deal to have a music service branded the same as its FM news station, there's a potential conflict.
The KNXFM93 is probably safe. It's tough to litigate domain names.
You can trademark the same name on a different platform. If CBS or Audacy didn't specify online in their original trademark, they're out of luck. I've seen one word trademarked 50 different ways.
It really doesn't matter since it ends up being a sub-domain of audacy.com.
What about the audio content? Both streaming services identify themselves and their music programming as KNX-FM. Both, despite theoretically global reach, position themselves as Southern California (to complete the nostalgia factor of attempting to re-create the 1973-1983 OTA KNX-FM).
Think of it this way: The website can't sue Audacy either. It's one of those things that CBS should never have allowed the website in the first place. It doesn't cost much to register a domain. These companies need to be more protective of their trademarks and not allow anyone to use their name without permission. I don't know how long the website has been there, but the longer it's been, the harder it will be to challenge.
Both (two competing music streams, one programmed by a former KNX-FM PD, the other by the son of a former KNX-FM sales exec) have been around since 2018.
I still find it amazing that calls mean this much since I have been assured so many times on this board that they are completely irrelevant and no one tunes into heritage.
Yet here we are, discussing legal ramifications for a set of calls that have not been used in decades. Seems they are somewhat relevant, at least some of the time.
The calls are only relevant where a station has only used them for many decades. Most stations now have some kind of name, and the call based ones are mostly old news and talk stations. In other words, the calls are their name.
KNX has been all news for over 50 years. They could have adopted a name when other stations decided to forsake calls, but did not. Now, they have an old-fashioned identity,
Only in terms of branding cross-platform content. They are irrelevant in terms of ratings.
Also no one tunes in to heritage, but heritage can be helpful as a marketing tool. That's why the KNX press release mentioned the 100 years of KNX.
If KNX really is bothered by those streams, they will inundate the operators with lawyer letters and claims, making the streamers incur legal costs. The idea is to make the expense of keeping the name so high that they quit using it.
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