KFI Going Off Air Again Tonight

[sdwulfdawg]

KFI is running promos right now that they are once again shutting down their transmitter tonight for maintenance......

 

[yeoldeschool]

It must be something pretty serious if they're having to do this -- what is it -- four times now, and all without being able to fire up their aux.

 

[K108 Sacramento]

Maybe the top hat is threatening to blow off. Isn't that what its called?

 

[yeoldeschool]

That still doesn't answer the question of why KFI doesn't use its separate auxiliary transmitter and tower during these outages. Even if this were because of maintenance on equipment that both transmitters have in common (like mains voltage work on their outside transformers), they still have generators they could keep the station on-air with, don't they?

Another thing that doesn't make sense: engineers are accustomed to working odd hours to minimize revenue loss. If whatever they're doing is compatible with working in the dark at 11 PM, why can't they work in the dark at 1 AM? The difference being that the former disrupts a very popular nationally syndicated, listener call in-heavy show in its #2 market while it's live -- a show that KFI makes lots of money off of (to say nothing of the money the show makes by actually having its #2 market affiliate air it), whereas the latter (1 AM) only disrupts its much less important rerun.

I wonder if this is actually some kind of weird ongoing experiment to study what percentage of the audience has access to, knows how to, and will in actual fact switch to online streaming if the AM signal leaves the air. They did have their hosts, and I think also some promos, encourage listeners to switch to the online stream. I'm not sure about all four of the outages, but at least for one of them, I myself heard Noory announce KFI's impending outage in spite of his doing so having no relevance to 95% of his otherwise nationwide audience.

We're living in bad times for AM broadcasters. Heck, Audacity just decapitated a hits music station on analog FM to put KNX on that band. KNX even got rebranded as an FM and has dropped all mention of being KNX AM. So I'm thinking, even though KFI is the Los Angeles AM band's main cume magnet, maybe they're worried about audience losses as a result of whatever co-cume magnet effect KNX ever had on it, and they're starting to do studies on what to do next -- including how many normally-AM signal-only listeners will stream it if they have to.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Since it has been too long to edit my previous post:

A question for @DavidEduardo if you're awake (I guess that's the inside joke around here ):

Could KFI 98.7 FM ever happen?

KYSR is iHeartMedia's lowest rated FM station in Los Angeles, but it consistently rates "only" as low as a 2.3. KFI has meanwhile fallen from 3.8 in September to 3.1 now. Do you think putting KFI on 98.7 FM might bring back enoguh old listeners, and bring in enough new listeners, to more than offset the loss of KYSR's listeners? I don't have anything close to your expertise/background and can't even begin to predict how many more listeners KFI's programming might attract if on FM than on AM.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Hope I'm not breaking a forum rule by posting three times in a row. But another thought on the KFI transmitter matter occurred to me, and I'd like to add it:

As most of you know, online streams are starting to actually get ratings (Nielsen Audio Ratings). However minuscule they are for now, it's obvious things are changing, and that a meaningful percentage of each station's audience may one day come from streaming. That said, most stations target the usual young to middle aged demographics that all have smartphones and know how to use them. But could it be that KFI could be killing its signal to study online streaming switch-over rates because the audience for AM and/or KFI itself tilts old enough that there isn't as much available research as KFI's management might normally like on the ability/willingness of its particular audience to listen online? Possibly making it logical to do a few tests of their own? I can imagine multiple reasons to want to test an older audience's willingness and ability to go online, from technical incompetence and/or technophobia to the fact many older, fixed-budget individuals use heavily capped "Consumer Cellular" style internet service as opposed to the more gougy and less capped plans younger folks have ... something that might make them in particular reluctant to leave a stream running.

 

[davideduardo]

It must be something pretty serious if they're having to do this -- what is it -- four times now, and all without being able to fire up their aux.

Now it sounds like a building electrical issue. It is an old building, and they may have had to do some rewiring in phases.

 

[davideduardo]

Since it has been too long to edit my previous post:

A question for @DavidEduardo if you're awake (I guess that's the inside joke around here ):

Could KFI 98.7 FM ever happen?

KYSR is iHeartMedia's lowest rated FM station in Los Angeles, but it consistently rates "only" as low as a 2.3. KFI has meanwhile fallen from 3.8 in September to 3.1 now. Do you think putting KFI on 98.7 FM might bring back enoguh old listeners, and bring in enough new listeners, to more than offset the loss of KYSR's listeners? I don't have anything close to your expertise/background and can't even begin to predict how many more listeners KFI's programming might attract if on FM than on AM.

KYSR has excellent demos such as an average of #1 in 18-34 men, #6 in 25-49 men, #1 in 25-34 men. It's not going to be sacrificed.

All the iHeart FMs are performing very well and billing well, too, I heart has seven stations in the top 11 billers in the market. The lowest biller other than 1150 is KRRL. Even KLAC beats it.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

That still doesn't answer the question of why KFI doesn't use its separate auxiliary transmitter and tower during these outages. Even if this were because of maintenance on equipment that both transmitters have in common (like mains voltage work on their outside transformers), they still have generators they could keep the station on-air with, don't they?

Another thing that doesn't make sense: engineers are accustomed to working odd hours to minimize revenue loss. If whatever they're doing is compatible with working in the dark at 11 PM, why can't they work in the dark at 1 AM? The difference being that the former disrupts a very popular nationally syndicated, listener call in-heavy show in its #2 market while it's live -- a show that KFI makes lots of money off of (to say nothing of the money the show makes by actually having its #2 market affiliate air it), whereas the latter (1 AM) only disrupts its much less important rerun.

I wonder if this is actually some kind of weird ongoing experiment to study what percentage of the audience has access to, knows how to, and will in actual fact switch to online streaming if the AM signal leaves the air. They did have their hosts, and I think also some promos, encourage listeners to switch to the online stream. I'm not sure about all four of the outages, but at least for one of them, I myself heard Noory announce KFI's impending outage in spite of his doing so having no relevance to 95% of his otherwise nationwide audience.

We're living in bad times for AM broadcasters. Heck, Audacity just decapitated a hits music station on analog FM to put KNX on that band. KNX even got rebranded as an FM and has dropped all mention of being KNX AM. So I'm thinking, even though KFI is the Los Angeles AM band's main cume magnet, maybe they're worried about audience losses as a result of whatever co-cume magnet effect KNX ever had on it, and they're starting to do studies on what to do next -- including how many normally-AM signal-only listeners will stream it if they have to.

WBBM, Audacy's All-News station in Chicago, still promotes their AM and FM frequencies for that station.

KFI really sounds like a mishmash of this and that these days....

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Since it has been too long to edit my previous post:

A question for @DavidEduardo if you're awake (I guess that's the inside joke around here ):

Could KFI 98.7 FM ever happen?

KYSR is iHeartMedia's lowest rated FM station in Los Angeles, but it consistently rates "only" as low as a 2.3. KFI has meanwhile fallen from 3.8 in September to 3.1 now. Do you think putting KFI on 98.7 FM might bring back enoguh old listeners, and bring in enough new listeners, to more than offset the loss of KYSR's listeners? I don't have anything close to your expertise/background and can't even begin to predict how many more listeners KFI's programming might attract if on FM than on AM.

KFI doesn't do bad at all in the San Diego Marketing rating book....

 

[Frequency1]

The tower owner is installing a new auxiliary tower next to the main KFI tower.