WHOM 94.9 is licensed to a mountain -- Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Nobody lives up there, it's not an incorporated community, but it's a legal COL.
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IHM ownership question
- Thread starter MVB13
- Start date
This question about ownership shows how you can somewhat get around the counts.
In the Fresno Market, iHeart has 6 FMs, KFSO, KBOS, KALZ, KSOF, KHGE and KFBT. But only KALZ and KHGE are actually Fresno Market stations. The other four are either in Tulare or Kings counties which is part of the Visalia/Tulare market.
What they do then, is declare that KBOS, KSOF and KFBT as Fresno stations with Nielsen and keep KFSO as a Visalia market station, even with a KFSO, Visalia Fresno ID.
In the Fresno Market, iHeart has 6 FMs, KFSO, KBOS, KALZ, KSOF, KHGE and KFBT. But only KALZ and KHGE are actually Fresno Market stations. The other four are either in Tulare or Kings counties which is part of the Visalia/Tulare market.
What they do then, is declare that KBOS, KSOF and KFBT as Fresno stations with Nielsen and keep KFSO as a Visalia market station, even with a KFSO, Visalia Fresno ID.
KBOS is "home" to Visalia for both the FCC and Nielsen. KFSO, KFBT and KSOF are home to Visalia for the FCC, but home to Fresno with Nielsen. Nielsen allows rimshots to select which market is "primary" no matter what the FCC criteria is.
A good example is KLYY in Riverside, CA. Entravision has it registered with Nielsen as home to LA, but for the FCC it is still a Riverside-San Bernardino station.
One is able to select the "primary" market with Nielsen based on some minimal audience evidence. This means that in the "free" rankers given to the press, the station will show in the selected market... even if it does not cover it well.
Cleveland, OH, has several Akron market stations that have elected to be Cleveland stations... yet another example. There have to be more, but I've never looked carefully at the practice.
I worked at WHOM in the 1990s and wondered about that myself. How could a station be licensed to a mountain? No one seemed to be able to answer the question. Several years later, I learned - perhaps from a Scott Fybush post - that there is a post office with a zip code atop the mountain. That, apparently, is sufficient to be considered a station's city of license!
Slight thread hijack - I recall back when Clear Channel bought legacy 50,000 watt WWVA in Wheeling, WV; there was talk in the early 2000s of them relocating that station from Wheeling to either Akron or Stow, OH to hit the Cleveland market. Clear Channel claimed they ultimately cancelled those plans following a large amount of pushback and opposition from those in the Wheeling area, but IMO that's BS. I'm guessing that, after doing the math and realizing the decline of AM radio especially was at hand, it simply wasn't worth it to them financially to make the move. They framed it as an "OK, you won!" story to the residents there to both save face and also build some goodwill in the community.
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Cleveland, OH, has several Akron market stations that have elected to be Cleveland stations... yet another example. There have to be more, but I've never looked carefully at the practice.
Let's see....the big frequency swap of 2001 in the Cleveland/Akron area saw WKDD/WAKS swap frequencies with 96.5 [WAKS] licensed to Akron but billing themselves as "Cleveland's Hit Music Channel" [Personally, I think there's an "S" missing from one of the words in that tag line.] WARF-"The Gambler"[1350 AM] positioning itself to match up with iheart's Cleveland stations that carry sports broadcasts and selling it as a "Cleveland" station to get ad revenue....:Look, advertise on our Cleveland stations and we'll throw in this Akron station for your ads for FREE!" And here's a Frankenstein of a station....WKJA 91.9, licensed to Brunswick [Medina county], Antenna on what I believe is a cell phone tower, 29-32 miles away from the licensed city in Wayne county as the crow flies and studios located in Barberton, OH. [Summit county]....so basically, one station with parts in three separate counties.
Let's see....the big frequency swap of 2001 in the Cleveland/Akron area saw WKDD/WAKS swap frequencies with 96.5 [WAKS] licensed to Akron but billing themselves as "Cleveland's Hit Music Channel" [Personally, I think there's an "S" missing from one of the words in that tag line.] WARF-"The Gambler"[1350 AM] positioning itself to match up with iheart's Cleveland stations that carry sports broadcasts and selling it as a "Cleveland" station to get ad revenue....:Look, advertise on our Cleveland stations and we'll throw in this Akron station for your ads for FREE!" And here's a Frankenstein of a station....WKJA 91.9, licensed to Brunswick [Medina county], Antenna on what I believe is a cell phone tower, 29-32 miles away from the licensed city in Wayne county as the crow flies and studios located in Barberton, OH. [Summit county]....so basically, one station with parts in three separate counties.
Backtrack to KVVS and KSRY since they are license to Rosamond and Tehachapi. I recently looked at Neilsen DMA Map and KERN county is split in half in terms of Radio and TV market. The western half of Kern County is part of Bakersfield DMA Market both (Radio and TV). The eastern part of Kern County is part of Los Angeles TV market and No DMA for radio.
IS KVVS and KSRY (Rosamond and Tehachapi part of western Kern County (Bakersfield DMA) or it's part of eastern Kern County (Non-Designated DMA)?
(Zoom to Kern county and Bakersfield area)
DMA is a TV term: "DMA (Designated Market Area) regions are the geographic areas in the U.S. in which local television viewing is measured by Nielsen. DMA data is essential for any marketer, researcher or organization seeking to use standardized geographic areas within their business."
Here is the latest map of radio Metro Survey Areas.
Remember, radio metros are generally much smaller than TV markets, as TV markets include the areas where there is no OTA signal but stations are viewable via cable and other non-broadcast methods.
Those stations are not home to any market, but as rimshots they can be shown in whichever (or both) of the markets they are in between.
No need to yell. Michael Rivers Kramer and David both answered this question in April. Go look.
no yelling. They are not home to either market, but if they get listening in either or both, they will show in them.
The stations that are licensed in the LA metro that show in the separate Riverside San Bernardino book, and 20 of them "make the book".
You do not have to be licensed within the metro to be included in a metro's book.
KCSN’s present partner KSBR was not licensed to a city for many years as its “city of license” (Mission Viejo) was unincorporated until 1988.
These two stations are only listened to in the Antelope Valley, which is the primary market for these stations.
They are not in the market.
There has not been a requirement that the community of license be an incorporated place. Most are, but that's because most places with more than a few hundred people are incorporated (at least in the regions where I have lived)
Reminds me of how WSRZ is licensed to Coral Cove, Florida, which is not a city or even a census-designated place (CDP). It's just a small, gated community in Sarasota County.
Anyways, the concept of "city of license" really is archaic, and sometimes only points to the history of the station 40-50 years ago. Can you imagine discussing how relevant WKTU is to Lake Success, New York? Or how WSBB-FM is to Doraville, Georgia? How about the importance of KBLX to Berkeley?
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