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A Change Coming to KGO

Theater of My Mind said:
L.A. Times today on the KGO flip and, "How the radio industry fails its listeners".
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It's a badly written article that ignores the changing way the public uses media. None of this would have happened had cell phones not been invented and people continued to buy transistor radios. The ONLY reason KGO is changing formats is hardly anybody listened. Should restaurants people don't go to be required to stay open? Say all you want about corporate radio, but they footed the bill for live & local talk on KGO for ten years. That's ten years of losing money. Shouldn't the listeners take just a little responsibility for that?

The people had already voted on this station and other radio stations in the AM band. The people deserted KGO ten years ago, and there's absolutely nothing any radio owner could do to bring them back. That's the reality that the complainers won't address. Radio may fail it's listeners after the listeners give up on radio. But it takes ten years for it to happen.

The bigger story that the article ignores is this same thing is happening to newspapers right now. Investment companies are buying up newspapers, firing the local staffs, and running centralized stories across the country. This isn't a radio problem. It's affecting newspapers, TV, restaurants, hardware stores, and everything else in this country.
 
TheBigA said:
It's a badly written article that ignores the changing way the public uses media. None of this would have happened had cell phones not been invented and people continued to buy transistor radios. The ONLY reason KGO is changing formats is hardly anybody listened. Should restaurants people don't go to be required to stay open? Say all you want about corporate radio, but they footed the bill for live & local talk on KGO for ten years. That's ten years of losing money. Shouldn't the listeners take just a little responsibility for that?

The people had already voted on this station and other radio stations in the AM band. The people deserted KGO ten years ago, and there's absolutely nothing any radio owner could do to bring them back. That's the reality that the complainers won't address. Radio may fail it's listeners after the listeners give up on radio. But it takes ten years for it to happen.

The bigger story that the article ignores is this same thing is happening to newspapers right now. Investment companies are buying up newspapers, firing the local staffs, and running centralized stories across the country. This isn't a radio problem. It's affecting newspapers, TV, restaurants, hardware stores, and everything else in this country.
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Agreed too as mentioned earlier in this thread the Audience in the Bay Area has shifted to NPR affiliate KQED-FM as the number one News/Talk station in the Bay Area. Also KCBS Radio is within the top 5 spots for all news in the San Francisco area. One can also argue that podcasts have gotten attention recently but those are niche. If they are getting attention it's Iheart and Audacity that's advertising them for a National audience.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Agreed too as mentioned earlier in this thread the Audience in the Bay Area has shifted to NPR affiliate KQED-FM
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My one question to all the people in the article is: When was the last time you listened.

Everyone is talking about 15-20 years ago. That was probably the last time they listened. Maybe the last time they listened to ANY radio, not just KGO. You want to know why radio is changing? What are you looking at right now? A radio? No.
 
TheBigA said:
It's a badly written article that ignores the changing way the public uses media. None of this would have happened had cell phones not been invented and people continued to buy transistor radios. The ONLY reason KGO is changing formats is hardly anybody listened. Should restaurants people don't go to be required to stay open? Say all you want about corporate radio, but they footed the bill for live & local talk on KGO for ten years. That's ten years of losing money. Shouldn't the listeners take just a little responsibility for that?

The people had already voted on this station and other radio stations in the AM band. The people deserted KGO ten years ago, and there's absolutely nothing any radio owner could do to bring them back. That's the reality that the complainers won't address. Radio may fail it's listeners after the listeners give up on radio. But it takes ten years for it to happen.

The bigger story that the article ignores is this same thing is happening to newspapers right now. Investment companies are buying up newspapers, firing the local staffs, and running centralized stories across the country. This isn't a radio problem. It's affecting newspapers, TV, restaurants, hardware stores, and everything else in this country.
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So they spend a bunch of money lobbying the government to change the ownership rules, borrow a bunch of money to buy up a bunch of stations and then when the profits don't come, they start cutting the budgets and firing people, thus creating an inferior product. When the listeners disappear into the Internet searching for a better quality product, the failure of the radio station is then the listener's fault?

And now they are sitting on a bunch of radio stations that aren't worth the money they borrowed to buy them. Some they actually give away to charity, some they program with cheap syndicated programming, and they wonder where all the listeners went? It looks like KGO is going to be a 24 hour infomercial for for BETMGM. Who knows how that will work out.
 
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Old Grey Coyote said:
So they spend a bunch of money lobbying the government to change the ownership rules, borrow a bunch of money to buy up a bunch of stations and then when the profits don't come, they start cutting the budgets and firing people, thus creating an inferior product. When the listeners disappear into the Internet searching for a better quality product, the failure of the radio station is then the listener's fault?

And now they are sitting on a bunch of radio stations that aren't worth the money they borrowed to buy them. Some they actually give away to charity, some they program with cheap syndicated programming, and they wonder where all the listeners went? It looks like KOA is going to be a 24 hour infomercial for for BETMGM. Who knows how that will work out.
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Again, I think you mean KGO. Let's not start rumors in Denver.
 
Old Grey Coyote said:
So they spend a bunch of money lobbying the government to change the ownership rules, borrow a bunch of money to buy up a bunch of stations and then when the profits don't come, they start cutting the budgets and firing people, thus creating an inferior product. When the listeners disappear into the Internet searching for a better quality product, the failure of the radio station is then the listener's fault?

And now they are sitting on a bunch of radio stations that aren't worth the money they borrowed to buy them. Some they actually give away to charity, some they program with cheap syndicated programming, and they wonder where all the listeners went? It looks like KOA is going to be a 24 hour infomercial for for BETMGM. Who knows how that will work out.
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And here's the thing---yeah, all that is true. But AM has been struggling in the ratings in most markets for more than 40 years. Eventually the number of people tuning to the band dropped to the point that even well-funded, well-programmed stations struggled to deliver an audience that would generate enough ad revenue to pay for itself.

The smaller stations went to fringe formats eons ago---the middleweights in the 90s and '00s. Now all that's left are the once-bigs (and in a few markets, the still-bigs).

Even absent debt service, some of these stations wouldn't be able to pay for adequate talent and promotion.

A big hint that the Telcom Bill of 1996 isn't entirely to blame can be found in the fact that AMs are going dark---in other countries.
 
michael hagerty said:
And here's the thing---yeah, all that is true. But AM has been struggling in the ratings in most markets for more than 40 years. Eventually the number of people tuning to the band dropped to the point that even well-funded, well-programmed stations struggled to deliver an audience that would generate enough ad revenue to pay for itself.

The smaller stations went to fringe formats eons ago---the middleweights in the 90s and '00s. Now all that's left are the once-bigs (and in a few markets, the still-bigs).

Even absent debt service, some of these stations wouldn't be able to pay for adequate talent and promotion.

A big hint that the Telcom Bill of 1996 isn't entirely to blame can be found in the fact that AMs are going dark---in other countries.
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Because, as I said, the listeners are finding a better product, or at least a product more to their liking on the Internet. I rarely listen to radio anymore. Only when I go to work to get current traffic conditions I can't get anywhere else. I have SiriusXM and Spotify in my car and I'm an old guy. Younger people are better with technology than I am.

It might just be a matter of the Internet developing as a radio alternative at the same time that big radio companies are cutting the budget. The country is also more diverse as are the listeners. There is more than one thing happening here.
 
michael hagerty said:
A big hint that the Telcom Bill of 1996 isn't entirely to blame can be found in the fact that AMs are going dark---in other countries.
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Canada allowed about 90% of its AMs to move to FM. Mexico moved about 75% to 80% to FM. Jamaica eliminated all AMs. In the many different jurisdictions of the Lesser Antilles, only two or three AMs are left.

In Ecuador, 50% of all AMs are gone, and in Chile and Peru they are going off permanently quite regularly. Brazil is moving as many AMs as it can to FM.

Europe has nearly no AMs left.

The US is worse than the rest, as we allowed so many useless daytimers, many very low power AMs and lots of stations so directional that they miss much of their market.
 
Old Grey Coyote said:
So they spend a bunch of money lobbying the government to change the ownership rules, borrow a bunch of money to buy up a bunch of stations and then when the profits don't come, they start cutting the budgets and firing people, thus creating an inferior product.
Click to expand...

You're compressing 25 years of history into one week. Ownership rules changed before 1996. Everyone knew the marketplace changed in the 80s when the FCC added a thousand more FM stations into the spectrum. The market shares went down after that, so companies needed more stations to reach the same number of people. The budget cuts didn't happen until ten years later when the 2008 recession hit.

But once again at the same time, you had the digital revolution. People who attack radio ignore that device in their pocket. They think they haven't changed, but they are now attached to their phones & computers. It's all they do all day. Look at what you're doing right now. Are you listening to the radio or typing on a computer?

Old Grey Coyote said:
Because, as I said, the listeners are finding a better product, or at least a product more to their liking on the Internet.
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Let's be honest: The product isn't better on Spotify or Pandora or Apple music. Name all the popular DJs or talk show hosts over there. You can't. So why this unfair comparison where you require radio to be live & local, but allow digital sites to do something completely different?
 
What about KYNO 940 in Fresno, CA? Last year, they revived their old Boss Radio-era sound and retooled it into an oldies format. I don't know how they're doing ratings wise, but I do know that they're a full power 50kW station that I can hear as far north as Ukiah at night. I haven't tried this yet, but I think if I had a really good antenna system setup, I could probably receive it in the daytime too.

On the bright side, once all the commercial AMs go dead, it'll leave the dial wide open to low power AM experimenters. The FCC, then, might consider loosening the regulations somewhat, since at that point there would be nothing left to interfere with. Maybe even re-allocate the MW band for amateur radio use or something.

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KGO actually killed the station in 2010 when they changed their news talk format to news and information. At that point they went head to head with KCBS. They never were able to beat KCBS as a news station. Come to think of it, KCBS still has decent ratings for an AM station.
 
cc333 said:
What about KYNO 940 in Fresno, CA? Last year, they revived their old Boss Radio-era sound and retooled it into an oldies format. I don't know how they're doing ratings wise, but I do know that they're a full power 50kW station that I can hear as far north as Ukiah at night. I haven't tried this yet, but I think if I had a really good antenna system setup, I could probably receive it in the daytime too.
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KYNO is 24th in 25-54 and 20th in 12+ in a smaller low revenue market. It's doing about $20,000 or less a month in gross billing.
 
Old Grey Coyote said:
KGO actually killed the station in 2010 when they changed their news talk format to news and information. At that point they went head to head with KCBS. They never were able to beat KCBS as a news station. Come to think of it, KCBS still has decent ratings for an AM station.
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It was already dead, killed by the recession and the introduction of the PPM. Everything they did after that was "first aid" to a patient that was dead.
 
Old Grey Coyote said:
KGO actually killed the station in 2010 when they changed their news talk format to news and information. At that point they went head to head with KCBS. They never were able to beat KCBS as a news station.
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And they realized that and very quickly changed back to live & local talk. They even rehired some of the older talk hosts. And they STAYED that way for TEN MORE YEARS! How often did anyone listen then?
 
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