Royce International saga, update

[exdjted]

There's one other factor to consider. If you intend to blow the family retirement fund on an owner-operator station in San Francisco, what do you intend to do for housing? You'd have to relocate to somewhere in the SFBA, and even a single-car garage isn't exactly cheap. Unless you were willing to commute every day to some place like Lodi or Ukiah (~200 mile round-trip, check a map) or sleep under your desk at the station. Even Golden Gate Park is mostly spoken for.

I only considered KREV as an investment to place a format on. We were looking at the other community because of the area and activities for our age group. I could never live in a town bigger than 20k population anyway. I never seriously considered SF specifically because the market is over-radioed and I would never jeopardize our retirement on an investment that I wasn't overseeing 24/7. The other market I can live in and put in 60 hours a week and still enjoy some time off. I've been at this long enough to know what's a good deal and what to walk away from. Ed Stolz is definitely a walk-away.

 

[david]

I find Alternative rock to be, in most cases, worthy of the same kind of negative descriptions as you use for one kind of Christian preaching. But I know that there is a significant audience segment that likes... even loves... it and I respect that.

I don't think it is necessary to be offensive while at the same time indicating a dislike. I don't find the VCY offering appealing, either. But it would not sustain itself on the air if it did not have some support.

David... you are trying too hard to be PC by presuming 'some support'. Religious broadcasting is not 'broad'casting. It is 'niche'casting; and worse, its purpose is to attempt to 'persuade'. Every market has a limited number of signals, which are, by definition, public airwaves, purposed to bring entertainment and information to the broad local community. Different formats attempt to appeal to different audiences within the broad spectrum of the local market, yet the common denominator is a generally broad grasp of said audience. Religious broadcasters are not of that ilk... rather they are attempting to spread "the message" via their various formulas.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Also, this is a tiny, pipsqueak signal. It barely makes it halfway down the peninsula, which means the population-bulge and economic engine of the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, never sees it. So your format has to hit well in the close-in demos, which is why the "LGBT Dance Music" format was the only one in recent memory to be sustainable, and that predates Mr. Stolz's ownership.

The Energy 92.7 format wasn't just targeted at LGBT audiences. The owner found that younger Asian-American audiences, regardless of sexual orientation, also liked it. No doubt there was an audience in the Richmond and Sunset, plus Daly City, Colma, and so on.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I find Alternative rock to be, in most cases, worthy of the same kind of negative descriptions as you use for one kind of Christian preaching. But I know that there is a significant audience segment that likes... even loves... it and I respect that.

I don't think it is necessary to be offensive while at the same time indicating a dislike. I don't find the VCY offering appealing, either. But it would not sustain itself on the air if it did not have some support.

I find VCY's programming offensive and its raison d'être - fusion of political and religious power to impose its strictures on everyone - beyond offensive. I'm married to someone of the same sex. I suppose, then, that you can't imagine why I would find VCY and its whole concept offensive until you face attempts to have your rights taken away from you (Proposition 8 - pushed by that unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic and LDS churches - affected me directly). My husband and I are currently considering retirement destinations, seeking warmer weather, concerned about wildfire danger, and getting away from some of California's political dysfunction. We can't even consider most states in the West, Midwest, or South, because they're run by Republicans who have fallen for the religious right wing's use of transgender-targeted legislation as a vehicle to regain political power and to gather financial firepower to start attacking more rights, including the right to same-sex marriage - which they have never liked. And, no, I don't have any confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court, given that it's now dominated by right-wing political hacks, to protect my rights. Dobbs clearly showed that the Court is now as eager to take away rights as it is to secure them. So I make no apologies for how I describe VCY. VCY has earned every single insult I can think to throw at them. I could even make fun of them for using old-fashioned low-frequency cue tones to trigger hourly legal IDs.

Christian programming that isn't blatantly political is another matter - EMF is kind of boring, actually, but at least it takes a positive approach and doesn't harangue. Northwestern University's "Life FM" programming can actually be engaging at times, and I have found no political bias there, either. Southern gospel likewise has its place. It's the programming, and the motivation behind it, that tells me I'm a piece of garbage that's going to hell that I object to. I can't imagine why anyone would be upset at that. (sarcasm)

 

[Miss Tuned]

David... you are trying too hard to be PC by presuming 'some support'. Religious broadcasting is not 'broad'casting. It is 'niche'casting; and worse, its purpose is to attempt to 'persuade'. Every market has a limited number of signals, which are, by definition, public airwaves, purposed to bring entertainment and information to the broad local community. Different formats attempt to appeal to different audiences within the broad spectrum of the local market, yet the common denominator is a generally broad grasp of said audience. Religious broadcasters are not of that ilk... rather they are attempting to spread "the message" via their various formulas.

I agree with this. This type of radio isn't radio and the people producing it don't care about radio. It's just a church or other religious body using a transmitter as a megaphone to amplify its preaching and message. There's no skill, no creativity in the programming, no production quality or anything that uses the unique strengths of broadcast radio as a medium to produce entertaining and engaging programming. K-Love et al are a different proposition entirely - they're Christian radio, with an emphasis on the radio, with radio pros making programs that sound good. VCY? It's just a megaphone for someone's ranting.

 

[Mark Roberts]

So let's get back to the "Sounds of Silence", shall we? No, not the Simon & Garfunkel song. Yes, the carrier (in stereo) with no programming that continues to emanate from 92.7 as of this very moment (8:18 am on May 12).

 

[davideduardo]

I find VCY's programming offensive and its raison d'être - fusion of political and religious power to impose its strictures on everyone - beyond offensive.

I find that equally offensive, but this is the price of democracy.

I've either lived or worked in about 20 countries and when I see radical ideologies on any extreme totally restricted, I see it develop rather quickly into the kind of situation that gave us Pinochet in Chile or the military government in Argentina that tossed dissident out of planes into the River Plate.

So my question is, "how would you regulate media so that ideologies like those of VCY were not allowed on public airwaves?" followed by "if you regulate that ideology, how to you keep other beliefs from being restricted, too?.

 

[TheBigA]

So my question is, "how would you regulate media so that ideologies like those of VCY were not allowed on public airwaves?" followed by "if you regulate that ideology, how to you keep other beliefs from being restricted, too?.

Why the immediate call for regulations? There are other ways to handle this.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

VCY began as brokered programming on FM in Milwaukee in the 1960s when FM stations didn't have anything to run. They eventually bought the flagship station after the owner got out of the Muzak business. The previous owner used it for it's subcarrier to sell Muzak and needed someone to run programming on the main. The programming got more extreme over the years. They're very political now. Far right. Kind of like Family Radio, BBN, that kind of radio. It was originally the Milwaukee Youth For Christ. VCY stands for Voice Of Christian Youth.

EMF was designed to be listenable to people who were not Christian. Finding the lost. Absolutely no politics are allowed on there. Nothing controversial. Just music and some teaching segments, which are about 1 minute long.

Some Christian stations are somewhere in between.

 

[davideduardo]

Why the immediate call for regulations? There are other ways to handle this.

I'm not calling for regulation; just the opposite. The minute you regulate ideologies, you are becoming an authoritarian state.

So, my point is that, unless you restrict certain types of content, the only other option is to allow opinions and content that most find repugnant to have their own voice.

The alternative is seen in events like Amy Kobuchar's event on Sunday where people with the opinion that she was not anti-oil and anti-mining enough overtook the stage and forced the cancellation of her event.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01/politics/amy-klobuchar-cancel-event-protestors/index.html

 

[TheBigA]

So, my point is that, unless you restrict certain types of content, the only other option is to allow opinions and content that most find repugnant to have their own voice.

What's the difference between regulations and restrictions?

 

[davideduardo]

What's the difference between regulations and restrictions?

In this context, "restrictions" are caused by "regulations". The moment you start regulating ideologies, you have taken the first step towards totalitarianism.

While most here understand this, I'm likely the only one in this threat who has actually lived it.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I find that equally offensive, but this is the price of democracy.

I've either lived or worked in about 20 countries and when I see radical ideologies on any extreme totally restricted, I see it develop rather quickly into the kind of situation that gave us Pinochet in Chile or the military government in Argentina that tossed dissident out of planes into the River Plate.

So my question is, "how would you regulate media so that ideologies like those of VCY were not allowed on public airwaves?" followed by "if you regulate that ideology, how to you keep other beliefs from being restricted, too?.

I'm actually not arguing for extensive regulations over this type of programming content so please don't read that into what I wrote. I am no fan of "cancel culture". I'm well aware of what happened in Latin America, particularly the southern countries, in the 1970s - and earlier years in some cases. I'm just vehemently expressing my dislike of VCY's programming and my belief that, as radio, it is poor quality propaganda, on the same level as Radio Tirana in the bad old days...and that it hurts radio's image as a medium for credible communications, information, and entertainment.

 

[TheBigA]

The moment you start regulating ideologies, you have taken the first step towards totalitarianism.

Although one could use Roberts Rules of Order and it would achieve the same result.

 

[Miss Tuned]

I'm actually not arguing for extensive regulations over this type of programming content so please don't read that into what I wrote. I am no fan of "cancel culture". I'm well aware of what happened in Latin America, particularly the southern countries, in the 1970s - and earlier years in some cases. I'm just vehemently expressing my dislike of VCY's programming and my belief that, as radio, it is poor quality propaganda, on the same level as Radio Tirana in the bad old days...and that it hurts radio's image as a medium for credible communications, information, and entertainment.

I don't agree with the vast majority of what comes out of conservative talk radio, but I can see how well put-together a lot of it is as radio programming and entertainment for a certain audience. I disagree just as much with VCY, but additionally it's really, really poor programming with zero entertainment or interest value.

 

[Radiopaw]

At the very least, it would be nice to clean up the non profit loopholes that allow for VCY/EMF to be significantly more profitable.

I am fine with EMF, and I have made my viewpoint that it is unfortunate they hold as much on the dial as they do in the Bay Area not due to a disdain for the format but for a disdain for having so many signals that could be held by smaller broadcasters on the commercial side, but I hold a lot of respect for the quality and professionalism of programming they put up, even if I don’t listen.

In America, it’s become clear you cannot regulate political views, even hateful ones spewed at times.

However, we can make it so those hateful viewpoints have to pay the same cost of operating as everyone else.

I’m only aware of hateful broadcasting by VCY, with even Salem tending to stay neutral.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

At the very least, it would be nice to clean up the non profit loopholes that allow for VCY/EMF to be significantly more profitable.

I am fine with EMF, and I have made my viewpoint that it is unfortunate they hold as much on the dial as they do in the Bay Area not due to a disdain for the format but for a disdain for having so many signals that could be held by smaller broadcasters on the commercial side, but I hold a lot of respect for the quality and professionalism of programming they put up, even if I don’t listen.

In America, it’s become clear you cannot regulate political views, even hateful ones spewed at times.

However, we can make it so those hateful viewpoints have to pay the same cost of operating as everyone else.

I’m only aware of hateful broadcasting by VCY, with even Salem tending to stay neutral.

Whos gonna pay for those signals? even smaller ones in a big metro area cost more then the people youre proposing to own them can afford.. otherwise, someone would've already bought it

 

[davideduardo]

At the very least, it would be nice to clean up the non profit loopholes that allow for VCY/EMF to be significantly more profitable.

Those entities would not be profitable even if chartered as for-profit groups. Everything that comes in goes back out. Profits that are taxed are the excess of income over expenses.

In America, it’s become clear you cannot regulate political views, even hateful ones spewed at times.

However, we can make it so those hateful viewpoints have to pay the same cost of operating as everyone else.

Then you would have to do the same for Catholics and Mormons and Muslims, too.

I’m only aware of hateful broadcasting by VCY, with even Salem tending to stay neutral.

The fortunate thing is that it appears they have very small followings.

 

[davideduardo]

Although one could use Roberts Rules of Order and it would achieve the same result.

Yet at Kobuchar's presentation, nothing was done to restore order.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I don't agree with the vast majority of what comes out of conservative talk radio, but I can see how well put-together a lot of it is as radio programming and entertainment for a certain audience. I disagree just as much with VCY, but additionally it's really, really poor programming with zero entertainment or interest value.

The Christian contemporary outlets are better put together. EMF gets all the attention, but I find the University of Northwestern's "Life FM" programming more engaging and less repetitive. And there was an independent in Des Moines (actually a rimshot from Winterset, Iowa), KPUL, "The Pulse", which I heard last week while in Iowa and which was very expertly done.