KEXP Buys KREV

[Theater of My Mind]

This was a big surprise to me. The Friends of KEXP, owners of a AAA station in Seattle, were the winning bidders for KREV Alameda.

This was not just a surprise, but also the best-case scenario for fans of good radio.

While the signal is limited, the format is a great fit for the city and I expect the station will get enthusiastic support from listeners in the areas it reaches. The Bay Area is also as tech-centric as it gets, and people here know how to stream what they want to hear.

 

[TheBigA]

Looking at the brochure posted on by the auction house on this site, KEXP has bought the license plus:

Tower Site: One Bayview Park Road, San Francisco, CA
Active lease with tower site landlord you CAN assume
Broadcast through direct internet capabilities on site(no studio needed)

So there is no studio/office as part of the deal. The internet hookup was probably left from VCY. I remember reading court filings from Stoltz that said the facility was in bad shape.

 

[Negin]

The signal issues is what probably hurt it when it was KJAZ in the old days.

 

[Mark Roberts]

So there is no studio/office as part of the deal. The internet hookup was probably left from VCY. I remember reading court filings from Stoltz that said the facility was in bad shape.

Plenty of downtown office space for rent in San Francisco at the present time, if KEXP so chooses!

The legal IDs for KREV when it was under VCY control - my recordings are from February 2022 - indicated that it was probably being fed from the Los Alamos, NM station. After the cue tone, this was the legal ID:

KVCN Los Alamos
KFRH North Las Vegas
KREV Alameda
Roswell K250AB
Alamosa (CO) K293AO (read as "K twenty-nine three AO" - first time I've heard a translator ID parsed like that)

Yes, for the translators the city of license came before the call letters.

 

[Mark Roberts]

The signal issues is what probably hurt it when it was KJAZ in the old days.

KJAZ was a passion project, which was fine for FM in the 1960s but ultimately would prove to be unsustainable as a commercial station. An attempt to gain listener support in 1994 garnered some contributions but not enough to keep the station from being sold after years of losses.

 

[davideduardo]

It's perfect format for the Bay Area especially the areas that KREV will be serving.

"The Bay Area" is not the market. The market, that is San Francisco Metro Survey Area, runs from Santa Rosa to Gilroy. This 65 dbu signal covers 2.3 million in a market of a bit over 8 million. It can't compete with such a limited signal.

 

[TheBigA]

The signal issues is what probably hurt it when it was KJAZ in the old days.

You don't think the format was a problem? I know that San Franscisco has a great jazz heritage. Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond were from the area. You had the Monterey Jazz Festival, revived by Clint Eastwood. There was a jazz club scene downtown, and they had a big New Year's eve show. But that kind of format became obsolete as FM became more popular.

 

[Mark Roberts]

You don't think the format was a problem? I know that San Franscisco has a great jazz heritage. Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond were from the area. There was a jazz club scene downtown, and they had a big New Year's eve show. But that kind of format became obsolete as FM became more popular.

At the time that KJAZ was put up on the market (February 1994), the Oakland Tribune quoted one jazz magazine publisher who felt the station was too conservative in its approach, not playing more avant-garde music. (Sound familiar?)

The appeal for listener support reached halfway to its $3 million target - which was the amount owed in loans that had kept the station afloat. The programming later was available on a few cable systems and on satellite, also intended to be listener-supported, but terminated after nine months due to inadequate financial support. In 1995, that model of distribution was too difficult to work. It might well be a different story today.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

Plenty of downtown office space for rent in San Francisco at the present time, if KEXP so chooses!

The legal IDs for KREV when it was under VCY control - my recordings are from February 2022 - indicated that it was probably being fed from the Los Alamos, NM station. After the cue tone, this was the legal ID:

KVCN Los Alamos
KFRH North Las Vegas
KREV Alameda
Roswell K250AB
Alamosa (CO) K293AO (read as "K twenty-nine three AO" - first time I've heard a translator ID parsed like that)

Yes, for the translators the city of license came before the call letters.

VCY generally is station specific. If a station has a translator, they'll mention it. Each station has their own Legal ID, Weather, etc but I'm guessing they knew the Stolz situation and didn't want to bother to set all of them up which is understandable. Once they get back on KFRH and KRCK, those stations will likely at some point have their own IDs and local breaks

 

[michael hagerty]

You don't think the format was a problem? I know that San Franscisco has a great jazz heritage. Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond were from the area. You had the Monterey Jazz Festival, revived by Clint Eastwood. There was a jazz club scene downtown, and they had a big New Year's eve show. But that kind of format became obsolete as FM became more popular.

You could have put KJAZ on the strongest FM in the market, and it still wouldn't have been competitive. As much as it pains me (jazz fan here), it's not mass-appeal music and hasn't been in decades.

 

[michael hagerty]

At the time that KJAZ was put up on the market (February 1994), the Oakland Tribune quoted one jazz magazine publisher who felt the station was too conservative in its approach, not playing more avant-garde music. (Sound familiar?)

Yep. And if that jazz magazine publisher had programmed KJAZ, the numbers would likely have been even lower.

 

[TheBigA]

Plenty of downtown office space for rent in San Francisco at the present time, if KEXP so chooses!

They don't need office space. They need a place for outreach. A place to interact with members, and further the mission of music. So what I expect they'll do is an extension of the Experience Music Project, the Museum of Pop Culture, and a performance venue where members can meet and listen to music.

You could have put KJAZ on the strongest FM in the market, and it still wouldn't have been competitive. As much as it pains me (jazz fan here), it's not mass-appeal music and hasn't been in decades.

I agree. WRVR New York was on a full market signal and never got great ratings with jazz. However, when that same signal flipped to WLTW, it became the #1 station in town.

 

[Mark Roberts]

They don't need office space. They need a place for outreach. A place to interact with members, and further the mission of music. So what I expect they'll do is an extension of the Experience Music Project, the Museum of Pop Culture, and a performance venue where members can meet and listen to music.

There's even more retail space available! Even around Union Square, where's there's at least some activity now.

Just make it reasonably accessible to BART and the MUNI Metro.

 

[Mark Roberts]

You could have put KJAZ on the strongest FM in the market, and it still wouldn't have been competitive. As much as it pains me (jazz fan here), it's not mass-appeal music and hasn't been in decades.

By the 1990s, KCSM-FM was also in a jazz format, and still is. Having two such stations in a market just would not have been sustainable, especially with one trying to make it on a commercial basis.

So, in 1994, instead of getting enough listener contributions to pay off $3 million in bank loans, the station was sold for $6 million (according to local press reports of the time). The equivalent today would be almost $12.5 million.

Going in the other direction, the $3.75 million price KEXP is paying would have been equivalent to $1.8 million in 1994.

 

[rustyhodge]

They don't need office space. They need a place for outreach. A place to interact with members, and further the mission of music. So what I expect they'll do is an extension of the Experience Music Project, the Museum of Pop Culture, and a performance venue where members can meet and listen to music.

I hear there is a lot of space at (the former Westfield) San Francisco Center that could be perfect for a Bay Area outpost of the Experience Music Project Or even the Metreon.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

"The Bay Area" is not the market. The market, that is San Francisco Metro Survey Area, runs from Santa Rosa to Gilroy. This 65 dbu signal covers 2.3 million in a market of a bit over 8 million. It can't compete with such a limited signal.

It doesn't need to 'compete' since it will not be a commercial station relying on ratings for ad buys. It will be a public radio station seeking support from listeners in its coverage area which, as you point out, is at least 2.3 million.

 

[speer360]

Bay Area outpost of the Experience Music Project

The Experience Music Project is dead. It is now the Museum of Pop Culture.

KEXP no longer operates from the site, has moved to Seattle Center's west side.

 

[TheBigA]

The Experience Music Project is dead. It is now the Museum of Pop Culture.

KEXP no longer operates from the site, has moved to Seattle Center's west side.

Yes there has been a rebranding, but there is still a connection.

Yes they moved into a new location that includes a performance venue.

Inside the new KEXP: Expanded studios open up a new world for beloved Seattle radio station

Musicians who visit radio station KEXP's new home at Seattle Center will get to play in a state-of-the-art live performance studio, with high-tech

www.geekwire.com

 

[speer360]

Yes there has been a rebranding, but there is still a connection.

Yes they moved into a new location that includes a performance venue.

Inside the new KEXP: Expanded studios open up a new world for beloved Seattle radio station

Musicians who visit radio station KEXP's new home at Seattle Center will get to play in a state-of-the-art live performance studio, with high-tech

www.geekwire.com

Not at MoPOP.

They are still in Seattle Center, but no longer on site of and or involved with MoPOP

From your link "KEXP’s new home at Seattle Center" "move to the renovated 28,000-square-foot space on the northwest corner of the Seattle Center grounds"

MoPOP is on the opposite corner of KEXP is at Seattle Center.

Trust me, I lived and worked in the neighborhood during the move.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I hear there is a lot of space at (the former Westfield) San Francisco Center that could be perfect for a Bay Area outpost of the Experience Music Project

If I remember correctly, there used to be a piano in the men's department at Nordstrom, which closed, leaving a big empty space in the center. A performance space could continue the tradition, once they fumigate the cosmetics counter that was nearby.

In all seriousness, the streetscape on Market in front of the San Francisco Center leaves a lot to be desired. This isn't anything new, but it seems sadder now. It can be avoided by taking the direct entrance from the Powell BART/MUNI station, of course. I guess there are multiple places that one could put a performance space downtown, but that selection would have to be made carefully.

Or even the Metreon.

Speaking of sad. We were at SFMOMA last weekend to see the Diego Rivera mural - which is awesome - and thought we might get a bite to eat at the Metreon afterwards. But there's not a lot of choice there any more; we ended up around the corner at Super Duper, which I remembered from numerous cybersecurity conventions at Moscone.

The Metreon/Moscone area is more convention-oriented anyway; probably not something that someone looking for a performance space would want, even though it's highly configurable.