Paging KACS (or Positive Life Radio)...both of them would love to have that 69KW signal and expand their signals. That's the trend. PLR just expanded to Portland last year via 104.5 White Salmon, a translator in Portland on 104.5 (as well) and a 90.5 in Astoria.
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Lotus
- Thread starter bossbill
- Start date
Have no idea what your point is.
Pretty sure they had layoffs to make budget in Q1, not that they're so desperate that they need to sell off a crappy FM station.
Apparently not everyone has picked up on the population shift. Partially due to the cost of housing east of Seattle, there has been more growth on the west side of Puget Sound. True, West Tiger signals cover Seattle and the East side well, but my signal strength monitoring shows a South Mountain advantage on the west side of the Sound, and the growth on the west side has been quite remarkable. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point some of the traditional "Seattle" signals would add a "rim shot" and simulcast, thus covering the whole market.
By the way, one can still buy a 1,600 sq ft 3 bedroom, 2 bath new home on the West Side for $500k.
By the way, one can still buy a 1,600 sq ft 3 bedroom, 2 bath new home on the West Side for $500k.
The problem with the stations off South Mountain is they're shadowed by terrain East of I-5. That includes key King County communities like: Auburn, Kent, Maple Valley, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Kirkland, Ballard and parts of Seattle and West Seattle shadowed by Capital Hill. All those communities are high density prime PPM panelist areas which the shielding would negatively affect ratings. My bet is the GSM from Lotus would rather have agency dollars from higher ratings than be interested in selling to mom and pop grocery stores in Port Orchard.
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Not that there's anything wrong with mom and pop grocery stores 
But you are right about South Mountain and Bellevue. 99.3 is a multipathed mess of static in Bellevue. And so are the Capitol Peak signals.
Bill - Which Seattle signal do you think would benefit with the 'rimshot' simulcast down in Mason/Thurston/Lewis County? Maybe KIRO? Or The Sound?
But you are right about South Mountain and Bellevue. 99.3 is a multipathed mess of static in Bellevue. And so are the Capitol Peak signals.
Bill - Which Seattle signal do you think would benefit with the 'rimshot' simulcast down in Mason/Thurston/Lewis County? Maybe KIRO? Or The Sound?
That may be, but it's irrelevant. Lotus isn't in the social media business. This is what they're doing, and they're trying to do it without the benefit of being part of a much larger company. Journalism is in "decline" if people allow it to happen. If they accept the low hanging fruit and eat at McDonalds every day. Those who look for more can find it. What KNWN has to figure out is its place in the media marketplace. But if they follow your advice, they might as well shut the place down.
Maybe. It takes fewer people to do the same thing. But that opens the door for more people to do their own thing and tell their own stories, present their viewpoints, and find their own audience. A long time ago, a town had two newspapers (morning and afternoon) and a few radio stations. Now they have lots of choices and places to get their news. The thing they have to decide is what kind of news do they want. On the news side, they have to figure out a business model, because the old one is dead. The old news business model worked when there was scarcity. That's not what we have now. So there's a lot of work to do.
That's a key point. Lotus' track record is to run music and Spanish language stations in a miserly manner. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that methodology if you can do it. But, in this case, it isn't working on the most expensive format on radio, let alone when operating at a significant competitive disadvantage when it comes to signal coverage and established competition.
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Kelly is on point. Lotus is trying a low cost approach on its stations now to see if it might work, nothing wrong with that but hard to do with News on an AM and rimshot FM that really only puts a full signal/ strong PPM encode over 66% of the market. . I do wonder if at some point Lotus might sell to a Christian broadcaster, Hubbard or Bonneville. In today's consolidated world of radio multi-station combo buying is becoming the norm to compete against digital and other multi station combos. It is very hard with a standalone FM (KPLZ) and two AM's (with a rimshot that covers 66% of the market) to compete, even if they had good ratings.
It's all about being strategic. You hear that word all the time. So you start with what you own, and then use it to make strategic relationships with similar groups. That's what Lotus needs to do to compete. They need to do a better job with their KOMO relationship, and develop an online strategy.
But you know as well as I, that it takes humans to write compelling stories within an online strategy. Who's going to write those stories now? I'm not sure that KOMO-TV's news folks are interested in providing follow-up or unique content to share with a KNWS website/mobile app that's the same as what's on the KOMO-TV website/app. Back when it was owned by the same company they weren't interested, so why would they now?
Are they on the air now? Are there people in the building? Those are your people. That's where you start. Make deals with stringers and free-lancers. Share content made by others. The people of Seattle are your reporters. They write stuff every day. It ain't the 1940s.
Sure, maybe the Building Engineer could write some stories. Or how about telling the AM/PM drive anchors that they need to spend four or more hours writing digital copy, including attaching photos and links within the proper format? You're right that they could cobble something together like the early days of lame radio websites and call it a day, but that doesn't account for any quality that listeners/visitors expect these days. Especially stories that translate between a website format and mobile. The quality of your online product is equal to the amount of work to write copy for broadcast.
Just throwing something together on the cheap isn't a strategy.
I've already discussed the whole 'citizen journalism pipe dream'. It takes just as much work to verify stories, edit, and format content as having an employee write it. And those stringers, freelancers, and citizens will want to be compensated.
With that mindset, why not just copy stories from Facebook? What a disaster that would be.
All of it needs to be vetted, edited, and formatted. Who's going to do that? That's right, the janitorial staff.
You can either make excuses, or get to work. If not, there's a line out the door of people who'll do it for free. In fact they ARE doing it for free right now. That's the world we live in today. I'm speaking from experience. I'm living it in real time. People need to figure it out real quick because the clock is ticking.
Honestly, any religious broadcaster that isn't VCY or Salem has my support for acquiring 97.7 (if Lotus decides to sell).
So you believe that free content is a good strategy, even if it's wrong, written with an agenda, or could get you sued? That's not responsible journalism, let alone good for business. Other than it's cheap of course.
I don't think anyone is talking about selling 97.7. It's just some rabbit hole hypothetical that crainbebo came up with that has zero to do with the topic at hand. Just because a station doesn't do well full market, doesn't mean it's on the market.
Oh, and I neglected to add: Good Lord!
I think you do what you have to do. Whatever that is. Lotus has to decide what it wants to do. They've obviously chosen not to continue with status quo. OK, what next? We all see big corporate broadcasters in radio & TV doing things they would not have done 20 years ago. Some are getting sued, and some aren't. Some are doing "responsible journalism," and some aren't. It's up to them. If the people of Seattle want "responsible journalism," it's already being done. That route is taken.
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