KCBS Streams Sounds Muddy

[BarryATL]

I am a news junkie and sometimes listen to the all news stations around the country. For some reason I have not gotten around to listening to KCBS since the KNX building evacuation years ago where KCBS/KNX simulcast for a few hours.

I thought the stream stounded muddy. I think it is on purpose. Some NPR stations will boost the lows and change the audio chain so it sounds very quiet. However, the other Audacy news stations (WCBS, WINS, WBBM) have a more vibrant, bright sound.

Is the muddy sound of KCBS on purpose to make it competitive with the highly rated NPR station, KQED? Or, is there simply something wrong with the stream audio chain?

FYI, I am listening using the Audacy app.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I am a news junkie and sometimes listen to the all news stations around the country. For some reason I have not gotten around to listening to KCBS since the KNX building evacuation years ago where KCBS/KNX simulcast for a few hours.

I thought the stream stounded muddy. I think it is on purpose. Some NPR stations will boost the lows and change the audio chain so it sounds very quiet. However, the other Audacy news stations (WCBS, WINS, WBBM) have a more vibrant, bright sound.

Is the muddy sound of KCBS on purpose to make it competitive with the highly rated NPR station, KQED? Or, is there simply something wrong with the stream audio chain?

FYI, I am listening using the Audacy app.

When KFRC-FM first started simulcasting KCBS in October 2008, there seemed to be some adjustment required since levels were uneven at times on the FM signal. This gradually resolved over time. The AM station sounded perfectly normal for an AM station. Staff probably got used to the AM processing and receiver AGC doing a lot of the work. The AM was running HD for a while but that ended at least 10 years ago. The FM really shouldn't be in stereo, especially given the Bay Area's terrain leading to many opportunities for multipath, but KQED-FM's always in stereo, too, so no disadvantage there.

I tend to doubt that KCBS is doing much of anything with KQED-FM in mind. Their local news emphasis is far different, for example. I suspect they're not paying a lot of attention to their processing.

I listened to the stream just now - 128 kbps AAC, should perform just fine and way better than the bitstarved streams that iHeart puts out.

 

[BarryATL]

I listened for about an hour during the 9 AM hour. I really liked that the station is not programmed tight like the other Audacy all news operations. The anchor took 10 minutes to do an interview with two restaurant owners that was totally topical in engaging.

As to the muddy sound from the Audacy app stream, I think they are just not paying attention to it. I will try again another time and use the web stream to see the difference. The Audacy app was inserting a mega crazy amount of commercials targeted to the market I live it.

 

[101tm]

So companies like iHeart and Audacy actually process streams? Are they processed separately from the terrestrial audio chain? I always wondered exactly what station streams do since competition like Spotify and Apple Music don’t have (and aren’t really able to anyway) anything on the stream other than the user-set EQ.

At a decent bitrate, I’ve noticed some online streams do sound more “alive” and fuller than if you listen to the same thing on Spotify, thought it may just be me.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I listened for about an hour during the 9 AM hour. I really liked that the station is not programmed tight like the other Audacy all news operations. The anchor took 10 minutes to do an interview with two restaurant owners that was totally topical in engaging.

KCBS especially does this on the weekends, but also a little less often on weekdays (though frequently in the 7:30 am slot local time). It helps break up the repetition.

It's one of the few things I miss about the Bay Area. No chance I'll have anything like it in Denver. iHeart just isn't that committed to actual news reporting, and it's too late to try to build an all-news format from scratch here.

As to the muddy sound from the Audacy app stream, I think they are just not paying attention to it. I will try again another time and use the web stream to see the difference. The Audacy app was inserting a mega crazy amount of commercials targeted to the market I live it.

The streaming commercials are extremely repetitive. If I hear one more spot for "Repipe Specialists", I think I will scream, and not in a good way.

 

[radiofan2023]

Audacy’s app is absolute garbage

 

[michael hagerty]

The AM was running HD for a while but that ended at least 10 years ago.

A little less than that. I've been home ten years and a month and I remember the HD for a year or more after.

Scott Fybush put a legal ID from December of 2014 up on tophour-dot-com---they were still running the HD then.

https://tophour.com/audio/San%20Francisco-San%20Jose%20CA/am0740_2014-12_kcbs_sfybush.mp3

The next ID I can find after that is from 2018 and the AM HD is gone. My memory (a roll of the dice) says they turned it off sometime in 2015.

 

[michael hagerty]

It's one of the few things I miss about the Bay Area. No chance I'll have anything like it in Denver. iHeart just isn't that committed to actual news reporting, and it's too late to try to build an all-news format from scratch here.

It's also too small a market to support an all-news format. I think Detroit's the smallest, and if it hadn't been for the heritage of WWJ, who knows whether they'd have one today?

The best you could hope for would be a news/talk with a heavy news commitment, but iHeart's not gonna be the company that does that. If Bonneville acquired a few extra signals in the market and wanted to clone KSL, that'd probably be the only shot.

 

[101tm]

It's also too small a market to support an all-news format. I think Detroit's the smallest, and if it hadn't been for the heritage of WWJ, who knows whether they'd have one today?

The best you could hope for would be a news/talk with a heavy news commitment, but iHeart's not gonna be the company that does that. If Bonneville acquired a few extra signals in the market and wanted to clone KSL, that'd probably be the only shot.

iHeart does all news in Boston with WBZ, but it certainly wasn’t something they launched. I’m surprised how well they’ve handled WBZ since I’m not aware of them trying all news, even in the late 00s/early 10s all news “resurgence” (which, mostly, the newly launched stations failed regardless of operator).

 

[michael hagerty]

iHeart does all news in Boston with WBZ, but it certainly wasn’t something they launched. I’m surprised how well they’ve handled WBZ since I’m not aware of them trying all news, even in the late 00s/early 10s all news “resurgence” (which, mostly, the newly launched stations failed regardless of operator).

WBZ proved that iHeart can do it and wouldn't shut it down because of costs or the fact that it was outside their format portfolio when they acquired it.

A lot of credit for WBZ not having been gutted or turned into a news-talk goes to iHeart's Executive VP for News, Sports and Talk Programming, Chris Berry. He was a producer at KNX in the 80s, became News Director at WBBM, was VP/Radio for ABC News and General Manager at WMAL. He understands news and probably more than anyone inside iHeart is responsible for WBZ still doing what it does.

That doesn't mean that iHeart will spend the money to bring its news/talks in other markets up to WBZ's standard for news. It's a stand-alone.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It's also too small a market to support an all-news format. I think Detroit's the smallest, and if it hadn't been for the heritage of WWJ, who knows whether they'd have one today?

The best you could hope for would be a news/talk with a heavy news commitment, but iHeart's not gonna be the company that does that. If Bonneville acquired a few extra signals in the market and wanted to clone KSL, that'd probably be the only shot.

Unlikely, unless Kroenke would decide to sell at some point. KKFN is probably doing too well to give up and KOSI is practically eternal. KSL is a rather odd news/talk station - I heard quite a bit of it in September since Salt Lake City was one of our stopovers on the dash to get to Denver before the movers did. For my taste, it overemphasizes personality. But the news coverage was OK.

Probably the best I could hope for is something like Kansas City's KMBZ-FM - talk shows with a bit of opinion and spice to get some discussion going but nothing extreme (because extreme anything doesn't play well in Kansas City) and a local news presence. The predominance of talk radio in Denver that has a spectrum of broad political viewpoints* from right-wing to far right-wing, and a near-total absence what any reasonable person might call "news", is increasingly out of sync with what I'm starting to call "California East". KOA should have the heritage and the reach to do that, even if mixed in with heavy sports coverage, but has chosen not to do so. So instead iHeart has three talk stations that are as compelling as cardboard.

* = sarcasm

 

[michael hagerty]

KOA should have the heritage and the reach to do that, even if mixed in with heavy sports coverage, but has chosen not to do so. So instead iHeart has three talk stations that are as compelling as cardboard.

* = sarcasm

I have a friend who I worked with at iHeart's hub in Phoenix ten years ago. He and I got to go home the same month, and for him, that meant a transfer to KOA.

He hung in there for quite a while before getting out of the business entirely a couple of years ago. But he'd told me for years leading up to it that, apart from big breaking news moments, it just didn't feel like a real news operation---and nothing like what he'd grown up with.