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WBAP will be simulcasting on 93.3 FM

101tm said:
WBAP was already tried on FM quite a while back on 96.7. Cumulus dropped it rather promptly, apparently just wanting to keep one talk station on FM going with Ticket instead. However, AM is just 10+ years older than it was back then.

Could we see Audacy put KRLD on FM sooner rather than later? 100.3?
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or 107.5?
 
Huff said:
"The Zone" (Oct 96-Aug 99) peaked with a 2.0 in Summer 1998
"Merge" (Sep 99-Dec 01) peaked with a 1.9; Spring & Summer 1999
"The Bone" (Jan 02-Apr 09) peaked with a 3.1, the frequency's largest ever, in its debut survey, Winter 2002
"Quality Rock" (Apr 09-Sep 09) only managed as high as a 0.7 in its five surveys.
"i93" (Sep 09-Oct 14) peaked with a 3.0, the largest for the station in the PPM era, in February 2011.
"Hot 93.3" (Oct 14-present) peaked with a 2.6 in December 2014.
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December 2014 was when 93.3 stunted with throwback rhythmic hits, as I recall.

Instead of sticking with that music mix, by New Year's Day 2015, the station pivoted to rhythm-leaning CHR (its "real" format). AQH share immediately began to fall.
 
While this is still not formally confirmed yet, what are the wagers on what signal will get "first billing". The historic and legendary 820 or the NEW we-are-cool-and-on FM-too 93.3?

When The Ticket first added the 96.7 simulcast, 1310 remained in the first slot both in off-air branding and in on-air imaging. Eventually they swapped the two giving 96.7 first billing both on-air and in off-air branding.
 
I have always suspected that Audacy thinks of KRLD a little differently than their other "news" stations like, KNX, KCBS, KYW, WINS, WBBM, etc. I think that can be seen by their lack of much news product on the weekends and in the evenings.

WWJ, I expect, will eventually land on FM. KRLD i am not so sure about. I think it is more likely it eventually moves in a more talk direction even on weekdays. Probably with middays going first. I hope I am wrong! I would love for them to invest more in the KRLD news department and go 24/7 and put it on FM so the whole market can easily access it.
 
So, besides what’s already been mentioned, there’s another indicator that this might happen. Within the past couple of weeks, they added an HD2 and HD3, which seem to be placeholders. The classic rock and classic hits formats on those subchannels have no imaging at all and there is space in between the songs. The subchannels are also dead air 90% of the time.

Additionally, the bitrate of the HD1 has been turned down quite a bit. It almost sounds comparable to the quality of 93.3’s analog signal. It seems to be the right bitrate for a talk format.

I almost feel like Hot won’t be completely killed off and will end up on one of the HD subchannels. Maybe The Ticket will end up on another? I’m not at all excited about WBAP on another frequency, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
 
sox fan matt said:
Interesting. I can believe this., but does it make sense when 820 is heritage and legendary
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Heritage and legend only go so far in paying the bills, especially when the audience it gets is overwhelmingly 55+. I remember when WBAP played music, and I'm near 50. Even then, the music was mostly old by our standards, and the station was definitely targeting our parents, who were born in the 40's or very early 50's. About the only times we'd listen to WBAP were when the weather was bad and when we were on our way to Arlington Stadium to see the Rangers. Our parents might tune it in while driving us to school because of the traffic reports, but, as soon as the traffic reports were off, most of them punched the FM button.
 
dlf1 said:
I’m thinking the Classic Rock format as “The Bone” was the ratings zenith for 93.3. There was talk that the owners at the time (Susquehanna?) wanted to purchase 101.1 and move “The Bone” to a Cedar Hill Stick.
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That was doomed from the start Susquehanna/Service Broadcasting proposal to the City of Dallas. The city would get 105.7 for WRR, Service would get 93.3 for KRNB and Susquehanna would get 101.1for KDBN. The Friends of WRR killed that quick, fast and in a hurry!!!
 
Kent said:
Heritage and legend only go so far in paying the bills, especially when the audience it gets is overwhelmingly 55+.
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What we're seeing around the country is that the CHR format can no longer support two stations. That was the case in LA, and why Audacy dropped CHR for a KNX simulcast. Kiss has the CHR audience wrapped up, and iHeart is basically owning that audience with Kiss and Mix. There's no room for anyone else, just they did in LA.

Listeners to WBAP might think this will attract younger audiences to the news/talk format, but that's not what typically happens. I don't expect this to lead to improved ratings or demos for WBAP, but savings from 93.3.
 
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TheBigA said:
Listeners to WBAP might think this will attract younger audiences to the news/talk format, but that's not what typically happens. I don't expect this to lead to improved ratings or demos for WBAP, but savings from 93.3.
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It doesn't matter what the format is, no radio station is going to attract younger audiences at this point.

Big Radio is notorious for its addiction to instant gratification and lack of any longterm vision. So, it has spent decades just super-serving the most attractive middle-aged advertising demos, and failing to invest in youthful audiences for the future. Now those former prime-demo listeners are getting old. Big Radio wants to kick the 56-year-olds to the curb but there's virtually no one coming up behind them who cares about radio.

The younger audiences have already settled on the new tech that was cool in school, and it's not broadcast radio.
 
Why put WBAP on 93.3? I am guessing that, despite its aging demographics, WBAP makes Cumulus a lot of money. Spoken word formats can run many more commercials than music formats. So this is part of the trend of AM stations getting an FM simulcast to protect their high billing, especially when the cluster has an underperforming FM station.

For Audacy, there is no underperforming FM in Dallas. KMVK 107.5 and KJKK 100.3 aren't the market's biggest billers. But I suspect they bring in more than KLIF-FM does for Cumulus. So it's a tougher call. Do you sacrifice an OK-billing FM to give KRLD 1080 an FM simulcast? Or do you put off that choice a bit longer?

The same is true in Detroit which Ryan Williams mentioned. WWJ 950 is probably Audacy's best billing station in that market. And WWJ is All-News 24/7. Does Audacy sacrifice a healthy FM to give WWJ an FM simulcast? Five other Audacy All-News stations have FM simulcasts (WINS, KNX, WBBM, KCBS and KYW).
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Moving to FM hoping to attract a younger audience to take the place of the over-55's. But as you already said, it won't work.
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There is no indication that is what they think or hope. The track record for the news/talk format is pretty well known by everyone.

What I said was that listeners to the format who post here might think moving it to FM will help demos. But no one in radio thinks that.
 
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