According to this report: Station Sales Week of 1/5 - RadioInsight iHeart is swapping translator K251AU 98.1 and another in Florida with EMF to gain translators in Cleveland and St. Louis. Of course both EMF networks K-love and Air1 have full powered signals here so it's not clear what they would do with 98.1. I'm a little surprised that iHeart would scale back here. The classic country format does pretty well overall recently at a 3.2 in 11th place and likely compliments KBQI to give them a greater share of the country radio market. The current format on 100.9 does poorly in the ratings and the market is not likely going to support 4 hip-hop stations. So the "Bull" could be moved over there which is at 250 watts making it a better signal in theory although there is no noticeable difference in signal quality between the two translators (98.1 is at 165 watts). The article does mention some current programming agreements between the two companies so there could be a number of possibilities. But then is there much benefit to paying a lease when you could just wipe out the worst performing format in your own cluster? I think EMF did at one point own the translator on 94.5 when Vanguard did the first incarnation of "The Eighties Channel" in 2014-15. They later sold it to Cumulus so I wonder if they or anyone else might make some offer.
2023 may be the first year in which nothing really changed locally on the FM band throughout the whole year aside from the flip on 96.7 in August but that station is not likely considered part of the Albuquerque market with very spotty coverage. The sale of 840 AM was the only overall market change last year. Could this year be different?
2023 may be the first year in which nothing really changed locally on the FM band throughout the whole year aside from the flip on 96.7 in August but that station is not likely considered part of the Albuquerque market with very spotty coverage. The sale of 840 AM was the only overall market change last year. Could this year be different?
