Beers on me, Mark.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
KEXP Buys KREV
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Beers on me, Mark.
Except the complaint of many here is that 'radio' as a form of media does not serve a segment of the potential audience, and therefore radio is dying. That audience went somewhere else because traditional radio - that which appeals to mass markets in a target demo - no longer fits their taste. Going through a quick run of signals in San Francisco on the fccdata.org site I counted 49 FM stations that I know from experience can be received on a portable radio in San Francisco. Of those, maybe 20 or so (I think I'm being generous) fit into the category of "we're a commercial success and contribute to the cluster".
So what if some of those other stations were to try something different? K-Love did just that. Presenting CCM with a tight format that probably isn't commercially viable but appeals enough to an audience to where they are willing to contribute generously. It's an astounding success with essentially unknown ratings except in a few markets. Will KEXP be enough to cause some Tic-Toc enthusiasts to go out and buy one of those cool little $50 Tecsun radios? Will they then also discover that KALX is pretty cool? Or KFJC? Or KCSM? Or KALW? Or KKUP?
As most of you know, I moved out of the Bay Area a decade ago and live in the foothills, CE for KVMR radio. We have enough support to stay alive, but what I've found out is that we get messages from people who say "I support KVMR and KZFR", "KVMR and KQBM", "KVMR and KDVS", "KVMR and KFOK". Some of the other eclectic stations around here. We also have an HD-2 / translator locally on 105.7 staffed by mostly the younger people of our community - many still in high school. They do live DJ sets at a local club that gets broadcast on the radio. Nobody likes everything on these stations, but the choice means that radio doesn't lose listeners to the Internet, where there are thousands of choices. Instead, if we can keep the local dial interesting those people will push a preset and get something else more to their liking.
So Kelly, I have to agree that it doesn't help "radio" as a form of media in the traditional sense. Mass market appeal. But if the frequencies and licenses were not so expensive then a totally different business model is possible. I'm proud to say I'm now part of a group that has practiced that different business model for 45 years and continues to do so. I still believe radio is a very viable form of media, and I just finished listening to a fantastic father-son duo who curated a wonderful 3-hour show. You'll never get that on Tic-Toc.
Dave B.
I don't think so, Mark. KFOG had been owned by Susquehanna for many years, long enough to have very little debt. But their corporate overlords, which was Pfalzgraf (sp?), the dinnerware and ceramics company, decided they didn't want to be in broadcasting any longer. KNBR went to Cumulus, a few years prior to the merger with Citadel, which itself had acquired the ABC O&O's a few years prior. KNBR came to the witch's brew from GE, having been one of the NBC O&O's spun off when GE swallowed RCA and decided NBC shouldn't be in radio any more. (Did I miss any intermediate M&A in this mess?)
Regardless, by the 2010's, this was a mess of a cluster, with so much different DNA that it's amazing everybody worked off 60 cycle electricity.
Well, Mark's right that GE owned KFOG when it went rock in '82. They bought it from Kaiser in 1974, and held it until the sale to Susquehanna in 1983.
Last edited:
GE owned it and instigated the format change from easy-listening in 1982. It was sold to Susquehanna in November 1983, the last of the pre-RCA GE broadcast properties other than then-KOA-TV to be divested. This was before the RCA purchase.
See: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/h...BC-IDX/83-OCR/BC-1983-11-21-OCR-Page-0063.pdf
Regarding the format change on September 26, 1982 (two URLs because there's a jump):
The format was labeled "Timeless Rock" but I don't believe that was a slogan actually used on-air.
That's for sure.
For those who haven't heard it, here's a scoped aircheck of the format change on September 16, 1982 (it happens 8:43 in):
The interesting thing about that Billboard article is that the station, from the start of the format in 1982, was going after an older audience. And they kept the fog horn.
The fog horn blew for the last time - and Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill", a typical KFOG tune if ever there was one - was played for the last time - on September 5, 2019.
If they do, they do it by playing a lot of older music, with older hosts. This will not be a station that will compete with KITS, because in Seattle, it coexists very well with KNDD. That's my point: KEXP will reach people who are no longer listening to radio.
I have a silver foil poster from the beautiful music era of KFOG.
I always felt KFOG's image and listener connection was better than their playlist, at times. I remember in pre-streaming days, having heard OF the station, knew many loyal fans, and then actually visited the area and heard it, how musically conservative it was for the image it had. Not saying it wasn't a good station, but it was much more conservative than people perceived it.
KEXP always surprises me in how many older listeners seem to value and support it. I love the station, but I have pretty eclectic and broad tastes (which is not the norm) and KEXP actively curates youthful, new and diverse sounds. Good for them, but it certainly doesn't play by the rules of what one would expect to draw the support it does. I do think there's a certain psychographic that doesn't "age" musically in the way past generations did. Not that they're the majority, but apparently enough to fund projects like this.
KEXP always surprises me in how many older listeners seem to value and support it. I love the station, but I have pretty eclectic and broad tastes (which is not the norm) and KEXP actively curates youthful, new and diverse sounds. Good for them, but it certainly doesn't play by the rules of what one would expect to draw the support it does. I do think there's a certain psychographic that doesn't "age" musically in the way past generations did. Not that they're the majority, but apparently enough to fund projects like this.
True, but this was a time when listeners had a strong connection to radio, regardless of ownership. KFOG was owned by General Electric and Susquehanna. Neither of them were mom & pop owners. But listeners related as though these were small indie operators.
That's an interesting way to put it, but I know what you're talking about. I know some longtime music fans who mainly listen to current music, not music from their youth. They tend to like these non-com AAAs.
I'm one of those current music followers who was born 5 days into the Boomer generation. But I am not a follower of eclectic formats like AAA; my choices are mostly in the area of Vallenato music and lots of reggaetón and its derivatives. In English, I'm a big follower of current country.
I can listen to 60's or 70's or 80's English language pop gold for a bit, but a few hours will fix me for a month or two.
Right now on KEXP the DJ Larry Mizell Jr. (the son of Sr. of the Mizell Brothers production crew), is breaking down Burt Bacharach's influence on pop music. Playlist starts with Burt, then, Lupe Fiasco, Dionne Warwick, Mos Def, Gals & Pals, and Royksopp, on and on. The feature on Thursday afternoon is 'OG Thursday' and it's one of the best 3 hours weekly on KEXP. Programming like this doesn't really conform to a format. The whole concept of 'format' is sort of reductionist in that its primary purpose is to give sales people a way to quantify the demo for advertisers. It may also give listeners a sense of what's in store, and imaging, etc. tries to bridge that gap. But I think this idea of PDs/format/advertisers has set up commercial radio for a race to the bottom, esp. as there is now so much competition for ears. KEXP has gone all in on something fundamentally different: DJ curation (not PD) on the fly in a way that's more structured/polished than say college radio.
Absolutely brilliant! This is why I look forward to KEXP being heard in SF. I know a few other cities where it could work.
Dave Cobb did something like that with Barry Gibb.
"You learn well, young grasshopper." This is why I love non-com radio.
When I moved to San Francisco 25 years (eek!) ago, I found KFOG to be disappointing after having been a WXRT listener in Chicago. I once described KFOG as "a classic rock station in disguise", which may have not been the most fair criticism, but was reflective of its cautious nature. KITS had, by that time, become KOME North, so Bay Area radio wasn't the new and exciting landscape it had been just five or six years earlier.
(raises hand)
That's neat! Do you have a photo of it, by chance?
I've listened to the video @michael hagerty linked back in post #186, and I'll go on the record as one of the few participants of this thread who liked KFOG better before the format change 🙃
I know radio has to move on, but I do wish that somebody, somewhere would still play that kind of music over the air (yes, I know - "streams!" - but I can't get those everywhere (in fact, I'm often driving places where cell service isn't good enough to support streams, so it's AM/FM or bust, unless I download some stuff to my phone in advance).
I'll take a peek at the new KEXP when it goes on air, just out of curiosity. I doubt I'll listen to it much, if at all, but who knows?
c
Completely agree with the take on KFOG's image and listener connection vs. the playlist. Engaged listeners knew the DJs cared deeply about the music and would have loved to have played more eclectic stuff, but they also understood the reality of commercial radio. That said we still got nuggets here and there...Dave Morey, 10 at 10, Sunday mornings with Rosalie etc. etc.
Heck, even before those GE, Kaiser Broadcasting co-owned KFOG alongside channel 44.
If this were the unscoped verison and you had to sit through all 2:57 of the Ray Conniff Singers doing "Alone Again (Naturally)" (the first-person account of a man whose life has been so sad, he's about to commit suicide) like a toothpaste jingle, you might feel differently.
There aren't many unscoped Beautiful Music radio airchecks from back in the day, but I try to approach each one without prejudice---being very open to the possibility that I hated those stations at the time because I was an annoying teenager or a too-cool 20-something.
It might go well for the first song or two, but there's always some egregious lapse of taste---something that tells me that whoever produced the record had NO idea what the song was about and decided to reduce it to a "tune with a lively arrangement". The Conniff "Alone Again (Naturally)" is not alone but absolutely is the worst example I've ever heard.
- Status