radioinsight.com
KRBE and Mix under the same roof... sounds like a recipe for SportsRadio 96.5.Guess we should keep an eye on KRBE. Would fit perfectly into the Houston Audacy cluster.
Audacy/Cumulus Truth & Rumors
RadioInsight Exlusive: A lot of speculation has been raised across the industry again in recent weeks about a marriage of
More likely KHMX would be tweaked to be musically somewhere between KRBE and KKHH.
Just wildly throwing things against the wall, but were I the one making decisions I would simulcast on 610 and whichever FM for a year or two, with the FM frequency being the only branding behind SportsRadio. Find out how the audience is split between the two, and once the FM reaches a large majority, dump 610 from the simulcast and either clear Infinity Sports Network or BetMGM full time on the frequency. Sell 650 or turn in the license. Just my $0.02.
Infinity would be a better choice, if the economy goes into recession not as many people are going to have extra cash to bet on sports or anything else.
That would be my preference, but mostly because I have zero personal interest in sports betting.
The way I see it, Audacy is running live and local programming, about Houston, all day on a signal that many completely ignore.
Honestly (and, full disclosure, as a member of the vast KTRH alumni association, I have a bias here), I never understood what the strategy was with KLOL once the ownership was separated from KTRH.
There would be no need to keep both KRBE and KHMX around, in my opinion. One of those two would be sacrificed to give SportsRadio 610 a long overdue home on the analog FM dial. The surviving station would pick up much of the listenership from the sacrificed station.
Why would they flip the 3th best radio station in Spanish. The station had higher ratings than Univision’s LATINOMIX.
KLOL is a good solid biller. Spanish language stations compete mostly for Hispanic budgets and are looked at as a separate group in some cases. KLOL is a leading station in that market segment, and does not have huge costs.
Not to defend Audacy, but KILT-FM had long been the 2nd fiddle in the country format behind KKBQ ratings wise even before the merger, so I wouldn't put that on them. As for The Spot, while I'm certainly far from a fan of the recent changes, the format wasn't even a year old when Audacy took over and the station continued to enjoy ratings success until recent months. They've definitely ruined clusters and individual stations in other markets, but I wouldn't say that's the case here in Houston, if only because the cluster wasn't particularly strong to begin with.
From recent listening to The Spot the term “train wreck” is starting to cross my mind. Some of the musical transitions and juxtapositions are now rather jarring…and not in a fun way as with Jack in DFW.
If The Spot doesn’t pull out of its tailspin we might be looking at SportsRadio 95-7.😯
To add to what I noticed recently in another post: Besides all the new additions I’m hearing even more songs on The Spot that are different versions/edits/mixes from what they’ve normally played. Even hearing different end points on certain songs where the automation moves to the next item on the playlist. Library change? Also wondering if the playout automation is now centralized or hubbed somewhere outside of Houston?
A thought: Replacing the current formats on either 95.7 or 96.5 with sports would concentrate female listeners towards the remaining stations, which could boost those numbers in demo and make them more attractive. Sports obviously would be overwhelmingly male.
