I can’t imagine Audacy L.A. doing sports either. They had their chance with 97.1, but chose news. If CBS would’ve just waited one more year 980 the beast could’ve been sold to Audacy
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KSPA-AM 1510 files to change transmitter sites
- Thread starter Frequency1
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I have trouble understanding why so many AMs have decided to dump their powerful night signal. If they simulcast a full power FM, then I can buy in to that line of thinking. If the AM only has an FM translator and their only concern is covering their COL, so be it. Maybe they have problems with their directional antenna? Maybe they want to save on the power bill? Maybe a member of this group can enlighten me.
Not as many people listen to AM or radio in general at night so it isn't worth it.
Depending on the market, I seriously doubt many markets (excluding NYC and Chicago) have 15% or more AM listenership. I doubt there are over 20 AM stations that have enough "skywave" income in the lower 48 states to off set the cost of a directional facility. If you have several acres of land in the direction antenna field that is worth literally more than decades of income from your AM station why continue the expense? I can think of a couple of AM stations that maintain their directional plant because of morning and evening communtering in the winter and they don't have a translator signal that can cover most of the market.
As RadioFan and Second Choice mention, radio listening in general is low after 6:00 PM. Listening to AM is even lower.
Second Choice also correctly mentions AM directional arrays are expensive to maintain, and many of them were built in areas that would've been considered exurban at the time only to find the city has crept up on them. That type of land is worth a fortune, probably more than the entire value of the station let alone nighttime billing, today.
Also, in the case of KGA, its former owners owned an AM on the same frequency in the San Francisco Bay area, too. I can't remember if it wanted to expand the nighttime coverage of the Bay Area station or if it wanted to add it to a daytimer, but it had to downgrade KGA to upgrade the Bay Area property. It was similar to what happened with WOWO in Ft. Wayne some 20 years earlier. WOWO downgraded its 50,000 watt nighttime signal so a new sister station in New York could be on-air 24/7.
I remember listening to WOWO when they had the "temperature on the world famous fire escape".
Markets that have no "good" AM facilities might have as little as 4% to 5% AM listening today. There are, I believe, no markets with as much as 15 shares on AM. Huff can expand on this, though.
I doubt that there are any stations that monetize skywave coverage any more. The trucker audience has gone to satellite, and few the UFO overnight shows are on so many stations that there is nearly always a local one near every listener.
In many cases, AMs have gotten translators at very high elevations, and the FM does as well as the AM. And so many directional AMs were designed and built before cities went through urban sprawl that they miss huge areas.
And many AMs are so directional that they now miss much of their market, day and night. For example, Cleveland, OH, has only one AM that covers at least 90% of the full market with a 5 mV/m signal day and night.
The owner of WLIB in New York bought WOWO so they could downgrade it and improve the WLIB facility. Similarly, WINS bought an AM in Little Rock, AR, and shut it down so the WINS night pattern could be "let out".
Just in the NYC area there are several more such cases, with the purchase and closure of 1600 in Egg Harbor to allow improvement of WWRL being the one that first comes to mind.
I believe the Bay Area station was KSFN in Piedmont, which went from around 200 watts at night to 2.4 kw when KGA downgraded.
WINS also paid WRNJ in Northern NJ to move from 1000 to 1510 as well
When was the last directional AM station built from scratch on America? New towers, new ground system, expanded or new location etc.
The last one I can remember was WROA Gulf Port MS. in 1973. IIRC it was 6 towers. They have done away with their directional site and gone to 900 watts daytime 35 at night from a signal tower to "feed" their FM translator.
I will give honorable mention to iHeart / CC for rebuilding WWVA in 2011 but that was just new towers. However it was (is) an economically changed state.
I will give honorable mention to iHeart / CC for rebuilding WWVA in 2011 but that was just new towers. However it was (is) an economically changed state.
Plenty of examples. Here in Texas there have been numerous new AM directional facilities built in the DFW, Houston, Austin and San Antonio markets since 1980.
Originally it was KTIM licensed to San Rafael as a 1 kW daytimer.
I know 1310 was in Fort Worth in 1975. I believe their towers were not that far outside one of the gates at Carswell AFB when I was stationed there. They were not that tall but I had never seen antennas that physically close to an Air Force base.
I will make it easier. Since 1990 have any all new directional facilities have been built? Not counting duplexing.
That would have been 1360 KXOL in 1975. 1310 was WRR in Dallas. Both stations have moved to newer directional facilities since then.
In DFW the current directional facilities for 620, 660, 700, 770, 850, 890, 910, 1110, 1160, 1270, 1360, 1440, 1480 and 1600 have all been built from scratch since 1990, IIRC.
All these were either new stations, or involved signal upgrades and/or move-ins.
The WCPT night site with six towers was built in the 2009/2010 time frame in Joliet, IL. This is now used by WMVP ESPN 1000 Chicago 24/7 and diplexed with WCPT 820 during night time hours.
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