Street Novelist
Banned
When they realize it’s hard to run an AM station with those formats in The City:
KFRC, which ran an all oldies format, was massively popular on 610 in San Francisco in the 1990's. Only later did they add 99.7 as a translator.
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KFRC, which ran an all oldies format, was massively popular on 610 in San Francisco in the 1990's. Only later did they add 99.7 as a translator.
No.
99.7 was not a translator. It was KXXX, KYUU and KNBR-FM.
It went oldies as KFRC-FM….TWO AND A HALF YEARS BEFORE 610 dropped the Magic 61 standards format and started simulcasting the FM.
And the FM accounted for the vast majority of the ratings.
I realize “novelist” implies fiction, but damn.
Street Novelist
Banned
You sure it was FM first? Your memory must be better than mine.
Michael is correct. Front page of the August 20, 1993, Radio & Records...
Yes.
Yeah. Of course, looking it up is the great equalizer, but…
KFRC-FM San Francisco (March 11, 1991) : Mike Schweizer : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Aircheck recording of KFRC-FM San Francisco (March 11, 1991). Recorded off the air by Mike Schweizer, these airchecks include commercials, songs, and DJ...
archive.org
610/KFRC, San Francisco - The Magic 61 Era Ends (1993) | Bay Area
KFRC: The Magic 61 Era Ends August 12, 1993 Featuring Buddy Hatton and Brian Winters In August 1986, the
bayarearadio.org
Yes, it was massively popular with me, for sure (right on up to when it found religion in 2005).
Yeah, it's a mess, isn't it?
And the worst part is that outside of KDFC and its numerous signals, KCBS' simulcast on KFRC-FM, and KOSF 103.7, most of it really isn't worth listening to.
c
Street Novelist
Banned
My mistake. I just remember my parents and my friend's mom who drove carpool always had it on 610. Now I wonder why that was. 🤷
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Now that we've completed your education about translators (BTW, to make it even clearer, 99.7 first went on the air in 1949, literally years before there was any such service as translators), I can answer this last question.
San Francisco's topography has never been kind to FM. Between the tall buildings downtown and numerous hills and valleys, for the longest time nearly all of the radio listening in the Bay Area was on AM. It was the last major market to have an FM top-40 station top the ratings.
Car radios had a particular problem with multipath, which caused a "picket fence" effect on the signal as one drove around. So it is not surprising that 610 was preferred. That signal was a powerhouse.
Anything available in the central part of the Bay Area is already either occupied with a translator or with LPFMs, which themselves are sharing time.
The translators that are operating have mediocre coverage at best. You might be able to cover San Francisco well, especially since it's geographically small, but that's about it. Even running a translator in mono wouldn't help much.
That is a very despicable example of ageism.
Thinking that a person at any age should not continue to dedicate themselves to their career is unfair. Some people can work well into their 80's or more... Warren Buffett just retired well into his 90's after being very productive right until he decided to slow down.
There are people who work with the goal of early retirement. Others enjoy their job or profession and want to keep it as long as they are able. There is no obligation to "move out of the way" for younger people to replace them.
And if you think you are old, you are wrong. At about your age I created the most listened to station in the Hemisphere, and went on to do quite a few good things after that... all of which provided jobs for other capable people in radio irrespective of their age.
Just a clarification for those who are not clear that you refer to the City of San Francisco, that tidbit of land at the tip of the peninsula.
In radio, San Francisco is the entire radio market, from Santa Rosa to Gilroy. That is what Nielsen measures.
Yes, that's what I meant (the "49 square miles"). The East Bay, Peninsula, and North Bay cities are more spread out.
By the way, if you want to get super formal about the name of the city, it's the "City and County of San Francisco". So, for example, San Francisco has both a police department and a sheriff's department.
And I'm rapidly approaching the century mark, and still have trouble know what the difference between a "sheriff's department" and a "police department" is!
My understanding is thus:And I'm rapidly approaching the century mark, and still have trouble know what the difference between a "sheriff's department" and a "police department" is!
- The Police department's scope is municipal (i.e., their jurisdiction lies within the boundaries of an incorporated city or town), whereas....
- The Sheriff has jurisdiction within the county and unincorporated communities, excepting incorporated towns and cities
- Sometimes they will overlap, such as in cases of mutual aid where one department is overwhelmed (such as during a natural disaster; for example, the devastating fires in LA this past January) and needs the assistance of the other.
c
People who work far into their advanced years tend to be in positions of power that allows them to fully control and manipulate the terms and conditions of their career. They are not under the thumb of others, nor to they have to deal with grief from people as they are the ones dishing it out, not taking it. They are already financially secure, so power and influence become more important than income. They have the ways and means to “get what they want” and do not recognize any boundaries that might be placed in their way.
In short, those people have the world on a string, and as such, see no reason to change anything. So they carry on. They don’t think they’re going to live forever (they’re not delusional) but with absolute control over everyone and everything around them, they see life as a process that continues…until it doesn’t.
Most people are not in that position, and retire because they have reached a point of financial independence and/or have enough passive income to replace a working salary. Why put up with the hassles of a job—and other people—when you don’t have to…is their philosophy. Eventually you get tired of putting up with other people’s crap, which was a major reason I retired. Intellectually I could have continued, and done a good job, but I was emotionally exhausted.
Of course there is a second reason that people keep working, and that is because they are broke.
Being in Texas I won’t attempt to explain “constables” to you.🤣And I'm rapidly approaching the century mark, and still have trouble know what the difference between a "sheriff's department" and a "police department" is!
Since you brought up "Texas" I have to ask whether the last 6 letters of "constable" have any significance there!
Signed: "David, in the similarly named state of "Taxes".
This is pretty off-topic, so I won't belabor it. But generally each county's sheriff has jurisdiction over their county's jail. The police departments of the various incorporated jurisdictions within the county are customers for the jail, which houses arrestees until their trial and -- assuming they plead or are found guilty --sentencing, at which point they may be transferred to a state prison. Note the difference: counties have jails, the state has prisons (San Quentin, Chowchilla, Lompoc, etc.) In the case of my own county (San Mateo), the police headquarters and the county jail are literally across the street from each other, but they are jurisdictionally separate entities.
We have had many discussions here about the fact that major advertisers tend to ignore consumers over the age of 55.
Yet I see and know many people who work well into their 70's who don't "have the world on a string" but just don't want to sit around all day with the web and Netflix. Again, they are consumers with income but most advertisers ignore them.
Example: the wife of a couple we know works about 30 hours a week during peak days and hours at a retail outlet where she is an "expert" on what is sold there. Her husband spends the same amount of time at a local food bank helping out with the accounting department as he was a "big name" auditing company executive in his career. Both, whether paid or not, have to buy appropriate clothing, take lunches, put miles on their cars, and do other "working" life people do, but major advertisers do not target them.
Those eligible for Social Security that still work get a "double income" which makes them potentially good ad targets. While they may have "downsized" after kids were grown, they use most of the same product categories they have always used
I'll toss in another advertising conundrum: with over 15% of the population being foreign-born (not including undocumented people), those people likely / probably have no brand recognition for most things sold in the United States.
Back to seniors: those between 55 and 65 generally don't get Social Security (or get the reduced SS payment for getting it early) and are usually not eligible for Medicare. So most work to get insurance and to build up SSI payments. Yet those big agency ad agencies and their clients cut them off at 55... or 49 for TV and even for radio for ethnic listeners.
So there are really millions and millions of people who are neither rich not in utter poverty who are not being targeted by most ad campaigns.
I live in an unincorporated area of Harris County, so the constable’s officers are a familiar sight and who you call if there are “problems” needing law enforcement. The county is divided up into multiple constable precincts.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who live in such unincorporated areas. Little practical difference in our lifestyles, and the neighborhoods look the same as any others. Big difference is that water/sewage/trash services are overseen by Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) and fire and EMS are part of Emergency Services Districts (ESDs). We pay taxes into both, as well as general county taxes. School districts are all run the same way, regardless of whether they are in or out of any city limits.
There has been some discussion in the past about merging Harris County law enforcement with that of the City of Houston, but nothing has ever come of it. Isn’t that what Miami-Dade County did in Florida?
Enough civics lessons, back to actual broadcasting discussion.😆
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
By all means. Please.