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Connoisseur Media acquires Bonneville’s San Francisco Cluster
- Thread starter TheM1ghtyBear
- Start date
Right. Keep in mind that when Bonneville purchased the 92.3 frequency in Phoenix (I think it was back in 2005--but I could be wrong), it changed the callsign to KTAR-FM from KKFR and the format from hip-hop to conservative news/talk, specifically (per Bonneville's public statements) because the company didn't want to own a rap station no matter how well it did in the ratings. (And, if I remember correctly, @michael hagerty was working there at the time and can probably shed some more light on the matter, if he's up to it.)
And what is wrong with a company saying that they are not comfortable with a particular format?
They owned a few country stations in the 90s and I remember they had a policy where they wouldn't play drinking songs. That's hard to do in country.
I remember that flip, and when it happened I couldn't believe the comments I was reading online at the time. Accusing Bonneville of being a 'racist' company that didn't want to play music from 'black' artists. Give me a break! It was the lyrical content of hip hop/rap that Bonneville had a problem with. Not because of race.
( I mean, y'know, Mike's getting up there. Takes longer to walk to the computer, the keys are blurry....he could go at any second)
Hearst-Argyle owned KTAR when I went to work there in 2000, but by the end of the year, Emmis had bought us and 98.7 (then K-Lite) and (separately) 92.3, then KKFR, which fit right in---it was Power 106's sister station in the desert.
I think it was 2001 or 2002 by the time they moved in down the hall (we were still on North Central and had to reconfigure studio space to accommodate them).
I left in 2004 when a promotion in TV (which I was doing simultaneously) increased my workload and pay scale. The kids were 11 and 13 and had started asking me for I.D. in the few waking hours I had at home.
Bonneville bought KTAR, 98.7 and 92.3 (and maybe something else?) in 2006.
They also cycle in and out of markets. They left Phoenix for a while (1997, when they sold 96.9 to Nationwide), but came back.
And look, Bonneville 20 years ago and Bonneville today are different animals.
Even though I'd left for TV fulltime two years earlier, I listened to the stations. Even 98.7, which had gone from KKLT (K-Lite) to KPKX (The Peak) was problematic for Bonneville at first.
I specifically recall them editing Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". They apparently felt they should play it, even though the whole story could be...touchy...for TMISU (ask @DrAkbar --- I'm not getting into it), but they left it largely alone, except:
....they edited out the phrase "And the colored girls go", so the (colored) girls went "doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo..." without the setup.
That's literally all they did to it.
I worked for Bonneville a couple of times (part-time). Easily the best, most professional of the eight (or was it nine?) big groups I worked for in my career.
This is a transformational transaction for Connoisseur.
KOIT and KMVQ will obviously stay with their current formats, and probably KBAY as well, but I am unsure about KBLX, KUFX and KEZR.
Might 106.5 San Jose flip to Alternative or Classic Alternative now that KOIT and KMVQ will be cluster mates?
Might KOME be brought back from the dead?
I will say I doubt Country will be given a San Francisco stick. I see that format staying put at 94.5.
KOIT and KMVQ will obviously stay with their current formats, and probably KBAY as well, but I am unsure about KBLX, KUFX and KEZR.
Might 106.5 San Jose flip to Alternative or Classic Alternative now that KOIT and KMVQ will be cluster mates?
Might KOME be brought back from the dead?
I will say I doubt Country will be given a San Francisco stick. I see that format staying put at 94.5.
Keep in mind also that KBLX is not a hip-hop station. While it might play hip-hop on Friday and Saturday nights, KBLX is an urban AC and targets a much different audience from what KMEL is after. Aside from weekend evenings, you won't hear much, if any, rap on KBLX.
While I did find a little odd that Bonneville would buy a station that targeted the African American audience when it got some of the Entercom/CBS spinoffs, I wasn't entirely surprised that it kept the format. Bonneville wants to make money first and foremost, and I don't think it has corporate format directors or brand managers for most, if any, of its programming.
I'm not sure if it still has this policy, but Bonneville used to reject casino ads. KZLA's billing went way up when Emmis got it from Bonneville because it started taking casino ads. Bonneville also used to be known for not asking for details or otherwise not looking closely at the buys on most of its stations. Listing beer ads as "beverage" was common practice throughout the company in the 80's and 90's, especially on its rock stations.
From my (limited) experience working for Bonneville:
There are no problem formats, no attempt to impose LDS doctrine in office or on air (apart from whichever of their stations carry Music and the Spoken Word every Sunday).
That said, Bonneville is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and, I think understandably, does not want to prioritize money over church teaching.
I'm not Mormon, but I respect that, and I think that it's admirable that they (generally) find a reasonable path of not selling out their core beliefs and entertaining a wide audience.
The last time I heard 99.7 NOW, which was prior to Fernando's leaving, I felt it was one of the best CHR's in the country. Based on its ratings success, a format change is unlikely.
It was the same in San Francisco. They haven't owned KOIT continuously. IIRC, they traded it with Entercom for Seattle stations to beef up their cluster up there, and when the CBS Radio acquisition happened, they were there to re-acquire KOIT and the other CBS stations (KMVQ, KBLX and KUFX San Jose) that needed to be divested for Entercom (now Audacy) to stay within limits.
Bonneville also got Cincinnati from Entercom for San Francisco.
At a general level, superficially this appears to be a case of a company expanding very fast, adding acquisitions before it's had a chance to fully integrate previous acquisitions. Connoisseur may be a company full of smart people but you can only move so fast before you can't round a curve without hitting something. Sure, the company has gotten good publicity with some of its early moves. But it's having to integrate a rather broken-down chain (Alpha) that needs a lot of work. The San Francisco Bonneville cluster may not be that much more of a stretch because Bonneville is one of the best-run broadcasters. Because Connoisseur has so much to clean up, I wouldn't expect big moves in San Francisco right now...it's going to be the least of Connoisseur's problems.
Taking all that into account, I still think it's a risky move to grow this big this fast.
Besides that, where's Warshaw getting the money?
Back to San Francisco: when I moved there in 1999, Bonneville had just flipped KZQZ (after several months of rebroadcasting Chicago's WTMX) to CHR with an openly gay morning team. The LDS church's later behavior with Proposition 8 was absolutely appalling, but the church's oppressive theological approach to certain human rights didn't seem to rub off on the way Bonneville was run.
Taking all that into account, I still think it's a risky move to grow this big this fast.
Besides that, where's Warshaw getting the money?
When they had stations in Kansas City for three decades, the word on the street was that there was a glass ceiling for employees who weren't Mormon. Whether that could ever have been verified is another matter. The other rumor was that they were in Kansas City because of the centrality of Independence (adjacent to Kansas City) in Mormon theology. Selling to Entercom disproved that one. They were kind of sleepy as a broadcaster. KMBZ had substantial success in the 1970s and rode on those coattails in the 1980s to decreasing effect. KMBR (KLTH) managed the transition from beautiful music to "lite" adult contemporary smoothly. When Bonneville acquired KCMO-AM/FM, Gannett had pretty much stripped the AM talk station for parts and Bonneville finished the job to bolster KMBZ as a news/talk station. They were smart enough to leave KCMO-FM alone. I think Entercom benefited more from Bonneville's moves in Kansas City than Bonneville did, which at least was an indication that Bonneville was good at looking beyond the short-term.
Back to San Francisco: when I moved there in 1999, Bonneville had just flipped KZQZ (after several months of rebroadcasting Chicago's WTMX) to CHR with an openly gay morning team. The LDS church's later behavior with Proposition 8 was absolutely appalling, but the church's oppressive theological approach to certain human rights didn't seem to rub off on the way Bonneville was run.
If it's the Eagle I'm thinking of (the one based in Kansas)...no.
Yeah, Interstate 229 in downtown St. Joseph, Mo. -- home of Eagle's KFEQ -- looks like what the Embarcadero Freeway used to look like in San Francisco (and it's apparently going to be torn down, too), and both cities have AM stations on 680 kHz, but that's about as far as I would go with any comparisons!
(Edit to make clear that the reference to St. Joseph, Mo. was relevant because Eagle owns a substantial cluster there, including KFEQ at 680 kHz, which very much is a type of station you won't find in the San Francisco Bay Area. OK, enough of taking this ridiculous notion seriously.)
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Yep. A lot of the synergies really take time to come together. It took iHeart almost ten years to figure out what they had, and then the 2008 crash hit.
"Financing was provided by Brigade Capital Management and Sienna Lending."
He seems to have a blank check. So he's spending it while he has it. Reminds me of Lew Dickey in 2011. We know where that went.
"Those who do not learn from history..." (George Santayana)
Maybe I should grit my teeth and give KYGO in Denver a listen; maybe that's not necessary, for whatever it is KYGO's doing, it's been very successful.