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Las Vegas KMZQ 670 general discussion
- Thread starter KC8UOK
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Well, let's take a look at any possible contributing factors, shall we?
Aside from 8:00am to 9:00am and noon to 3:00pm, when the local Tom Letizia and Kevin Wall shows air, they are 24/7 syndicated talk from Premiere, Salem, Westwood One, and whoever Bill O'Reilly's syndicator is these days. I would guess (but it's only that) their highest revenue periods are during the local shows, and they are probably selling the rest of the schedule as a package deal. The 8:00am hour may also be a brokered show, given that it's only an hour, the host has his own political consulting firm to hawk, and the fact that there is a separate ad for it on their programming page.
They drop from 25,000 watts to 600 watts at night, and I imagine that's their lowest revenue time of day ... if they're able to sell time at all. (That night signal is oriented much more to the south than the day signal, probably because they have to protect the Boise station on 670 ... it actually maps as going as far as Lake Havasu City and almost as far as Yuma. The good thing is that their transmitter site is at the northern boundary of Las Vegas, which does mitigate that somewhat.)
Wikipedia says their weekend schedule consists mostly of repeats from the weekday schedule but also shows on "money, health, and real estate" which might also be brokered time. (They don't list the weekend schedule on that barely adequate website of theirs.)
They are co-owned with KVGQ/106.9, which has a classic hip-hop format (and also simulcasts on KEMP/99.3 in Payson AZ), so there has to be some revenue there that can at least pay the electric bill for the AM. But it's still probably a lean operation; I have been told by people knowledgeable about the market that hip-hop isn't a very saleable format in Vegas.
So here comes the educated guess: Letizia and some of the weekend shows are probably brokered and constitute a big chunk of the revenue. Wall also has a podcast, so maybe he is selling his own spots in the afternoon show (or that could also be brokered, or some combination). With the rest of the day coming from network feeds, it's obviously a "computer in the back room" operation a lot of the time and so the overhead is pretty low.
The owner, Kemp Broadcasting & Digital Media, also has an outdoor advertising business so maybe billboard lease revenue is propping up the radio stations.
FCCDATA shows the signal is basically beamed directly at me in Silverado Ranch. I drive all over by Pesos and Eastern due to work and at all times at night the signal is barely there. Not even a hint of another station in the background. And this is well within it's nighttime coverage area.
Just a quick note since the Payson station was brought up. I've never understood why Kemp Broadcasting purchased the 99.3 mHz frequency in Payson and why they keep holding on to it. The station's signal barely reaches the far northeastern Phoenix suburbs and has to contend with another station's translator that covers north central Phoenix well. The classic hip-hop format serves Payson even less than it does Las Vegas, and Phoenix has another rimshot at 101.1 with the same format that gives better, if not perfect, coverage of the city. If I were Kemp Broadcasting, unless there was something I do not know about, I'd really look at selling KEMP (but keeping the callsign) to either the owners of KMOG-AM (which would give that country outlet a full power FM) or to the owners of KRIM-LP, a non-commercial LP classic hits programmed outfit that I'm sure could have a great deal more success with that format as a commercial station in that market.
Kemp is a lawyer, he can probably quite easily afford to keep going what hes got. and hes got what hes got for so long for a reason, whatever reason is that may not be obvious to us.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Very helpful to have real world reception data. Thanks.
I'm wondering if they're even using full nighttime power. Could bad groundwave conductivity account for an almost non existent signal this far into its nighttime coverage area? I couldn't see anything on FCCdata about it an official request to lower power further.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
A few guesses are the best I can make. Groundwave conductivity has been proven to be a factor for AM reception (I remember when 670 in Simi Valley applied for a new site in the Antelope Valley, only to discover that because they went to the other side of the San Andreas fault that their coverage area would have decreased rather than increased ... which is why they are still up Tapo Canyon Rd. at the same site as when they signed on back in 1983).
I do not remember whether or not a STA is required to operate at lower power than authorized at night, the way it is for daytime authorizations). @fybush will no doubt be happy to jog my fuzzy memory.
It is entirely possible that they see no advantage to a night signal covering almost an entirely different contour than their daytime facilities. To be honest, if I were them I would file to lower power at night and only cover Las Vegas.
Coverage isn't so different. Granted it doesn't cover northwest of the transmitter at night and an SDR in Pahrump shows a hot mess at night but they are a Las Vegas station. Therefore I would expect they'd want to cover their core audience. The rest of the daytime coverage is extra as Vegas is where the population and money are.
I might see if listed phone numbers work and give them a call. We can discuss all year and it would simply be theory and conjecture.
You could say in the daytime they send a lot of signal to very little population.
Drop the day power to 5 kw using the night pattern would be a power saving plan.
Drop the day power to 5 kw using the night pattern would be a power saving plan.
Night
@boiseengineer ive not seen that map. I use either radio Locator or the map on FCCdata. And KQMZ is listed as 600 watts at night. My issue is it's significantly weaker than expected well within it's night coverage area. I'm 30 miles away from the transmitter, directly in its beam. According to that map it should be going twice that far at night.
Those maps are not coverage maps... they have more to do with protection of other stations and protected contours than usable listener signal area.
That makes sense. It did look bigger than the maps I'd seen. Joys of being a ham not an actual broadcast engineer or techie
Intheairnevada
Banned
I picked it up on a boat on the Colorado River druring the Day near Parker AZ. As someone said Kemp is an attorney who had some very profitable cases In resent years ?? and the company has digital billboards as well. There were bus stop ads claiming KVEG (a Kemp station?) had the number one morning show.
(I did win some tickets to a UNLV vino booze event a few years ago from this station…essentially an open bar with a lot of alcohol venders serving free samples and giving out stuff. It seemed like half the people there, thousands? won their tickets from radio stations . Problem though it was held in hallways of UNLV stadium , so the acoustics were terrible. They had live music, I left when all the other boozed up people started singing “Sweet Caroline”
(I did win some tickets to a UNLV vino booze event a few years ago from this station…essentially an open bar with a lot of alcohol venders serving free samples and giving out stuff. It seemed like half the people there, thousands? won their tickets from radio stations . Problem though it was held in hallways of UNLV stadium , so the acoustics were terrible. They had live music, I left when all the other boozed up people started singing “Sweet Caroline”
The other thing I need to do is see if I can get them on Tunin. After a LOT of digging I found a stream URL but when I hook the phone up to the car, I lose any streams I've manually added.
Being a nerd I'll go through all that effort. Average person would just search for the callsign, if it's not in the app, find something else to listen else.
Being a nerd I'll go through all that effort. Average person would just search for the callsign, if it's not in the app, find something else to listen else.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Which is why so many stations go to the trouble of getting an app for their regular listeners to download.
Intheairnevada
Banned
If I am listening to this station on the net ..sometimes I have to reboot my device to keep the stream from disappearing, if the screen is not on (battery drain) ..other streams audacity etc don’t have that problem. My iPad and ms surface have different capabilities with streams..the surface is far better..but a heavier bigger device to carry around.
TuneIn removed folders and personal streaming links from CarPlay in April. I threw a fit when they did it, but I doubt many other people complained. I use TuneIn a lot less now because of it. It's a bit of a PITA to use on desktop machines, but I've found the MyTuner Radio app to be a decent replacement in the car. I tend to rely on it and iHeart when using CarPlay. MyTuner, BTW, would seem to list 670 in its directory.
KEMP is simulcasting KMZQ these days and not KVGQ, which makes sense given Payson's a pretty red area. I do agree that it should be with local owners. It does seem to slightly interfere with the 99.3 translator (K257CD, which is currently simulcasting a zombie station in KQFN) in many portions of Phoenix.