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Is It Time for Audacy to Make KMNB a Simulcast of WCCO?

G

Gregg.

First question... Audacy has been giving its big AM stations an FM simulcast in recent years. 1120 KMOX St. Louis is the latest News/Talk station to be heard on FM. It now identifies as "104.1 FM KMOX." In the latest ratings, the once mighty 830 WCCO had fallen to #15. It has a lot invested. Live and local talk all day. The Minnesota Twins flagship station. The largest local radio news team.

Second question... Why does Minneapolis have two Country stations? It's a large northern market. Why does Audacy want to compete with iHeart in the Country music field? Chicago has only one Country station. Same for Detroit and Milwaukee. These cities once had two Country stations but it didn't work out. In the latest ratings, Audacy's 102.9 KMNB The Wolf is only rated at #17. That's in a large market with fewer full-power commercial FM signals than most medium-sized markets.

Audacy has made some tough decisions in recent years to blow up music formats on FM in order to save its big investment in News, Talk and Sports on AM stations that are struggling. I wish radio listeners would continue tuning in AM stations running good formats but that's not happening. It's time for 102.9 WCCO-FM.
 
Gregg.
Today at 3:45 AM
#1
First question... Audacy has been giving its big AM stations an FM simulcast in recent years. 1120 KMOX St. Louis is the latest News/Talk station to be heard on FM. It now identifies as "104.1 FM KMOX." In the latest ratings, the once mighty 830 WCCO had fallen to #15. It has a lot invested. Live and local talk all day. The Minnesota Twins flagship station. The largest local radio news team.
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Where is the question?

Second question... Why does Minneapolis have two Country stations?
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It actually has three if you count Bob 106.1. 102.9 went Country at a time Mainstream AC (and Lite 103 in particular) was seeing sagging ratings; K102 had monster ratings. CBS Radio wanted a piece of that action. KMNB actually performed impressively well its first few years as a country station. It lost its way somewhere, somehow. I'll defer to those who may be more familiar with the situation.

I do agree with you that it is time for 830 WCCO to gain a full-powered FM simulcast. That brand will slowly rot and eventually become irrelevant if this fails to occur.

I'd love to see WLTE make a comeback, but that won't happen because Audacy is likely afraid a Mainstream AC would cannibalize Jack FM to an extent.
 
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MarkW said:
I do agree with you that it is time for 830 WCCO to gain a full-powered FM simulcast. That brand will slowly rot and eventually become irrelevant if this fails to occur.
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Might be too late.

KMOX-FM ratings since the end of baseball season are terrible, and actually a tenth or two lower than they were the prior winter on 1120 only. The programming strategy of KMOX and WCCO is very similar.
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
Might be too late.

KMOX-FM ratings since the end of baseball season are terrible, and actually a tenth or two lower than they were the prior winter on 1120 only. The programming strategy of KMOX and WCCO is very similar.
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Spring training will be here before ya know it. :)
 
Gregg. said:
First question... Audacy has been giving its big AM stations an FM simulcast in recent years. 1120 KMOX St. Louis is the latest News/Talk station to be heard on FM. It now identifies as "104.1 FM KMOX." In the latest ratings, the once mighty 830 WCCO had fallen to #15. It has a lot invested. Live and local talk all day. The Minnesota Twins flagship station. The largest local radio news team.

Second question... Why does Minneapolis have two Country stations? It's a large northern market. Why does Audacy want to compete with iHeart in the Country music field? Chicago has only one Country station. Same for Detroit and Milwaukee. These cities once had two Country stations but it didn't work out. In the latest ratings, Audacy's 102.9 KMNB The Wolf is only rated at #17. That's in a large market with fewer full-power commercial FM signals than most medium-sized markets.

Audacy has made some tough decisions in recent years to blow up music formats on FM in order to save its big investment in News, Talk and Sports on AM stations that are struggling. I wish radio listeners would continue tuning in AM stations running good formats but that's not happening. It's time for 102.9 WCCO-FM.
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WMNB functions well as a third revenue stream. Keep in mind, WCCO, The Wolf and Jack were part of the CBS cluster with WCCO-TV before Audacy bought the radio stations. Unlike IHeart, they don't have the luxury of having multiple FM/AM/TX stations, or Hubbard, which has three radio and two TV stations to sell. So, it's probably better to have three stations, rather than two

Audacy could have bought 96.3 from the Pohlad family a few years ago, and that would have been ideal as a local WCCO simulcast. But Audacy was having money problems, so K-Love swooped in. And, with no decent translators available, they have to settle for AM, HD-2 and streaming for listeners.

And, as far as AM stations are concerned, WCCO is still doing better than most. They're still a go-to for news, non-partisan talk and sports, have great long-term relationships with advertisers, and are still considered "The Good Neighbor" to people all over the state. They're iconic, everyone knows they're there, and how to tune in for breaking news and Twins games. They're obviously not getting 30 shares anymore, but they still serve a niche in a market dominated by MPR. And they're in far better shape than KSTP 1500.
 
Gregg. said:
Why does Minneapolis have two Country stations?
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Money. Plus very attractive demos. It won't get that from a WCCO simulcast. Audacy has a strong country format captain in Tim Roberts, who is based at WYCD Detroit. He keeps expenses low with several nationally syndicated country shows in weaker dayparts. And it's important to compete and challenge iHeart where you can. KMNB has double the cume of WCCO, is younger, and more female. Meanwhile there's no indication that adding an FM simulcast would increase WCCO's audience.

Audacy has a similar situation in Buffalo, where they own heritage news/talk WBEN and a low rated country FM. In 2011, they did a WBEN simulcast, and found that it didn't help WBEN at all. So after two years, they flipped it to alternative rock and now it's back to country.
 
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Unless Audacy merges with another cluster with a weak performer or is able to buy/swap or lease an IDS-based translator, I don't see WCCO getting on analog FM in the next couple of years.

Even picking up 99.9 would help a lot.
 
Minneapolis is an unusual market. With a high-skill urban and suburban labor force, you'd think Classic Rock and AC would be top rated. But that's not the case. And you'd think it would NOT be a market with two country stations. But two big owners, iHeart and Audacy, continue to program the format.

I'm sure on paper, it didn't make much sense for Audacy last year to blow up an FM music station in Miami for a simulcast of Sports station 560 WQAM. Or to push an Urban/Hip Hop station in St. Louis to a translator so KMOX could have an FM simulcast for its format, similar to WCCO. But spoken word stations can air many more commercials per hour. And advertisers seem to like their spots integrated with these formats, as opposed to music stations where listeners may switch the dial when the commercials come on.

Audacy doesn't want WCCO to see a further loss of listeners because it is stuck on AM. Market #15 should have a spot on the FM dial for a commercial News-Talk and Twins radio station. (Actually, Twins games air on 102.9 WMNB, which halts the country music for baseball more than 170 times per season. But not the pre- and post-game shows which are only heard on 830 WCCO.)
 
Gregg. said:
Minneapolis is an unusual market. With a high-skill urban and suburban labor force, you'd think Classic Rock and AC would be top rated. But that's not the case. And you'd think it would NOT be a market with two country stations. But two big owners, iHeart and Audacy, continue to program the format.

I'm sure on paper, it didn't make much sense for Audacy last year to blow up an FM music station in Miami for a simulcast of Sports station 560 WQAM. Or to push an Urban/Hip Hop station in St. Louis to a translator so KMOX could have an FM simulcast for its format, similar to WCCO. But spoken word stations can air many more commercials per hour. And advertisers seem to like their spots integrated with these formats, as opposed to music stations where listeners may switch the dial when the commercials come on.

Audacy doesn't want WCCO to see a further loss of listeners because it is stuck on AM. Market #15 should have a spot on the FM dial for a commercial News-Talk and Twins radio station.
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The Twins are on FM in Minneapolis:
www.audacy.com

Minnesota Twins | 102.9 The Wolf

It’s Twins season in Minnesota and 102.9 The Wolf is excited to join the team as the official FM radio broadcast partner of the Minnesota Twins! Tune in to 102.9 FM for live game coverage all season long.
www.audacy.com www.audacy.com
 
Gregg. said:
And you'd think it would NOT be a market with two country stations. But two big owners, iHeart and Audacy, continue to program the format.
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The public and the FCC want to have competition in broadcasting, and so that's what you get. Two companies competing against each other with the same format. The Audacy version plays a bit more gold than the heritage iHeart station. They have different playlists, their own distinct local talent, and offer the residents a choice. Perhaps if the FCC loosens the ownership laws, you'll see less competition. But for now, this is what we have.

Gregg. said:
Audacy doesn't want WCCO to see a further loss of listeners because it is stuck on AM.
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That's assuming the reason it's losing listeners is because it's on AM. The other reason is because it's format mainly appeals to people over 55, and they're passing away. Not much you can do when your main listeners start dying and aren't being replaced. Adding an FM won't change the format demographics. Younger people aren't going to start to listen because it's on FM.

I notice the WCCO stream is getting a .8, so obviously the people have recognized the station exists beyond AM. Audacy knows the future of radio is not FM, but streaming.
 
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Here's the counter-argument:

Audacy's big commitment in spoken word radio isn't in the talk format. It's in the big market all-news stations that generate huge revenue, and in sports in big and medium markets. Whatever revenue WCCO brings in for Audacy's overall bottom line is a tiny fraction of what they make from KNX, WINS, WFAN and WBBM.

Talk skews old and is only getting older and more divisive. Minneapolis isn't a transitory market. The audience that wants what WCCO is offering is already accustomed to finding it on 830. There's very little upside to be gained from putting it on FM in a market where there's little in the way of newly-relocated listeners who might find it on FM but not AM.

(The parallel here in Audacy-land is WBEN in Buffalo, a similarly stable old market where adding an FM simulcast a few years ago didn't improve the bottom line at all.)

And of course the biggest issue - the math for adding an FM simulcast and subtracting the revenue from a separate FM format is very different in Minneapolis, with only 2 FMs in the cluster, compared to St. Louis, where 104.1 was one of five FMs.
 
fybush said:
Audacy's big commitment in spoken word radio isn't in the talk format. It's in the big market all-news stations
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Meanwhile, their big commitment when it comes to music is in the country format. They love the demos, they love that it's a currents-based format, and the audience is more loyal than CHR. It sells well, it markets well, they have a couple of syndicated shows in the format, and they'd rather have a medium rated country station than a medium rated news/talk. Your Buffalo example is proof. WLKK is one of the lowest rated FMs in the market, but it gets them access to that demographic.
 
fybush said:
(The parallel here in Audacy-land is WBEN in Buffalo, a similarly stable old market where adding an FM simulcast a few years ago didn't improve the bottom line at all.)
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That was 15 years ago. AM radio's ability to attract and keep listeners has worsened considerably since then.

fybush said:
And of course the biggest issue - the math for adding an FM simulcast and subtracting the revenue from a separate FM format is very different in Minneapolis, with only 2 FMs in the cluster, compared to St. Louis, where 104.1 was one of five FMs.
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From all the thoughts posted here so far, this one makes the most sense. But WCCO has such an important heritage in MSP, it really does deserve to be on FM at this point.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
That was 15 years ago. AM radio's ability to attract and keep listeners has worsened considerably since then.
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And yet Audacy hasn't seen a reason to revisit keeping WBEN AM-only in all that time. It's still a solid ratings and revenue player, if only because Buffalo is an older market.

But overall, the format is aging out of relevance and profitability right along with the AM dial. At this point, if Audacy were to move anything from AM to FM in Buffalo to preserve revenue for the future, it would be its sports station, WGR, which is having a great year with the Bills and Sabres on winning streaks. (It won't happen because, as in Minneapolis, Audacy doesn't have any extra FMs to sacrifice.)
 


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