From what I've noticed of STA applications and approvals, one could put the station on the air for a day and then go silent again. But if that's repeated too often, the FCC staff will pick up on that. Particularly if there's some other deficiency with the station's compliance with regulations, the result could then be a short-term renewal, and/or a fine, or possibly worse, depending on the circumstances.
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560
- Thread starter K108 Sacramento
- Start date
For a debt ridden company looking to cut costs everywhere...hanging on to an expensive tower lease for another year, hoping that someone will come along and purchase, makes no financial sense.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Hanging on to it this long didn't make a lot of sense already, unless they thought they could get something for it.
Otherwise, it's can.kick(road).
That pesky thing is off-frequency by a few hertz and causes a low rumble on 1610 that I can hear all over Northern California practically! Especially at night!!
Or maybe there's another one somewhere causing interference?
c
You all have to realize that (a) I wasn't being serious (review my icon carefully), (b) but I was responding to @TomásEstefan suggesting, also in jest, that the only options for 560 might be BBC World or NOAA Weather 24-7, and (c) it's quite literally impossible to have a TSL lower than a station that's approaching its first anniversary of being off the air.
Also, I wasn't being serious, though the batteries in my sarcasm generator might need refreshing. Why not, my Roku remote needed rejuicing this morning.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
However, back in post #1016 (!) I did give some real-world examples of why your sarcasm had a ring of truth to it ...
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Even if that were a serious idea, it falls apart the instant Mark Tamayo, Lawrence Karnow, Paul Heggen, or Jeff Ranieri says "as you can see here on the map" ...
Rewind back to post #975:
But here's the problem as it applies to RadioDiscussions, leaving aside the absence of in-person interactions:
Actually you wouldn't even need that. In the cybersecurity and business-continuity worlds, and in others where risk management and response are critical, it's common to have "tabletop exercises". A facilitator comes in with a scenario to simulate a crisis, participants are assigned roles for working out a response, and the resulting interactions are documented and reviewed at the end of the exercise. Having physical facilities to aid the simulation helps...I participated in one such day-long exercise at Idaho National Labs about ten years ago and I learned a whole lot from it...but you can still learn something even if it's just people in a room having to deal with one another to solve a difficult situation.
But here's the problem as it applies to RadioDiscussions, leaving aside the absence of in-person interactions:
No, K.M. is not the problem, just to be clear. The problem is an unwillingness to listen and an unwillingness to learn.
It doesn't invalidate your point...it may even reinforce it...but Limbaugh bombed out of Kansas City in 1984 when KMBZ fired him.
(Synopsis: News/talk station KMBZ fired Rush Limbaugh, 33, whom it had hired when it adopted a news/talk format. At first, he was the afternoon news anchor and did commentaries. He subsequently replaced longtime station host Curt Merz, who was fired. Limbaugh then became the afternoon host, also continuing his commentaries that were often politically conservative. In the preceding weeks, the general manager of KMBZ, Russ Wood, resigned, and the director of news and programming, Phil Mueller, was "released from his position".)
(Also note that the editing on the story could have been a little better: the story implied that Limbaugh replaced Merz before Limbaugh even joined the station.)
(Kansas City Star, September 25, 1984, page 2B)
Shortly thereafter, KCMO tried a confrontational talk format not dissimilar to what you hear on AM talk radio today. It bombed. As I mentioned in another thread, Kansas Citians can be slow to embrace new concepts, and confrontational talk went against the prevailing culture of the area.
Which reinforces the point that, if you're going to try something different, you'd better know your audience before you launch your effort.
Or Jessica Burch mentions her SFBA 3D walk-thru map. I know KCBS down there (L.A.) uses a similar walkaround set in their studio. Very conducive to an audio-only broadcast.
CBS Colorado (the branding for KCNC, originally KOA-TV) does the same thing. It looks monumentally stupid.
Yep...and the guy who ran this was supposed to be on a "full-market FM in Los Angeles" months ago, he said.
If you look at what we were saying at the time, you'll find what I think is an appropriate level of skepticism.
I know you. But I also know the rest of the room. Needed stating.
But as you note---those are professionals, coming in with knowledge and respect for what the facilitators and other professionals in the room have to say. They're not going to complain that people just didn't get it when their response to a situation fails.
Which is why I'd like a simulator they can use at home that tells them when the station isn't working:
When it's in freefall:
And when it's game over.
Yeah, I knew Rush bombed in Kansas City---and I meant to say so to someone who said he did well there before KFBK.
And look, if Morton Downey, Jr. had kept his racism to himself, and there hadn't been an opening at KFBK, we may never have heard of Rush Limbaugh.
My friend who was involved with Ed in syndicating Rush spent weeks in Sacramento (didn't hurt that he had a girlfriend here) listening, taking notes, and, when they were convinced this guy wasn't a fluke, doing significant research to determine Rush's strengths and weaknesses and how much of that could be replicated nationally.
A chunk of Rush's success in Sacramento was that he wasn't named Morton Downey, Jr. There's no guarantee he would have done as well anywhere else in America after getting blown out of KMBZ.
Hell, that was a typical weather shot at KFRC in the 70s:
"Oakland 58, Marin 56, San Jose 70, Concord 92 and it's 54 degrees at KFRC."
Another chunk of Rush's success was that he was very close to his affiliate stations. He gracefully recorded promos and liners and actually asked about how his show was doing.
I first dealt with Rush at WDSR in Lake City, FL, which is a tiny market west of Jacksonville and south of Valdosta and east of nowhere. We were organizing a "Rush to Lunch" at a local restaurant that set aside its meeting room for tables of local businessmen and professionals who had lunch, listened to the show, and commented on it.
Rush did a "welcome" recording they ran before the show and several "Hello Lake City and all my North Florida friends" variants. He had less than 100 affiliates when we did that.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I stop listening after about the first five minutes when someone babbles on with that attitude with no apparent intent to learn anything that conflicts with their own POV.
The post of mine that you quoted was right underneath, and a response to, a lengthy post with exactly that attitude.