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Sports to replace KNX News simulcast at 97.1 FM

TomásEstefan said:
I understand the reasons for the creation of an all-sports FM station in the Los Angeles Market but I read recently that KNX stated that since it began simulcasting the station on FM 2 years ago their audience share shot up 25%! -Do they honesty think that all those listeners will head "back" to 1070 AM when apparently they weren't there to begin with! If I had a station whose audience increased by 25% I would have left it alone and considered some other alternative, as there is always an alternative. But then again the Suits "always" know best- "it's one size fits all, regardless",

In terms of an exception, it's actually amazing that although apparently all of Cumulus' country stations are called "Nash Country", the highly rated KHAY here in So Cal (before Cumulus' acquisition and afterward) is still called "California Country". Appropriately so--If it ain't broke-you don't fix it!!
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People aren't just listening to KNX's all news format just because it's on FM. If they truly desire to seek out KNX, then they know where to find it on AM. If they, like many people on this board would probably assume, would rather put a gun to their bead than listen to something on the AM dial, then perhaps they'll find the public radio stations.

If KNX fans want it, they'll go back to the AM to hear it.
 
Miss Tuned said:
The "Nash" experiment ended a few years ago now - most of the stations they rebranded as Nash either returned to their original names, rebranded to something else, or flipped away from country altogether.
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"Nash Icon" is still used on stations that run the syndicated hybrid contemporary/classic country format distributed by Cumulus' Westwood One. Here in northern New England, WYRY (104.9) Hinsdale, NH, serving the Brattleboro, VT, area, has been Nash Icon for the past decade.
 
Fighting Irish said:
If KNX fans want it, they'll go back to the AM to hear it.
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Here’s the fundamental flaw in that thinking:

KNX is not a “fan”-based station. It’s an information service, and ratings suggest more people are listening now that it’s on both AM and FM than listened when it was AM only.

Odds are those who didn’t listen before the simulcast will simply adjust to life without KNX again—-and there is likely to be some loss of people who were AM listeners previously but now have new listening habits.
 
michael hagerty said:
Here’s the fundamental flaw in that thinking:

KNX is not a “fan”-based station. It’s an information service, and ratings suggest more people are listening now that it’s on both AM and FM than listened when it was AM only.

Odds are those who didn’t listen before the simulcast will simply adjust to life without KNX again—-and there is likely to be some loss of people who were AM listeners previously but now have new listening habits.
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Doesn't KNX promote the Audacy app on air for streaming? That audience may be partly the cause of the increase if Audacy uses single line reporting. Those people will probably just keep listening on the app, or switch all their listening to the app if they listen to a combination of the app and the FM now.
 
Fighting Irish said:
If KNX fans want it, they'll go back to the AM to hear it.
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Some people -- especially under age 40 or 45 -- will NOT tune into a AM station for any reason. Plus, in cars (40% or more of your audience), more and more models don't even have the ability to pick up AM at all. This will be an interesting gamble by Audacy; six to nine months from now, they'll see if they made a good or bad choice.

As for the FM, does Audacy expect to gain traction without a baseball team as its anchor? The Dodgers own 50% of 570AM. And the Angles own 830AM outright and license the broadcasts to 710AM to extend the broadcast range. Please 'splain who is going to listen to Sportsradio 97.1 when the Dodgers and/or Angels are playing?

We can deal with football play by play in a later post.
 
OldiesMaven said:
Please 'splain who is going to listen to Sportsradio 97.1 when the Dodgers and/or Angels are playing?
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What we find is that the audience for actual play by play on the radio is only a fraction of the sports radio audience. Younger audiences especially don't have the patience to sit through live real time baseball. It's just too slow. What listeners prefer is edited highlights and commentary. The real issue is if the show hosts are engaging and entertaining. We'll find out starting Monday.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Doesn't KNX promote the Audacy app on air for streaming? That audience may be partly the cause of the increase if Audacy uses single line reporting. Those people will probably just keep listening on the app, or switch all their listening to the app if they listen to a combination of the app and the FM now.
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I’d need someone still working to answer that, but I don’t think you can single-line streaming…it would artificially inflate commercial values for air on a platform advertisers don’t pay as much for.

Also, you can’t ascribe monolithic behavior to hundreds of thousands of listeners. There will be varied responses, some of which will include no longer listening to KNX or listening to it less often or for shorter periods.
 
TheBigA said:
What we find is that the audience for actual play by play on the radio is only a fraction of the sports radio audience. Younger audiences especially don't have the patience to sit through live real time baseball. It's just too slow. What listeners prefer is edited highlights and commentary. The real issue is if the show hosts are engaging and entertaining. We'll find out starting Monday.
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Also, who is going to land the Westwood One affiliation? Which station will have the valuable national NFL packages (Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights plus the playoffs)? That's the #1 sport -- the station needs a real connection. It just can't be the "call and complain" station while the big games air elsewhere.
 
TheBigA said:
KABC and Jack
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If I were a betting man, I'd bet against you on both counts. Jack isn't going to do any sports unless a local team is involved so if the station doesn't get the Rams or Chargers, then it will continue to run its adult hits format.

I'd roughly say the same about KABC. In another market (Phoenix, where I now reside), the big reason that Bonnville flipped 98.7 KPKX to its current sports format was so that the complaints from KTAR-FM's news/talk listeners would stop when their programming was preempted by sports. And I expect those kinds of complaints would show up if KABC decided to air national football league gamess, especially games not involving local teams.

Besides, there will now be four local (or relatively local) sports-formatted radio stations in the Los Angeles market: KNX-FM (the station this thread is dedicated to); KLAC, KSPN, and KLAA (It's licensed to Orange but puts a good signal into most of the Los Angeles market). If one of the two stations not carrying the Rams or Chargers decides to carry the Westwood One feed, there will be no issues unless the Rams or Chargers are involved. And, if one of the two stations that do carry Rams or Chargers games are involved, it may mean that access to some of the evening games on dates where the Rams or Chargers play in the afternoon will be either minimal or non-existent because of the after-game shows for the local teams.

Finally, because there are two NFL local teams in Los Angeles, those Westwood One packages will have less value, because any of the Westwood One games that include either the Rams or Chargers cannot, under contract, be aired by Westwood One within 75 miles of the Los Angeles market. And, since the Rams went all the way to the Super Bowl last year, Westwood One's radio schedule will include quite a few of the team's weekly outings.
 


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