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1550 The Fan?105.3 The Fan?

norcalvet said:
This talk format was "free"...get it? No monthly charge. Groan. Yes, Free-FM did suffer from being on a dead frequency at 106.9, just as KFRC-FM did, but the format idea was ridiculous. "We'll show Stern" could have been their unofficial slogan. They obviously didn't.
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You think? I think the radio dweebs that post here over-estimate the importance of frequencies and radio branding to the average listener. Many of the people I know don't even know the frequency of the stations they like - they'll say something along the lines of; "I like that 101 station." If they know somewhere deep down that it's "Star 101.3," they can't pull it out of their memory banks.

I understand that potential KFRC listeners may have been confused because the station was at 99.7 for so many years. But I don't think it's hard for listeners to understand that there's a new talk station at 106.9, or they can now get their news at 106.9.

norcalvet said:
I also don't believe that a talk format on FM in SF is a great idea. No one knows how many people are listening to news on 106.9 and we probably never will. It could be a massive waste of an FM frequency...a thought that has crossed Dan Mason's mind more than once.
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I don't know if you're right or wrong, but many of the radio pros who post here (Eduardo, etc.) claim that younger listeners will not tune in AM. They have stats to back this up. So if you want your talk or news station to be popular with the desirable demographic going forward, you need FM. Makes sense to me

I can't imagine Mason is upset about KCBS on 106.9. From what I know, the station is now number 1 in the 12+ "beauty contest," and also brings in that younger demo that can't find the button for the AM band. And what's cheaper to run than a voice-tracked station? A simulcast.
 
@LKeller-- I agree, it seems unlikely that Mason is upset in the least over 106.9, which so far, seems to be a successful simulcast. From a sales and management standpoint, however, you are "wasting" a radio station...you could be throwing off two different billing streams and you aren't.

This is a wild, out there thought, but think about this...short term, they did this to boost KCBS. Long term, they did it to get KCBS' monster cume familiar with top of the dial 106.9, (which despite the earlier comment...studies have shown that stations at the extremities of the band don't fare as well with listeners discovering them), just to change it to a different format later, or to migrate KCBS to FM only at some point, and spin off 740 to a different format (maybe even brokered at some point.)
 
SFStatic said:
@LKeller-- I agree, it seems unlikely that Mason is upset in the least over 106.9, which so far, seems to be a successful simulcast. From a sales and management standpoint, however, you are "wasting" a radio station...you could be throwing off two different billing streams and you aren't.

This is a wild, out there thought, but think about this...short term, they did this to boost KCBS. Long term, they did it to get KCBS' monster cume familiar with top of the dial 106.9, (which despite the earlier comment...studies have shown that stations at the extremities of the band don't fare as well with listeners discovering them), just to change it to a different format later, or to migrate KCBS to FM only at some point, and spin off 740 to a different format (maybe even brokered at some point.)
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I use KCBS 106.9 over KCBS 740 because the sound quality is much clearer on my FM / Mp3 Player. and I don't have Am on my Mp3 Player.
 
If you had a smartphone or iPod Touch, you could listen to the stream, and get even cleaner sound. 106.9 has a lot of artifacts where I live, and sounds distorted much of the time.
 
norcalvet said:
No one knows how many people are listening to news on 106.9 and we probably never will. It could be a massive waste of an FM frequency...a thought that has crossed Dan Mason's mind more than once.
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KCBS has shown significant ratings increases and has hit #1 in the key 25-54 demographic since establishment of the simulcast, so I seriously doubt that Mason is having any second thoughts about it.
 
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