2013 Bay Area Radio Predictions

[HenryOchs]

With 2013 just around the corner, it's NOT too early to see what Bay Area radio has in store for the coming year.
And now, without further ado, HERE ARE MY BAY AREA RADIO PREDICTIONS FOR 2013!

1. Cumulus Media will flip one of their FM stations to the Country music format

2. Clear Channel will sell one of it's Bay Area stations and then buy another frequency

3. Further staff changes at KGO

4. KSFO's format will flip from Hot Talk to Adult Standards

5. KREV will flip to a dance music format and will be re-branded as 92-7 Party

6. The New 103-7 will be re-branded as Classic 103-7, but the on-air staff will remain intact

7. 95.7 The Game will be sold to Hubbard Radio and will then flip to Classic Rock as 95-7 The Drive

8. AT40 with Ryan Seacrest will change Bay Area affiliates from Star 101-3 to WiLD 94-9!

9. Rapture predictor Harold Camping will "FINALLY" sell 610 KEAR to a commercial broadcaster

10. 97.7 KFFG will flip to CHR/Rhythmic, and will be re-branded as Hot 97-7

11. The Doghouse Morning Show will make a BIG comeback!!!!!!


That's how I see Bay Area radio in 2013!!!! Now, let's hear your radio predictions.

 

[DavidKaye]

That's how I see Bay Area radio in 2013!!!! Now, let's hear your radio predictions.

In 2013 I remove the radio from my car in order to use the slot to store maps, and try to sell it at the flea market, but nobody wants it so I give it to some homeless guy who keeps showing up at my front door trying to sell it back to me.

 

[hammerpants]

Inferring that radio, in 2013, is obsolete... but the concept of paper maps is alive and well!

 

[1069_KIFR]

96.5 KOIT will play All Christmas music starting the week of Thanksgiving and play it until Dec 26.
KOSF, The NEW 103.7, will shuffle in Christmas music throughout the Holiday season right after Thanksgiving.

 

[TheBigA]

1. Cumulus Media will flip one of their FM stations to the Country music format

Wow...so they would want to go from a 2 share to a 1 share? With a format guaranteed to make less money? I don't know.

They only have 2 FMs...and KNBR doesn't make enough to float the whole cluster.

However, I think KSAN is on a short leash.

 

[chrocket87]

Will CBS keep pushing along it's constant ratings slacker, Live 105, or will it finally flip?

 

[DavidKaye]

Inferring that radio, in 2013, is obsolete... but the concept of paper maps is alive and well!

I admit I'm a map freak, especially road maps. My prized possessions are an 1873 map of SF, and a gas station road map of the Bay Area from 1939, featuring info about the Treasure Island world's fair. But, yes, I do look at maps and do not have a GPS map app. There's something about being able to get the wide-screen display that a map can do that makes real paper maps much more useful to me than an electronic device.

But as for radio, everything you want you that is available on local radio stations you can get via other formats -- Sirius/XM, streaming, downloads, etc. Except for KALW and KQED Radio, and an occasional foray over to KFJC, KPOO, and maybe KCSM-FM, the radio generally is useless to me. And much of the stuff I listen to from KQED and KALW I download a podcasts instead of taking them from radio.

 

[NoMoreLurking]

1. At least one more significant North Bay/South Bay FM/FM simulcast will emerge.

2. At least one more FM station will flip to simulcasting a struggling AM station.

3. At least one established AM talk show host will lose his gig, triggering multiple threads on radiodiscussions.com.

4. Rich Lieberman's KOMY gab fest will become the talk of the nation world, at least according to him.

5. Terrestrial radio will suddenly realize that Internet radio is in the dashboards of more and more new cars, and react by...wait for it...tightening playlists and silencing air talent!

6. "Seacrest" will at last enter the Oxford Dictionary as a verb meaning "to be replaced by automation or syndication." Ex: "Too bad about Shotgun Johnny Michaels...I heard that the suits at Z109 seacrested him."

Jeez, this is easy...jump in....

 

[MarioMania]

92.7 flip to ..I don't know

KNBR will get a FM Signal maybe on 107.7

997 Now will beat Wild in Ratings

KCBS be on 106.9 .....Jack FM in L.A gets new Calls

KGO go on FM also

 

[KimmiKat]

My selections, which some are outrageous.

1. KBAY will be sold to Coast Radio, owners of KKIQ and simulcast that station.
2. Family Radio will sell 610 to a group who brings back the KFRC calls and oldies, though those calls seem to be bad luck recently on stations that used them.
3. KDFC will add a couple more stations/repeaters.
4. Cumulus will buy the Taylor Street building where KGO/KPO was at back in the early days and move those stations back there, including getting the FCC to restore KPO calls to 680.
5. Cumulus and Entercom will merge and most of Entercom's stations will be stripped bare.
6. 960 KNEW will become the station for discussing MMOs (Massively multiplayer online games) and talk about woes of World of Warcraft and all the hackings at Rappelz (Galanet's version).
7. Ben Fung Torrez will retire from writing columns.
8. KGO will flip to a Spanish sstation.
9. Ibiquity will close down their IBOC aka HD Radio stuff and recall all the IBOC exciters from the transmitter plants of stations that used them.
10. The Bay Area Radio Museum will put up a pay wall to support itself.

 

[MC]

If there was an earthquake flood or tidal wave, would gps work? or nuke attack? paper map has some advantages.

wouldn't a jack for a smart phone make more sense than a radio? Although in rural areas nothing beats an am radio sometimes as a back up.

I carry a transitor radio in my car trunk's survial kit.

Since talk radio hosts are soooo old, it stands to reason at least one win retire or be fired.

 

[davideduardo]

If there was an earthquake flood or tidal wave, would gps work? or nuke attack? paper map has some advantages.

GPS uses satellites. Unless there is something that blasts the satellites, GPS will work as long as you have power for the device.

Paper maps don't consume energy.

 

[DavidKaye]

I carry a transitor radio in my car trunk's survial kit.

Since talk radio hosts are soooo old, it stands to reason at least one win retire or be fired.

You sound fairly old yourself, using the term "transistor radio".

 

[RadioStarOne]

Will it be found that just 3 corporations through corporate umbrella's and corporate trickery own at least 9000 of the nations radio stations, and 1500 TV stations. Could you please enlighten us David E to the true story about radio station ownership in this country?

 

[Dick Skinner]

I can't imagine Constantine making it through the year unless he does something brilliant to turn these two brands around.

 

[davideduardo]

Will it be found that just 3 corporations through corporate umbrella's and corporate trickery own at least 9000 of the nations radio stations, and 1500 TV stations. Could you please enlighten us David E to the true story about radio station ownership in this country?

The largest owner of stations, Clear Channel, owns about 820 stations out of about 15,000 stations. That is about 5% of all US stations.

By the time that you get down to the 10th largest station owner, they have less than 100 stations in total.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

Yeah, but Clear Channel gobbled up all of the desireable signals in a LOT of markets. You can't count all radio station signals as being equal. 50kw on AM in Ohio or Michigan goes a lot further and gets into multiple markets, compared to the typical 6kw FM in a semi-rural county. I don't think you should think of them as the same thing, just because they are two difference radio licenses. Even if many on Communications subcommittees in Congress and on the FCC staff tend to talk about each signal as an comparable equal, when making excuses for the latest policy deregulation.

A more representative statistic might be to compare what percentage of the wattage they have (at least for AMs), or what percentage of the US population their signals cover (and multiple it for each additional signal they have in the same market), or something that doesn't account for all of the small town and lower power signals that make it seem as if the "chosen few" big corporations don't control the vast majority of what's available to most people in the US now. Clear Channel certainly controls a hell of a lot more than 5% of the US radio market.

 

[TheBigA]

Those signals were available to anyone willing to pay.

 

[DavidKaye]

Yeah, but Clear Channel gobbled up all of the desireable signals in a LOT of markets. You can't count all radio station signals as being equal. 50kw on AM in Ohio or Michigan goes a lot further and gets into multiple markets, compared to the typical 6kw FM in a semi-rural county.

However, the landscape has changed. Used to be that advertisers had only newspapers, radio, and TV in order to reach mass audiences. Today, advertisers not only also have the web, but the web has sucked the advertising dollar out of newspapers, radio, and TV. Because of this, owning a bunch of radio stations is not the monopoly problem it once was. If people want to worry about monopolies, they should worry about Google and Facebook, not Clear Channel.

 

[davideduardo]

Yeah, but Clear Channel gobbled up all of the desireable signals in a LOT of markets. You can't count all radio station signals as being equal. 50kw on AM in Ohio or Michigan goes a lot further and gets into multiple markets...

Multiple market coverage is not, generally, something a station can monetize. Using an example I am familiar with, a Los Angeles station that is also in the top tier in the ratings in Riverside / San Bernardino does not bill any more for that Inland Empire audience than it can for the Los Angeles audience alone.

Today, if an AM has higher power, that power is generally useful only to overcome the ever-increasing noise levels that have made most lower-power metro area AMs non-viable.

A more representative statistic might be to compare what percentage of the wattage they have (at least for AMs),

That would be so difficult to implement. Since a 1 kw AM on 540 in a particular market might cover more than a 50 kw AM on 1580 in the same market, power is not a good standard. Then there is directionality and market noise levels and ground conductivity....

The FCC should probably allow any operator who wants AMs to own as many as they want... in some markets, AM listening is down to as low as 5% of total listening.

or what percentage of the US population their signals cover (and multiple it for each additional signal they have in the same market),

The FCC already has standards for maximum ownership based on market size and, in the case of cross ownership, number of voices in a market.

Clear Channel certainly controls a hell of a lot more than 5% of the US radio market.

But with radio in a negative revenue growth mode, and with the wide variety of other media types, there is absolutely no risk of any kind of a monopoly. In fact, the only way that the traditional model of towers and transmitters can survive is through extreme consolidation and the creation of national content such as is the model for television.