2024 Format Change Predictions

[davideduardo]

Indeed, what people call "LA" is actually 88 cities (122 if you include OC)

That's the first time I have ever seen a "city count" for a market!

 

[Mark Roberts]

Explain

I don't understand why you think why country music has to add Asian artists, when other genres succeed without having Asian artists. Explain that to me.

You're the one who came up with that formulation. I never mentioned other genres. So you would need to be the one to explain it.

Personally I don't think it's worth arguing over.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I agree with you, to an extent. That extent is the difference in signal between 95.7 (which has deficiencies as a "full-market" signal) and 102.1 (which is solid everyplace except the far South Bay and the Tri-Valley).

Wouldn't you think, though, that the Tri-Valley would be fertile ground for a country format? At least Alpha seems to think so, considering what it's done with KKDV.

In the 49 square miles at the center of the market, I don't see country as having any other than ironic appeal.

 

[TomásEstefan]

There's the blind spot right there.


In the Bay Area the primary distinction is between Chinese (mostly Cantonese speakers...some of whom are third-plus generation Americans) and the Indian subcontinent. Yes, programming to those two audiences is quite distinct. In the South Bay, there is also a substantial Vietnamese community, refugees from the war, and, naturally, programming to that audience is different yet again.

But we're going down a rabbit hole that a semi-serious remark that I made really doesn't justify.


It's unusual to find a Filipino who doesn't speak at least some English, due, of course, to the American occupation in the earlier portions of the 20th century.

Even with all that, it seems to me that focusing on language acquisition as the primary factor in programming is missing the point. Especially in an age where representation of one's ethnic group is increasingly important, cultural identification has to be taken into account. What's most likely is that there will be a mixture of American culture and one's ancestral culture.

Chinese New Year is a big honkin' deal in the Bay Area.

If I told you about Black cowboys in Oakland, would you believe me?

Black cowboys? Absolutely! Would you believe me if I told you about Jewish Gauchos (cowboys) in Argentina?

 

[Street Novelist]

How about Asian cowboys? There must have been at least 1 or 2 of them. I'm sure that's a huge untapped market waiting to happen. 😁

 

[Mark Roberts]

True. Sorry you're going through that.

Thanks. We're trying to get the Oakland house sold and it's at least under contract but with contingencies. So it's a stressful holding pattern.

On paper, we will make money. After accounting for 20 years of inflation, we'll actually lose money. Part of it is timing; part of it is that real estate isn't quite the wealth builder that it's claimed to be. I've been getting rid of most of my REITs this year due to dividend cuts and a general reallocation of assets. It's not been fun.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Black cowboys? Absolutely! Would you believe me if I told you about Jewish Gauchos (cowboys) in Argentina?

¡Claro que sí! I've actually had a longstanding fascination with Argentine history.

A story: I was news director of my hometown radio station in the early 1980s. This also happened to be the location of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. There was a foreign press program there and we were often invited to interview visiting journalists and public figures. One of them was Jacobo Timerman. I got to interview him several times. This was during the really bad years in Argentina, before the Falklands Malvinas 1982 war. I once asked him, "Are these guys as bad as Rosas?" He gave me a startled look. "You know Rosas?" Juan Manuel de Rosas was Argentina's first dictator, who ruled with an iron fist, created a unitarian government centered on Buenos Aires - even though he claimed to be a federalist, and whose dictatorship had notable 20th century characteristics (such as a secret police and loyalty oaths) which somehow popped up in the earlier half of the 19th century in South America.

I've found Argentina fascinating because it had many of the same advantages that the United States had, yet totally screwed things up. Perón was just the culmination of longstanding political and social trends in that society. It's the one place in South America, aside from Uruguay, that I really want to visit. I've held back because of concerns about stability. I doubt that Javier Milei will help that very much, but if he dollarizes the economy, it might make some things less difficult for tourists. I really don't know, and don't think Milei is the solution to the problems the country has. But they've got him and so we shall see.

One of my favorite books is Eva Perón, by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, published in 1980. It details Eva Duarte's rise through the Argentine radio industry of the 1930s and 1940s, her ultimate alliance and marriage to Juan Perón, and the influence she and her politics continued to have on Argentina. It's in English. A revised and retitled version from 1996 doesn't appear to be in print but is available as an e-book.

Sorry, you probably didn't expect this, but you just happened to trigger something.

 

[Mark Roberts]

How about Asian cowboys? There must have been at least 1 or 2 of them. I'm sure that's a huge untapped market waiting to happen. 😁

Not going there again. I'm tired of the lectures that assume I'm dumber than an unwatered plant.

 

[TheBigA]

You're the one who came up with that formulation. I never mentioned other genres. So you would need to be the one to explain it.

Because you said this:

At least not until country music produces an Asian-American star. Never say never.

So country will never work in SF until there's an Asian country star. Why does that have to happen? It makes no sense.

Asians make up 35% of the population. That leave 65% who aren't Asians. A format just needs 3% to be a success.

You're putting a requirement on country that no other genre has to meet. That's why I ask why.

 

[davideduardo]

I've found Argentina fascinating because it had many of the same advantages that the United States had, yet totally screwed things up. Perón was just the culmination of longstanding political and social trends in that society. It's the one place in South America, aside from Uruguay, that I really want to visit. I've held back because of concerns about stability. I doubt that Javier Milei will help that very much, but if he dollarizes the economy, it might make some things less difficult for tourists. I really don't know, and don't think Milei is the solution to the problems the country has. But they've got him and so we shall see.

I worked there fe Emmis as consultant for what had been “Radio News” which did now newscasts and Radio 10, on 710 with 100,000 watts and all news and talk. When I got there in 1999, the AM was #1 but the FM had less than a 1 share. The FM was reformatted as all Argentine rock and went #1 in 30 days.

Ar the time the dollar and the peso were at parity. Over the next six years or so, it went 7 pesos to the dollar, and the could not afford to pay me.

Now, I seriously and often think of moving to Mendoza or Bariloche… with my dollar based income!

 

[radiofan2023]

I went to Buenos Aires about 20 years ago, it seemed nice at the time. I went to a tango nightclub, the football stadium in Buenos Aires, to an estancia outside of the city and got to see the gauchos and cattle, it was fun and the steaks were fantastic. I probably listened to that rock station you mentioned David.

 

[Radiopaw]

I’ll bite. I don’t think anything will happen, but the following seem most likely to flip

- KVVF/KVVZ (don’t know much about these, but they’re always the bottom rated)
- KRBQ

I think we will see tweaks, but not format flips of KLLC, KYLD and KSAN.

Radio doesn’t flip as often these days, and when it does it’s quite clear the station has been struggling for a while before it.

 

[Cityguy76]

I could see a format flip to add another talk station or a country station

 

[Weiserguy]

I’ll bite. I don’t think anything will happen, but the following seem most likely to flip

- KVVF/KVVZ (don’t know much about these, but they’re always the bottom rated)
- KRBQ

I'm hoping that 105.7 (KVVF) goes back to being "KARA in Santa Clara". And 102.1 returns to the days of all-classical, all-automated KDFC. (And the trimulcast of 89.9/90.3/104.9 return to being college/community/local radio.) Not sure what should happen to 100.7 (KVVZ) in this little fantasy fever dream.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I'm hoping that 105.7 (KVVF) goes back to being "KARA in Santa Clara". And 102.1 returns to the days of all-classical, all-automated KDFC.

I wonder if the Parkway tapes are in someone's basement in Millbrae.

Not sure what should happen to 100.7 (KVVZ) in this little fantasy fever dream.

You probably remember that what was then KTIM-FM tried classical for a little while in the 2000s, but that was well before the KDFC classical format was ditched in hopes of something more profitable.

KVVZ actually puts a decent signal into Oakland. (By the time you get to Hayward, pfffft. But you could say that about a lot of things.) I'll pitch another one of my throwaway comments into this discussion: it might make a nice repeater for KCRW's Eclectic 24 programming.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Now, I seriously and often think of moving to Mendoza or Bariloche… with my dollar based income!

Mendoza could be interesting - looks like it's the regional center for western Argentina near the Chile border. I'll probably never get there; I'll be lucky to make it to Buenos Aires since a good part of my family is in Europe and as a result that's usually the top priority for vacations. That's even though one of my big regrets is not having spent time in a South American country while I was in college. Problem was, I was in college in the late 1970s, and those were the really bad years in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, particularly dangerous for college students - and me with my big blond mop of hair (at the time!) would have probably stood out.

About 10 years ago, a cartographer friend of mine, as a kind of joke (too much context to provide here), pointed me to the Argentina Super Atlas, a road atlas of Argentina plus Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay, sponsored by Bridgestone Argentina. He was shocked when I actually bought it. The cartography is very nice, and there are detailed street-level maps of many Argentine cities. Aside from the province itself, Mendoza city and vicinity get four pages of coverage at two different scales!

OK, this is a big swerve. I'll stop now.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Don't stop! While on the subject of Mendoza, Malbec is THE wine for many!

And what the heck! For those of us old enough to remember, Guy Williams, star of the Walt Disney 50's TV series "Zorro", Took a vacation once to Argentina, fell in love with it, and decided to retire there sometime, and was eventually buried there. His portrayal of the fictional character of Don Diego was so realistic that most of us back in the day thought he was actually Spanish, though In reality he was an Italian kid from Brooklyn, who just happened to be a very talented actor !

 

[Mark Roberts]

Yeah, Lieberman is stuck in the past, and KGO is a big part of that. He also would claim that Mickey Luckoff was trying to line up investors for the same reason. In any event, Lieberman's gone to making videos rather than writing a blog. That's when I quit following what he does. I can read a lot faster than I can listen to a rant (as he himself calls his videos).

@michael hagerty :
I happened to stumble onto his site yesterday, where he had a headline that seems to hint that Family Radio or someone who acquires KEAR from Family Radio will turn it into something like a KGO revival. The headline reads, "Could a new Quasi KGO Radio replace KFRC/Family Radio 610? Here's the S .." (Presumably "Scoop" although there are other words starting with "S" that could fit.) I didn't bother watching the video because I was afraid I would die laughing.

 

[michael hagerty]

@michael hagerty :
I happened to stumble onto his site yesterday, where he had a headline that seems to hint that Family Radio or someone who acquires KEAR from Family Radio will turn it into something like a KGO revival. The headline reads, "Could a new Quasi KGO Radio replace KFRC/Family Radio 610? Here's the S .." (Presumably "Scoop" although there are other words starting with "S" that could fit.) I didn't bother watching the video because I was afraid I would die laughing.

I can't bring myself to watch the videos, either, Mark.

Just the screenshots tell me that Rich has blown his whole act----the man behind the curtain turned the spotlight on himself and revealed himself to be exactly what his critics had accused him of being....an angry little crank in a dark little apartment pretending to be connected and to know stuff.

 

[TomásEstefan]

@michael hagerty :
I happened to stumble onto his site yesterday, where he had a headline that seems to hint that Family Radio or someone who acquires KEAR from Family Radio will turn it into something like a KGO revival. The headline reads, "Could a new Quasi KGO Radio replace KFRC/Family Radio 610? Here's the S .." (Presumably "Scoop" although there are other words starting with "S" that could fit.) I didn't bother watching the video because I was afraid I would die laughing.

Probably needless to say that It's unfortunate that a new "Quasi KGO" probably wouldn't work (KGO was relatively balanced). The majority of AM talk listeners are angry conservative white folks who have plenty of choices. What would be the potential audience is already listening to KQED, and probably wouldn't bother to hit the bandswitch button because KCBS News and KPFA are there too, among others.