About the only value I can think of for 560 would be Cumulus donating it for the tax writeoff to the San Francisco Unified School Board for either (a) a KALW simulcast, extending its reach to areas beyond the San Francisco/northern Peninsula/inner East Bay ring where its signal is city grade, or (b) as an adjunct station to accomplish what KALW must have started out being, an actual educational station. However, I give (a) a 10% probability and (b) no more than a 1% one, because that latter use is better accomplished over the internet for a whole lot less money.
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560
- Thread starter K108 Sacramento
- Start date
Well, ask yourself if it would be worth it for KVTO or KEST. They might get a few more listeners, but the audience for programming in East Asian languages is largely concentrated in San Francisco, Oakland, and nearby areas. The cost per new potential listener might be too high to make sense. KEST's signal is kind of sucky in Oakland now, I'll admit, and its attempt at an FM translator was so fraught that it had to give it up. KSFB might bite, though I don't know if it could transfer its translator over to what would amount to a different station. I don't see any other candidates for this type of frequency shift.
Edit: To be a bit clearer, if such a possibility were to materialize at all, I think it would have to be one in which the 560 frequency was purchased, the programming moved over from the old frequency, and then having the old frequency shut down. All of that costs money. I don't think simply applying for the vacant frequency is possible (and Fybush has pretty much said that in the next post)...and would entail its own costs, likely to be substantial.
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I don't want to get too far off topic, but the root cause of the issue is that people with different conceptions of property rights, or of just property, period, encountered each other. The point to be made is that the European explorers portrayed their conquests as being those of empty space when, in reality, there were people there already.
The Puebloan societies of New Mexico were quite established, and comprehensible to Oñate and his crew. That didn't protect them altogether, especially not from the priests, witness the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 that resulted from gross mistreatment of the native people, but they weren't entirely dispossessed the way that the more migratory peoples were.
Likewise for "Tejas/Tejano(a)"; but getting "bear" out of "Bexar" is next-level.
That was suggested earlier in this thread and I imagine the expense of running it would just be prohibitive.
I worked with a group that was the beneficiary of a donated FM, and the expenses of tower lease, studio lease, equipment, and staffing pushed us into more than $1 million in debt in a year. That's a big hole to overcome.
This is something I had been wondering about - if all Cumulus has to sell or donate is the frequency license itself, don't they really have nothing to sell or donate? Whatever studio they have is actually a part of some Cumulus San Francisco general office - not part of a deal. If I read a post on another thread correctly, many Cumulus towers were sold off to "Vertical Bridge" a while ago - maybe not part of a deal. There is no audience or format to transfer, so there's really nothing. If somebody had an idea for something new, wouldn't it make sense to wait for them to 'turn in the license' and then apply with the FCC for the opportunity to broadcast in the public interest from scratch? It wouldn't come without costs - FCC fees, engineering plan reviews, as well as the physical plant, but would that be less than what a broken down media company might be asking?
It is disheartening to read radio professionals advocate for shutdown as opposed to trying something new. This is I think a harbinger of radio overall. If all FM is going to be left with is little more than what's there now, KCBS and KSFO may indeed be the last San Francisco AM's left standing, except they will be simulcasting on FM's that have otherwise run out of audience.
Correct. Cumulus is moving out of its SF studios. 680 and 104.5 are moving into Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara and 810 and 107.7 are moving into the same building in Daly City as Bonneville's stations (the status of 1050 is unknown).
Cumulus could have made more money selling a station on the air, attracting audience and billing, even without studio space. The tower lease would have been assumable. The fact that they didn't do that indicates that there were no buyers.
The tower may stay where it is---Vertical Bridge usually has multiple tenants on the radio towers it owns (cellular and other communications)---so if someone were to apply to the FCC to reactivate 560, they might be able to skip the whole process of identifying a tower site, doing the engineering proposals, etc.
But---there's no guarantee that the FCC won't simply de-list 560. And anyone flipping a coin on whether it's cheaper to buy a living, breathing (okay, maybe wheezing) radio station or try to re-animate a zombie frequency in a market where the AM share of listening is 1.7 is gambling big time.
Trouble is, the new stuff's been tried. Sports Betting should have been profitable for KGO. The fact that Cumulus chose to dump it and move KSFO over to 810 suggests that it wasn't. Most ethnic formats would prefer to be on FM.
"Something new" on AM is kinda like putting a really interesting podcast on CB. Nobody's there to hear it.
They may not own the tower land, but they have an existing tower lease that would be part of the deal. If a buyer would like to pick up the studio lease for the Battery Street location, that's likely available. The license itself is just a license. They don't own the frequency, so there's an expiration date.
One way or another, it will cost a new operator a lot of money. They could get the license for free and it would still take a lot of money. And then you have the problem of getting people to listen. No small task.
This comes after years of trying "new" things. There are two parts of the radio equation: The transmission and the reception. There's no point to the transmission part if there's no means for reception. That's what's been happening for the past 20 years. The electronics manufacturing business has given up on making cool new radios that people want to buy.
Sure there are probably millions of existing radios that haven't been thrown away. But now we have a situation where car manufacturers want to eliminate AM from dashboards, and it will take an act of congress to keep that from happening. There are fewer and fewer people who are able to receive AM signals. That's part of the financial equation, and why, in a town with lots of very rich people, you don't see any of them looking to buy one of these AM signals.
The thing people have to be willing to accept is that AM radio is obsolete. It was made obsolete first by the invention of FM in the 1930s. The generation that grew up with radio has held onto it, largely for emotional reasons. But it's pretty obvious that the generations that followed don't share that attachment.
A license isn't nothing, but an AM license is usually pretty worthless.
How many times have successful stations been bought and nuked by the new owners? It's pretty common. Operators buy stations to carry out their business plans and missions. Those are often not the same as the previous owner's.
Absolutely not. Remember the quote, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?" If you have someone willing to sell you a license for cheap or otherwise donate it, the license is yours. Waiting for an auction means you're spinning your wheels going nowhere until the FCC decides to open up a window. It also means you could be outbid for the license. Plus, like you said, you have to do all the engineering and, potentially, building out. Waiting for an auction is a lot more expensive and offers no guarantees.
If you could get 560 for a song, what would you do with it? How would you make money off of it? The unfortunate reality is that you can't make much, if any, money off of AM radio anymore. It's 100 year old technology, and it's had a good run. Every technology eventually outlives its usefulness and dies. A handful of people are still making money off of buggies and whips, but they're few and far between.
At some point, FM will also die. It's part of the lifecycle of technology. Radio is always going to be around, but that doesn't mean people will consume it the way they currently do or will see it the way we see it today. I have a 21 year old niece, and, while she does occasionally use over-the-air radio, she would also consider selecting a genre or curated playlist on Spotify to be radio. Radio is evolving and continues to evolve.
I'll just ask a question.
How many player pianos have been sold lately?
How many player pianos have been sold lately?
Edwin Klockars Blacksmithing in San Francisco was active until...2017 (wow). It was near one of my workplaces. It's now an art gallery.
Edwin Klockars' Blacksmith Shop - Wikipedia
What would the radio equivalent of an art gallery be?
Television?
And-a vun, and-a too, and-a now I vill barf...
Now, now, don't be doggin' on our Lawrence Welk...
I'd heard about that performance for years but never actually seen it before now. And now that I have, I can die fully baked.
What must it be like to be Dale (or Dale) and go through life knowing those two minutes will lead your obit?
Since there seems to still be some confusion about the matter:
As with any other station, there's a clock running once it goes silent. Cumulus can keep 560 silent for no more than 365 consecutive days (starting from whenever they turned it off earlier this week). Once that 365-day mark is reached, or earlier if Cumulus chooses to just surrender the license, it's gone.
The FCC doesn't hold vacant allotments open on AM the way they do on FM.
If and when there's ever a filing window for new AM stations and major changes, then applicants can file for facilities that can fit into the old KSFO/KZAC footprint. I wouldn't bet on such a window opening in the near future.
If anyone thinks they can make money off 560, they'd be well served to obtain the current KZAC license directly from Cumulus.
As with any other station, there's a clock running once it goes silent. Cumulus can keep 560 silent for no more than 365 consecutive days (starting from whenever they turned it off earlier this week). Once that 365-day mark is reached, or earlier if Cumulus chooses to just surrender the license, it's gone.
The FCC doesn't hold vacant allotments open on AM the way they do on FM.
If and when there's ever a filing window for new AM stations and major changes, then applicants can file for facilities that can fit into the old KSFO/KZAC footprint. I wouldn't bet on such a window opening in the near future.
If anyone thinks they can make money off 560, they'd be well served to obtain the current KZAC license directly from Cumulus.
That kind of transaction happens a fair bit - often as part of a divesture required when two companies merge for market caps, or when a standalone station is bought by a bigger broadcasting company. In either case, the buyer usually wants to do their own thing in their own facility.
If KZAC were being offered with "all studio equipment and a lease on a studio building expiring in 2028", it wouldn't change the market value much. Same for the physical towers. To a broadcaster, those are just means to an end.
The actual costs are in creating programming (mostly payroll), and the actual value is in a demonstrated audience.
So I see a suspension submitted today as File No 0000267713 in LMS. I cannot hear AM 560 on any remote receivers now.
Suspension of Operations Notification
This filing is submitted on behalf of Radio License Holdings LLC (“RLH”), licensee of Station
KZAC(AM), San Francisco, California, to notify the Federal Communications Commission that
Station KZAC discontinued operations on March 4, 2025. RLH is in the process of deciding
whether to change the format or sell the station.
Suspension of Operations Notification
This filing is submitted on behalf of Radio License Holdings LLC (“RLH”), licensee of Station
KZAC(AM), San Francisco, California, to notify the Federal Communications Commission that
Station KZAC discontinued operations on March 4, 2025. RLH is in the process of deciding
whether to change the format or sell the station.