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97.1 Flipping To Country

I really turned on my radio at noon th hear RUSH and heard music...I could not tell if RUSH was playing music and turned on my fuzzy 790 signal and heard RUSH. Finally I heard a sweeper and said some very derogetory words about Clear Channel. THis moves sucks....ok I'm keeping it clean.....also BORING BORING more Taylor Swift....really ???
 
Clear Channel tried the same thing several years ago on 92.9. 92.9 is much more powerful than 97.1 and the concept didn't work. Country is one format that is rarely successful when done on the cheap.

A lot of the stuff that's being palmed off as country isn't country at all. It's rock sung with a southern drawl. That might work here but the hard core country fans will stick with KIIM.

97.1 provided no coverage that wasn't already available on 790. The far right sounds no better on FM than on AM. AM just adds a little more to the noise.
 
Not sure there is enough room for all of this but here goes.

CCME now has 3 frequncies that are doomed to failure. Common thread is that any station that was ever "COOL" was on all three.
92.9 COOL, COYOTE, Mountain, My
97.1 KCEE(for a very brief time) COOL 97.1, 97.1 COOL FM (rhythmic oldies) Sabrosa, La Preciosa, MIA, KNST, Wild
1450 La Pantera, COOL, Comedy, La Preciosa

Station says it is in stereo but sounds mono most of the time and like crap. Fix the processing! Mud Not to mention 0 ability to be heard anywhere but Green Valley or in a car.
Logo is about as horrid as KRQ's new look. That new Windows Paint in the hands of the right people is certainly turning out some quality work!!

Also I wonder if they will speed up the songs 10% on 97.1 like they do on 93.7 and 92.9 to create new helium/chipmunk versions. The new Bruno Mars Your Man comes to mind that sounds like the Jackson FIve at times.

This has been tried so many times and never does anything to KIIM.Good luck!Will there be a return of Cat Country 97.5? Bring Dusty Back
 
if 97.1 fm is owned by clear channel how can they use the NASH logo, would they not need permission from Cumulus or am i confused?
 
CC registered the "NASH" domains just to play with Cumulus, which owns KIIM; they won't use the branding, obviously. (Of course, Cumulus previously registered domains with "Nash" and every FM frequency on them.)
 
99.5 KIIM Tucson... 90 kw/2037 feet above average terrain
vs.
97.1 KNST-FM Green Valley... 1750 watts/614 feet above average terrain

Now really, where in America does a Class A station successfully compete with a Class C station in the same format, a format they've been doing for decades?

Meanwhile KNST-AM has 5000 watts by day. But at night it drops to 500 watts. I see in the latest ratings KNST, both AM and FM combined, is #6, about half the ratings of KIIM, which is always #1, sometimes with double digits. Does Clear Channel believe its AM station, which drops to 500 watts at night, won't be hurt by being on AM only?

All across the country, AM stations are trying to find low-powered FM translators, so they can tell their audience and advertisers their station can be heard on FM as well as AM. 97.1 might be more powerful than a translator, but not much more. Does Clear Channel really trust 500 watts to keep people listening at night who don't live in downtown Tuscon?

If you were an advertiser with KNST, wouldn't you ask for a big refund if your spots only are being heard on an AM station that drops to 500 watts at night?

By the way, for a top 100 market, it seems Tuscon has almost NO AM stations with decent power at night. In fact, 1330 KWFM is the most powerful nighttime station in Tuscon, with 5000 watts. Nearly everyone else is 1000 watts after sunset: KFLT, KTKT, KVOI, KEVT, KCUB, KTUC, KTZR, KFFN and KXEW. KNST joins several other Tuscon AMs with less than 1000 watts: KSAZ, KCEE, KGMS. And KGVY and KUAZ sign off at night.

How did Arizona get so shortchanged when they were handing out the big-powered AM stations? Waterloo Iowa, Roswell NM, Cheyanne WY, Boise ID, Rochester NY and Eugene OR all have AM stations that run 50,000 watts around the clock. In all of Arizona, only Disney's KMIK Tempe runs 50,000 watts at night, and that only happened in the 90s. Back when they were KNIX-AM, owned by Buck Owens, they had to sign off at night.
 
EJ204 said:
Now really, where in America does a Class A station successfully compete with a Class C station in the same format, a format they've been doing for decades?
Click to expand...

A better question is when has ANY upstart beaten an established station when the established station hasn't screwed up royally? Yes, it happens occasionally, but it's very rare. If you're the established station and you know what you're doing, you have nothing to worry about. Even with all of Citadel's problems and Cumulus owning KIIM now, KIIM hasn't made many mistakes. Yeah, it's added some syndicated fare to after hours programming, but country's audience tends to drop like a rock after dark regardless of what's on.

Meanwhile KNST-AM has 5000 watts by day. But at night it drops to 500 watts. I see in the latest ratings KNST, both AM and FM combined, is #6, about half the ratings of KIIM, which is always #1, sometimes with double digits. Does Clear Channel believe its AM station, which drops to 500 watts at night, won't be hurt by being on AM only?
Click to expand...

KNST's ratings didn't change significantly with the FM simulcast. Clear Channel probably concluded the FM wasn't helping.

All across the country, AM stations are trying to find low-powered FM translators, so they can tell their audience and advertisers their station can be heard on FM as well as AM. 97.1 might be more powerful than a translator, but not much more. Does Clear Channel really trust 500 watts to keep people listening at night who don't live in downtown Tuscon?
Click to expand...

Talk radio has no appreciable audience after everyone gets home from work.

If you were an advertiser with KNST, wouldn't you ask for a big refund if your spots only are being heard on an AM station that drops to 500 watts at night?
Click to expand...

I doubt there were very many paid spots on KNST after PM drive, and those they did have were almost certainly sold on the cheap. When I worked at a talk station, the paid spot load dropped dramatically at 6 PM and took a second steep drop a couple hours later. The only exception to that was when airing sporting events.

How did Arizona get so shortchanged when they were handing out the big-powered AM stations? Waterloo Iowa, Roswell NM, Cheyanne WY, Boise ID, Rochester NY and Eugene OR all have AM stations that run 50,000 watts around the clock. In all of Arizona, only Disney's KMIK Tempe runs 50,000 watts at night, and that only happened in the 90s. Back when they were KNIX-AM, owned by Buck Owens, they had to sign off at night.
Click to expand...

KTNN 660 covers almost the entire state at night, and it was allotted 50,000 watts 24/7, though largely as a way to provide communications to the Navajo Nation. That's the largest reservation in the country, and, at the time, AM radio was the only way to get important information out to the entire population.

Remember, Arizona is one of four of the lower 48 that came into the union after 1900. It was still a pretty barren place when the FCC started handing out allotments. Most likely, the FCC simply didn't see a need to put a ton of strong stations in an area that was so sparsely populated. The explosive growth around Phoenix and Tucson is still relatively new.
 
I forgot about 660 KTNN (The Navajo Nation), Window Rock Arizona, 50 kw day and night. But they only went on the air in the 90s.
 
The only two Phoenix stations which routinely reach the outskirts of Los Angeles, specifically Riverside, Corona & Lake Elsinore, are KFYI and KTAR, only on car radios.

Columbus OH is in the same boat as Phoenix & Tucson, it's exploded population-wise in the past 25+ years, and has been the largest city in the state for upwards of three decades, yet yet most of the stations which show up in the ratings are rimshots.

Apparently the signal for KNST covers Tucson and little else, but as was previously stated ratings for talk stations plunge at night, so if that 500 watts covers the city sufficiently, then so be it.
 
Wild Country doesn't seem to play any down tempo songs.

KNST-790 transmits from the west side of Tucson and they beam their signal east. On the east side of Tucson they have the strongest AM signal of any local AM station. Poor coverage is not an issue though there are reports that some people won't listen to AM under any circumstances.

If you are one of the few people who have an HD Radio, there's an interesting oldies jukebox on the side channel of 97.1. The only announcement is the top of the hour ID.
 
Was in range of KAVV, aka The Cave, for a brief while today. Always nice to be able to tune in. When you run a station because it's your vision and passion as opposed to trying to split the market and bust the big guy down a couple points to help your other stations, people might notice the difference.
 
EJ204. Appreciate the input, but Tucson is not spelled Tuscon.

Anything on 97.1 will not succeed. Very few Class A FMs have been successful in the Tucson market. I agree with others too that as long as KIIM remains the same, it will maintain the #1 spot. Cumulus as you've heard has already made it known that it plans to re-brand all of their country outlets to "Nash" FM. I do wonder how much that will hurt KIIM-FM when it happens...not "if" it happens. After Cumulus took over the Citadel stations, they became micro-managers, handling just about everything out of Atlanta. If country stations already failed on 100kw sticks, I can't imagine this Green Valley Class A FM succeeding at all.
Wild Country says they are bringing in the morning guy via satellite from Nashville. I wonder if they will hire any local talent at all. Clear Channel has managed to break about everything they touch. KRQ and KNST are the exception. They should have never touched Cool 92.9. I was living in Las Vegas at the time, but I know they had moved it to this 97.1 frequency, also dooming it to AM. Odd that KOOL 94.5 is usually one of the top 5 stations in Phoenix, you'd think they would have left what was Cool 92.9 (KWFM) alone. Since Cumulus doesn't subscribe to the ratings anymore, I do wonder how KHYT is doing. They sound basically like an oldies station, though they ruin it popping in the sportscast.
Format changes at most Tucson stations are just a fact of life and always will be. Times change, audiences change. Whoever dreamed KTKT would end up as some Spanish station? Whoever dreamed K-CUB would switch to talk? Voice-tracking and the bottom line are all the big companies care about...period. When "Wild Country" fails, I'm sure they'll find something else. Usually the dollars don't matter because most radio sales are now done for the clusters.
 
Unless something has changed, 92.9 is owned by Clear Channel. I think 97.1 is also CC and has had way too many format changes to be relevant in the Tucson market. This Country thing is just a preventative move to annoy Cumulost. If Cumulost re-brands KIIM to NASH, they may see an erosion of numbers But, they have been known to gut ratings winners. Look at what they did to KGO.

This is another reason why consolidation has been bad for the radio business.
 
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