A Saga Surprise coming to 99.9

[The Outsider]

With the heritage KJJY and KHKI have, I doubt Clear Channel will be willing to take them on in a Country battle, especially if they were to throw a Premium Choice country station on against them. They would get curb stomped.

Because of the Heritage nameplates of both KJJY and KGGO, you can almost be certain neither one of them will be changing formats. My contact still maintains his stance that something WILL indeed happen in the Cumulus building in the very near future.

His understanding is that they want to see how far KISS falls within a year of steady competition, thus the reason for at least three more book reviews. So, given the fact they are only looking at KISS numbers leads me to believe a CHR-M will be the choice whenever they decided to bounce something.

Des Moines radio is finally well rounded! And with the addition of a new FM talk station at 90.1 (even though its a different type programming and lower on the dial) "could" (and I say that lightly) speed up the process of 98.3 mixing things up. Again, this is something of us to continue to discuss.

 

[Speedyb]

And Because of the Premium Choice selection CC will now have to offer, I do believe its for that very reason, Cumulus is now more likely than ever to throw a CHR in the mix at some point. They have no more worries about a serious competitor from CC in the form of: a WLLR-Quad Cites type. A homogenized country format would get thumped big time by both of the Clouds' country stations!!

My source indicated of a "slight concern" that if KISS falls too far, it might actually be KKDM moving in a country direction, as they will have nothing more to lose. This reinforces a conversation I had with Greg Chance several years ago, when Citadel came to town. I remember him saying specifically, that if Citadel bounced one of their country stations to CHR, they would bounce KKDM to country...he said country stations are easier to run and have better revenue potential than CHR's. (his words exactly, not mine).

So I think there's still room to discuss this possibility at some point. KISS is GOING to get squeezed to the breaking point (Star) on one side (HITS) on the other. And now that Saga is Captain of the HITS ship, so to speak, this WILL continue to be an interesting time for radio in Des Moines. 8)

 

[Kent]

Because of the Heritage nameplates of both KJJY and KGGO, you can almost be certain neither one of them will be changing formats. My contact still maintains his stance that something WILL indeed happen in the Cumulus building in the very near future.

While I believe your contact, and possibly the brass at Cumulus, knew what Saga and Connoisseur were planning, I don't think your contact knows what's going to happen in that building. He may suspect something will happen and have good reason to suspect it, but he doesn't know. At least when I worked for Cumulus, all programming decisions, including format changes, came from the top down. Local market and program managers had no control at all over what formats the stations in their clusters aired. Local program directors also had very little control over what songs they were to play and in which rotation they would go. Mike McVay has indicated he'd like to give the programmers at Cumulus more freedom, and I hope he succeeds. However, decisions like changing formats are almost sure to continue to be made from Atlanta for the foreseeable future.

 

[Speedyb]

Because of the Heritage nameplates of both KJJY and KGGO, you can almost be certain neither one of them will be changing formats. My contact still maintains his stance that something WILL indeed happen in the Cumulus building in the very near future.

While I believe your contact, and possibly the brass at Cumulus, knew what Saga and Connoisseur were planning, I don't think your contact knows what's going to happen in that building. He may suspect something will happen and have good reason to suspect it, but he doesn't know. At least when I worked for Cumulus, all programming decisions, including format changes, came from the top down. Local market and program managers had no control at all over what formats the stations in their clusters aired. Local program directors also had very little control over what songs they were to play and in which rotation they would go. Mike McVay has indicated he'd like to give the programmers at Cumulus more freedom, and I hope he succeeds. However, decisions like changing formats are almost sure to continue to be made from Atlanta for the foreseeable future.

My contact has been in radio for nearly twenty years and for the most part, everything he's told me in the past (changes in:formats/personnel) have rock solid. So, I have no reason to doubt him this go around. He has some significant clout in the cumulus building and isn't just some minion with speculative theories.

He also said that changes do in fact come from the top down, which is why he has "heard" of some future changes to programming/formats. I don't think I ever mentioned in (previous posts) where he got his information from: (local or otherwise)...

 

[radiorobert]

While it's nice that Saga picked it up and it sounds great, there is quite a bit of anger over the smaller signal now. While I think they will still have alot of listeners right around and in Des Moines, things may have to change and a bigger signal found if they want to do this for the long haul. even some claiming of not wanting o deal with reception issues right in the metro.

There has been more negative comments and "I'm going back to 107.5" comments the last couple days than positive.

 

[joebtsflk1]

If it weren't for the need for the 100 dB interference contour to fall over a bunch of corn (basically to avoid interference w/ 100.3) having 250 watts next to the Connie McBurney Memorial Weather Beacon would be ideal. They'd have a whopper signal downtown.

 

[radiorobert]

If it weren't for the need for the 100 dB interference contour to fall over a bunch of corn (basically to avoid interference w/ 100.3) having 250 watts next to the Connie McBurney Memorial Weather Beacon would be ideal. They'd have a whopper signal downtown.

Their signal sounds great over most all of downtown and areas where 105-9 struggled. But I would imagine during topo conditions and west areas of the metro, things get shaky.