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August 2025 Bay Area Radio PPM Ratings

Mark Roberts said:
It’s really funny to watch the professionals who decry the decline of radio react when someone tries a different model from advertising-supported commercial radio. Supposedly Harry Truman once said an expert is afraid to learn anything new because then they wouldn’t be an expert any more. Likewise, it’s clear that what worked 30, 40, 50 years ago isn’t working so well now. So, when someone makes a serious, well-thought-out effort to do something different yet still workable within the confines of one-to-many broadcasting, I think the reaction shouldn’t be one of picking nits.

I worked for a couple of years at Sears headquarters near Chicago in the late 1990s. Great people, badly led by executives stuck in old ways of thinking. I see a lot of that mindset on RadioDiscussions, too. Fighting that mindset doesn’t mean accepting every idea that someone pitches against the wall, and that doesn’t mean accommodating the routine complaints of listeners overly wrapped up in their own musical tastes. But, sheesh, people, isn’t it obvious that the generation coming up really doesn’t give two hoots about your tightly defined format boundaries, your “show prep”, or your slogans? They can get what they want, when they want it. KEXP is at least trying to figure out how to maneuver in this new environment; has succeeded in Seattle; and is extending its brand to the Bay Area. The measure of their success won’t be found in monthly Nielsen surveys.
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In my opinion KEXP's biggest problem is going to be getting donations, not getting the signal out. Since there's free wifi in certain areas of the City, hopefully they're hammering the app.

It'd be great if they brought back Day on the Green or created their own music fesival to rival Outside Lands, Bottlerock, etc. but I have no idea if they have the budget to do something like that.
 
radiofan2023 said:
It'd be great if they brought back Day on the Green or created their own music fesival to rival Outside Lands, Bottlerock, etc. but I have no idea if they have the budget to do something like that.
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They'd do better signing up to be a sponsor of those festivals and similar ones around the area. Offer swag to attendees stopping into their booth, let listeners sample the programming on headphones, have handouts ready with schedules and URLs pointing to music samplers, maybe even flying down a few of their key music hosts to meet & greet and maybe intro an act. That might be a cost-effective way to introduce themselves to potential listeners who've already pre-qualified themselves by attending that festival.
 
davideduardo said:
Enough for what? To cover a few basic expenses?

And, of that $40,000 a month, how much do you think goes just for being on Sutro? I'm betting, based on having worked with a commercial station on Sutro, that the rent is into the five-figure monthly range. Just look at what a NYC FM pays to be on the ESB where antenna rental is in the hundreds of thousands per year.
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I suspect you're right. My guess was $8,000.00 per month for their 1-bay antenna, but it could definitely be more. Their financial report says they spend $249,955 per year for "Annual rental value of space (studios, offices, or tower facilities)" That's a bit more than 20k per month for everything:


How much of that is for Sutro is unknown. If this was strictly a financial decision and the repayment of the $4-mil investment for the license is included that probably doesn't pan out financially. But I view it as a very wise decision to expand their reach and make radio relevant to an audience that has otherwise abandoned over-the-air radio. I moved form the Bay Area to the foothills in 2012 but even up here people know about 92.7.

Dave B.
 
Granted it will take 2 or 3 years to have a good handle on how they're doing. There are some tidbits of info: KEXP got a $10 million donation. A portion was used to buy KEXC and it's expenses. I believe the only local program is a one or two hour weekend show. The remaining airtime is a simulcast of KEXP and from my sporatic listening I'm not hearing KEXP talk about San Francisco. One opinion I heard from a person in the market was that San Francisco will not identify KEXC as their station as long as the simulcast continues.
 
b-turner said:
Granted it will take 2 or 3 years to have a good handle on how they're doing. There are some tidbits of info: KEXP got a $10 million donation. A portion was used to buy KEXC and it's expenses. I believe the only local program is a one or two hour weekend show. The remaining airtime is a simulcast of KEXP and from my sporatic listening I'm not hearing KEXP talk about San Francisco. One opinion I heard from a person in the market was that San Francisco will not identify KEXC as their station as long as the simulcast continues.
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That person in the market must be psychic.
 
I didn’t listen to much of KEXC when I was in San Francisco last weekend, due to reception and time constraints. I was in the East Bay fairly often last year, and heard KEXC quite a bit then. It was doing local announcements for the Bay Area. Not sure if they’re still doing that; in any event, you might not hear them on the stream.
 
Mark Roberts said:
I didn’t listen to much of KEXC when I was in San Francisco last weekend, due to reception and time constraints. I was in the East Bay fairly often last year, and heard KEXC quite a bit then. It was doing local announcements for the Bay Area. Not sure if they’re still doing that; in any event, you might not hear them on the stream.
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I was listening to KEXC a couple of days ago. (Their pattern is weird as you drive down the peninsula. In the flats, like around 101 or El Camino Real, they have a modest but clean signal. Once you head into the hills, going towards 280, the signal quickly deteriorates into dogmeat.) I do occasionally hear a reference to San Francisco or the Bay Area., I think some underwriting credits are geofenced: one local credit for SFBA listeners over KEXC, another over KEXP for Puget Sound listeners, possibly even a third on their stream. The live program hosts mention an SFBA event or musician every now and then, but the station(s) remain Seattle-centric.

I've said this before, but here goes again. If they want to play music for younger Millennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha listeners, they're going to be lucky to get listeners, because so many of those people have abandoned OTA radio for Spotify, et al, or in many case never acquired the habit in the first place. The path to a respectable share of the market is to program to people who still listen to radio. But that's not hip, and many older listeners have their tastes cast in stone by now. Props for trying, but they seem destined to push that boulder up the mountain, like Sisyphus, over and over and over again.
 
Weiserguy said:
I was listening to KEXC a couple of days ago. (Their pattern is weird as you drive down the peninsula. In the flats, like around 101 or El Camino Real, they have a modest but clean signal. Once you head into the hills, going towards 280, the signal quickly deteriorates into dogmeat.) I do occasionally hear a reference to San Francisco or the Bay Area., I think some underwriting credits are geofenced: one local credit for SFBA listeners over KEXC, another over KEXP for Puget Sound listeners, possibly even a third on their stream. The live program hosts mention an SFBA event or musician every now and then, but the station(s) remain Seattle-centric.

I've said this before, but here goes again. If they want to play music for younger Millennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha listeners, they're going to be lucky to get listeners, because so many of those people have abandoned OTA radio for Spotify, et al, or in many case never acquired the habit in the first place. The path to a respectable share of the market is to program to people who still listen to radio. But that's not hip, and many older listeners have their tastes cast in stone by now. Props for trying, but they seem destined to push that boulder up the mountain, like Sisyphus, over and over and over again.
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I'm pretty sure their target audience centers at Gen X. And Gen Xers still like to discover new music. Even Alt Rock tends to be friendlier to them.
 
They've done some good promotional work, they had DJs broadcasting from the Bay Area record stores and are continuing to fly them down for events.

Live Around the Bay Area

KEXP events and presented concerts around the Bay Area.
www.kexp.org www.kexp.org

There's also a promotional campaign going on, I've seen some shots shared from bus shelters that had KEXP/C promo signage.
 


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