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Bloomberg 960 ending October 1

4

408listener

I haven't seen this posted anywhere online yet, but on my drive to work this morning I heard during the 8am hour that 960 KNEW will drop Bloomberg Radio on October 1. The station was carrying announcements and promo spots instructing listeners to start using the Bloomberg Business mobile app instead.

This comes just under a week after Bloomberg Radio moved from an AM station plus FM translators and HD2 subchannel to a single, class B FM station in Boston.

KNEW is owned by iHeart, so what would be the new format? My speculation: the conservative "Patriot" syndicated format already available in San Diego, Denver, Seattle, and recently Tulsa. Based on this reasoning:
  • Most of the Premiere/iHeart conservative talk shows (Glenn Beck, Clay & Buck, Jesse Kelly) do not have SF/Oak/SJ clearance (no, KSTE or KFBK do not count - KFBK fades out south of Alameda County).
  • iHeart has many sports stations that carry the Fox Sports Radio network, but an Audacy station (95.7 the Game) already has the Fox Sports rights locally, and there isn't really demand for a fourth sports station locally.
 
960 KNEW was previously "The Patriot" for nine months in 2014 before the Bloomberg LMA began. End of this month will be ten years.
 
Maybe iHeart sells the land of the facilities and files to decommission? I do think we are the most “advanced” market by technology adoption and AM has and will falter here sooner. It’s basically just KSFO, KNBR and KCBS
 
Going up against 560/KSFO would be a fool's errand. KSFO has a much better signal than 960, and has been around for a few decades. So while a rerun of The Patriot would give them clearance here, it's very unlikely to move the needle, ratings-wise.

I'll be sorry to see Bloomberg go away, even though 960's a tough grab from where I live, especially in the night hours. (You didn't mention the 103.7 HD2 simulcast, but I'll assume that's also going bye-bye.) Bloomberg is one of the few commercial stations offering useful and professionally-delivered information, especially on the AM band.
 
Radiopaw said:
Maybe iHeart sells the land of the facilities and files to decommission? I do think we are the most “advanced” market by technology adoption and AM has and will falter here sooner. It’s basically just KSFO, KNBR and KCBS
Click to expand...
You remember our discussion about KGO's transmitter and towers by the Dumbarton last week? This is a similar situation. 960 has a 3-tower array adjacent to the Bay Bridge toll plaza, and that land is basically useless for anything else. It's protected wetlands, and no governmental authority is likely to approve its use for housing, retail or any other purpose. iHeart may indeed decide to pull the plug on 960, but more likely for operating cost savings rather than any real estate value. And of the stations you mention, both KNBR and KCBS are 50Kw blowtorches *and* have full-signal FM simulcasts. (KSFO is only 5 Kw and without any simulcast, but it's at the low end of the MW spectrum, and their non-directional daytime pattern covers the North Bay, the South Bay and east to Sacramento, so they don't have the same challenges that 960 does.
 
Either sports or conservative talk would be stupid considering the market.

They could maybe throw on some other syndicated news? But im just not sure this signal is going to get much attention, its pretty bad for an AM in this market.
 
Radiopaw said:
Maybe iHeart sells the land of the facilities and files to decommission? I do think we are the most “advanced” market by technology adoption and AM has and will falter here sooner. It’s basically just KSFO, KNBR and KCBS
Click to expand...
FCC records currently show KNEW is not for sale.
 
Radiopaw said:
Either sports or conservative talk would be stupid considering the market.

They could maybe throw on some other syndicated news? But im just not sure this signal is going to get much attention, its pretty bad for an AM in this market.
Click to expand...
910 KKSF already has the Black Information Network. There's not much available in terms of "syndicated news" (as opposed to opinion based talk shows).
 
Weiserguy said:
Going up against 560/KSFO would be a fool's errand. KSFO has a much better signal than 960, and has been around for a few decades. So while a rerun of The Patriot would give them clearance here, it's very unlikely to move the needle, ratings-wise.
Click to expand...
Competing isn't about beating. It would simply be about the syndication clearances and offering a sales combo with their other stations in the market.
408listener said:
FCC records currently show KNEW is not for sale.
Click to expand...
FCC records don't list stations for sale, only those who have had sales filed.
 
lanceventa said:
Competing isn't about beating. It would simply be about the syndication clearances and offering a sales combo with their other stations in the market.
Click to expand...
I hear that often enough herein, but even if a syndicated program (or service or network) gets clearance in a market, it also needs to get listeners. Otherwise it's just (cleaning it up a bit) spitting into the wind. And clearance or not, advertisers will only throw money into a burn pit for so long before they start demanding to see results. Or else.
 
I hadn't thought about this until just now, but I'd bet that Bloomberg could, for what the iHeart/KNEW LMA has been costing them, buy KGO outright. That dreck hasn't exactly been setting the Bay Area on fire. (As opposed to the net worth of their handful of listeners. And even there, as I wrote above, the sports betting people are only going to incinerate their money for so long before they demand results.)
 
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Weiserguy said:
I hear that often enough herein, but even if a syndicated program (or service or network) gets clearance in a market, it also needs to get listeners. Otherwise it's just (cleaning it up a bit) spitting into the wind. And clearance or not, advertisers will only throw money into a burn pit for so long before they start demanding to see results. Or else.
Click to expand...

The fatal exception to your argument is that the agencies making the national buys on the nationally syndicated programming look only at what markets get clearance, how many are top-50, top-100, etc. The ratings for any given station are not generally a factor.
 
Maybe iHeart should launch a Classic Country format on the 103.7 HD-2 channel with the brand name "The Legend" and then launch a classic MOR format on 960AM :)
 
HenryOchs said:
Maybe iHeart should launch a Classic Country format on the 103.7 HD-2 channel with the brand name "The Legend" and then launch a classic MOR format on 960AM :)
Click to expand...

I think maybe you've been inactive in the business too long, Henry. (You say as much in your signature. Sixteen years?!?)

Neither of those are going to play well in S.F. these days. iHeart could have long ago plugged their national Classic Country feed into one of their HD2s if they thought it had any chances. Standards/MOR is a format that stations across the country are abandoning, not switching to,
 
luperm said:
I think it would be better to turn in 960's license than to run a MOR format. I doubt the advertising revenue would cover the power bill.
Click to expand...

I made a long post about a half-hour ago in this thread, saying essentially that.
 
There's a lot of political money out there right now for conservative talk. Nobody's paying money for music on the radio.

The real question that no one's asking is where does Bloomberg go? Who will take their money the way Beasley did in Boston?
 
HenryOchs said:
Maybe iHeart should launch a Classic Country format on the 103.7 HD-2 channel with the brand name "The Legend"
Click to expand...
michael hagerty said:
Right! They could call it KABL
Click to expand...


Or revert KNEW back to classic country, as it was for about 20 years. Seems to me it was then co-owned with KSAN when it was country.

As I said, nobody is paying money for music. Talk is best option for 910.
 
TheBigA said:
Or revert KNEW back to classic country, as it was for about 20 years. Seems to me it was then co-owned with KSAN when it was country.

As I said, nobody is paying money for music. Talk is best option for 910.
Click to expand...
You're talking about 910, which was country once upon a time under the KNEW calls, but has been KKSF for at least a dozen years -- more like 14, IIRC -- and running the BIN for the last few. The rest of us are discussing 960, which adopted the KNEW calls when co-owned 910 got rebranded as KKSF (which itself had come off of 103.7 when that station rebranded from Smooth Jazz to Classic Hits/80's Plus around the same time under the calls KOSF). That's been Bloomberg's SFBA repeater (unfortunately not a particularly good one) for the last decade.
 
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