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Bloomberg 960 ending October 1

Mark Roberts said:
KTRB is its own very sad story that should have stayed in Modesto, but too late now.
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Without trying to go off-topic, my late uncle and aunt lived in Modesto and we used to take the Greyhound up Highway 99 every summer to spend a week there. They were loyal KTRB listeners and drove me out to the old offices and studios on Norwegian Ave. to get the nickel tour. It was on that trip that my uncle got to meet the then-legendary morning personality Cal Purviance. (I'm not sure which of us was more impressed.)
 
TheBigA said:
Since then I hear they also shrunk the physical footprint. At least that was the goal a couple of years ago.
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Honestly? Fine. They weren't filling the space they had. They were pretty much ghost towns with a handful of folks here and there---and this was pre-pandemic and before the 1500-person January 2020 layoffs.
 
michael hagerty said:
Honestly? Fine. They weren't filling the space they had. They were pretty much ghost towns with a handful of folks here and there
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And that can be both depressing and wasteful. So they hoped to shrink the space and perhaps rent the rest to someone else.

I know in NY they used to be in two buildings: One midtown, and the other downtown. They have since moved out of downtown, and fit everyone in the midtown headquarters building. Which, when I visited, was very nice and not overly crowded.
 
A couple of weeks back, just before Labor Day weekend, I bought a pair of matinee tickets to Wicked, which had just started its latest run at the Orpheum. My wife and I took Caltrain up the peninsula, and as we pulled into the 4th & King terminal, I wondered aloud whether iHeart was still consolidated on Townsend next to the train station. (Which, you have to admit, is a weird location for a cluster of radio studios.) It was, and I pointed it out to my wife with the comment, "That facade is the most impressive part of the operation. The rest is a ghost town." And I've never been in the building.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Especially after being outbid by that Seattle non-comm in the Stolz auction.
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Becomes even more plausible when you consider that EMF might sell one of their relatively redundant SF translators too to VCY — 103.3 K27CH & 104.1 K281BU.

KVLS (107.3) makes both a bit redundant since last time I was in the city, they were playing the same exact feed, with worse coverage in the city.

Now, I’m not for VCY, nor do I want them here, but money is money and if someone asked for that translator with a reasonable price, you’ve got a start.
 
TheBigA said:
The business of syndicated radio is different from local radio. iHeart, Cumulus, and Salem all own national syndication companies. So they all get something by clearing their national show in market #4. It is quantifiable and reportable.
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Yes, I'm aware of that and understand portfolio marketing. In the case of syndication, it's a symptom of vertical integration that results in potentially anticompetitive behavior as stations pick up programs because corporate wants them to due to common ownership, not because the show would attract more audience that would then attract more advertising. The shows themselves have little to distinguish them from each other. The result in many markets is a bunch of stations that sound alike, hardly getting an audience but still managing to hang on rather than be used for other purposes that might actually serve at least a different audience and advertising revenue.
 
Radiopaw said:
Becomes even more plausible when you consider that EMF might sell one of their relatively redundant SF translators too to VCY — 103.3 K27CH & 104.1 K281BU.

KVLS (107.3) makes both a bit redundant since last time I was in the city, they were playing the same exact feed, with worse coverage in the city.
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I believe one of the translators you cite is for Air1. (Edit: EMF's website says Air1 is on 103.3 in San Francisco.)

The translator that EMF really aims at SF is K205BM, highly directional from the KPFA site near Grizzly Peak. I lived about a 20-minute bike ride away from that site but couldn't get that translator at home; it does just fine in Emeryville. There is a CP to change the aim of the DA by 30 degrees; this map is from that application:

1725939790852.png
 
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Mark Roberts said:
Yes, I'm aware of that and understand portfolio marketing. In the case of syndication, it's a symptom of vertical integration that results in potentially anticompetitive behavior as stations pick up programs because corporate wants them to due to common ownership, not because the show would attract more audience that would then attract more advertising.
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That assumes that the local advertising model still attracts more money. Apparently it doesn't, which is why these stations are making these kinds of decisions. I've seen markets hold off the national shows for ten years, but now have no choice because the local ad market is so soft. Market managers don't willingly give up their stations to national. That's what happens when they run out of options. With KNEW, there is no better option.
 
TheBigA said:
That assumes that the local advertising model still attracts more money. Apparently it doesn't, which is why these stations are making these kinds of decisions. I've seen markets hold off the national shows for ten years, but now have no choice because the local ad market is so soft.
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There also seems to be a natural (or unnatural) attraction between right-wing talk and various products or "services" that are not always on the up-and-up.
 
Mark Roberts said:
There also seems to be a natural (or unnatural) attraction between right-wing talk and various products or "services" that are not always on the up-and-up.
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It all came out of the Fluke incident with Rush Limbaugh. Major advertisers staged a boycott, and withdrew all their money. The show had to find alternate sources of revenue, advertisers who didn't mind having their products adjacent to controversial commentary. They found there were a lot of such companies, and they funded an entire format. I laugh at listeners who complain that the advertisers are lying. My response is, "So are the shows."
 
Mark Roberts said:
I believe one of the translators you cite is for Air1. (Edit: EMF's website says Air1 is on 103.3 in San Francisco.)

The translator that EMF really aims at SF is K205BM, highly directional from the KPFA site near Grizzly Peak. I lived about a 20-minute bike ride away from that site but couldn't get that translator at home; it does just fine in Emeryville. There is a CP to change the aim of the DA by 30 degrees; this map is from that application:

View attachment 7667
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Ah okay, so what exactly is on 104.1 K281BU? It’s located right with most of the other non Sutro major SF stations.
 
michael hagerty said:
"This is what's left of KFI?"
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I'm not sure what you wanted to see at KFI? It has local hosts, with producers and board ops, at all hours except when Coast to Coast AM is running. It has all local newscasts 24/7. It even has mostly local shows (some are syndicated to other iHeart stations) on the weekend and virtually no infomercials. It likely has the largest staff in Los Angeles except for KNX News Radio.

That said, radio stations run with fewer people now than 30 or 40 years ago. When I worked at WOR, there were plenty of empty desks and offices, even though it was still local most of the time in those days. I suppose at one time, it had several people working on PSAs alone. Its newsroom once rivaled an All-News station, turning out hourly 10-15 minute newscasts. It once had a sports department and so many other things it didn't need anymore. But that is going back multiple decades.
 
408listener said:
That's what I get for trying to comment based on memory and not googling.

Ironically, the LA, Denver, and Seattle "Patriot" or "Freedom" stations all used to have Air America left wing talk programming 10-15 years ago!

And I just remembered that Coast to Coast AM hasn't had a San Francisco affiliate since KGO changed to sports betting. (KSRO in Santa Rosa still does - but from personal experience it starts to fade out the closer you get to I-80.)
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Thers an idea why not turn knew into a left wing talk station..... In a market like san fransisco it would do great and additionally it would compete with conservative ksfo and possibly show other markets that a left wing talk station could still be successful in certain markets and that all hope is not lost for both sides to be represented on talk radio. Also are the oakland As still going to air on this station next year when they move to San Fransisco?
 
Gregg. said:
I'm not sure what you wanted to see at KFI? It has local hosts, with producers and board ops, at all hours except when Coast to Coast AM is running.
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I agree. I mentioned the Fluke incident earlier. After that, KFI and iHeart's LA management made a decision. They would move Rush from KFI to its own station: KEIB, named for Rush's Excellence In Broadcasting network. He was surrounded by the rest of Premiere's nationally syndicated shows. The reason they did this was because of the ad boycott against Rush. They didn't want it to bring down KFI's local billings. So they moved it to it's own station, and ran national ads from the newfound conservative radio ad network. Meanwhile, they replaced Rush on KFI with a local show, toned down the national politics, went back to entertaining, and became one of the top talk stations in the country. They had no such luck in San Francisco.
 
TheBigA said:
They had no such luck in San Francisco.
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They had less to work with in San Francisco. I would say much less to work with. Even in their declining states, KSFO and KGO had the commercial talk "images" nailed down. They had the brand equity. iHeart just had two AMs they really didn't seem to know what to do with. At least BIN provided a solution for 910; who knows what will happen to 960 after the end of the month? I'll be interested because I've got to make two trips to the Bay Area in October.

PS: I believe Limbaugh was on KSFO in those days. Before that, it was KNBR.
 
Syfy said:
Thers an idea why not turn knew into a left wing talk station..... In a market like san fransisco it would do great and additionally it would compete with conservative ksfo and possibly show other markets that a left wing talk station could still be successful in certain markets and that all hope is not lost for both sides to be represented on talk radio. Also are the oakland As still going to air on this station next year when they move to San Fransisco?
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The A's are moving temporarily to Sacramento, not San Francisco. As for the rest of that ramble, see post #29 in this thread.
 
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