Bonneville Flips DC FM to TALK-PHX Next??

[gyrony]

Would certainly up the anty in the Phx talk arena.

And would fit with my feeling that Bonneville will add an FM to their cluster in the near future, to do likewise.There a few stand alone class B FMs that would provide better market reach at night.

As for the second part -could a similar working agreement with the Republic be in the works? Will KTAR again stand for "Keep Taking Arizona Republic"?

Let the conspiracies commence!!!!!

The details below:

News Bulletin - Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Bonneville drops a D.C. bombshell that affects five frequencies.

Here's today's headline out of Washington - Bonneville transplants
dominant all-newser WTOP to a big FM. WTOP will occupy the full-market Class B signal that's the longtime home of classical WGMS. Bonneville SVP Joel Oxley says that offers information-hungry listeners better reception in cars and offices. WTOP's currently heard on the highly directional 1500 Khz frequency and the west-suburban WTOP-FM licensed to Warrenton, VA at 107.7. What happens to highly-rated classical WGMS? It lives on. Bonneville's installing it on the current "Z104" simulcast of WWZZ/WWVZ. That spells goodbye to the modern AC format for Bonneville in D.C....that's not all

"Washington Post Radio" debuts on 1500 and 107.7 in late March.Bonneville will cooperate with the Capitol's dominant local daily paper(though Bonneville retains full ownership of the stations). The Post will contribute "in-depth" local, national and international news and commentary - hopefully complementing WTOP's all-news format. One other format note - Bonneville pays even more attention to classical fans with two different formats on HD - one a "deep-cuts"-like classical station and the other an opera and choral-based "Viva La Voce."


-30-

 

[KeithE]

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400849.html>Here's a link to a Washington Post article on the subject.</a>

The chances of it happening in Phoenix? None unless Bonneville buys at least one more station. Bonneville has 3 AM and 4 FM stations in Washington DC & suburbs, but only 2 AM and 1 FM in Phoenix. They don't have any room for "Repulsive Radio" here.

Even if they wanted to buy another FM station, who's selling? The major players on FM here (Clear Channel, CBS, Gumpdusky, Entravision, & Univision) aren't selling, AFAIK.

Picking up an AM is out too, unless ABC sells KMIK to them. None of the others are either for sale or worth buying by anyone other than Air America.

 

[johndavis]

> Here's a link to a Washington Post article on the subject.
>
> The chances of it happening in Phoenix? None

WTOP has become a victim of the metro outgrowing the signal. They're 50KW at 1500, and highly directional. Bonneville has had to put the station on lots of suburban sticks to hit the suburbs, but they can't get inside of buildings in downtown DC on that AM. They need the 103.5 to cover the city, and Z104 was such a pathetic station that it won't be missed in the shuffle.

KTAR and the Peak do not have those problems.<P ID="signature">______________
...co-moderator of the Satellite Radio, Phoenix, and San Diego boards...</P>