Changes at Clear Channel/San Francisco

[davideduardo]

When I mean invest..spend, and yes they spend more on their stations then CC on their AM's. Again that does not mean Citadel is throwing money at their stations, but they kept most the staff intact (yes a few changes and downsizing).in equal footing (if they do, or expect such great returns) when they do not support said stations in kind.

Nither of the two CC stations even comes close to the coverage of 560, and forget about KGO. The useful coverage of either of the CC stations is less than half the population of the metro day and night... really closer to around a third. "Useful" based on ratings returns is inside the 10 mV/m contour... which is where about 95% of the at home and at work listening happens.

 

[Signal_Faded]

It seems to me that SFO would be the perfect market for a station like 'Green' to work...not wanting to take this 'off topic' at all but since the discussion is on these two talkers in SFO it seemed appropriate.

KNEW would, I think, be better served with PM drive local instead of piping in J&K from LA. Maybe Rob Black could move there?

 

[BossRadioDJ]

KNEW would, I think, be better served with PM drive local instead of piping in J&K from LA.

Nahhhh. I'm thinking we bring back those classic KEWB call letters and turn KNEW back into Color Radio Channel 91!

[sarcasm alert]

Gary Owens in the morning! Casey Kasem at night! Ron Reynolds in midday! Michael Jackson doing talk in the wee small hours of the morning, and -- oh, why the heck not (are you listening, Kenny In Concord?) -- John Mack Flanagan in PM drive!!!

What do you say, everyone? Should I start editing down all those KEWB jingles in our archives?

[/sarcasm alert]

 

[TheBigA]

It seems to me that SFO would be the perfect market for a station like 'Green' to work.

Sure, but it would have to be on FM for anyone to hear it.

Although the folks at CBS in DC came up with The Globe, put it on FM, had a great music mix, great air talent, a green image, and it died. Could the same idea work in SF? Who knows.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

...a green image, and it died.

What does that mean? What is a "green image"? All Save The Earth, All The Time? We Recycle Our Programming! More Compostable Content Per Hour!

KQED-FM and KPFA/KPFB have more crunchy granola, tree-huggin' content than any other ten stations in the country* ... was Green 960 set up to challenge them? What was the point, exactly?

* -- Statistics pulled out of my ... ummm, hat.

 

[SFStatic]

If "Green 960" had been able to pick up 15% of TWO HOURS worth of KQED's morning drive listenership, they would have been a successful radio station. The signal is not as big a problem as David E. indicates. Although they don't put a city grade over San Jose, when playing standards, the station averaged a 2.1 12+ for 5 years and made money. With "Green" and liberal talk, somewhere around a .4 6+ and profit, not so much...KQED is the liberal 800 lb. gorilla in the Bay Area. You could always see this in Maximizer, but until ARB started listing them in the regular ratings, a lot of folks didn't realize this.

 

[calguy]

KNEW would, I think, be better served with PM drive local instead of piping in J&K from LA.

Nahhhh. I'm thinking we bring back those classic KEWB call letters and turn KNEW back into Color Radio Channel 91!

[sarcasm alert]

Gary Owens in the morning! Casey Kasem at night! Ron Reynolds in midday! Michael Jackson doing talk in the wee small hours of the morning, and -- oh, why the heck not (are you listening, Kenny In Concord?) -- John Mack Flanagan in PM drive!!!

What do you say, everyone? Should I start editing down all those KEWB jingles in our archives?

[/sarcasm alert]

Actually, not as bad an idea as you might think were it done right. But you've got to get the call-letters away from the Results Radio property in Redding. I think it's Redding...

 

[LKellerIII]

KNEW would, I think, be better served with PM drive local instead of piping in J&K from LA.

Nahhhh. I'm thinking we bring back those classic KEWB call letters and turn KNEW back into Color Radio Channel 91!

[sarcasm alert]

Gary Owens in the morning! Casey Kasem at night! Ron Reynolds in midday! Michael Jackson doing talk in the wee small hours of the morning, and -- oh, why the heck not (are you listening, Kenny In Concord?) -- John Mack Flanagan in PM drive!!!

What do you say, everyone? Should I start editing down all those KEWB jingles in our archives?

[/sarcasm alert]

Actually, not as bad an idea as you might think were it done right. But you've got to get the call-letters away from the Results Radio property in Redding. I think it's Redding...

Yes - the Redding market station is "Power 94," , a rhythmic CHR station - city of license Anderson, CA - a bustling metropolis of a couple thousand people, probably a larger population of horses and cows than people, and...oh yeah...a WalMart and an outlet mall.

The KEWB call letters have been parked there for a number of years. I don't know the story behind that.

 

[Bryan Simmons]

I have a friend who until a month or so ago was the PD for the Results oldies station in Chico. He lobbied long and hard to get them to move the calls to his station. He felt it would be a great fit using the old KEWB PAMS jingles. But they felt otherwise.
I never understood the resistance he got from them over many of his ideas. Under his command that little station garnered very high numbers and market rank.

 

[LKellerIII]

I have a friend who until a month or so ago was the PD for the Results oldies station in Chico. He lobbied long and hard to get them to move the calls to his station. He felt it would be a great fit using the old KEWB PAMS jingles. But they felt otherwise.
I never understood the resistance he got from them over many of his ideas. Under his command that little station garnered very high numbers and market rank.

I'm up in the Redding area a couple times a year visiting friends. I don't listen to Power 94 much (waaaaay out of that demo), but I hear the other stations - the music is fine, but the stations have a distinctly low budget sound. It must be a challenge making much money in a market that size. The owners may have turned your friend down because they just didn't want to spend the money. I have no idea what call letter swaps cost, but the FCC probably charges some kind of fee - and I don't imagine the KEWB jingles would be free either - even after so many years. And if the full jingles were used, they'd have to change "Channel 91" to "Channel 102.1"

And how many current Chico residents would have been kids in the Bay Area 45+ years ago for the original KEWB? Just a handful, probably.

 

[Bryan Simmons]

I have a friend who until a month or so ago was the PD for the Results oldies station in Chico. He lobbied long and hard to get them to move the calls to his station. He felt it would be a great fit using the old KEWB PAMS jingles. But they felt otherwise.
I never understood the resistance he got from them over many of his ideas. Under his command that little station garnered very high numbers and market rank.

I'm up in the Redding area a couple times a year visiting friends. I don't listen to Power 94 much (waaaaay out of that demo), but I hear the other stations - the music is fine, but the stations have a distinctly low budget sound. It must be a challenge making much money in a market that size. The owners may have turned your friend down because they just didn't want to spend the money. I have no idea what call letter swaps cost, but the FCC probably charges some kind of fee - and I don't imagine the KEWB jingles would be free either - even after so many years. And if the full jingles were used, they'd have to change "Channel 91" to "Channel 102.1"

And how many current Chico residents would have been kids in the Bay Area 45+ years ago for the original KEWB? Just a handful, probably.

Understand your points. There would be no benefit with regards to listeners remembering KEWB. I believe my buddy wanted to do it for nostalgic reasons and to breath some new life into the station's imaging. I was the image voice for two years and I can say with some certainty that it needed it. They were small budget stations. They had a new, very nice building with control rooms about the size of two phone booths and were on somewhat dated hard drive delivery system. Yes, there would need to be some re-singing of jingles, but JAM can do that. The price would probably been prohibitive and I understand that, but would have sounded pretty cool. But I do understand your points and while I could give you more examples of things that he wanted to do that he was rebuffed on, it would serve no purpose and I think enough of the company that I don't see the need to make them look bad, they were fair with me and I appreciated that. They run a lean operation and in this day and age I understand why. I want them to make a profit. It's good for the industry, the listeners and the people trying to make a living that work for them.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

I was kidding (okay, about 99.356887% kidding) about Clear Channel putting Oldies on KNEW ... but they could take their own Cool Oldies or Real Oldies format, grab some of John Hawkins' "KNEW California Gold" jingles (or the "KEWB Channel 91" collection) and be ready to go in no time flat.

And putting the KEWB calls back on 910 AM is no problem: KEWB in Redding is on FM. As noted often here, the FCC will allow it if there's no resistance.

(Jeez. I may as well be asking Doug Harvill to turn KFRC/1550 into "The Spirit Of The Big 610" with clips from Dr. Don, JMF, Marvelous Mark, Dave Diamond...)

 

[SFStatic]

There may be more folks around at this point that remember KNEW 910 as Classic Country than there are former KEWB listeners. There is a complete backup of that format, including jingles, btw.

 

[DavidKaye]

There may be more folks around at this point that remember KNEW 910 as Classic Country than there are former KEWB listeners. There is a complete backup of that format, including jingles, btw.

The average age of people in the Bay Area is 37. The average age of KEWB listeners is probably about 62. The year the average Bay Area listener began listening to the radio was....1983 (age 10), right in the heart of KNEW's Classic Country phase.

 

[Geek-O-Rama]

Actually the average age is around 42 in the Bay Area.

 

[thehawk]

...grab some of John Hawkins' "KNEW California Gold" jingles...

You know, I probably have those jingles. I was thinking of hooking a cart machine to my doorbell button.

 

[michael hagerty]

The average age of people in the Bay Area is 37. The average age of KEWB listeners is probably about 62. The year the average Bay Area listener began listening to the radio was....1983 (age 10), right in the heart of KNEW's Classic Country phase.

And classic country skews old, so they weren't listening then, either.