Could KABC become KNX's sister station?

[TheBigA]

I'm assuming the tower site on La Cienega was sold because of the value of the real estate, requiring them to diplex. Nonetheless, why would a station allow their signal to be downgraded simply because they moved to a different tower site?

There are a lot of similar stories around the country. At the same time the KABC site was sold, Cumulus also sold the WMAL tower property in Bethesda, outside of Washington DC.

Cumulus Closes $74 Million Sale Of Maryland Tower Site.

Five years after it struck a $75 million deal to sell a prime piece of real estate in Bethesda, Maryland to a group of developers, Cumulus Media has finally cinched

www.insideradio.com

Family Radio sold the WFME tower property in LI, and has had so much trouble relocating that it shut the radio station down.

Family Radio Sells New York City Tower Land For $51 Million

Family Stations Inc. is selling the five acre tower site of "Family Radio" 1560 WFME New York to logistics real

radioinsight.com

It's simple: The value of the tower land far exceeds the value of the station. The physics of AM transmission is so complicated and so expensive that it alone is making the platform extinct.

 

[davideduardo]

There are a lot of similar stories around the country. At the same time the KABC site was sold, Cumulus also sold the WMAL tower property in Bethesda, outside of Washington DC.

Cumulus Closes $74 Million Sale Of Maryland Tower Site.

Five years after it struck a $75 million deal to sell a prime piece of real estate in Bethesda, Maryland to a group of developers, Cumulus Media has finally cinched

www.insideradio.com

Family Radio sold the WFME tower property in LI, and has had so much trouble relocating that it shut the radio station down.

Family Radio Sells New York City Tower Land For $51 Million

Family Stations Inc. is selling the five acre tower site of "Family Radio" 1560 WFME New York to logistics real

radioinsight.com

It's simple: The value of the tower land far exceeds the value of the station. The physics of AM transmission is so complicated and so expensive that it alone is making the platform extinct.

The physics of AM are actually ultra simple, All you need is a transmitter, a piece of wire hung between two poles and som metal buried in the ground.

To do it better, you put an insulated metal stick in the air and bury more metal in the ground around it. Tune the stick to match the transmitter and ready to go.

To do it best, measure the vertical stick to a quarter or half of your wavelength, then put a hundred or so copper wires in the ground, radiating from the base of the stic. Connect the tuning unit and turn it on.

 

[david]

In fact, we now have two urban hit based stations and three Regional Mexican based current based stations. And the country station is pretty much current hit based, too. So we have as many or more current based stations now.

Not the case. Take a Bruno Mars or a Harry Styles, two of the most popular general market artists of recent years, and much of their catalog would not be played on the urban or regional Mexican stations. Further note that nothing from Beyonce's catalog would air on KKGO (country) other than her latest album "Cowboy Carter", which targets the format. However, I could see several of that new album's tracks - like the melodic Bodyguard as well as Blackbiird (with its Beatles ethos) - airing on KIIS or KBIG because those stations are all LA has these days who employ much more of a general market format approach, with an eye toward currents.

Compare the opportunity for current artists to be heard across the current day's LA dial to ChannelFlipper's case study of Fleetwood Mac for whom airings on the 15 rostered stations of that era was easily a good fit on each of them.

Note as well how CF rostered 15 stations - and your counterpoint only referenced 6. In what math does 15 equal 6 ("as many or more")?

 

[TheBigA]

The physics of AM are actually ultra simple, All you need is a transmitter, a piece of wire hung between two poles and som metal buried in the ground.

That's what they tried with WFME. Seemed like a good idea until the school next door complained about interference.

FM is much easier. No need for multiple towers for directional signal. No need for ground wave. But the easiest is starting an internet radio station. No towers or transmitters at all.

 

[davideduardo]

Not the case. Take a Bruno Mars or a Harry Styles, two of the most popular general market artists of recent years, and much of their catalog would not be played on the urban or regional Mexican stations. Further note that nothing from Beyonce's catalog would air on KKGO (country) other than her latest album "Cowboy Carter", which targets the format. However, I could see several of that new album's tracks - like the melodic Bodyguard as well as Blackbiird (with its Beatles ethos) - airing on KIIS or KBIG because those stations are all LA has these days who employ much more of a general market format approach, with an eye toward currents.

Compare the opportunity for current artists to be heard across the current day's LA dial to ChannelFlipper's case study of Fleetwood Mac for whom airings on the 15 rostered stations of that era was easily a good fit on each of them.

Note as well how CF rostered 15 stations - and your counterpoint only referenced 6. In what math does 15 equal 6 ("as many or more")?

You are saying that pop music is the only kind of current popular music. Not so. As America has split into different taste groups, each one has its own current music.

Tody, different societal and ethnic groups have their own kinds of pop music. LA is about 70% made up of Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and first generation immigrants who do not necessarily fit the KIIS model of music.

 

[davideduardo]

That's what they tried with WFME. Seemed like a good idea until the school next door complained about interference.

That was due to a poorly selected location, it the antenna.

FM is much easier. No need for multiple towers for directional signal. No need for ground wave. But the easiest is starting an internet radio station. No towers or transmitters at all.

FM needs height. Lots of it. And power. More of it. You can buy an FM antenna…a bad one… on Amazon. The first FM I owned used a CB antenna cut down to the right wavelength. It was on top of an apartment building. It covered a big neighborhood, but it worked.

In 1970, at WUNO a gardener knocked down our tower. In just a couple of hours, we hung a wire between two trees and adjusted the ATU and were back on the air. Very simple and so easy even I could do it.

 

[david]

You are saying that pop music is the only kind of current popular music. Not so. As America has split into different taste groups, each one has its own current music.

Tody, different societal and ethnic groups have their own kinds of pop music. LA is about 70% made up of Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and first generation immigrants who do not necessarily fit the KIIS model of music.

You are holding onto an inaccurate framing of the format. CHR by definition is contemporary hit radio - which embraces pop, hip-hop, country crossovers, rock, as well as many foreign language hits, including seven in Spanish this past year alone (such as Bad Bunny, "Monaco" & Eslabon Armado X Peso Pluma, "Ella Baila Sola"). This past year also saw CHR hits in Korean (Jimin, "Like Crazy") and prior years several top 10 hits in Korean by BTS. CHR has also been big in prior years on other languages, such as French (Enigma, "Sadeness (Part 1)), German (Nena, "99 Luftballons"), etc.

 

[TheBigA]

Note as well how CF rostered 15 stations - and your counterpoint only referenced 6. In what math does 15 equal 6 ("as many or more")?

How many AM stations still play music? When did that change? How were those stations replaced?

 

[davideduardo]

You are holding onto an inaccurate framing of the format. CHR by definition is contemporary hit radio - which embraces pop, hip-hop, country crossovers, rock, as well as many foreign language hits, including seven in Spanish this past year alone (such as Bad Bunny, "Monaco" & Eslabon Armado X Peso Pluma, "Ella Baila Sola"). This past year also saw CHR hits in Korean (Jimin, "Like Crazy") and prior years several top 10 hits in Korean by BTS. CHR has also been big in prior years on other languages, such as French (Enigma, "Sadeness (Part 1)), German (Nena, "99 Luftballons"), etc.

Contemporary Hit Radio or CHR is a construct, a name given to Top 40 in the early 80's by a trade magazine. The original format was "Top 40".

Top 40 was based on a station owner figuring out that there were a few songs that everyone more or less liked, and they could be played over and over and in some markets a station doing just that could get half the listening shares. The other half, for the most part, went to ethnic and news and talk based MOR stations for older folks.

But music fragmented, so that there was no longer a consensus. No "all the young people will listen to this station and format".

Top 40 broke into a rock side and a more adult side. "Urban" and "AC" split lots of former Top 40 listeners. As country modernized, it took shares with lots of new, current songs. And as the Hispanic population increased, specific formats in Spanish that were current based took pieces of the total radio pie.

So "CHR" is really "Current Pop Hits" and excludes some of the most popular genres of music. Some of those songs are so popular within their appeal group that they compete favorably with traditional CHR sounding songs.

 

[david]

How many AM stations still play music? When did that change? How were those stations replaced?

The reply claimed "So we have as many or more current based stations now." No distinguishing of AM vs FM was made.

Yet, even if you carve out only the FM stations on CF's list: KNX-FM, KLOS, KRTH, KMET, KIIS-FM, KIQQ, KPOL-FM, KWST - the count is still 8, which is more than the 6 who were presented in the counter-position of we now have "as many or more".

 

[TheBigA]

So "CHR" is really "Current Pop Hits" and excludes some of the most popular genres of music. Some of those songs are so popular within their appeal group that they compete favorably with traditional CHR sounding songs.

One way to quantify this is compare the songs in Billboard's Hot 100 (which includes streaming) to Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 chart (which is Top 40 airplay only).

 

[ILOVERADIO]

You also have to remember that KHJ was essentially being nibbled to death from all sides---after more than a decade of really only having KRLA and KGFJ to worry about.

KGBS went 24-7 Top 40 as KTNQ the day after Christmas, 1976. KFI went Top 40 in January of 1977. KMPC was in a phase where it was playing most of the same music as Top 40, as was KIIS AM & FM. KEZY was having another one of its moments (Rick Carroll was programming and had brought Jay Stevens, Steve Lundy and Russ O'Hara with him). KDAY was doing well and L.A.'s always had a lot of crossover between Top 40 and R&B.

KNX-FM was at its peak, drawing serious 18-34 numbers. We've already mentioned KMET, KLOS and KRTH. KIQQ was playing the same music as KHJ.

It’s interesting that LA Top 40 AM radio was so different than Chicago or New York, the 3 largest radio markets. In 1976 WCFL dropped Top 40 leaving WLS as the only AM hit music station in Chicago. Similarly in New York City, WINS and WMCA dropped Top 40 years earlier leaving WABC as the only AM top 40 station. WNEW AM in New York featured older standards from the Sinatra era.

I wonder what made Los Angeles different then.

 

[TheBigA]

Similarly in New York City, WINS and WMCA dropped Top 40 years earlier leaving WABC as the only AM top 40 station.

Although WNBC was various flavors of Top 40 from the 1971 until 1988. They hired Don Imus in 1971.

 

[TheBigA]

Yet, even if you carve out only the FM stations on CF's list: KNX-FM, KLOS, KRTH, KMET, KIIS-FM, KIQQ, KPOL-FM, KWST - the count is still 8, which is more than the 6 who were presented in the counter-position of we now have "as many or more".

What I said earlier is that changes in the music are making it harder to program as many currents because the music isn't mass appeal.

This will be a problem for the charts, because they require a certain percentage of currents to be a chart reporter.

 

[michael hagerty]

It’s interesting that LA Top 40 AM radio was so different than Chicago or New York, the 3 largest radio markets. In 1976 WCFL dropped Top 40 leaving WLS as the only AM hit music station in Chicago. Similarly in New York City, WINS and WMCA dropped Top 40 years earlier leaving WABC as the only AM top 40 station.

Well, in New York, you're overlooking WWDJ, which jumped in (1971) the year after WMCA dropped out (1970). And that was five years before the shakeout in Chicago, with 'CFL getting out of Top 40 (1976).

In Los Angeles, KRLA essentially bailed on Top 40 in 1971, going album, as had KDAY a few months before it. And for a year, KHJ did have Top 40 on AM all to itself (unless you counted KEZY, which was an Orange County station that was listenable in some parts of L.A.

Then came KROQ-AM for a little over a year, and it was gone (again to album rock, under the same PD who flipped KRLA---Shadoe Stevens).

KHJ really had Top 40 on AM all to itself from the fall of '73 (KROQ's flip) to the day after Christmas, 1976, when KGBS became KTNQ. Storer had considered going Country and ended up regretting not having done so. In fact, until it made the decision to sell, it had announced that it was going to correct its era and take KTNQ country in 1978.

And KFI really only made the move because of the PD they hired---John Rook. Rook did what Rook knew how to do, while telling Cox that it was really just Adult Contemporary. A different PD probably would have continued with a personality AC.

If KGBS and KFI make different choices, KHJ is the last Top 40 on AM in L.A. (Somebody’s gonna mention The Mighty 690, but it’s Tijuana and if KFI and KTNQ never happened, who knows if it would).

WNEW AM in New York featured older standards from the Sinatra era.

WNEW had been successful with the standards approach and never saw the need to morph into AC. That wasn't the case in L.A., where KFI and KMPC began losing significant shares in the late 60s and early 70s.

Standards finally caught back on in the early 80s for KPRZ (1150) and then for KMPC.

I wonder what made Los Angeles different then.

L.A. was always chasing hipper, newer and younger. While teens in New York were drinking Coke and requesting Leslie Gore records from Cousin Brucie, teens in L.A. were smoking weed and requesting the Doors from B. Mitchel Reed.

KMPC and KFI wanted 18-49 adults---which meant aiming for 35-year-olds. They weren't gonna listen to standards. WNEW had enough 45+ adults who would in their listening area to make it profitable for them.

 

[michael hagerty]

Yet, even if you carve out only the FM stations on CF's list: KNX-FM, KLOS, KRTH, KMET, KIIS-FM, KIQQ, KPOL-FM, KWST - the count is still 8, which is more than the 6 who were presented in the counter-position of we now have "as many or more".

David has explained his concept of "contemporary music". I think we all understand it.

The bottom line, though, still remains that having 15 stations all playing most of the same records wasn't good for any of them (especially KHJ). It wouldn't be good for them now.

 

[davideduardo]

One way to quantify this is compare the songs in Billboard's Hot 100 (which includes streaming) to Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 chart (which is Top 40 airplay only).

The real point is that Top 40 / CHR is no longer the "majority" format and genre it was in the 60's and going into the 70's. It fragmented 50 years... a half century... ago. For a while, magazines and the media ignored Black music and country was considered to only be for the "southren hicks" so prejudices and worse affected what charts were called.

 

[Robert Douglas]

That was due to a poorly selected location, it the antenna.

FM needs height. Lots of it. And power. More of it. You can buy an FM antenna…a bad one… on Amazon. The first FM I owned used a CB antenna cut down to the right wavelength. It was on top of an apartment building. It covered a big neighborhood, but it worked.

In 1970, at WUNO a gardener knocked down our tower. In just a couple of hours, we hung a wire between two trees and adjusted the ATU and were back on the air. Very simple and so easy even I could do it.

So, other than amazing programming, how did KGFJ become number 2 in the market back in 1969? Nothing but 1000 watts and a clothesline looking "thing" on the roof of the odd fellows building at the corner of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways. Any idea what they did for a ground system?

 

[davideduardo]

So, other than amazing programming, how did KGFJ become number 2 in the market back in 1969? Nothing but 1000 watts and a clothesline looking "thing" on the roof of the odd fellows building at the corner of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways. Any idea what they did for a ground system?

First, the population was vastly more concentrated geographically. And, second, if the ratings you refer to are Hooper or Pulse, the survey area was very concentrated in the central area of each market. So a "limited signal" back then was not so limited as the market was geographically much smaller.

Rooftop antennas for AM use a counterpoise system. Radials strung in the air in a web and often tied to the building steel frame if that kind of construction was used.

 

[michael hagerty]

The bottom line, though, still remains that having 15 stations all playing most of the same records wasn't good for any of them (especially KHJ). It wouldn't be good for them now.

Just as a point of reference, here's those stations again, in their fall 1977 ranking with a note as to what they were three years later:


6. KNX-FM (soft rock): 3.6 [Still in format]
6. KLOS (rock): 3.6 [Still in format]
8. KHJ (top 40): 3.5 [Flipped to Country]
8. KMPC (ac): 3.5 [In the process of morphing into Talk)
10. KRTH (ac): 3.4 [Still in format]
11. KFI (top 40): 3.1 [Still in format]
13. KMET (rock): 2.8 [Still in format]
14. KIIS-FM (top 40): 2.7 [Flipped to Disco]
16. KRLA (top 40/oldies hybrid at that point): 2.5 [Still in format]
17. KIQQ (top 40): 2.4 [Still in format]
18. KTNQ (top 40): 2.1 [Flipped to Spanish]
19. KPOL-FM (soft rock): 2.0 [Flipped to Country]
20. KWST (rock): 1.8 [Still in format, but would flip to CHR in June of '81]
21. KIIS-AM (ac): 1.6 [Flipped to Christian]

KEZY had a 1.0. [Flipped to hard rock]


So, of the 15 stations whose playlists intersected around that "Fleetwood Mac-Eagles-Ronstadt" core in the fall of '77, almost half of them---seven---had to change format in an attempt to grow ratings and revenue.

And for those who held in, music had realigned in such a way that there was a greater difference between AOR and Top 40's music. Top 40 and AC (KRTH, KFI, KIQQ and to a lesser extent, KNX-FM) would continue to cannibalize each other for another couple of years.

The two AM survivors, KFI and KRLA, benefitted from being very different from each other. KFI was very mainstream by the fall of '80, and KRLA had come up with a currents/gold formula that attracted a highly ethnic listenership.