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Cumulus Moving Into Bonneville’s Daly City Facility

The Cumulus staff is lucky. I'd have expected their management to pitch a soundproof tent under the Central Freeway to house that cluster. Bonneville at least has class, which I'm sure their digs will reflect.
 
Granted, this has been happening in small markets already, but I'm thinking there will be more to this shortly. If Cumulus really turns in the license to 560, it would be the perfect precursor to a merger of some sort of that cluster. Granted, it would still be over the limit by 1 FM, but I'm sure the surviving operator, likely Bonneville, could find a willing swap partner. With the possible exception of Salt Lake City (not sure how the overlap with KSL-TV would count toward the ownership cap), it could add at least one more station in all of its other markets.
 
Kent said:
Granted, this has been happening in small markets already, but I'm thinking there will be more to this shortly. If Cumulus really turns in the license to 560, it would be the perfect precursor to a merger of some sort of that cluster. Granted, it would still be over the limit by 1 FM, but I'm sure the surviving operator, likely Bonneville, could find a willing swap partner. With the possible exception of Salt Lake City (not sure how the overlap with KSL-TV would count toward the ownership cap), it could add at least one more station in all of its other markets.
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Of course, just speculation, but what would most likely be the sacrificial FM?
 
KilowattKat said:
Of course, just speculation, but what would most likely be the sacrificial FM?
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You didn't ask me, but if it were my decision, it would be 102.9 KBLX. The choice is between that and KUFX in San Jose. Unloading KUFX would consolidate the surviving cluster in San Francisco. (Or technically, Daly City.) But KUFX is almost equal in full-market share to KBLX (#16 vs. #19, with a 1.9 vs. a 2.2) with a cume that's about 82% of KBLX's (344K to 420K). But in the South Bay sub-market, KUFX blows away KBLX (#2 vs. #8, 5.1 vs. 3.0, 200K vs. 94K). The money's in the Valley, and I'd keep that one and spin off KBLX to another group that's under the limit.
 
Weiserguy said:
The Cumulus staff is lucky. I'd have expected their management to pitch a soundproof tent under the Central Freeway to house that cluster. Bonneville at least has class, which I'm sure their digs will reflect.
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Will they call it the "Malvina Reynolds Memorial Studios"?

Good thing they're not in Colma, which would give new meaning to the term "dead air".
 
Weiserguy said:
You didn't ask me, but if it were my decision, it would be 102.9 KBLX. The choice is between that and KUFX in San Jose. Unloading KUFX would consolidate the surviving cluster in San Francisco. (Or technically, Daly City.) But KUFX is almost equal in full-market share to KBLX (#16 vs. #19, with a 1.9 vs. a 2.2) with a cume that's about 82% of KBLX's (344K to 420K). But in the South Bay sub-market, KUFX blows away KBLX (#2 vs. #8, 5.1 vs. 3.0, 200K vs. 94K). The money's in the Valley, and I'd keep that one and spin off KBLX to another group that's under the limit.
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Yes, KBLX would also be my guess.
 
Or it could be a fairly safe way of opening the door to a merger (in SF) if ownership caps were loosened even further.
 
This move doesn't surprise me. I said in another thread that Cumulus is looking to shrink its radio footprint. I said that in response to the idea of them shutting down the 560 signal. This cluster has been in trouble for a long time. Someone theorized the move of KNBR to Levi Stadium might relate to them selling the station to the team. If so, then Bonneville could buy the rest. I don't think Bonneville wants four AMs, so they have to fix that before any sale. But sure, I think they'd gladly sell the cluster and get out of town. I think everything's in play this year.
 
KilowattKat said:
Yes, KBLX would also be my guess.
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The worst market coverage between the six would be KUFX.
They can sell it to EMF to eliminate the competition in the South Bay.

The stronger of the two classic rock intellectual properties can sit on KSAN which has okay South Bay coverage but also better City, Peninsula and East Bay coverage.


I’m not a fan of EMF taking on another signal, but the trend in radio seems to be reducing the competition in a shrinking revenue pool.

EMF could move Air1 from Class A 97.7 to Class B 98.5, improving Bay Area coverage. They could then flip 97.7 to La Nueva Vida.

Again, I’m not a fan of that idea. So don’t shoot the messenger.

I’d actually prefer KUFX go to Classical California to improve coverage.
 
There's a small irony in this when you look at how Bonneville's talkers have performed vs. Cumulus'. If Bonneville had owned KGO some years ago, it probably would have gone FM and might still exist as a talk station.

I wonder how it will affect the classic rockers (KFOX and KSAN.)
 
KUFX has mostly South Bay coverage, though there is a booster for it in Pleasanton. I remember that the coverage in the Tri-Valley was mostly OK. It sure wasn't in Oakland, though.

EMF seems to be more careful with its money these days, so I'm not sure it would want a third South Bay signal. Likewise for KDFC; the 104.9 signal seems perfectly adequate for the South Bay. That 104.9 signal was good enough to get KEST's San Francisco translator bounced off the air permanently.

As with so many other things in radio, expect the unexpected. Cumulus has come up with quite a few surprises in San Francisco lately; I don't expect this will be the last one. For the right price, anything can be had.
 
Andy Travis said:
There's a small irony in this when you look at how Bonneville's talkers have performed vs. Cumulus'. If Bonneville had owned KGO some years ago, it probably would have gone FM and might still exist as a talk station.
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It would have had to have been before the Brown organization bought 103.7, and that was way before duopolies were allowed. Bonneville had KOIT at the time, as it does again at present, and there was no way Bonneville was going to give that up for a talk format.

As for KGO, it's a classic problem of success: if you've been very successful doing what you've been doing, you want to keep on doing it, even if there are indications that the future may bring big changes. By the time KGO realized something different was needed, it was too late. The ownership changes during that time didn't help, either.

If KGO had started failing sooner, it might still be here today.
 
Weiserguy said:
You didn't ask me, but if it were my decision, it would be 102.9 KBLX. The choice is between that and KUFX in San Jose. Unloading KUFX would consolidate the surviving cluster in San Francisco. (Or technically, Daly City.) But KUFX is almost equal in full-market share to KBLX (#16 vs. #19, with a 1.9 vs. a 2.2) with a cume that's about 82% of KBLX's (344K to 420K). But in the South Bay sub-market, KUFX blows away KBLX (#2 vs. #8, 5.1 vs. 3.0, 200K vs. 94K). The money's in the Valley, and I'd keep that one and spin off KBLX to another group that's under the limit.
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KBLX has always been a bit of an outlier for Bonneville, which has historically shied away from urban oriented formats. Even Bonneville CHR's tended to avoid popular urban tracks. Having said that, a merger of the two clusters would mean two classic rock stations. Few clusters need or want more than one station in an individual format, and the perception is usually that the audience of the station that goes away will just go to the remaining station. KUFX 98.5 is the weakest signal in terms of what it covers. So, that alone would probably make it the station to go unless that would be a limiting factor in terms of a swap. I agree with you, however, that KUFX is a very well-programmed station and sounds far better than KSAN. If I were consolidating the two clusters, K-Fox would find itself on 107.7 post-haste, and the KSAN calls would migrate to 1050.

TheBigA said:
This move doesn't surprise me. I said in another thread that Cumulus is looking to shrink its radio footprint. I said that in response to the idea of them shutting down the 560 signal. This cluster has been in trouble for a long time. Someone theorized the move of KNBR to Levi Stadium might relate to them selling the station to the team. If so, then Bonneville could buy the rest. I don't think Bonneville wants four AMs, so they have to fix that before any sale. But sure, I think they'd gladly sell the cluster and get out of town. I think everything's in play this year.
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If 560 really turns in its license, the problem of four AM's is, of course, resolved immediately. I agree that Cumulus would have no problem selling the cluster for the right price, and Bonneville would seem to have the ability to come up with the money.

Michael Rivers Kramer said:
The worst market coverage between the six would be KUFX.
They can sell it to EMF to eliminate the competition in the South Bay.
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EMF always seems to be a potential buyer, though it has been scaling back its acquisitions over the last few years. I could also see 98.5 being swapped to Entravision for one of its stations in Sacramento. It seems to have an extra station in Sacramento that it doesn't know what to do with, and Bonneville has enough room to add another station or two. The problem with having an extra station in your cluster these days is that you're going to have a difficult time finding a commercial buyer, and a like-kind swap can be equally tough to find (if not more difficult). If I remember correctly, Sacramento is a similar size to what the South Bay area would be if it were a market in its own right instead of one embedded in San Francisco. So, a swap might be doable between the two.
 
Isn't it kind of early to speculate about a sale and spinoff? Sure, it's fun to move the pieces around on the chessboard, but right now all that's out there is a straight-up real-estate deal.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Isn't it kind of early to speculate about a sale and spinoff? Sure, it's fun to move the pieces around on the chessboard, but right now all that's out there is a straight-up real-estate deal.
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I like analyzing conspiracy theories here because I get yelled at when I do it IRL...
 
Mark Roberts said:
Isn't it kind of early to speculate about a sale and spinoff? Sure, it's fun to move the pieces around on the chessboard, but right now all that's out there is a straight-up real-estate deal.
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Maybe, but it’s a discussion board, not a news site. So long as everybody’s clear that it’s not confirmed to be happening and isn’t guaranteed to happen, I don’t see any issue with talking about it.
 
Kent said:
Maybe, but it’s a discussion board, not a news site. So long as everybody’s clear that it’s not confirmed to be happening and isn’t guaranteed to happen, I don’t see any issue with talking about it.
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Yabbut...sometimes it gets ridiculous.
 
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