Back in the 70's KJAZ 92.7 didn't do half bad as they were the Bay Area's Jazz station...
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Expected format flips in the next few months?
- Thread starter Radiopaw
- Start date
"Back in the 70s" KGO didn't do "half bad" as a news/talk station. See what I did there?
The 70s were about 43 years ago, but hey.......great memories.
The 70s were about 43 years ago, but hey.......great memories.
As I've probably said before, what I want is probably never going to happen:
I'd start such an OTA station myself (ideally, an AM station with FM translator, so I could have the best of both) if I had the money and wherewithal.
c
- KRZZ 93.3 FM: Flip from it's current format (Regional Mexican) to something akin to it's former self as KYA-FM (perhaps something like KVOL 1330 AM's format over in Lafayette, LA: MeTV Radio's soft oldies format, which includes basically everything from mid 60s through at least 80s).
- KOIT 96.5 FM: Flip back to something similar to what it used to be during the 90s and early 2000s, perhaps with more current hits so as to keep up with demographics. Or maybe even dare to go back to straight instrumental/vocal Easy Listening.
- A return of the long-defunct KABL's format.
I'd start such an OTA station myself (ideally, an AM station with FM translator, so I could have the best of both) if I had the money and wherewithal.
c
The 93.3 frequency was another problematic spot on the dial for years until "La Raza" came along. I don't see KOIT making changes.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, very Bay Area few signals, either AM or FM, have full market coverage - really, only the legacy AMs of KEAR, KNBR, KCBS, and KGO - one of which is noncommercial with the other three suffering through the modern travails of AM - with two of those with full-power FM simulcasts.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, very Bay Area few signals, either AM or FM, have full market coverage - really, only the legacy AMs of KEAR, KNBR, KCBS, and KGO - one of which is noncommercial with the other three suffering through the modern travails of AM - with two of those with full-power FM simulcasts.
That is a very successful station with the three principal Spanish language stations all in a near-tie for 11th in revenue. They will not be changing.
"Beautiful Music" is a dead format as of the late 80's... that is about 35 years ago.
Same thing... instrumental and light vocals. The KABL version was done half a century ago. It was then called "Good Music" and became "Beautiful Music" by the early 70's when FMs became dominant.
Mexican stations are in Mexico. There are several Spanish language stations in the market, targeting the 25% of the population that is Hispanic... most of whom have family origins in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Oh, and in 25-54, the part of the market population that is Hispanic is close to 33%.
Most of the religious stations are inferior facilities or AMs, and most could not compete against full signal FMs in general market formats.
Translators are rather deficient in that market as it extends from Santa Rosa down to Gilroy.
There are 155 total commercial and non-com stations in the whole market, not including translators and LPFMs. The market is defined by Nielsen as Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties.
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W/re: KOIT and KABL....
I didn't mean their original formats (Good/Beautiful Music), though that would be nice (unrealistic though it may be). Rather, I was thinking for KOIT something along the lines of more modern Easy Listening, probably Soft Jazz or some such, but not like KCSM (that's 91.1, right?).
Something like Soft AC, but a little more retro (like, 1980s-2010, as opposed to 2000s-now) and not "The Breeze" (Sacramento's already got a station carrying that, and it comes in down here in the Bay Area just fine).
For KABL, something along the lines of it's last incarnation before going defunct (which was sort of an oldies-like format skewed primarily to 50s-early 60s traditional pop (very little, if any rock n' roll) with some 30s and 40s swing mixed in), but updated some to include some more current material that might be appealing to a younger audience (so-called "Big Bands" are still alive and well, so I'd think that this format would be at least somewhat viable, perhaps on a small, non-commercial scale). Or, as I mentioned for 93.3, perhaps that MeTV Radio soft oldies format would work (as noted, KVOL does it, and I just looked up their ratings, which at 0.7, don't seem that excellent. But it does seem like their ratings have risen from 0.2 in 2021, so they must be doing something right?
And by "Mexican stations", I should've been more clear, I meant stations broadcasting in the SF Bay and surrounding areas with Spanish language formats. Nevertheless, I suppose you're right. There's a robust Hispanic population here, and their market seems to be well served.
c
I didn't mean their original formats (Good/Beautiful Music), though that would be nice (unrealistic though it may be). Rather, I was thinking for KOIT something along the lines of more modern Easy Listening, probably Soft Jazz or some such, but not like KCSM (that's 91.1, right?).
Something like Soft AC, but a little more retro (like, 1980s-2010, as opposed to 2000s-now) and not "The Breeze" (Sacramento's already got a station carrying that, and it comes in down here in the Bay Area just fine).
For KABL, something along the lines of it's last incarnation before going defunct (which was sort of an oldies-like format skewed primarily to 50s-early 60s traditional pop (very little, if any rock n' roll) with some 30s and 40s swing mixed in), but updated some to include some more current material that might be appealing to a younger audience (so-called "Big Bands" are still alive and well, so I'd think that this format would be at least somewhat viable, perhaps on a small, non-commercial scale). Or, as I mentioned for 93.3, perhaps that MeTV Radio soft oldies format would work (as noted, KVOL does it, and I just looked up their ratings, which at 0.7, don't seem that excellent. But it does seem like their ratings have risen from 0.2 in 2021, so they must be doing something right?
And by "Mexican stations", I should've been more clear, I meant stations broadcasting in the SF Bay and surrounding areas with Spanish language formats. Nevertheless, I suppose you're right. There's a robust Hispanic population here, and their market seems to be well served.
c
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I don't see any of the "Big Boys" changing any formats. Why do that when they own at least 5-8 stations any probably have any format they want covered? I could see a "mom & pop" station flipping to something that's not going to try and compete with the corporations that have huge funds available. Best they might do is update the music they play, move into a decade that they haven't really started playing much music from.
Don’t think cumulus or audacy have “big money”, haha. Financial woes all over with those two.
IHM, Bonneville and Alpha, maybe.
Smooth jazz and easy listening are formats that don't work for terrestrial radio, right now.
And, in a few years when radio reworks their strategy and realize that all they have left are old people, and poor first generation non citizen Americans, maybe an updated version of Smooth jazz could be an option but the audience for beautiful music literally doesn't do anything at all besides feed the worms and vote Democrat.
And, in a few years when radio reworks their strategy and realize that all they have left are old people, and poor first generation non citizen Americans, maybe an updated version of Smooth jazz could be an option but the audience for beautiful music literally doesn't do anything at all besides feed the worms and vote Democrat.
That would be nice. In my opinion, that abomination of a format is a waste of 50,000 kilowatts.
c
One does not work because it aged out while, at the same time, interest in instrumental music nearly disappeared. Smooth Jazz was killed by the change in ratings systems.
If you actually look at the data, usage of radio by age group is not terribly different between non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics and Blacks. African Americans tend to listen more to "regular" radio than the other groups but the differences are not astoundingly large.
Oh, and if you are referring to Hispanics in your moderately racist comment, you should know that in nearly every market except Miami, more than half of all Hispanics are English dominant and thus, very likely, legal residents or citizens. In fact, in markets like San Antonio, over 85% of Hispanics are English dominant... many have families that have likely been in the US longer than yours has.
Smooth jazz is a valid streaming format. It failed in OTA commercial radio because the PPM revealed that it had a very narrow cume. In the new ratings methodology, no "phantom cume" appeared, although it did in nearly every other format. So the format had no cume growth, and, like all stations, TSL was shown to be vastly less than demonstrated in the diary.
Beautiful Music had no party affiliation. Interest in instrumentals and softer music died, in general, as the 80's progressed. The format lost any and all 25-54 appeal, and thus it could not attract adveertisers.
There is no "50,000 kilowatt" station in the world. It's "50,000 watts" or "50 kilowatts".
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KGO had, for a long time, an aging demographic problem. It became content to ride on glories of the past. Cumulus correctly perceived this and made the switch to an all-news format. Except it was "all news some of the time", which doesn't work all that well, and especially not for an entrant in the field up against KCBS and KQED-FM. The format itself was actually OK, with the smartest move being to delay the ABC network newscast so that they would start local at the top of the hour. At the time of the format, they might have been well advised to consider having traffic reports every 6 minutes - probably not so useful nowadays even though bad traffic is back in the Bay Area. In any event, the commitment ultimately wasn't there and, to make an all-news, or even "some news", format work, you have to have commitment. Plus money, which Cumulus also ran short of. So it was back to the talk shows, which tended to be erratic. The best that can be said for the sports-betting format is that it will have a small core of diehard listeners, even though most sports betting remains illegal in California; that, combined with low expenses, may enable it to eke out a tiny profit.
The transmitting site is useless for anything else, so probably no real-estate deals on that one.
The transmitting site is useless for anything else, so probably no real-estate deals on that one.
That reminds me of a magazine profile of Paul Harvey I read perhaps 35 years ago. The article stated that Harvey was heard mainly on "low-megawatt" stations across the U.S.😖
KSAN is actually at 107.7. 107.3 is a religious station from Livermore.
Oops, sorry! I meant 50,000 watts!
@Mark Roberts Yeah, that makes sense.
It seemed like the format they eventually settled on was nominally news in the morning and midday hours, some news and talk in the afternoons, and their traditional mostly talk format in the evening and overnight hours.
It seems that could've worked better had they not tried so hard to be a KCBS competitor. Instead they should've tried harder to refine the format and bill it as a sort of a news analysis, where the news is reported, then they go in depth and analyze it (not unlike CNN and the other cable news networks).
I mean, I guess that's sort of what they did, and ultimately it didn't work because it wasn't turning a profit and the ratings kept declining, but I'm inclined to think that it wasn't so much that it was unviable, but rather that Cumulus didn't execute it well.
For what it's worth, at least they kept the legacy three-letter call alive, because once they're gone, aside from some exceptionally rare circumstances (changing KKHJ back to KHJ, for example), they're gone forever.
c
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Is the transmitting site still by the Dumbarton bridge?
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Yes. I think the "KGO" sign is gone, though. I haven't been by there since the pandemic.
The challenge there would be the public stations: KQED-FM is a behemoth, KPFA has its loyal, but probably aging, audience, and KALW is there, at least for San Francisco and the Berkeley-Oakland-San Leandro area.
Notable fact: KALW was an NPR member station several years before KQED-FM joined.
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