Is time getting closer for WBAP-FM, KRLD-FM, or KTCK-FM?

[txchipk]

I've posted this before, but thought about again today as two more AMs in other markets announced plans to move to FM. In both cases, according to quotes from the stations management, the lack of interest in even trying to tune over to the AM dial by the majority of people listening to the radio was cited. Sports WJXL 1010 Jacksonville plans to add WJSJ 105.7 and cited the desire to try to expose the station to people who never ever tried them since they don't even consider the AM dial. News/talk KIRO Seattle is going to move to FM and displace classic hits KBSG 97.3. KIRO cited the large number of radio listeners who only use FM and may only visit AM sporadically. In the past, the desire to also get "younger" demos was a reason given for some of the AM-to-FM migrations.

There are now more than 80 FM all-news or news/talk outlets across all Arbitron rated markets. Some markets have competing outlets (New Orleans has 2, Jackson TN has 3, Panama City has 2, etc.). That doesn't count public radio stations or guy talk outlets like KLLI here or sports outlets. FM sports talkers have also been on the rise lately...WJOX Birmingham is in the process of moving from a rimshot facility to what was WYSF 94.5 there, for example.

So, is it only a matter of time that someone tries FM sports talk or news/talk on a full-market signal here? Or will WBAP, KRLD, or KTCK try to pre-empt it and move first? KTCK is doing great...but would putting it on 93.3 be better. The station KIRO-FM is going to replace, KBSG, has ratings KDBN can only dream about. With KRLD and WBAP getting older and older, would a FM simulcast help give them a little youth?

 

[TexasTom]

KTCK does have an FM simulcast already -- 104.1 out of Sanger. Of course that is a pretty limited signal, and is intended to merely fill in a gap in the KTCK's pattern, but I'd be curious to know how much listening 104.1 actually does manage to get.

 

[txchipk]

My premise was on a full-market signal so I wasn't counting KTDK 104.1 since its signal is limited to parts of Denton and Collin County. It is pretty easy for that signal to be lost to KWOW 104.1 Clifton/Waco or KKUS 104.1 Tyler in the rest of the market.

 

[arnoldevns]

Chip,
As always you bring up a great question.
I think the Ticket adding 93.3 would make a ton of sense considering they already simulcast the Cowboys games.
They would probably keep the 104.1 signal since 93.3 has some issues of its own. This would get them back on 3 signals for the first time since 1700 switched to KLIF.
I do recall one day where that triple-cast was very beneficial for the Ticket. It was a day when the NFL draft was going on at the same time as a Desperados game and a Rough Riders game. 1700 cut away from the simulcast to do the Rough Riders. An hour later, 1310 cut away to go to the Desperados game. 104.1 stayed with the NFL draft coverage all day. They could do such a thing again in the future if they wanted to.
I think KRLD has a lot of issue to solve besides its signal. The question is where do you put it? KLLI has essentially the same ratings of KRLD, but targets a very different audience. KMVK might be an option just because it's the lowest rated of the CBS properties here on the FM band. But, it's at the far end of the dial, is not a full power station and has always been somewhat ratings challenged. Jack-FM is just above KMVK in the ratings, but seems like a signal you could get a lot more out of with a music format.
WBAP could have taken over the 96.7 frequency and done well with it. If this new Platinum format doesn't work, maybe that's the road they'll go down next. There is no way they would ditch KSCS to add a WBAP simulcast. It just wouldn't make sense.
My guess is that if one of these stations does pull off such a switch, it would take a year or so of ratings before the next one would make the jump.
Right now, it just seems to me that The Ticket is the most likely to go first.

 

[Slambang]

Ive been on the bandwagon for KTCK to take over the Bone frequency for awhile. Ive always said KDBN is nothing but a place holder format anyways. It would be a perfect fit for cumulus, with their cheap skate ways and whatnot...

 

[little1]

Here's why I don't think it'll happen, at least in 2 out of 3 of those mentioned.
KTCK and WBAP are the 2 highest billing stations in the market. Both are somewhere in the 20 million (Plus) ballpark.

Dont' know off hand what 93,3 or 96.7 are billing, but to make this 'succesful', you're not only going to have to continue to bill that ~25million, you're also going to have to replace whatever KDBN or Platinum are billing.

So if both of those stations are billing (making up a number) 5mil, now KTCK-FM/AM and WBAP-FM/AM "need" to bill 30 million.

KTCK is already number 1 P25-54, WBAP is way up there 25-54 , and #3 or 4 (IIRC) 12 plus. They already have a TON of people listening to them- do you really think there's that many more that aren't listening to them JUST because they're only on AM?

And maybe with KTCK there's an FM sports alternative, but WBAP? "Yeah, I'm a hardcore Republican, but I'm not going to listen to Rush or Sean because they're on (dripping with disdain) "AM". So rather than lower myself to listen to an inferior radio band, instead of listening to something I'm interested in, political talk, I'll just rock out with the "best mix of the 80's, 90's and now" " .

Now KRLD-FM? It could only help. Some ridiculous percentage (65%???) of KRLD's audience is over 55. It's got to be hurting their revenue, which hurts the amount of resources they can put on the street to covering news, which hurts their image as the news station, which leads to less young people turning to them for news (why wait for news on the radio when I can get it on my PDA or phone from dallasnews dot com), which leads to more of their audience being 55+, which leads to less revenue, which leads blah blah blah...

Getting KRLD to make more money might make up for whatever station you'd need to blow up to move them to FM...But only if you think the upside of KRLD is enough to make up for the (making up a number again) the 8 million dollars a year that Jack bills.

 

[Lancer]

Would be nice to be able to hear AM talk stations inside my office. Concrete & steel doesn't jive with my AM radio, not to mention the flourescent lights & computers. I listen to the web stream but a lot of companies (including mine) frown on using their bandwidth for that.

That said, the FM all-news KEWS back in the 90's didn't last long. Might be different with syndicated or local talk but who knows.

 

[Dndsh237]

Would be nice to be able to hear AM talk stations inside my office. Concrete & steel doesn't jive with my AM radio, not to mention the flourescent lights & computers. I listen to the web stream but a lot of companies (including mine) frown on using their bandwidth for that.

That said, the FM all-news KEWS back in the 90's didn't last long. Might be different with syndicated or local talk but who knows.

KEWS demise had more to do with an owner's unfortunate need to sell off a station.

 

[Willis1000]

Isn't it interesting that the proponents of talk on FM never credit public radio for proving that people will listen to news and talk on FM.

BTW-- Mexico's ahead of the curve on this one. In Mexico City a quarter of the FMs are all news or news/talk.

 

[easttxtv]

Another aspect...would WBAP really want to give up an AM frequency that can be picked up in many other states at night? They would lose quite a bit of listenership among truckers. KRLD, I'm not sure they'd lose as much if they flipped to FM, and KTCK would probably improve depending on FM frequency/signal pattern.

 

[Slambang]

Its not even really removing them from the AM Frequency, Simulcasting works pretty dang well also. We have three stations with three available frequencies (WBAP-96.7, KRLD-100.3 or 105.3, KTCK-92.3) that are dying to be taken over.

 

[arnoldevns]

Would be nice to be able to hear AM talk stations inside my office. Concrete & steel doesn't jive with my AM radio, not to mention the flourescent lights & computers. I listen to the web stream but a lot of companies (including mine) frown on using their bandwidth for that.

That said, the FM all-news KEWS back in the 90's didn't last long. Might be different with syndicated or local talk but who knows.

You are flat wrong about KEWS. It was a success. Ratings and revenue were on the upswing when CBS had to sell one of their FM stations to satisfy ownership limits. CBS put all of their stations up for bid and the one that came in for KEWS was the only one that financially made sense. The demise of KEWS was in no way a reflection of the success or failure potential of all-news on the FM band in the DFW market.

 

[arnoldevns]

Another aspect...would WBAP really want to give up an AM frequency that can be picked up in many other states at night? They would lose quite a bit of listenership among truckers. KRLD, I'm not sure they'd lose as much if they flipped to FM, and KTCK would probably improve depending on FM frequency/signal pattern.

No one here is suggesting that any of these stations (WBAP, KRLD or KTCK) give up their AM frequencies. This is purely about adding a simulcast on the FM band.

 

[arnoldevns]

Isn't it interesting that the proponents of talk on FM never credit public radio for proving that people will listen to news and talk on FM.

BTW-- Mexico's ahead of the curve on this one. In Mexico City a quarter of the FMs are all news or news/talk.

Great point. If KERA were reported in Arbitron, it would consistently rank in the top 15 in the market and would beat KRLD almost every time.

 

[txchipk]

WBAP could have taken over the 96.7 frequency and done well with it. If this new Platinum format doesn't work, maybe that's the road they'll go down next. There is no way they would ditch KSCS to add a WBAP simulcast. It just wouldn't make sense.

David posted the spring 25-54s...WBAP was 10th and KSCS 16th. Looking through some allaccess.com archives, in the last trends in Seattle, KIRO was 10th overall and KBSG, the FM it is replacing, was 18th.

 

[txchipk]

Here's why I don't think it'll happen, at least in 2 out of 3 of those mentioned.
KTCK and WBAP are the 2 highest billing stations in the market. Both are somewhere in the 20 million (Plus) ballpark.

Dont' know off hand what 93,3 or 96.7 are billing, but to make this 'succesful', you're not only going to have to continue to bill that ~25million, you're also going to have to replace whatever KDBN or Platinum are billing.

So if both of those stations are billing (making up a number) 5mil, now KTCK-FM/AM and WBAP-FM/AM "need" to bill 30 million.

KTCK is already number 1 P25-54, WBAP is way up there 25-54 , and #3 or 4 (IIRC) 12 plus. They already have a TON of people listening to them- do you really think there's that many more that aren't listening to them JUST because they're only on AM?

I'm guessing KTCK probably has to only pick up .4 or .5 of a share to make this more profitable. If KTCK is not receivable in some office buildings (it's not on the currently weakend 1310, 1700, or 104.1 in Richardson) and some guys are listening to KESN, KLLI, or a male-oriented music station instead, they could easily get that back. KTCK doesn't have to replace KDBN's entire 25-54 share...KTCK runs more than twice as many spots an hour than KDBN, plus has numerous sponsored segments during the day. If they got half of KDBN's share, they haven't lost any revenue. Eliminating KDBN also removes a lot of costs. So, if they got half of KDBN's share with the simulcast, they are ahead of where they are now.

Also, there may be people in their 20s or 30s who have moved into the market and never turned on the AM dial. I was talking with someone who is in their 20s who moved here a couple of years ago who had no idea what KRLD was (they had been talking about how expensive some places are to eat and I mentioned the annual KRLD restaurant week was coming up...they asked what KRLD was? I told them it was 1080; they mentioned they never turn on the AM dial). Let's face it, if you are under 35, chances are the AM dial has been primarily a wasteland of religious, ethnic, brokered, and talk programming during the time you probably began paying attention to the radio in your teens. I think the sports outlet in Jacksonville citing this as one reason for the FM simulcast indicates some radio folks are figuring out this trend...

And maybe with KTCK there's an FM sports alternative, but WBAP? "Yeah, I'm a hardcore Republican, but I'm not going to listen to Rush or Sean because they're on (dripping with disdain) "AM". So rather than lower myself to listen to an inferior radio band, instead of listening to something I'm interested in, political talk, I'll just rock out with the "best mix of the 80's, 90's and now" " .

There must be some reasoning behind so many of these AM-to-FM migrations in other markets or starting up new talk FMs (WPGB 104.7 Pittsburgh, KTLK-FM 100.3 Minneapolis/St Paul, WRNO New Orleans, etc.) with Rush, Hannity, and company on big, full market FM facilities.

For the Seattle comparison, KIRO 710 is 10th 25-54, as is WBAP here. The FM it is going to is 18th overall; KSCS is 16th. Like WBAP, KIRO, KSL Salt Lake City, WWL New Orleans, etc. aren't struggling stations with poor revenue or weak signals. Rumors of WRNO going to talk propelled WWL's addition of WWL-FM 105.3; the other stations moved with no FM competition. A lot of these were moved to protect a heritage outlet from becoming obsolete in the future as younger generations stay away from that band...

Now KRLD-FM? It could only help. Some ridiculous percentage (65%???) of KRLD's audience is over 55. It's got to be hurting their revenue, which hurts the amount of resources they can put on the street to covering news, which hurts their image as the news station, which leads to less young people turning to them for news (why wait for news on the radio when I can get it on my PDA or phone from dallasnews dot com), which leads to more of their audience being 55+, which leads to less revenue, which leads blah blah blah...

Getting KRLD to make more money might make up for whatever station you'd need to blow up to move them to FM...But only if you think the upside of KRLD is enough to make up for the (making up a number again) the 8 million dollars a year that Jack bills.

Like the KTCK discussion, I would assume any increase in KRLD's ratings (if it got some younger numbers on FM), like KTCK or WBAP, would be more valuable than the same increase on a music FM due to the larger amount of advertising that can be sold each hour. Unless radio uses different math, I'm assuming if two stations each get identical 25-54 ratings, I would assume the one with twice as many commercials to sell is generating more money than the one with half the inventory.