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K-Love Acquires B93.3 & FM102.1

Katie Thornton has covered this issue for a while. Her podcast series The Divided Dial focused on conservative (and conservative-religious) talk radio on the AM dial. Her article in The Rolling Stone covered EMF's "takeover" of rock stations in major markets. In the upper Midwest, it started with WLUP 97.9 in Chicago, and then KQGO 96.3 in Minneapolis, and now WLUM 102.1 in Milwaukee. I'm sure there were more in smaller markets. Good, bad, or otherwise, there is an increasing saturation of religious content on the FM dial in most major markets. But that doesn't mean radio is dead. It's still out there. And it's evolving. WYMS is doing great job with a format similar to WLUM. The Hog is doing fine with a similar format as well. And as mentioned above, WPR is doing it's best to evolve while also facing tremendous headwinds with their budget.

I grew up listening to FM 102.1. I won concert tickets from them. I saw them in the van at local events. It's sad to see it gone. But it was also sad to listen to it for the past few years. Same rotation. Same talent. Same shows. Same revenue model.

Radio need to evolve. Otherwise, it dies (or becomes K-Love).
 
IKHNetworks said:
The last time I heard of national networks was back when ABC Contemporary, NBC Red, and NBC Blue - if I remember correctly that ended in the late 60s early 70s.
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Someone needs a radio history refresher. NBC Blue became ABC about 80 years ago. The NBC that exists today descended from NBC Red.
Fighting Irish said:
According to CBS58 in Milwaukee, everyone at MRA is being laid on Friday.
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Being "laid" before "laid off". A happy ending, followed by a big letdown.
 
TheBigA said:
Maybe not music, but talk, news, and sports streaming is very strong.
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I think that from a national standpoint, radio is not going to be important enough to be an ad vehicle for very much longer. We've all been watching that decline for years now.

But, based on my own observations, local music radio stations have a somewhat longer life expectancy, if the programming appeals to enough local business owners to get them to advertise. But that will likely mean a lot of declining formats will disappear in favor of local mass appeal. In some communities, it will be a combination of Classic Hits and Classic Rock. In others, Country (with varying percentages of gold). CHRs are likely to become more AC as adults become more important to the local advertisers.

But I also expect the continued decline in station personnel. I am already seeing a trend toward account executives doing their own production for clients. If air talent is mostly liner readers, they're targets for downsizing. (The listeners will hardly notice.)

And I should point out that a huge amount of news/talk and sports programming comes from national networks, and not every market will find local shows affordable.
 
This means Milwaukee will have four non-commercial religious stations on the commercial FM dial...

107.7 ... WVCY-FM ... VCY (formerly Voice of Christian Youth) mostly Christian talk and teaching with some soft Christian music.

105.3 ... WLVE ... K-Love's current home. Could this be spun off to a commercial broadcaster? There are not many large markets where EMF owns three FM stations. As said above, Milwaukee's Latino community isn't large enough to justify a Nueva Vida outlet. This is a Class A station, only 2,000 watts.

102.1 ... WLUM ... It is a bit under a full power Class B station. With a tower at 247 m (843 ft) WLUM only runs 8,800 watts. At that height, it should be around 16 or 17,000 watts. Usually, EMF puts Air 1 on the lesser powered FM station in a given market.

93.3 ... WLDB ... It has a full power Class B signal. This is likely where K-Love will go.

Most large markets have one or two non-commercial stations in the commercial section of the FM dial.
 
Gregg. said:
This means Milwaukee will have four non-commercial religious stations on the commercial FM dial...

107.7 ... WVCY-FM ... VCY (formerly Voice of Christian Youth) mostly Christian talk and teaching with some soft Christian music.

105.3 ... WLVE ... K-Love's current home. Could this be spun off to a commercial broadcaster? There are not many large markets where EMF owns three FM stations. As said above, Milwaukee's Latino community isn't large enough to justify a Nueva Vida outlet. This is a Class A station, only 2,000 watts.

102.1 ... WLUM ... It is a bit under a full power Class B station. With a tower at 247 m (843 ft) WLUM only runs 8,800 watts. At that height, it should be around 16 or 17,000 watts. Usually, EMF puts Air 1 on the lesser powered FM station in a given market.

93.3 ... WLDB ... It has a full power Class B signal. This is likely where K-Love will go.

Most large markets have one or two non-commercial stations in the commercial section of the FM dial.
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Four more candidates for my pipe dream of making non-comms above 92MHz pay annual FCC fees instead of being exempt, as they now are.
 
TheBigA said:
Read post #118

The future will not be using 100 year old technology that is licensed from the government.
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Absolutely - Podcasting, streaming, and whatever comes next. There will always be an interest in broadcasting human sound to other humans, but the medium will continue to change as new technology develops.

There is something unique, and almost personal, about the local geography of broadcast radio. Hard to replace that feeling of an actual person talking live in a studio down the street. No podcast or voice track can replace that feeling (but they sure do try).
 
Gregg. said:
This means Milwaukee will have four non-commercial religious stations on the commercial FM dial...

107.7 ... WVCY-FM ... VCY (formerly Voice of Christian Youth) mostly Christian talk and teaching with some soft Christian music.

105.3 ... WLVE ... K-Love's current home. Could this be spun off to a commercial broadcaster? There are not many large markets where EMF owns three FM stations. As said above, Milwaukee's Latino community isn't large enough to justify a Nueva Vida outlet. This is a Class A station, only 2,000 watts.

102.1 ... WLUM ... It is a bit under a full power Class B station. With a tower at 247 m (843 ft) WLUM only runs 8,800 watts. At that height, it should be around 16 or 17,000 watts. Usually, EMF puts Air 1 on the lesser powered FM station in a given market.

93.3 ... WLDB ... It has a full power Class B signal. This is likely where K-Love will go.

Most large markets have one or two non-commercial stations in the commercial section of the FM dial.
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Also Family Radio is still on WMWK at 88.1 (non-comm), WJOI has had a 98.7 translator for years, WSJP at 99.7 and 100.1 and The Family/WEMK now feeds 92.9 and 102.5, in addition to Waukesha and outlying signals. Lots of respect to the stations in this area because the way Milwaukee's FM spectrum was divided, they were lucky to get one non-comm allocation and have to get their message out in full competition above 91.9.
 
PRyanR said:
I'm tired of all the bible-thumper stations clogging the commercial dial. Why didn't they just sell their low-rated LP stations to KLove?
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Because 99 watts on 100.3 and 250 on 107.3 wouldn't bring in $4 million to the Milwaukee Radio Alliance. Also because K-Love already owns 105.3 which is more powerful than those translators. And maybe most importantly it looks like MRA is planning to exit the Milwaukee market if they can sell said translators to someone else. Not sure what the future holds for their dark AM 1290.
 
nathannah said:
Also Family Radio is still on WMWK at 88.1 (non-comm), WJOI has had a 98.7 translator for years, WSJP at 99.7 and 100.1 and The Family/WEMK now feeds 92.9 and 102.5, in addition to Waukesha and outlying signals. Lots of respect to the stations in this area because the way Milwaukee's FM spectrum was divided, they were lucky to get one non-comm allocation and have to get their message out in full competition above 91.9.
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Well 100.1 WSJP-FM is not a translator. 99.9 is but it's technically part of the parent station 1640 AM. The Family first bought 102.5 which is a translator along with parent AM 1460 from John Torres, then later purchased the 92.9 translator which had been for 1540 AM in Hartford from Tomsun Media. So essentially these weren't originally multiple translator allocations to the same owner.
 
CassChopper96 said:
If I was a millionaire I would save both these stations and tell k love to back off. But I’m not
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If you are in a state that is part of the Powerball lottery, the jackpot for tonight's drawing is $815 million since there was no big winner -- for the 38th straight time -- on Monday.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
If you want to know what the future of AM radio sounds like, just listen to what shortwave has become.
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Not a valid comparison. Except for "local service" on the tropical bands on SW, there was never any successful advertising supported SW broadcasting. Most stations were run by national governments or government agencies. A few were religious.
 
davideduardo said:
Not a valid comparison. Except for "local service" on the tropical bands on SW, there was never any successful advertising supported SW broadcasting. Most stations were run by national governments or government agencies. A few were religious.
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The progression of each successive band toward irrelevance is valid. Your constant efforts to pick apart every little detail of every member's statement on this site doesn't change that.
 
If 93.3 and 102.1 were in fact shopped around (which I don't doubt they were), I'm surprised Saga didn't pick them up...or if not both, even just one of them. That right there should tell you something about the current state of radio in Milwaukee, or the current state of radio in general. They could have easily put Jammin' 98.3's format on one of the two frequencies. BTW, WJOI's translator on 98.7 has a very decent signal. The frequency dukes it out with Chicago's WFMT in parts of Kenosha, but I can receive *it* better in Kenosha than Saga's 106.9 or it's 98.3, which are close to non-existent in that city. In the summertime, Saga's 106.9 has serious Tropo problems from Muskegon Michigan's 106.9 sometimes coming over Lake Michigan.
 
Brian Bowers said:
If 93.3 and 102.1 were in fact shopped around (which I don't doubt they were), I'm surprised Saga didn't pick them up...or if not both, even just one of them. That right there should tell you something about the current state of radio in Milwaukee, or the current state of radio in general. They could have easily put Jammin' 98.3's format on one of the two frequencies. BTW, WJOI's translator on 98.7 has a very decent signal. The frequency dukes it out with Chicago's WFMT in parts of Kenosha, but I can receive *it* better in Kenosha than Saga's 106.9 or it's 98.3, which are close to non-existent in that city. In the summertime, Saga's 106.9 has serious Tropo problems from Muskegon Michigan's 106.9 sometimes coming over Lake Michigan.
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The stations were indeed listed for sale with a broker. This is who represented Milwaukee Radio Alliance. Kalil & Co., Inc. – The nation's premier media brokerage firm.
 


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