That’s too bad if that’s the case. KUFX has always been a nice alternative to 107.7. But both are well programmed stations.
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K-Love Adds Third South Bay Signal With KBAY Purchase
- Thread starter lanceventa
- Start date
Aren't the Cumulus stations for sale in the bay area? All or a few? More shoes to drop? Mmmmmm.
Here's an interesting historical datapoint on the value of the KBAY signal, from R&R in December of 1982:
Levin Radio, Inc. has sold KFAT/Gilroy, CA to Western Cities Broadcasting, Inc. for $3.6 million
This is the signal that is now KBAY. The 1982 deal was for the stick value and not much else, just like the current K Love transaction. A Google AI estimate suggests the 1982 purchase price (adjusted for inflation) would equal to about $12.5 million today.
Levin Radio, Inc. has sold KFAT/Gilroy, CA to Western Cities Broadcasting, Inc. for $3.6 million
This is the signal that is now KBAY. The 1982 deal was for the stick value and not much else, just like the current K Love transaction. A Google AI estimate suggests the 1982 purchase price (adjusted for inflation) would equal to about $12.5 million today.
I hope you are right but I am afraid that is not correct. Does anyone have a recent “lost listenership” list by market? It’s probably higher there but not by orders of magnitude.
I was just in the Bay Area and while there are a lot of tech workers, most of the 6.7 million there are not 20 something’s that work at Google or the equivalent. I doubt the tech workforce makes that big of a difference to the overall pie.
That’s interesting about simulcasting KUIC/KKIQ. One would think KOIT would be the main one to pay attention to for AC content given that KOIT is Bay Area wide. But then again it will be interesting what Connoisseur Media has in mind here in response to K-Love Taking over 94.5FM San Jose as mentioned in the article.
The radio block was not in a fixed position within the Chron's pink section. It always floated depending on where there was space for it around the ads. But in general it tended to be towards the back of the section.
It doesn't matter what they do for a living. They're more aware of the technology than people who live in rural areas. Plus there are all the geographic issues in the Bay area we've talked about in terms of receiving signals. Yes, radio listening is declining everywhere. There's no place I can thing of where it's growing. But there are more reasons for it here than most other places.
After reading the history of KYLD (which at one time had the callsign KSAN with a country format) from Wikipedia
KYLD - Wikipedia
I think I can see why Connisseur might feel differently about having a country station serving the San Francisco area, though I'm not sure that the demographics for that kind of support are there in 2026.
KKIQ has made its money superserving the Tri-Valley area (Pleasanton, Livermore, San Ramon and adjacent communities) in the shadow of the big SFBA stations. KUIC has done the same superserving Vacaville, Fairfield and the surrounding communities within Sonoma County. The two signals don't overlap, unless you're standing at the top of Mount Diablo (maybe). And for good measure, KKDV, before the Bay Country simulcast, superserved the Concord/Walnut Creek mini-market. The previous owners (Alpha?) tried to do a trimulcast of sorts with those three stations, same music, certain components localized, spot sales localized. It apparently didn't work well enough to keep it. Connoisseur would be wise to learn from history before making any decisions to re-live it.
Country has failed on (the old) KNEW (910 AM). It's failed on KSAN. Likewise on KYCY (the former KYA 93.3) as "Young Country". And again on 95.7, whatever that was called. (The Bear? The Wolf? One of those predator names.) I might be missing one or two other attempts. Sorry to repeat myself, but Connoisseur would be wise to learn from history before making any decisions to re-live it.After reading the history of KYLD (which at one time had the callsign KSAN with a country format) from Wikipedia
KYLD - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I think I can see why Connisseur might feel differently about having a country station serving the San Francisco area, though I'm not sure that the demographics for that kind of support are there in 2026.
And on that same thread, KBLX is the market's heritage station superserving the Black community, going back to at least the 1970s. Woe be to him who decides to blow that station up to try another pre-doomed country format. I hope these guys and gals at least have enough seychal (Yiddish for "common sense") to grasp that concept.
The industry and how they make money has changed. There are lots of ancillary NTR revenue streams for Country that did not exist for any of those stations.
See my comment from last night. KBLX is one of the lowest revenue generating stations in the market. If they believe Country can outbill R&B, it will happen.
The main difference is they still own stations in San Jose. What I'm suggesting is simply expand the country format coverage beyond the existing San Jose market so they can qualify for sales in the larger adjacent market. This is a pretty common thing. They know the history going in. They're not going to be strictly a San Francisco station. They would cover the whole region.
Are you suggesting that they would keep Bay Country on a South Bay signal? 102.9 is on San Bruno, but with something like 7kw. Not a grandfathered high-power signal. As a result, reception is iffy in the area where KBAY has the most audience. Seems like they would lose what they have and then have to build an audience all over again.
Dave B.
I'm just guessing. They're not going to walk away from the main source of revenue in order to get a smaller share in a bigger market. It only makes sense if they can do both. They own enough stations to do that. That hasn't been tried before.
Not looking at the donation rate per service, but it would seem to me that it would be smarter to put Air 1 on 94.5 since putting K-Love on it would only create more overlap with 107.3. Plus, Air 1 has little to no presence further north. I could be wrong.
K-Love is the priority for them in every market. It gets the best signal. They want as close to or near 100% coverage of the country for the brand. This purchase though is about getting another signal to get Radio Nueva Vida on a full-powered signal.