K-Surf 1260 going partial classical??

[oldies76]

Why??

From their facebook page:

"We'd like to let you know of a programming change coming to AM 1260.

Beginning tonight we're introducing Music til Dawn, which will feature classical music from sister station KMozart from 8pm-6am daily, except Saturday evenings for Disco Saturday Night.

No need to worry because from 8pm-6am, you'll still be able to hear all your favorite L.A. Oldies playing on-air at 105.1 FM HD2, online at 1260ksurf.com and through our K-Surf app for your smartphone during those times.

As soon as 6am hits daily, all your favorite L.A. Oldies will then also return on-air to AM 1260."


https://www.facebook.com/1260ksurf

Why mess up something that has been working in L.A. for several years now?? I just don't get it. Anyways, classical is meant for FM fidelity, not mono.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Why??

Because Saul said so.

Why mess up something that has been working in L.A. for several years now?? I just don't get it.

Tonight's news might be a tiny little sign that L.A. Oldies has not, in fact, been working.

 

[davideduardo]

Why mess up something that has been working in L.A. for several years now?? I just don't get it. Anyways, classical is meant for FM fidelity, not mono.

It hasn't "been working". The station has averaged around 42nd in the market for the longest time, and averages about 2,000 AQH listeners. KRTH averages about 20 times that. In 25-54, it averages less than a thousand listeners.

This is, essentially, a hobby for Sol Levine. No debt, 60 years of making money from the FM, and he can do that. But apparently he wanted to save the operations money for nights and overnights.

 

[b-turner]

I seem to recall a post that as far as revenue went, K-Surf wasn't able to attract enough advertising to pay the electric bill. A small audience and almost no revenue. At least Sol decided to try oldies. Seems to me he's looking for something that produces a bit more revenue. Classical is ideally on FM but I have seen markets like Kansas City where classical was on AM exclusively and it did okay with audience and revenue, I suppose, because what little Classical audience there is, loves the music so much they will put up with less than ideal fidelity.

 

[TheBigA]

I suppose, because what little Classical audience there is, loves the music so much they will put up with less than ideal fidelity.

Then again, there isn't much audience for radio in general between 8 PM and 6AM, and during that time, the 1260 signal is operating at lower power.

 

[oldies76]

It hasn't "been working". The station has averaged around 42nd in the market for the longest time, and averages about 2,000 AQH listeners. KRTH averages about 20 times that. In 25-54, it averages less than a thousand listeners.

This is, essentially, a hobby for Sol Levine. No debt, 60 years of making money from the FM, and he can do that. But apparently he wanted to save the operations money for nights and overnights.

It is working. Former KRTH listeners are flocking to 1260 to re-hear their favorites once again on a station that caters to their age group. Sure, not all of them are listening at once, but they are listening in their respective time slots and their consistent .4 rating shows. Not too shabby for an AM with limited signal strength.

Oh btw, KRTH dropped big time, down into the 5's from a 6.5, as of October. Obviously, people are sick and tired of being indoors in a partial lockdown and indoor listenership has dropped.

I was actually in So Cal during the last week of October and venturing out about five different times, just happen to randomly check out 101.1 and during those quick drives to stores and take outs, minutes away from home, I heard the nearly six minute "Tiny Dancer" FOUR times, in a span of about 40 minutes of listening over that week. Great tune, but no wonder, is this the best they can do??

I rest my case.

 

[TheBigA]

It is working. Former KRTH listeners are flocking to 1260 to re-hear their favorites once again on a station that caters to their age group.

Not in sufficient numbers to pay the bills, and those who listen online from Colorado are in fact COSTING the station money rather than helping them stay on the air.

 

[Mediafrog+]

At least Sol decided to try oldies.

Saul is still playing oldies overnight on 1260. They’re just much older oldies.

Classical is ideally on FM but I have seen markets like Kansas City where classical was on AM exclusively and it did okay with audience and revenue, I suppose, because what little Classical audience there is, loves the music so much they will put up with less than ideal fidelity.

You are referring to KXTR, which was on 96.5 FM from 1959 to 2000. It was booted to 1250 AM for a year, and then to 1660 from 2001-12. So the former FM Classical audience, not having any other choice, would have migrated to AM.

Kansas City recently had Classical return on KWJC 91.9, a onetime college station that had more recently been leased to EMF for its K-Love format.

 

[oldies76]

Not in sufficient numbers to pay the bills, and those who listen online from Colorado are in fact COSTING the station money rather than helping them stay on the air.

It's called streaming for a reason, accessible from most places on the planet. If it's costing them too much money, then they should disable it. Same goes for any station.

 

[davideduardo]

It is working. Former KRTH listeners are flocking to 1260 to re-hear their favorites once again on a station that caters to their age group. Sure, not all of them are listening at once, but they are listening in their respective time slots and their consistent .4 rating shows. Not too shabby for an AM with limited signal strength.

It's horrible. Not shabby, horrible. The rating (and agencies buy rating, not share) is 0.0. They won't even be noticed by buyers.

Oh btw, KRTH dropped big time, down into the 5's from a 6.5, as of October. Obviously, people are sick and tired of being indoors in a partial lockdown and indoor listenership has dropped.

KRTH, in 25-54, the only demo that matters in a big transactional market for sales, is a full shre point over January and February, the last non-pandemic months. The AQH persons is only now about 10% below those two months, which is pretty good for virus-era low PUR.

They went 6.5 to 5.8 September to October. That is well inside the margin of error and better than May and equal to June. They had a nice Summer, but they are at the high end of the Spring levels and much better than 2019. I'd say that October (which was really mostly September in real dates) was spectacular; you just don't know how to view and analyze ratings.

I was actually in So Cal during the last week of October and venturing out about five different times, just happen to randomly check out 101.1 and during those quick drives to stores and take outs, minutes away from home, I heard the nearly six minute "Tiny Dancer" FOUR times, in a span of about 40 minutes of listening over that week. Great tune, but no wonder, is this the best they can do??.

The tighter the list, the fewer songs that any one listener dislikes. They are the #1 English language radio station in 25-54 and have been for the last 5 books. You can't be any better than that.

You don't like KRTH. Yet one out of every five 25-54 year old Angelinos listens every week. In total, 2.2 million 12+ persons cume them. Nobody in the market cumes better. In fact, they are consistently in the top 10 cuming stations in the USA. They beat all but 4 of the New York City stations, in fact. Only WCBS-FM in NYC beats them as a classic hits station, and not by much.

Your case is not "resting". It is deceased. Tag it and bag it.

 

[davideduardo]

It's called streaming for a reason, accessible from most places on the planet. If it's costing them too much money, then they should disable it. Same goes for any station.

Yeah, but many smart stations are geofencing to their own sales area only. There is no reason, unless the streaming aggregator produces more revenue than the license fees, to stream outside the market.

And it is called a "stream" because it is a flow of digital data, not an analog modulated RF carrier. A stream can be digital content distributed just in your home, in an ISP's service area or all across the worldwide web. As an example, my own website is zoned to not distribute to about 25 nations on this particular planet. The "worldwide" web can be sliced and diced according to how the content provider finds it convenient.

 

[michael hagerty]

It is working. Former KRTH listeners are flocking to 1260 to re-hear their favorites once again on a station that caters to their age group.

Hey guys! Oldies76 is Kayleigh McEnany! No wonder we've never seen them together.

 

[b-turner]

Going back several posts...yes I was talking KXTR in Kansas City. I knew the station well and visited often at their studio/office in Independence. When I was visiting fairly often in 6th and 7th grade, I think it was Tom Green (that did 6 to noon) that remarked their open spot rate was $20 and the had about 20 spots a day at that time (1969). When KXTR went 24/7, they were Jazz Midnight to 6, Beautiful music 6 to Noon and Classical 12 to Midnight. I was running a part 15 in the basement as of 6th grade.

A post said K-Surf was working. A radio station works when it can at least break even or turn a profit. K-Surf isn't. If people are flocking to the station it would certainly elevate them above 42nd place. What is likely is people you know are loving the station and likely many folks they know, but as for the overall population, K-Surf is an unknown commodity that can wrangle 2,000 listeners per quarter hour compared to KRTH that hits 50,000. In short, among folks about our age, it's a great station but not enough are listening to be attractive to advertisers and our age is beyond what major advertisers buy on radio.

I see a mention of a casino as an advertiser. The same post mentioned 58.5 to 60 minute music hours. At that low of a commercial load you can be sure the station is bleeding dollars every month. With 2,000 listening each quarter hour, if they're lucky, the might get about $20 a spot. Based on the average, they sure are not billing even $10,000 a month. In fact, I doubt it's even $5,000. Likely less. As a former manager of an AM station in Houston, when you add all the expenses you'd likely never think of (mowing the tower site, paying music licensing fees, a contract engineer, payroll to oversee and update the station, the website, Sound Exchange, taxes, utilities, annual FCC spectrum fees, salesperson commission and salary and much, much more) the AM standalone I managed as in the red at $20-$25,000 a month.

To complicate matters further, Covid-19 sure isn't making it easy to find willing advertisers.

K-Surf is like the 24 hour Walmart Superstore size retailer where 2,000 walk through the doors every 15 minutes but only about 1 in 100 make a purchase of $20. After all the expenses $1,600 an hour can't put a dent in the overall operation costs.

K-Surf exists because the owner chooses to offer the format and has made enough money along the way to give him the liberty to do so. I suspect he hopes K-Surf might sustain itself but at some point he has to ask himself why he continues to lose cash. In fact he will, at some point, choose to opt for another format (every station does eventually).

 

[TheBigA]

If it's costing them too much money, then they should disable it. Same goes for any station.

Seems to me that did geofence for a period. They know how many people stream, and they can see (by tracking ISPs) where they are.

Consider that the reason they play classical at night might be to get rid of the freeloaders. It's a form of geofencing.

 

[CTListener]

Seems to me that did geofence for a period. They know how many people stream, and they can see (by tracking ISPs) where they are.

Consider that the reason they play classical at night might be to get rid of the freeloaders. It's a form of geofencing.

Seems to me that geofencing hasn't taken off the way you and David have been predicting for a while that it will. Close to 100 percent of the stations I sample by clicking on the little lightning bolts on radio-locator have their stream free and clear, including every single college and noncommercial station I've tried. Have I just been lucky? Are there really stations everywhere walling themselves off from any listener who can't bring business to a local advertiser?

Of course David says it's only the "smart" broadcasters who are geofencing, and you don't have to be in radio to realize that the world is 95 percent stupid people.

 

[davideduardo]

Seems to me that geofencing hasn't taken off the way you and David have been predicting for a while that it will. Close to 100 percent of the stations I sample by clicking on the little lightning bolts on radio-locator have their stream free and clear, including every single college and noncommercial station I've tried. Have I just been lucky? Are there really stations everywhere walling themselves off from any listener who can't bring business to a local advertiser?

Of course David says it's only the "smart" broadcasters who are geofencing, and you don't have to be in radio to realize that the world is 95 percent stupid people.

The big stations that do not geofence are the ones that are consolidated by sales organizations that bulk sell them. They don't run the local ads from the originating station, and the income from the organizations that do the consolidation exceeds the music licensing.

Smaller and independent stations that are not part of a sales group tend to geofence to save music licensing fees as there is no gain from being heard outside the local area. And, as everyone has noted, stations worldwide are fencing to their own country only more and more as labels and artists try to get more money from radio.

And even the consolidators geofence in a different way: they run different ads for each area or city and don't run the local ads from the originating station.

 

[davideduardo]

K-Surf exists because the owner chooses to offer the format and has made enough money along the way to give him the liberty to do so. I suspect he hopes K-Surf might sustain itself but at some point he has to ask himself why he continues to lose cash. In fact he will, at some point, choose to opt for another format (every station does eventually).

Or, more likely, the land where all the towers are is now worth much more than the station is. Turn it off, sell the land, recover the losses.

 

[TheBigA]

Seems to me that geofencing hasn't taken off the way you and David have been predicting for a while that it will.

It's one of those things where you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Radio stations HAVE to stream in order to be relevant, especially in the Alexa world where only a small percentage of people use traditional radios. But that doesn't mean they HAVE to lose money. So they find ways to make deals to get someone else to pay the costs. That deal you saw between Beasley and Entercom last week was one of those. Beasley gets their stations streamed, but Entercom pays the royalties. Entercom has a mass that's big enough to monetize their streams.

https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/...-com-enters-new-partnership-with-beasley-medi

 

[oldies76]

Hey guys! Oldies76 is Kayleigh McEnany!

Tough as a rock too, especially when she cuts off inquiries by liberal reporters who ask ridiculous questions to undermine the President. She's great!

 

[oldies76]

It's horrible. Not shabby, horrible. The rating (and agencies buy rating, not share) is 0.0. They won't even be noticed by buyers.

I mean, it's an AM. Who listens to AM in 2020? But the ones who do and have discovered 1260 (droves of former K-Earth listeners) are having a blast. For them, it's working. At least give them credit.