KFRC FLIP!

[OldGringo]

!!! KFOG is lost in the FOG they probably have 104.5 listeners

How you pimp XM is interesting. And, in my opinion, I think that there will always be at least one satellite service around from now on.

But, to suggest that KFOG is a station that might flip is insane. Love them or hate them, it is a money printing machine. And, looking at the latest trends, they have a decent chance to be the #1 station 25-54 in the next book. They and KOIT are the most secure stations on the FM dial in this market.

KFOG is the #5 biller in the market, and is hardly going to be flipped. In fact, out of the 11 thousand or so US commercial stations, it is among the top 60 in billing in the whole country.

 

[XM RADIO]

Nice info DougR , I find it hard to believe KFOG is still around the only thing they have is 10 @10 that I used to listen to! As far as pimping XM , my goal was to let people know just how good XM is! So many people are un aware of anything but terrestrial radio!! When XM came out, I wondered what fool would pay for radio ? My friend got a new Tahoe and had XM I heard it for 30 mins and gave up on radio as it is !!The Bay Area is famous for alot of things, including lousy radio stations!! Face it, Satelite will be here for years to come ,I seriously doubt GM and Delphi wouldnt put all the effort into XM if they werent sure about its sucess, and by golly its going to the top! I could never listen to 95.7 The Max its the worst excuse for programming i have ever heard!! CBS and 106.9 is the next Looser , They CBS/Infinity are surely going to sell off some of there stations ,as time goes on maybe I PODS will hurt them but I do remember calling KFRC ,last year and Paula Kelley ,the dj on the air said ,satelite is hard to compete with and they hire 6 dj s and cover the entire US on the 60 s channel. Real Smart = Large Profits!! With this diverse , face it MORE stations will be Spanish, which is fine, Im paying for a service which has got my support ,and at 12.95 a month its 44 cents a day ; 44 cents wont buy a donut, wont buy a cup of coffee, or a pack of gum, or a phone call , or a newspaper, wow what can I say Its a bargain!! Went to Los Angeles last Sat.,it was nice going down Int 5 and never having to fiddle around looking for music ! Its got its advantages!!

 

[atwater kent]

I find it hard to believe KFOG is still around the only thing they have is 10 @10 that I used to listen to!

I think this says it all. Your rants are all based on you and your narrow (mis)perception of the radio business. And even your perceptions about satellite broadcasting are just personal squeals. KFOG is a market leading, nationally recognized - Marconi Award, etc., format dominant powerhouse. DougR has it right. But, my guess is you won't let a few facts get in the way of another saliva spewing pitch for pay radio.

 

[XM RADIO]

AtwaterKent Enjoy KFOG The Channel is Clear XM, Is for me!! XM will be around long after KFOG is gone!! KFOG will be like Tower Records ,Out of Business !!! Tower made it 38 years and its over!! Do I Care? No .XM is my choice today, tommorow and the next day!! In fact Imm enjoying it now!! Phlash Phelps on the 60 s channel and CQ USA @ 6am !!This proves how many people like XM They have alot of Loyal Listeners after the death of 100 "s of terrestrial radio !! Dont get lost inn the FOG !!!KFOG 104.5 I"ll pass thank you!!!

 

[wangchung]

XM will be around long after KFOG is gone!!

Reality check XM:

satellite radio=12 million listeners
terrestrial radio=230 million listeners

It's just another method of delivery, and sadly a weaker level of content. That's why over 30% of current subscribers say they WON'T renew.

 

[XM RADIO]

Wangchung, good point, However you look at it Satelite radio will survive this market!! 12 million people have to listen to something with variety and as more and more stations "FLIP" people will pay for Satelite!! Your numbers could be accurate but are all those people aware of XM or the Doggy station? Time will tell! Im sure there will be more stations like KYA popping up, and I see alot of change out there!! For me The Channel is Clear XM ! Tune in and check out the 60s channel its great !!! Kenny in Concord

 

[HenryOchs]

Wangchung, good point, However you look at it Satelite radio will survive this market!! 12 million people have to listen to something with variety and as more and more stations "FLIP" people will pay for Satelite!! Your numbers could be accurate but are all those people aware of XM or the Doggy station? Time will tell! Im sure there will be more stations like KYA popping up, and I see alot of change out there!! For me The Channel is Clear XM ! Tune in and check out the 60s channel its great !!! Kenny in Concord

You have a very good point there Kenny!!!! I think satellite radio WILL do very well in this market. My father
gave me an XM subscription last Christmas and we're very likely to renew our subscription this Holiday season!
I like the variety XM offers, and I might abandon THAT conventional radio I relied on for years!!!!! I would the recommend the Nashville and WSIX channels for the Country Music you've been wanting to hear for the past 18 months since 95-7 The Bear abandoned that format!!!!!!

 

[XM RADIO]

WangChung , your reseach for the #s is very accurate, Im sure, But what the Future in Bay Area Radio is Bleak At Best!! Im totally into 60 s and 70 s music and in this area its Gonna be next to impossible to have music W/O Satelite in the future!! In all my e -mails I try to get the point across that as stations go by the (WAYSIDE) its gonna be i pods or Satelite!! People who pay for radio are serious about music or news, Like myself ,I was shocked to hear "Saturday Night" by the Bay city Rollers on XM! I was sold after about 15 mins of it!! The 12.95 a month is nothing if you like it!! Radio has been free so long , some people will never pay !! in 5 years Im anxious to see whats left here on the dial ? Don Bleu will be retired, Im sure Mike Savage will be gone too! Dave Morrey on KFOG possibly too! Change is coming and something will be needed to fill in the blanks The Doggy Satelite or XM !!! Kenny in Concord

 

[zumahans]

Reality check XM:

satellite radio=12 million listeners
terrestrial radio=230 million listeners


Reality check NAB:

Satellite radio customer growth is faster, much faster, than cable TV was.

Remember back when the industry said "no one would pay for CATV?" I do, it was 1980.

I also remember five years ago, when the corporate radio shills said the same thing about sat radio. XM and Sirius won't be as big as cable TV, as there are other delivery options, but as "mainstream" formats become "niche" formats due to demographic changes, sat radio is there.

 

[RadioStarOne]

I can remember reading about how no one would pay for "payTV" in TV Guide back in the early 1960's. There was quite a debate over the issue too. I can remember thinking to myself then that I would never pay for television. Now I pay over a hundred dollars a month for cable TV and Broadband Internet service. I wonder what most people would have said back then about Cellular phone service? When Broadband over powerlines and Wi-Max is perfected at least in the urban areas things will really get interesting for the Mega-Radio Broadcasters. KFRC's recent flip will not be a blip on anyones radar as there will be so many choices for how we spend our intertainment dollars it won't matter what any station is playing anymore because any music we want to hear will be at our fingertips on our cellphones too instantly! Case closed!

 

[LKellerIII]

Now I pay over a hundred dollars a month for cable TV and Broadband Internet service

You must have Comcast! I agree with most of what you've said, RS One - but I have to say the only thing keeping me with Comcast is the On Demand feature - absolutely indespensible! Otherwise, the fees are too high - we definitely need more competition in Cable TV.

There is one difference, I think, between Cable TV and Satellite Radio. Cable started as a way for people in fringe reception areas to get any TV signals at all. Where I grew up in the suburbs of LA in the early 60s, the best we could get from our huge roof-top antenna was a grainy ghost-filled picture on 3 channels, the other 4 LA stations wouldn't come in at all. On clear nights, we could get a couple additional channels from San Diego. Our lives were transformed when cable TV came in about 1963. So I think the original growth in cable TV (and financial stability for cable companies) came from people who NEEDED it. It wasn't until at least a decade later that Cable started offering the separate tuner boxes so customers could get more than the basic 12 channels. But nobody needs Satellite radio to get reception, so I think the next few years will be really tough for XM and Sirius to survive.

 

[OldGringo]

Reality check XM:

satellite radio=12 million listeners
terrestrial radio=230 million listeners


Reality check NAB:

Satellite radio customer growth is faster, much faster, than cable TV was.

Remember back when the industry said "no one would pay for CATV?" I do, it was 1980.

I also remember five years ago, when the corporate radio shills said the same thing about sat radio. XM and Sirius won't be as big as cable TV, as there are other delivery options, but as "mainstream" formats become "niche" formats due to demographic changes, sat radio is there.

Satellite has hit a wall as it has run out of early adopters. The next stage of marketing is value seekers, and they are not buying. Car installations are churning at 48% to 52% after 12 months. XM has revised downwards its projections. Studies have shown that having satellite reduces terrestrial usage by only 25%....

So 14 million subscribers listen to radio the equivalent of 3.5 million terrestrial users.

 

[TheLaffer]

Reality check XM:

satellite radio=12 million listeners
terrestrial radio=230 million listeners


Reality check NAB:

Satellite radio customer growth is faster, much faster, than cable TV was.

Remember back when the industry said "no one would pay for CATV?" I do, it was 1980.

I also remember five years ago, when the corporate radio shills said the same thing about sat radio. XM and Sirius won't be as big as cable TV, as there are other delivery options, but as "mainstream" formats become "niche" formats due to demographic changes, sat radio is there.

Satellite has hit a wall as it has run out of early adopters. The next stage of marketing is value seekers, and they are not buying. Car installations are churning at 48% to 52% after 12 months. XM has revised downwards its projections. Studies have shown that having satellite reduces terrestrial usage by only 25%....

So 14 million subscribers listen to radio the equivalent of 3.5 million terrestrial users.

Were growing tired of your contant negativity on XM/Sirrius dude! Wassa matter they turn you down Old Man?

 

[OldGringo]

Satellite has hit a wall as it has run out of early adopters. The next stage of marketing is value seekers, and they are not buying. Car installations are churning at 48% to 52% after 12 months. XM has revised downwards its projections. Studies have shown that having satellite reduces terrestrial usage by only 25%....

So 14 million subscribers listen to radio the equivalent of 3.5 million terrestrial users.

Were growing tired of your contant negativity on XM/Sirrius dude! Wassa matter they turn you down Old Man?

Actually, for the first 3 years of XM, I programmed 5 different channels under our subcontract. When XM decided to take all music channels non-commercial, we dropped it as there was no payback.

Sirius this year will spend $2.25 for every $1 that comes in. And the entire universe of XM and Sirius listeners represents something around a 0.6 share naitonally split between 300 channels.

"Reality" is not "negativity." Satellite may be profitable in a year or so for XM, and a couple of years for Sirius, but the churn rates are high and the listening is not something that concerns terrestrial radio. WiMax and gaming are the main future and present threats to terrestrial radio.

 

[zumahans]

But not 14 million pay radio accounts, and not 40 million iPods.

Interesting gambit.

 

[OldGringo]

But not 14 million pay radio accounts, and not 40 million iPods.

Interesting gambit.

As I said, satellite is used by satellite subscribers only about 24% of their radio listening time... the rest is to terrestrial radio.

And iPods are today's cassette or CD portables. It is an advance in technology, not a change in the fact that having apersonal music collection is nothing new.

 

[zumahans]

And who supplied those statistics?

And how was that data gathered?

And who financed the survey?

Sorry, Old Gabacho. We're not as stupid as that.

 

[OldGringo]

And who supplied those statistics?

The data on churn was from Bridge Ratings, and I think it is on their website. There has also been some investor advisory data from XM, but they are typically vague (as they are in counting unsold cars as subscribers.

And how was that data gathered?

Ask them.

And who financed the survey?

Bridge does frequent "industry studies" to raise thier image as a data provider.

Sorry, Old Gabacho. We're not as stupid as that.

The data on listening pretty much coincides with Arbitron data that says 30% of listenining is in the car... and most XM and Sirius installs are in the car. In any case, satellite is not a worry. The challenges are from totally different areas than the ones you mention.

 

[jefflaurence]

Consider this. While driving from Las Vegas to Georgia last month I was able to plug the output of my EVDO equipped (Verizon Wireless PC card) laptop into an FM modulator and listen to radio stations from all over the world! I was able to hear my clients in Salt Lake City, and Jacksonville, and Denver and even Monte Carlo, Monaco, Aruba and England..also I tuned into a young man just "running a station" out of his bedroom in Texas! The quality was good..but with new technology willl get better very soon.

It is conceiveable that Internet delivered audio services (Sirius and XM included) will level the playing field so that the teenager with innovative programing and an intrest in radio COULD have THE most listened to station on the web! No longer will the operating expense on owning acres of real estate to erect multiple tower arrays just to garner a few hundred listeners (at best) be nessicery. No longer will full studios with all order of production juice be required to produce compelling promos and sweepers..

My company has already developed and has appplied to license a marketing plan that will allow major advertisers to buy spots on many of these newborn internet streams. The operators (usually hobbyists) LOVE the national spots, and the few dollars a month they get to offset thier modest expenses..and the clients LOVE the scope and reach (however minimal it may be at this point in time) they are able to get for a mere fraction of their annual costs. Watch out for Web Delivered Radio..IT will be the one that truly changes the way we get our audio entertinment.

Sure the high grade AM's and a few terra FMs will survive, but even they will duplicate their programming on the web. Sirius and XM can continue to charge a monthly fee, but the costs of maintaining those expensive satellites will dry up any projected short-term profits..when, and if they ever come. The satellite providers might do well to charge less, for a Web Delivered Stream only...and make a few bucks that way.

 

[zumahans]

And who supplied those statistics?

The data on churn was from Bridge Ratings, and I think it is on their website. There has also been some investor advisory data from XM, but they are typically vague (as they are in counting unsold cars as subscribers.

And how was that data gathered?

Ask them.

And who financed the survey?

Bridge does frequent "industry studies" to raise thier image as a data provider.

Sorry, Old Gabacho. We're not as stupid as that.

The data on listening pretty much coincides with Arbitron data that says 30% of listenining is in the car... and most XM and Sirius installs are in the car. In any case, satellite is not a worry. The challenges are from totally different areas than the ones you mention.

Such blind devotion to statics "provided" by an industry suck-up company?

You may swallow this, I don't.