KFRC GOING NOWHERE! 1.0 IN THE LATEST BOOK...0.5 IN SAN JOSE!

[airpab]

BossJock1947 says changes are coming! Sure hope so!

Don't see how it can get much worse for the geniuses at CBS/SF? Feel sorry for the sales staff!

 

[davideduardo]

BossJock1947 says changes are coming! Sure hope so!

Don't see how it can get much worse for the geniuses at CBS/SF? Feel sorry for the sales staff!

The usable KFRC-FM signalbarely makes it beyond Mountain View, so getting a 0.5 in San Jose is neasrly miraculous. In any case, San Jose is in the total SF market, so it's not necessary to look at them separately because... they are not separate.

 

[DavidKaye]

BossJock1947 says changes are coming! Sure hope so!
Don't see how it can get much worse for the geniuses at CBS/SF? Feel sorry for the sales staff!

KFRC-FM (the old KMPX, KEAR) at 106.9 is located west of Sausalito. In order to hit San Jose, the signal has to go directly through San Francisco's hills, not an easy task. The fact that it's even heard at all in SJ is a miracle. You don't believe me? Here, have a look:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=37.85111,+-122.49722+(KFRC-FM)&om=1
Now zoom out and see that the signal is directly blocked by SF.

So, it looks to me like KFRC is doing something right, not wrong.

 

[DaveBayArea]

KFRC-FM (the old KMPX, KEAR) at 106.9 is located west of Sausalito. In order to hit San Jose, the signal has to go directly through San Francisco's hills, not an easy task. The fact that it's even heard at all in SJ is a miracle. You don't believe me? Here, have a look:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=37.85111,+-122.49722+(KFRC-FM)&om=1
Now zoom out and see that the signal is directly blocked by SF.

Those Mt. Beacon transmitters (106.9, 97.3, 98.1, and 102.1) actually shoot over San Francisco to the East of Mt. San Bruno to cover most of the Bay Area. There's some really bad shadowing in South San Francisco and in the hills above San Mateo, but the terrain is fairly unobstructed to San Jose. Same with the TV/FM on Sutro. In addition, the signals on Mt. Beacon (I've also heard it called Wolfback Ridge - not sure which is correct) are for the most part grandfathered at some pretty high power levels.

KFRC won't work for joggers or low-quality table radios in San Jose, but it's fine in a car.

Dave B.

 

[davideduardo]

KFRC won't work for joggers or low-quality table radios in San Jose, but it's fine in a car.

Only about 30% of listening is in the car. 70% is at home and at work, and below about a 64 dbu, a signal is not enough to generate any significant listening. With KFRC FM, the 64 ends just a bit below Mountain View, and essentially does not touch any dry part of the San Jose embedded market.

 

[stonesmarconi]

They need to move it back to 99.7 and put the 99.7 format on 106.9

 

[alexh1013]

If KFRC moves back to 99.7 please keep Movin!

 

[Fastphilly]

What is CBS trying to accomplish? The northern peninsula along the El camino corridor is terrible for 106.9 reception with the exception of car stereos....I'm in Daly City living next to Mission St. and it's nearly impossible to get 106.9 on my walkman, and I'm walking distance (20 min.) from the San Francisco city limits...What a Joke.

It seems like CBS put this station on a bunk signal so when KFRC flounders again, they can say we told you so..I don't care what demo a station caters to, if you're getting a 1.0 share in the 12+, your station is in trouble..

 

[LKellerIII]

"It seems like CBS put this station on a bunk signal so when KFRC flounders again, they can say we told you so..I don't care what demo a station caters to, if you're getting a 1.0 share in the 12+, your station is in trouble.."

I doubt CBS would go to the trouble of re-establishing KFRC with the intention of junking it later on. I'm just speculating, but they probably realized the mistake they had made at 99.7 and wanted to bring Classic Hits back. MOViN wasn't exactly setting the world on fire, but Free-FM was doing far worse - so it made sense to kill Free-FM, and bring KFRC back to 106.9.

MOViN appeals to a younger demographic, and they probably hoped it would eventually catch on - so it made sense to keep it on the stronger frequency. Frequency swapping excites radio nerds, but it probably just confuses most listeners, so I suspect they're hesitant to do that.

 

[djmimi]

aack, here's the way I look at radio "properties" - that's all it ever is. The suits all just nurse stations along until they can sell it off for a nice hefty profit after a coupla years. So even if a station is a "loser" - they can essentially 'win' later on...
'course right now, the economy is tanking (literally and figuratively) down the oil barrel. we are definitely in a recession. this, no matter how much the Bush guy tries to cover up or make excuses.

 

[Fastphilly]

We all know that KFRC has been going back and forth between 0.9/1.2 in the last 12 months, but could that be because they are a rimshot signal at best in the South Bay? The SB region of the Bay Area is densley populated and is included in the SF books, so KFRC has to be losing out on listener volume, and Arbitron and the advertisers know this...I'm not a expert on this, but KEZR has dismal numbers in the 12+ (#28 0.9) in the 2008 Winter books and I'm sure thats due to them being a rimshot signal in most of the Bay Area....But they probably do well in their SB region, maybe that is similar to KFRC's situation...I'm no radio expert, just throwing something out, so no flames please...lol

 

[djj]

aack, here's the way I look at radio "properties" - that's all it ever is. The suits all just nurse stations along until they can sell it off for a nice hefty profit after a coupla years. So even if a station is a "loser" - they can essentially 'win' later on...

So has KFRC become the $95,000,000 "white elephant"?
--jay

 

[davideduardo]

We all know that KFRC has been going back and forth between 0.9/1.2 in the last 12 months, but could that be because they are a rimshot signal at best in the South Bay? The SB region of the Bay Area is densley populated and is included in the SF books, so KFRC has to be losing out on listener volume, and Arbitron and the advertisers know this...I'm not a expert on this, but KEZR has dismal numbers in the 12+ (#28 0.9) in the 2008 Winter books and I'm sure thats due to them being a rimshot signal in most of the Bay Area....But they probably do well in their SB region, maybe that is similar to KFRC's situation...I'm no radio expert, just throwing something out, so no flames please...lol

Very few of the San Francisco licences have a good signal over the embedded SJ market. In fact, no Bay Area FM covers even 80% of the 12+ in the market.

 

[airpab]

DE-

I'm in the Bay Area all the time and it sure seems to me that most of the SF signals do just fine down in the South Bay? KFRC is probably the weakest of the lot, but in the car at least, I have no problem getting the SF signals from Morgan Hill, up?

Are you talking about in office/house reception & signal penetration?

 

[DavidKaye]

aack, here's the way I look at radio "properties" - that's all it ever is.

That's all it's ever been, too. Back in the 1930s when KPO (now KNBR) was sold by Hale Brothers department store and the Chronicle to NBC, local programming was eliminated and KPO simply became an outlet for the same kind of programming you could hear in Seattle, LA, or Chicago.

Usually, the only time a radio or TV station owner thinks of their station as a mission and not a property is when they're the original owner or they buy the station out of bankruptcy and try to build something. Pat Henry with KJAZ is a good example. He did jazz when nobody else did, and he did it not for money but because he loved jazz. In fact, at some times he couldn't afford to run KJAZ from midnight to 6am, so he sometimes signed it off.

So, the kinds of people to be support of are those local owners such as Flying Bear Media, who owns Energy 92.7, KNGY (oddly enough, the old KJAZ). Forget the KFRCs of the world. That's not where the action is or where it's going to be.

 

[skyrocker]

Clarity: San Francisco's entire Movin experience is very simply CBS' way of trying to develop a younger demographic.

Other that coveting those younger listeners (solely for the purposes of pacifying stockholders with dazzling figures) they
haven't a clear idea on obtaining them, let alone keeping them. Still, the suits held many meetings, discussed, planned,
studied, researched, analyzed focus group droppings -- and ultimately brought west a new format NAME, "Movin'." The
format's music changes from market to market, so -- just the brand name.

Good name - zero substance. If there was any clue in the collective corporate cabal as to how they might serve their
listening audience, I supposed they could then be "movin" in that direction. For example, if they were lawyers, they
could start movin' after ambulances.

So far - no clue. (hint: entertainment)

 

[davideduardo]

DE-

I'm in the Bay Area all the time and it sure seems to me that most of the SF signals do just fine down in the South Bay? KFRC is probably the weakest of the lot, but in the car at least, I have no problem getting the SF signals from Morgan Hill, up?

Are you talking about in office/house reception & signal penetration?

Yes, it's in-home and at work that account for 70% of listening on average. In those locations, the average non-niche formated station gets about 80% of diary AQH in the 70 dbu and another 15% between the 64 and the 70 dbu, or 95% inside the 64. Since we can not tell what ZIP code a car was in at any time, and the fact that cars can get FM farther "out" in the coverage area, we can pretty much predict where the non car listening is going to be.

Remember, the market goes from north of Santa Rosa to south of Campbell, and no FM covers all that decently... even with boosters and such.

 

[Geek-O-Rama]

For a quasi-ficticious character, David, you sure know a lot of technical jargon.

Yes, it's in-home and at work that account for 70% of listening on average. In those locations, the average non-niche formated station gets about 80% of diary AQH in the 70 dbu and another 15% between the 64 and the 70 dbu, or 95% inside the 64.

Can you explain dbu to a non-tech geek?

 

[djmimi]

LOL "98,000,00 white elephant"
For some of the media traders, 100 million dollars is considered chump change...one time I went to a private equity conference and heard that from a Media Investment company suit, "that one was 100 million dollars, a small investment..." HIS words exactly.
We're just pieces of furniture they like to move around...and buy and sell.

 

[davideduardo]

For a quasi-ficticious character, David, you sure know a lot of technical jargon.

Yes, it's in-home and at work that account for 70% of listening on average. In those locations, the average non-niche formated station gets about 80% of diary AQH in the 70 dbu and another 15% between the 64 and the 70 dbu, or 95% inside the 64.

Can you explain dbu to a non-tech geek?

It is a measure of signal strength (field intensity is the term) but in non-geek-speak, 70 dbu is the level of signal that nearly all the time allows a station to be heard at home, in buildings and workplaces and in the car. 60 dbu is where it's ok in the car, tough at home and at work. For all practical purposes, 64 dbu is the signal intensity needed to get in home and at work ratings.