KLAA - Angels Radio AM 830

[ChannelFlipper]

My LA area family all live in the OC and are vehement Angels fans, attending even the Spring training in AZ when possible. To them, LA is a different city and they don't identify with it in any sense... it's just, unfortunately, next to them. So they support their home team, not a team from a different place than where they live.

They are called the LA Angels. When the Rams played there they were called the LA Rams. Both teams identified with LA more than OC. The very name "Angels" comes from old minor league team, the "LA Angels", (the city of LA being the "City of Angels") which the Angles used themselves for their first few years when they played their games not at "Dodger Stadium" but "Chavez Ravine".

I say this as a lover of the OC myself, but this obsession that the OC is somehow disassociated the the LA metro, that only residents of the OC have, is lunacy. Nobody else cares and snickers at the provincialism.

 

[KeithE4]

The problem with two-team markets is that one is always dominant, with the other only having a following when they're good. That's the case in New York (Yankees over Mets, Giants over Jets, Knicks over Nets), LA (Dodgers over Angels, Lakers over Clippers, Rams over Chargers), Chicago (Cubs over White Sox), and the Bay Area (Giants over A's).

 

[radiojomo]

From what I have heard, KLAA radio commercial ad spots are sometimes bundled with larger corporate sponsorships with the Angels. So I think it serves as a very strategic vehicle to not only broadcast Angels' games but be able to make some ad revenue back on broadcasts without relying on radio partners that overwhelmingly prefer the Dodgers.

Back in the day, KLAA didn't even have sports programming throughout the day, it was a weird mix of political talk programs (think Glenn Beck) and Angels' broadcasts.

I don't think Arte, John Carpino, and Dennis Kuhl care too much about the day-to-day programming on the station because their agenda is advancing the attention of the Angels. The Angels' TV broadcasts on Bally's Sports are very much the same: team propaganda with no objective viewpoint.

Arte despises the Dodgers, so why would there be any mention of a Dodgers game on KLAA?

 

[davideduardo]

They are called the LA Angels. When the Rams played there they were called the LA Rams. Both teams identified with LA more than OC. The very name "Angels" comes from old minor league team, the "LA Angels", (the city of LA being the "City of Angels") which the Angles used themselves for their first few years when they played their games not at "Dodger Stadium" but "Chavez Ravine".

But today their home stadium is in Orange County and it is an OC team before anything else.

The "Dodgers" name comes from Brooklyn. But, today, it plays in a home stadium in LA.

I say this as a lover of the OC myself, but this obsession that the OC is somehow disassociated the the LA metro, that only residents of the OC have, is lunacy. Nobody else cares and snickers at the provincialism.

Not really. The OC in many ways tries to segregate itself from the attitudes, politics and lifestyle of Los Angeles. In fact, when I was there I never said I lived in Los Angles... I said "Glendale" and if anyone was unfamiliar, I said it was "near Hollywood".

The OC is Disneyland; LA is the Rodney King riots.

In fact, when I moved to LA 30 years ago, I spent the first 3 years or so powerfully regretting the move (but liking the income) and totally detesting the location. And as soon as I could, I moved out of the metro even though I continued to work for the same folks. Of the places I've lived, it ranks even below Birmingham, AL, where I lived not-briefly-enough in the early, racist 70's.

I ranked the places I have lived fulltime or part time...

Quito (Mariscal), Ecuador
San Juan, PR (Metro Area)
La Quinta, CA (Palm Springs MSA)
Coral Gables, FL
Traverse City "Metro", MI
Scottsdale, AZ (mid-70's)
Prescott, AZ
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mexico City / Colonia del Valle (early 60's)
Fairfax, VA (early 70's)
Cleveland Heights, OH
Guayaquil (Urdaneta), Ecuador
Los Angeles, CA area (tie with Guayaquil)
Birmingham ("Over the Hill), AL

 

[TheBigA]

From what I have heard, KLAA radio commercial ad spots are sometimes bundled with larger corporate sponsorships with the Angels. So I think it serves as a very strategic vehicle to not only broadcast Angels' games but be able to make some ad revenue back on broadcasts without relying on radio partners that overwhelmingly prefer the Dodgers.

I agree with all that, and that's why I say that this station is an example of what could be the future of AM radio.

The radio station provides an additional platform for team sponsors. The team already has advertising relationships with various businesses through ads in the team program. Those same advertisers can utilize the radio station.

Many other teams could do the same thing. The Oakland A's were looking into it a few years ago. The question is would they rather control the message, or get paid a rights fee. In the Angels case, they want to control the message.

 

[michael hagerty]

They are called the LA Angels. When the Rams played there they were called the LA Rams. Both teams identified with LA more than OC.

When Gene Autry moved the Los Angeles Angels to Anaheim in 1965, he changed the name to the California Angels. That name stuck for 31 years, until 1996, when it became the Anaheim Angels for seven years and the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" for another ten. And, six years ago, it dropped the "of Anaheim".

So the team has only chosen to brand itself as "Los Angeles" in any form for 20 of its 61 years as an MLB team. And only for ten years has the team name simply been the Los Angeles Angels (1961-65 and 2016-today).

As for the OC's provincialism----yeah, maybe. I mean, I think if you asked people who live in Los Angeles proper how much they care about Orange County apart from Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and the beach cities, you'd get about the same level of identification that OC folks have with L.A. And I'd bet you could replicate those numbers with the same experiment involving L.A. and the Inland Empire or L.A. and Ventura County.

Los Angeles, as a metro, is simply too sprawling to engender any sort of civic umbrella. It's the old "70 suburbs in search of a city" line that people used to poke L.A. with back in the 70s.

Back when Gene owned the team and KMPC and the games were carried on what was then a top ten radio station in the market and its number one independent TV station (KTLA, Channel 5, which Autry also owned), it was easier to prop the Angels up as an L.A. team.

You could also drive down to see a game in 45 minutes from most parts of town. Now it's more like 90 minutes to two hours. Anaheim is the same distance from Dodger Stadium as Pomona, Santa Clarita and Calabasas. Not many people would schlep out there to see a ballgame, either.

 

[michael hagerty]

PS: Just ran across a tidbit I had forgotten (I was an Angels fan because my parents listened to KMPC and my little league team was the Angels):

Gene originally wanted to move the team to Long Beach, but the city insisted that the team would have to be named the Long Beach Angels. Gene chose Anaheim, where he and the city compromised on the California Angels name.

Apparently (I missed this while out of the country on vacation last month) Long Beach is now trying to get the Angels to move with the lure of a new waterfront stadium. The team is committed to Anaheim until 2029 and could stay until 2038 if it chose to---but there's a big problem with what had appeared to be a done deal for the team to buy the stadium in Anaheim:

Q&A: With the Angel Stadium sale axed, what are the Angels' long-term plans in Anaheim?

The Anaheim City Council voted to halt the sale of Angel Stadium. Here are questions and answers that could affect the Angels' long-term plans.

www.latimes.com

 

[radiojomo]

They are called the LA Angels. When the Rams played there they were called the LA Rams. Both teams identified with LA more than OC. The very name "Angels" comes from old minor league team, the "LA Angels", (the city of LA being the "City of Angels") which the Angles used themselves for their first few years when they played their games not at "Dodger Stadium" but "Chavez Ravine".

I say this as a lover of the OC myself, but this obsession that the OC is somehow disassociated the the LA metro, that only residents of the OC have, is lunacy. Nobody else cares and snickers at the provincialism.

I grew up and still live in Orange County. Whenever I'm on an international trip, I always tell people I'm from Los Angeles, because it's a frame of reference that makes sense for everyone.

Yet I have a ton of friends in LA who are bothered when I do this. They are also obsessed with the idea that the Los Angeles Angels aren't actually in LA.

With the internet, baseball has a larger, wider global reach. It doesn't make a lot of sense to call the team the Anaheim Angels anymore, especially when you consider there is a Japanese phenom on the team. Los Angeles is just a better frame of reference and acknowledges the team's media market.

Today, a baseball team makes more in broadcast rights than ticket sales. From a branding and marketing perspective, It makes more sense to mention the entire DMA reach area than a specific city in the larger area.

 

[davideduardo]

Apparently (I missed this while out of the country on vacation last month) Long Beach is now trying to get the Angels to move with the lure of a new waterfront stadium. The team is committed to Anaheim until 2029 and could stay until 2038 if it chose to---but there's a big problem with what had appeared to be a done deal for the team to buy the stadium in Anaheim:

Long Beach likes and tries to keep a separate identity from Los Angeles, too.

And Long Beach needs a new attraction as the Queen Mary has lost its popularity and is slowly rusting away. The Aquarium is fantastic, though!

 

[davideduardo]

Today, a baseball team makes more in broadcast rights than ticket sales. From a branding and marketing perspective, It makes more sense to mention the entire DMA reach area than a specific city in the larger area.

And the growing trend is to find the team buying time on stations and integrating radio with its 360° sponsorship package. Or, an alternative is to do a joint deal with a station where the team sells the full spectrum sponsors and the radio station can sell non-competing local clients.

 

[radiojomo]

Long Beach likes and tries to keep a separate identity from Los Angeles, too.

And Long Beach needs a new attraction as the Queen Mary has lost its popularity and is slowly rusting away. The Aquarium is fantastic, though!

Not going to lie, I would love to see the Angels move to Long Beach. Baseball is now competing with other forms of entertainment for the attention of young fans and a brand-new waterfront ballpark could be a huge positive for the region.

But to be honest, the ownership is more interested in free or cheap land around the existing ballpark so they can maximize the amount of non-baseball revenue they are making.

Any baseball-related revenue goes through revenue sharing with smaller market teams, but if a city gives you a giant plot of land, you can build a hotel, retail and other experiences around your ballpark and you don't have to share any of that money. That's why they wanted the Anaheim deal to go through. The Long Beach deal doesn't have the acres of land the team was looking for.

 

[michael hagerty]

They are called the LA Angels. When the Rams played there they were called the LA Rams. Both teams identified with LA more than OC.

A PS on the Rams. A major factor in the Rams decision to move to Anaheim was that they wanted a stadium with fewer seats. It was hard to sell out the Coliseum, and the NFL would block TV carriage in home cities when there wasn't a sellout.

Moving to Anaheim removed 23,500 seats from every game day and allowed for easier sell-outs and thus, live TV carriage in L.A.

But the Rams didn't see the Raiders moving into the Coliseum and diluting their L.A. fan base. Ultimately, the Rams bailed for St. Louis before the Raiders called it a day and went home to Oakland.

 

[michael hagerty]

Long Beach likes and tries to keep a separate identity from Los Angeles, too.

And Long Beach needs a new attraction as the Queen Mary has lost its popularity and is slowly rusting away. The Aquarium is fantastic, though!

I still think selling the Spruce Goose (and turning its hangar into a cruise ship lobby) was a mistake.

 

[michael hagerty]

Not going to lie, I would love to see the Angels move to Long Beach. Baseball is now competing with other forms of entertainment for the attention of young fans and a brand-new waterfront ballpark could be a huge positive for the region.

But to be honest, the ownership is more interested in free or cheap land around the existing ballpark so they can maximize the amount of non-baseball revenue they are making.

Any baseball-related revenue goes through revenue sharing with smaller market teams, but if a city gives you a giant plot of land, you can build a hotel, retail and other experiences around your ballpark and you don't have to share any of that money. That's why they wanted the Anaheim deal to go through. The Long Beach deal doesn't have the acres of land the team was looking for.

True, but they're up against fan expectations with waterfront ballparks that simply adjoin existing city-owned districts (San Francisco, San Diego). I think Arte has too much of a retail developer mentality for it, but a waterfront stadium in Long Beach could be a big win for him. Dodger Stadium is 60 years old and only gonna get older. Giving L.A. MLB fans a new waterfront experience as close as Long Beach is pretty attractive.

 

[davideduardo]

Any baseball-related revenue goes through revenue sharing with smaller market teams, but if a city gives you a giant plot of land, you can build a hotel, retail and other experiences around your ballpark and you don't have to share any of that money. That's why they wanted the Anaheim deal to go through. The Long Beach deal doesn't have the acres of land the team was looking for.

That is a very good point. And an entertainment and shopping destination makes a game part of a bigger experience, such as dining and visiting stores.

 

[TheBigA]

That is a very good point. And an entertainment and shopping destination makes a game part of a bigger experience, such as dining and visiting stores.

Which is what you have in several cities, including Arlington TX, Washington DC, and Toronto, where the baseball stadium is surrounded by stores.

 

[michael hagerty]

Which is what you have in several cities, including Arlington TX, Washington DC, and Toronto, where the baseball stadium is surrounded by stores.

Same with San Francisco and San Diego.

In the 1980s, China Basin (SF) and the Gaslamp (SD) would have been horrible places to put a stadium.

But those areas are now hotspots, and while the ballparks absolutely drive business for them, it works in reverse, too. A lot of people are more likely to go to a game if they know there's good food, shopping and nightlife nearby.

Yeah, you can do that in a landlocked location with a mall-type approach (Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, the ballparks in Phoenix), but pair that with a waterfront location the way San Francisco and San Diego do, and you've got something special.

 

[michael hagerty]

I grew up and still live in Orange County. Whenever I'm on an international trip, I always tell people I'm from Los Angeles, because it's a frame of reference that makes sense for everyone.

Same here. I live in a Sacramento suburb 25 miles from the State Capitol. It's easier just to say "Sacramento". If the conversation goes deeper, fine, but most people wouldn't recognize the suburb name.

I did a variation of that last month when my wife and I were in France. Instead of answering "where are you from?" with "America" or "USA", I answered "California". Some people asked "near what city?" or "northern or southern?", but not all. However, it got unanimous warm smiles and stories of trips they'd either taken here or are planning to take.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

When Gene Autry moved the Los Angeles Angels to Anaheim in 1965, he changed the name to the California Angels. That name stuck for 31 years, until 1996, when it became the Anaheim Angels for seven years and the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" for another ten. And, six years ago, it dropped the "of Anaheim".

So the team has only chosen to brand itself as "Los Angeles" in any form for 20 of its 61 years as an MLB team. And only for ten years has the team name simply been the Los Angeles Angels (1961-65 and 2016-today).

As for the OC's provincialism----yeah, maybe. I mean, I think if you asked people who live in Los Angeles proper how much they care about Orange County apart from Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and the beach cities, you'd get about the same level of identification that OC folks have with L.A. And I'd bet you could replicate those numbers with the same experiment involving L.A. and the Inland Empire or L.A. and Ventura County.

Los Angeles, as a metro, is simply too sprawling to engender any sort of civic umbrella. It's the old "70 suburbs in search of a city" line that people used to poke L.A. with back in the 70s.

Back when Gene owned the team and KMPC and the games were carried on what was then a top ten radio station in the market and its number one independent TV station (KTLA, Channel 5, which Autry also owned), it was easier to prop the Angels up as an L.A. team.

You could also drive down to see a game in 45 minutes from most parts of town. Now it's more like 90 minutes to two hours. Anaheim is the same distance from Dodger Stadium as Pomona, Santa Clarita and Calabasas. Not many people would schlep out there to see a ballgame, either.

The Angels only put "Anaheim" in their name when they were forced to by the City as a condition for stadium refurbishment funds. One of the first things Moreno did was change the name to the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim". Arte knows what market he is really serving and what will drive his revenue.

The city sued saying the new name violated the spirit of the agreement, but the court found that the name did indeed include the word "Anaheim" and thus did not violate the terms of the contract. Arte then got rid of Anaheim name all together once the contract expired.

Anaheim is a suburb of LA. Just as Pomona, Santa Clarita, and Thousand Oaks are. People have a hard time accepting this fact for some reason.

 

[davideduardo]

Same here. I live in a Sacramento suburb 25 miles from the State Capitol. It's easier just to say "Sacramento". If the conversation goes deeper, fine, but most people wouldn't recognize the suburb name.

I did a variation of that last month when my wife and I were in France. Instead of answering "where are you from?" with "America" or "USA", I answered "California". Some people asked "near what city?" or "northern or southern?", but not all. However, it got unanimous warm smiles and stories of trips they'd either taken here or are planning to take.

Instead of using the generic "Los Angeles" outside the US I would say "Hollywood" or "near Hollywood" and that always got smiles and comments.