• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

KLIS surrenders license

We posted at the same time!

The station had been KFNS (sports) for decades, KEZK-AM (easy listening), WCEO (business news), WKLL (pre-1964 Oldies), WRTH (standards and easy listening), and originated as WBBY.

My parents had 'Worth 59' as a preset in their car in the late 1960s and 1970s as an easy listening station. They also had KXOK and WLS on their presets too.

This is on the heels of the former WOW Omaha (also on 590) going dark.
 
In the 1970s WRTH was standards and easy listening, owned by Avco and then by King Broadcasting (the Seattle company). I remember it best because it was the radio station that was always on in my high school's driver's education car. The instructor insisted on it. If he caught you changing the station, there would be hell to pay. In the category of "useless information that sticks in your mind forever" I can still remember the numerous commercials on WRTH for a St. Louis lumber chain called "The Panel Center".

WRTH was more broadly notable for having higher power at night than during the daytime.

Between the departures of KLIS/WRTH and KXSP/WOW, 590 must be getting a lot quieter in Missouri.
 
The acceleration of both AM and FM licenses being cancelled (while long overdue with the depreciation of ad revenue), is still surprising in some cases. Then of course there are hundreds of stations currently with silent authority or operating under some other kind of STA.
 
spiritof67 said:
We posted at the same time!

The station had been KFNS (sports) for decades, KEZK-AM (easy listening), WCEO (business news), WKLL (pre-1964 Oldies), WRTH (standards and easy listening), and originated as WBBY.

My parents had 'Worth 59' as a preset in their car in the late 1960s and 1970s as an easy listening station. They also had KXOK and WLS on their presets too.

This is on the heels of the former WOW Omaha (also on 590) going dark.
Click to expand...
Ha! I noticed that too I sent a report to the mods to delete mine, but looks like yours got removed.

Well, the Lou experiment that went down in flames can be added to the list of ' Short-lived formats'. They don't even want to try selling KLIS. Sounds like a case of "Let's cut our losses right now, and just get rid of the thing". It seems like the pending end of AM is starting to accelerate.
 
KilowattKat said:
It seems like the pending end of AM is starting to accelerate.
Click to expand...
I think economic pressures are forcing it. And that was even before the country got into a war. I've noticed quite a few closures lately of businesses that seemed to be thriving, both in Colorado and in Iowa. It's a sign that the economy is not doing as well as the current administration wants us to believe.

Owners of marginal broadcasting properties must be taking stock; what they're projecting is leading them to get out.

There was little margin for error before; now there's even less.
 
I chose to delete my duplicate post/comment.

It was someone in my amateur radio net that alerted me to KLIS/KFNS closure last night. Some of the members of my club work as broadcast engineers. A few years ago I heard the acceleration of AM's going dark will coincide with the retirement of engineers with the knowledge base of operating and maintaining old AM stations.

One of the next stations I would expect to see going dark in St. Louis is WEW. The only programming that exists on it is 'Brother Stair' during it's daytime hours. That engineer told me it paid the bills better than the brokered-ethnic programming it had been running (Bosnian/Spanish). With Brother Stair's brokered shows (allegedly) going away, and the death of WEW's owner, Sima Birach, its days are numbered too.

I'm wondering when one of the 50 kW Class 1-A's will be the first to go off the air for the last time. Will it go with a bang, or a whimper?
 
spiritof67 said:
I'm wondering when one of the 50 kW Class 1-A's will be the first to go off the air for the last time. Will it go with a bang, or a whimper?
Click to expand...
Won't surprise me if it's WLS. They've been on borrowed time for decades. Even before they abandoned music for talk in 1989 (and even before then, they aired a lot of talk), there were problems there. But once Don Wade retired in 2012 and died a year later, they were toast.
 
In Chicago Cumulus needs WLS to clear their network programming. And 890 still has it's own tower, unlike Audacy who has FM simulcasts for both WSCR and WBBM, and is moving those stations to diplex at the WYLL 1160 site.
 
JJSPC said:
In Chicago Cumulus needs WLS to clear their network programming. And 890 still has it's own tower, unlike Audacy who has FM simulcasts for both WSCR and WBBM, and is moving those stations to diplex at the WYLL 1160 site.
Click to expand...
WLS has used 94.7 as a simulcast on-and-off for decades. It's been the red headed stepchild of Chicago radio going back to when it was WENR-FM in the 1950s (the last surviving Chicago station using those call letters). Are they doing well enough now where they wouldn't be better off as an 890 simulcast?

And let's not go there as far as their signal from the south side is concerned. That site started deteriorating back in the '80s, to the point where I could easily receive WCBS from my home in Wauconda in the mid '80s.
 
WLS-FM was considerably higher than the AM rating with a 4.5 in the December book, but now with the dispute between Nielsen and Cumulus we don't know how 94.7 did in January.
 
JJSPC said:
WLS-FM was considerably higher than the AM rating with a 4.5 in the December book, but now with the dispute between Nielsen and Cumulus we don't know how 94.7 did in January.
Click to expand...

But what we didn't even know before the dueling lawsuits was what demographics the AM and FM were doing best in. If what's left of 890's audience is 55+ then -- as you said -- literally the only thing it's good for is clearing WWOne programs no one else in the market wants.

We also do not know how KNX's numbers break, since they have Nielsen single-line report their simulcast. It wouldn't surprise me if the older demos are still tuning in to 1070 and not 97.1 ... and it won't be time to shut off the 50kW blowtorch until a lot of that audience literally dies off.

And then on the other side of the ledger is KKOB/770 in Albuquerque. They have been operating under a STA ever since an errant balloon from the annual festival took their tower down ... and even though Cumulus has a full-power FM simulcast on 96.3, they're spending the money for a new AM tower.
 
K.M. Richards said:
We also do not know how KNX's numbers break, since they have Nielsen single-line report their simulcast. It wouldn't surprise me if the older demos are still tuning in to 1070 and not 97.1 ... and it won't be time to shut off the 50kW blowtorch until a lot of that audience literally dies off.
Click to expand...
We don't, and KNX might not be one of the first blowtorches to go away. One will though, and people will have fond memories of that station. And it will still leave the AM band.
 
spiritof67 said:
A few years ago I heard the acceleration of AM's going dark will coincide with the retirement of engineers with the knowledge base of operating and maintaining old AM stations.
Click to expand...
There are lots of problems with Ancient Modulation. Knowledgeable broadcast engineers are on the list, but probably outside the top 5.

Fundamentally, the end of AM broadcasting in St.Louis is about like the end of shoe manufacturing in St. Louis. Something better and cheaper came along (in the shoe analogy, Nike), and there was nothing the Brown Shoe Company could have done to compete with it.
 
spiritof67 said:
We don't, and KNX might not be one of the first blowtorches to go away. One will though, and people will have fond memories of that station. And it will still leave the AM band.
Click to expand...

Another clear channel AM I could see going off he air in the near future would be Atlanta's WSB. Unlike KNX, it's had an FM simulcaster (WSBB at 95.5 mHz) arount now for what? five, maybe six years? No, I would not be surprised if that one bit the dust sooner than later.

And, of course, there's that 50kW directional station in Charlotte that has been running a continuous loop for almost two months now (and an almost never-ending thread on this site). I certainly wouldn't be surprised, despite station management's denials otherwise, if that one collapsed very soon as well.
 
590 is sure getting quiet in the Midwest. WVLK Lexington will own this region at night, I'm sure. As well as Cuba's classical music.
Seems as though the AM band is on its last legs. Could the FCC pull a June 12th, 2009, and eventually shut off the American AM band as we know it? Perhaps sometime in 203x? (Except for some 50KW blasters, and 'local voices' like KRVN and WNAX, for emergency purposes).

Doubtful, but you never know with the current administration (and the next to come).
 
ted chittenden said:
Another clear channel AM I could see going off he air in the near future would be Atlanta's WSB.
Click to expand...
Back in 1992, I had the "opportunity" to drive through the Atlanta metro. I couldn't believe how bad WSB's coverage was (they were a regular in Chicago with a good signal). I listened to it because it was the only Atlanta station I was familiar with. I had no idea which FM was which, I had never set foot in the metro, and I had no time or patience to do a search, so I left the car radio on AM.
 
crainbebo said:
590 is sure getting quiet in the Midwest. WVLK Lexington will own this region at night, I'm sure. As well as Cuba's classical music.
Click to expand...
KLBJ in Austin is probably starting to wonder why it’s still pulling back its night signal to the north. KCSJ in Pueblo, Colorado is wondering if it could loosen up its big null to the northeast.
 


Back
Top Bottom