Montana KMSO and KHDV will return to the air in western MT

[crainbebo]

Mountain FM returns December 8th, KHDV will sign back on with a new format. Sticks Media is the new owners of 102.5 and 107.9.
Will Sticks also resume simulcasting KHDV onto 103.7 in Missoula? Since the Big 100 (KIBG) is on there now?

Sticks Media To Acquire And Relaunch KMSO & KHDV

Todd Nixon's Sticks Media has announced the acquisition and upcoming relaunch of 102.5 KMSO Missoula and 107.9 KHDV Darby/Hamilton MT

radioinsight.com

 

[michaeljwyo1]

Nice! Looking forward to this!

 

[TheRob]

Stunting is in progress: Gregorian chants for one, Christmas music for the other.

 

[crainbebo]

KMSO has completed its flip back to MTN FM. Same format as before, just different owners.

 

[michaeljwyo1]

Still monitoring 107.9. Nothing there yet. Several days now with the transmitter being on sometimes but nothing else as of yet. Translators are still as they were. 106.3 - which used to be MTN's translator in Hamilton, and 103.7, which used to be 107.9's translator in Missoula...still doing what they were doing. Boomer 104 on 106.3, and the Big 100 on 103.7. Me thinks that was some sort of purchase or lease so I don't know if Sticks gets those back but I'm thinking not. Which would mean they'd have to do something targeted at the Bitterroot Valley on 107.9 because that signal doesn't get into Missoula very well.

New format is good. Like it was, although a little hotter. My wife and I both had the same reaction....good but heavier on "rap" than the old Mountain was. I think on the old format, they actually made an effort to limit songs with a rap in them on not play them...just to be more pleasing and not chase people off. I know I've heard several songs that have a rap part in them....and I know (because I have them on my station) there are versions of those songs without the rap. Anyways...big city sound...jingles...hard processing....cool! Soon I'm sure they'll have (voice-tracked) DJ's and news updates and ads. They do weather updates already.

 

[crainbebo]

We have lift off in Hamilton...Could this be a targeted FM for the Bitterroot valley? Or will they eventually try and buy back the 103.7?

Rocket 108 Takes Off In The Bitterroot

After stunting as "Ho Ho 108" for the past few weeks, Sticks Media has flipped 107.9 KHDV Darby/Hamilton MT to

radioinsight.com

 

[michaeljwyo1]

Not sure yet. I am thinking probably not. It looks like they are targeting the Bitterroot Valley. Like I said earlier, I think the translators probably were sold or leased. Should be sellable considering most of the ads on "Boomer 104" are from Hamilton businesses. They have their 106.3 translator there and have for a while. Clearest signal in Hamilton, although now that 107.9 is back on, THAT is once again the clearest signal in the valley. When "107.9 the Drive" was on, a lot of the ads were for Hamilton businesses. Love the format. Only one comment at this point...I notice the weather forecast and a few sweepers and not as audible as they could be as the "music" they are playing over the top of is too loud....whether that be the background weather music or the intro of a song. Other than that, it's pretty cool.

 

[crainbebo]

Spent some time looking at the Rocket 108 playlist. Nothing too special. It's the hits, carefully tested by focus groups in some major cities.
I'll take The Big 100 any day of the week over KHDV. They are constantly playing 'oh wows' and have a nice mix of 1965-1975 rock, too. They just played "Pretending" by Eric Clapton. #1 Mainstream rock hit in 1989. Try hearing that on Z100 or any classic rocker/classic hits station in a major market.

 

[crainbebo]

AND................they are going OFF. Again.

Sticks Media Shuts Down Missoula Operations

Six months after agreeing to acquire 102.5 KMSO Missoula and 107.9 KHDV Darby/Hamilton MT from Sheila Callahan & Friends, Todd

radioinsight.com

Let's see how long it will be before "K-Love, Inc." buys 102.5 and 107.9. K-LOVE 102.5 (my prediction: KLMS), Air1 107.9 (my prediction: KMTA), switches 93.7 to Air1. Placing a small bet. Go!

 

[cc-mar]

Sad to see this one go. It seems like they integrated themselves in the community pretty quickly but just couldn't keep it going.

 

[davideduardo]

Spent some time looking at the Rocket 108 playlist. Nothing too special. It's the hits, carefully tested by focus groups in some major cities.

Just a clarification: music is not tested by “focus groups“. A focus group is usually 8 to 12 people with a moderator who discuss perceptions of a subject, such as the taste of a new kind of cookie. A music test is usually made with around 100 people who listen, in a group or individually online to the “hooks“ of several hundred songs and score them. There is no conversation between a moderator and the test group during a music test.

A music test is what is called quantitive research because it tabulates a larger number of people about subjects that can be given scores versus opinions. A focus group is part of what is called qualitative research which is open ended and solicit opinionated statements and observations from participants in very small groups.

A focus group might be evaluate the performance of a morning show or to judge certain characters or features of a morning show.

I'll take The Big 100 any day of the week over KHDV. They are constantly playing 'oh wows' and have a nice mix of 1965-1975 rock, too. They just played "Pretending" by Eric Clapton. #1 Mainstream rock hit in 1989. Try hearing that on Z100 or any classic rocker/classic hits station in a major market.

People who enjoy a huge variety of songs and who like many songs that never qualified as lasting hits, have a name among researchers: “outliers“. Anytime we get such a person in a music test their scores are removed from the data collected and not tabulated.

 

[kevtronics]

People who enjoy a huge variety of songs and who like many songs that never qualified as lasting hits, have a name among researchers: “outliers“. Anytime we get such a person in a music test their scores are removed from the data collected and not tabulated.

But apparently there are enough of them that the number one complaint you hear from the general public about why they don't listen to the radio anymore is "they play the same songs over and over again".

There is absolutely no defendable reason why I hear radio stations picking one song from artists who have a large library of well-testing and demo-fitting songs and playing it twice a day in the 9-5 workday, every day of the week, instead of just picking two equally good songs and playing them once a day... or 5-10 songs from them that only get played once per workweek. "Summer of '69" is not the only Bryan Adams song people want to hear anymore, folks!

 

[Kent]

Sad to see this one go. It seems like they integrated themselves in the community pretty quickly but just couldn't keep it going.

I'm a little surprised Sticks couldn't make this work. I know the current economy is tough for everybody right now, but Missoula is a college town. College towns might not be recession proof, but I'd think Missoula would have enough business to support a locally focused radio operation. I don't know Todd Nixon well, but I've interacted with him on Facebook a few times as we have a ton of mutual friends. From the handful of conversations I've had with him, he seems to "get radio" and knows programming really well. He's also careful about what he acquires. He doesn't buy for the sake of expansion. He wouldn't have done that deal if he wasn't almost certain he could make it work. Makes me wonder what changed or otherwise went wrong.

But apparently there are enough of them that the number one complaint you hear from the general public about why they don't listen to the radio anymore is "they play the same songs over and over again".

People complain about that, but, add too many songs, and they'll tune you out even faster. People also get the impression stations play the popular songs more often than they really do. When I worked at an AC a little over 20 years ago, a friend of mine worked in a hair salon that played the station all day long. She swore up-and-down that she heard "Landslide" by the Chicks every hour while at work. Our powers were on a four hour rotation. We never played it more than three times during any nine hour period. Because we carried Delilah, we only scheduled 19 hours of our own music each day except for Saturdays, but it never played eight times in a single day.

There is absolutely no defendable reason why I hear radio stations picking one song from artists who have a large library of well-testing and demo-fitting songs and playing it twice a day in the 9-5 workday, every day of the week, instead of just picking two equally good songs and playing them once a day... or 5-10 songs from them that only get played once per workweek. "Summer of '69" is not the only Bryan Adams song people want to hear anymore, folks!

The reason is because people tune in to hear their favorite songs, and they tend to leave if they hear one of their favorites and know it's the last time they'll hear it for awhile. At my age, I listen to a lot of classic hits and classic rock, and I rarely, if ever, hear the same song twice on the same station during my workday. Even when I flip across multiple stations, I can easily go an entire day without hearing any song more than once. I don't think gold-focused stations have nearly the repetition you describe (though you might be able to find an occasional one that fits that profile).

 

[cc-mar]

The Missoula metro population is around 120k, one would think you could make it as an independent radio owner with enough involvment and sales. I wonder if he had a catastrophic equipment failure that he couldn't get the funding to fix or replace. I did some contract work for that station with a previous owners a decade ago, their equipment at the studio was pretty dated outside of automation with a lot of band-aids and custom solutions. It looks like he started fresh in a new studio location, that probably added a bunch of expenses as well. I was really rooting for this group to make it.

 

[DaveCowan]

The Missoula metro population is around 120k, one would think you could make it as an independent radio owner with enough involvment and sales. I wonder if he had a catastrophic equipment failure that he couldn't get the funding to fix or replace. I did some contract work for that station with a previous owners a decade ago, their equipment at the studio was pretty dated outside of automation with a lot of band-aids and custom solutions. It looks like he started fresh in a new studio location, that probably added a bunch of expenses as well. I was really rooting for this group to make it.

I could be wrong, but I don't think he had a studio location. People were tracking online into WebVT from home. Missoula is extremely over-radioed. Sticks had a "lease to own" payment of $4k + 25% gross revenue per month on top of operating expenses.

 

[The New Chico]

You start two new stations right as the local merchants have spent pretty much all of their marketing budget driving holiday sales. You should plan to not sell a single spot for the first 6 months you are on the air. especially when you start those stations in Q1. When I see two stations come and go this quickly it tells me it was badly undercapitalzed or had some really unrealistic revenue expectations.

Our radio rep explained to us that we shouldn't expect to see much in the way of results our first 6-12 months advertisng on his stations, but that we would reap the rewards or repeating our message. He was right. Imagine if you were a local advertiser, trying to build her business, and suddenly the marketing company you teamed with decided to pull the plug? Yikes.

Not like he actually bought the stations- really this was just a glorified lease and he "ran out of runway." Good programmers can still be weak businesspeople; not saying that is the case here but how many restaurants helmed by wonderful chefs close after 6 months because nobody thinks about the boring old business aspects of the place?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I like what Todd is attempting to do here.. but like his Lompoc, CA station which i think is for sale... im not sure he had anyone of any great influence on the ground, if anyone...... ive worked with one of the people Todd works alot with and theyre great people... but for start ups like this, I think you need to budget for a well paid person on the ground.