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KOGO AM 600 -- WHAT AN EMBARRASMENT

760 was back on within less than an hour power went off at 3:40 or so and 760 came back on before 4:40! I seem to recall KOGO being dead for several hours during the fires in 2007??? UPS took a dump as I recall? HUMMMMM even new equipment has issues, and every station is entitled to have problems.
 
The good thing about situations like what happened Thursday is that upper management at all stations got to see the vulnerabilities of all the stations in the market. And the opinion of backups aren't necessary in San Diego, are pretty much gone!
 
Unfortunately, and maybe not in your situation, engineering gets blamed when Edsel Murphy raises his head. The best thing is if they recognize the failure points and allow you to fix them as best you can, but things will still go wrong when they shouldn't.
 
And once again, no matter how many cutesy, folksey, warm and fuzzy articles Chirs Cahrmichael writes about Mark Larson and KCBQ, KCBQ still smells bad as a radio station. It's wasting valuable electricity. In the power outage, KCBQ was dead dead dead.
 
Mr_Radio_Diary said:
And once again, no matter how many cutesy, folksey, warm and fuzzy articles Chirs Cahrmichael writes about Mark Larson...

How does he make a living? I can't recall the last time he worked at a station that could afford to pay him more than $15 an hour. I imagine he makes his living from speaking engagements and takes low-paid radio jobs to make it appear to certain parties that he is actually part of "the media" even though his media voice essentially has no audience. But hey, I bet every Navy aircraft carrier skipper is convinced Mark is the most popular radio personality on the West Coast :)
 
RadeoEngineer said:
Unfortunately, and maybe not in your situation, engineering gets blamed when Edsel Murphy raises his head. The best thing is if they recognize the failure points and allow you to fix them as best you can, but things will still go wrong when they shouldn't.

Here we have something to agree on.

During the beginning of a hurricane, one of our stations (WNEL) went on the generator as the power went out about 12 hours before the eye came over us. Within a couple of hours, the generator stopped. Though the genny ran fine on tests and on short outages, we never realized that an installer had wired the day tank pump only to run on line power. So on the generator, the day tank emptied, and the lines filled with air. With 80 to 90 MPH winds, several of us fell to the job of sucking the air out of the lines so the diesel would start... and we did a quick rerouting of the day pump power connection.

Every time I fill my car and smell the diesel, I get a flashback.
 
The same scenario David mentions happened to at least one major San Francisco station following the Loma Prieta earthquake. Except in that case the main tank was at street level and the genset was on top of Embarcadaro center...
 
radio-darn said:
Mr_Radio_Diary said:
And once again, no matter how many cutesy, folksey, warm and fuzzy articles Chirs Cahrmichael writes about Mark Larson...

How does he make a living? I can't recall the last time he worked at a station that could afford to pay him more than $15 an hour. I imagine he makes his living from speaking engagements and takes low-paid radio jobs to make it

Well, he brings in advertising revenue for the station no doubt about that. the rest of KCBQ's revenue is from people like Rick Amato buying time. That's the only reason why Larson is kept on the air.

Let's be honest here.. KCBQ's Arbitron ratings are worse than doggy piles right now. KNX is half unreadable in san diego and it now crushes KCBQ.
 
Mr_Radio_Diary said:
Let's be honest here.. KCBQ's Arbitron ratings are worse than doggy piles right now. KNX is half unreadable in san diego and it now crushes KCBQ.

KNX has a different business model... and it does not sell in the SD market anyway,

KCBQ has consistent billings and likely produces some nice cash flow for the owner.

KCBQ is half unreadable, too... which is why it does the kind of format it does.
 
DavidEduardo said:
KCBQ has consistent billings and likely produces some nice cash flow for the owner.

It seems that low ratings have never been a problem for Salem. Is Mark their only paid talker in San Diego?
 
radio-darn said:
DavidEduardo said:
KCBQ has consistent billings and likely produces some nice cash flow for the owner.

It seems that low ratings have never been a problem for Salem. Is Mark their only paid talker in San Diego?

Being number one doesn't mean "make the most money" in ratings. It is surviving and staying on the air. Mark Larson has found his niche at KCBQ and KPRZ. KECR, owned by a different ministry group, has a loyal and contributing audience as well. So does KLVJ-FM in Julian. Look a Art Astor's stations in North County. AM 1450 and KCEO are blips on the radar; but their current business models work.

Some of you don't like Mark's approach to radio either; but clear the dust, he is on the radio and making money for himself, and for the station. He does make a good live read for his various car groups and all.

Radio stations, in these cases, are cash registers tied to the broadcast antenna. It is hard to compare KNX to KCBQ; different audience. (Although David E., KNX has a full time San Diego reporter, and I do hear spots for various restaurants on the radio; and I know that is toward the weekend crowd too.)

There are over 40 stations in the market and with 2.x million in the county, and the reach of some la LA stations, the market has an eclectic blend of stations for those who listen on air. Add in Spanish, English, Korean, Japanese, stations are creating their own markets on the air for an audience.

Also noted that KNX, KFI, and other station's that reach the San Diego market don't actively market ... and advertisers don't pay for the extended reach ... but it is a good sales tool for a car group in Tustin/Ontario that "San Diego is only an hour south" of your location and we have listeners too! That I do know first hand. They have had scattered customers come deal with them.
 
It's just sad what has happened to KCBQ it really is, but at least it's on the air and the call letters still echo through San Diego. And don't bag on Chris too much, sdradio.net is the only press that Larson gets these days. If it wasn't for Chris, Mark would be spending 4 hours a day on his hair for no reason, now he does it to get on the internet!!

All of that ozone layer just because of Larson's hair!! Chris stop putting pictures of him up and he will stop using hairspray, and then there will be no more global warming.!! There I said it global warming is the fault of Mark Larsons hair!! LOL
 
600kogo said:
All of that ozone layer just because of Larson's hair!! Chris stop putting pictures of him up and he will stop using hairspray, and then there will be no more global warming.!! There I said it global warming is the fault of Mark Larsons hair!! LOL

You'll make him cry.
 
radio-darn said:
DavidEduardo said:
KCBQ has consistent billings and likely produces some nice cash flow for the owner.

It seems that low ratings have never been a problem for Salem. Is Mark their only paid talker in San Diego?

Yet, based on ROI, one of the most profitable groups there is...
 
I think Rick did a excellent job with his coverage. As little resources as they have on that am, it sure didn't sound like it during the outage. Excellent smoke and mirrors radio at it's best...
 
Congratulations to KOGO for getting a 900% ratings boost during the power outage. I believe that is even better than the ratings on KCBQ at its height!! And better than Boss Radio 136KGB. To bad it was just for one night. It does prove though that in an emergency SD turns to AM radio! Of course it was also basically the only thing on too.
 
Funny, there was a similar event back in '57 or so when the US did its first and only nationwide Conelrad test, every US station except the Conelrad ones was off the air, leaving Mighty 690 blasting from Tijuana a solid unassailable #1.
 
Lopaka said:
Funny, there was a similar event back in '57 or so when the US did its first and only nationwide Conelrad test, every US station except the Conelrad ones was off the air, leaving Mighty 690 blasting from Tijuana a solid unassailable #1.

I believe there were three nationwide CONELRAD tests. I listened during two of them, and logged many Canadian stations from OH while the US stations were off or on low power CONELRAD operation.
 
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