KRON NEWS RADIO...

[BossRadioDJ]

DISCLAIMER: I'm on pretty heavy pain meds right now, and the voices in my head are practically screaming at me. :

So I'm listening to Phil Matier with Willie Brown on KCBS this morning and, once again, I'm griping to myself because Phil just gets rolling for two or three minutes before it's time for traffic. Mind you, he's being doled out in little spoonfuls on KCBS, but his little segments are among the best things on the the station, which is a darned good radio station with or without him.

Here's where the meds kick in and the visions appear...

Let's say somebody at Clear Channel/SF makes a phone call over to the San Francisco Chronicle. It's a simple move: KKGN/960 becomes KRON/960 -- Chronicle News Radio. You hire a couple of anchors to present the news headlines throughout the day. Chronicle reporters handle the field reporting. (The bad news: they don't get paid extra. The good news: they're still gainfully employed as journalists!*)

The sports updates (at 12 past the hour) are called the Sporting Green, featuring the Chronicle's all-star sportswriting team. Entertainment updates are called Datebook (or The Pink Section). Leah Garchik provides local flavor from her column. Commentary by Jon Carroll. Business with Andrew Ross. Maybe they have an hourly feature, with some local legend reading a minute from a classic Herb Caen column.

Phil Matier? Well, during the morning and afternoon drives, he's in the studio (which is conveniently located in the Chronicle newsroom, of course) to comment on the news, conduct interviews, and maybe do some co-anchoring, too.

Ad revenue? The newspaper and the radio station combine forces. Another tie-in? How about "For more on this story, go to SFGate.com, or pick up today's edition of the Chronicle, on newsstands everywhere." Clear Channel finds an HD-2 for an FM presence (or even a primary FM signal -- hey, it's my hallucination). Listeners flock to hear this marvelous station...

Yes, it's another of my genius ideas, presented here at no charge for the betterment of Bay Area radio. You're welcome.

Uh-oh. The meds are wearing off. Must have more meds....

* -- Yeah, I'm guessing after the meeting to announce this to Chronicle staff, there'll be about three dozen calls to the Guild office to see what the union has to say.

 

[travisl5678]

Hey, I think its a pretty good idea, maybe they could put an FM Translator in the East Bay to cover that coverage gap there ( I caught the Flames games last night on 960 The Fan from CFAC Calgary here in Concord) It might give KCBS at least a little competition, as long as it gets advertized in the Chron

 

[LKellerIII]

DJ: I remember when I was a college student during Finals week. To stay up late in order to finish (and in some cases, start and finish) term papers, I'd take...uh...let's just say "meds" to stay awake. I'd often come up with these brilliant world-saving ideas and enthusiastically put them on paper. Then I'd re-read my "brilliant" term paper the next morning and realize that my thought process the night before had been seriuosly skewed due to fatigue, topped by those "meds."

Take two dying entities (the Chronicle and KRON), put them together on a frequency nobody listens to, in a city that already has KCBS and NPR...brilliant!

It's just so crazy, it just might work.

 

[loukip]

Setting aside the viability of the concept for a second, I'm curious: would Young Broadcasting have to give permission for another company to use the KRON call letters for a radio station? And even if it did grant permission, would the FCC allow it to happen? Don't want to threadjack, but I'd never heard of a hypothetical situation like this playing out in real life.

 

[fybush]

Setting aside the viability of the concept for a second, I'm curious: would Young Broadcasting have to give permission for another company to use the KRON call letters for a radio station? And even if it did grant permission, would the FCC allow it to happen? Don't want to threadjack, but I'd never heard of a hypothetical situation like this playing out in real life.

Yes, Young would have to give permission, and yes, the FCC would allow it to happen. There are plenty of examples all over the country: here in Rochester, NY, for instance, WROC-TV (owned by Nexstar) licenses the use of its calls to WROC(AM), an ESPN Radio outlet on 950 owned by Entercom.

As for the larger idea of a "KRON News Radio," the idea is a good one - so good, in fact, that it's been tried before. A few years ago, Bonneville moved its Washington, DC all-newser, WTOP, from AM 1500 (a directionally-challenged 50 kW signal) to FM 103.5. AM 1500 became "Washington Post Radio," a joint venture of Bonneville and the Post. The initial idea was a sort of "commercial NPR," with a lot of long-form interviews with Post journalists. Great idea...but the execution was less than perfect, and the Post pulled out after a couple of years.

It's all in the execution, and if it's anything less than perfect against strong competitors like KCBS and KQED, it's toast. And perfect doesn't come cheap.

 

[DavidKaye]

As for the larger idea of a "KRON News Radio," the idea is a good one - so good, in fact, that it's been tried before. A few years ago, Bonneville moved its Washington, DC all-newser, WTOP, from AM 1500 (a directionally-challenged 50 kW signal) to FM 103.5. AM 1500 became "Washington Post Radio," a joint venture of Bonneville and the Post.

The Chronicle once owned KPO (now KNBR) and featured many columnists and even someone reading the comics (the "funny papers") on the air, as well as local news from Chronicle reporters. This was before my time and before NBC's ownership of the station.

In fact many radio stations were owned by newspapers and stretched their paper staffs to do radio duty as well. Among the stations once owned by papers: KSCO Santa Cruz (the Sentinel), KSRO Santa Rosa (the Press Democrat), KTIM San Rafael (the Marin IJ), KLX now KNEW (Oakland Tribune), KSMO now KFRC (the San Mateo Times), etc.

So, it appears that this model can work.

 

[LKellerIII]

The Chronicle also owned KRON-FM, though I don't think the station's programming had anything to do with news. I'm not sure, because it was before my time in the Bay Area.

Interestingly enough - historically - when both the Chronicle and KRON were owned by the Chronicle Corporation in the 70s and 80s, there wasn't a lot of "synergy" between the two, that I can remember. Phil Matier was about it - and I think he didn't start reporting for KRON until the mid 80s, unless I'm forgetting something.

In the 70s and 80s, the Chronicle was going strong as a daily newspaper, while KRON news was usually in the ratings basement. It wasn't until the Pete Wilson era (early 90s?) that things improved.

Nevertheless, despite my sarcastic first post, I think that it's an interesting idea, and could encourage Chronicle readers to watch KRON news, and encourage KRON viewers to actually buy a Chronicle.

 

[landtuna]

The Chronicle also owned KRON-FM, though I don't think the station's programming had anything to do with news. I'm not sure, because it was before my time in the Bay Area.

You are correct - hence the call 'KRONicle'.

I lived in the BA from 1960-1968 with 4 years away in the service but remember KRON as a typical "variety" station. I wasn't a regular listener as it was intended for an older demo than I was at that time.

 

[Madmansam]

The Chronicle also owned KRON-FM, though I don't think the station's programming had anything to do with news. I'm not sure, because it was before my time in the Bay Area.

You are correct - hence the call 'KRONicle'.

I lived in the BA from 1960-1968 with 4 years away in the service but remember KRON as a typical "variety" station. I wasn't a regular listener as it was intended for an older demo than I was at that time.

I could have sworn that KRON-FM 96.5 was a MOR station before selling it to Bonneville which switched it to Beautiful Music as KOIT.

 

[Madmansam]

Nevertheless, despite my sarcastic first post, I think that it's an interesting idea, and could encourage Chronicle readers to watch KRON news, and encourage KRON viewers to actually buy a Chronicle.

Even though the neither is owned by the same owner anymore?

 

[1069_KIFR]

KRON and News doesn't really seem to go hand in hand any longer. Have you seen their dismal newscasts? You call that News?

Traffic and Weather and paid segments. That would really go well on Radio!

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Scott has it nailed...it's in the execution.

I only caught snippets of "Washington Post Radio", but it appears the biggest problem was that the newspaper people were generally horrible on the radio, or were actively hostile to the idea of doing radio.

There were exceptions, but the newspaper wasn't full of would-be Tony Kornheisers.

The newspaper segments, as I recall, were generally sleep inducing. It sounded like an entire programming day of AP print correspondents forced to do radio voicers for AP Radio.

Great idea in principle, but you don't get ratings with bored-sounding newspaper folks, and you can't really compete with KCBS or KQED at 960 AM.

 

[DavidKaye]

The Chronicle also owned KRON-FM, though I don't think the station's programming had anything to do with news. I'm not sure, because it was before my time in the Bay Area.
[....]
Nevertheless, despite my sarcastic first post, I think that it's an interesting idea, and could encourage Chronicle readers to watch KRON news, and encourage KRON viewers to actually buy a Chronicle.

In earlier days, the Chronicle used to highlight the KRON-TV listings in the TV listings, putting them in bold and featuring a bigger "4" than the other channel numbers. They also had lots of KRON-TV ads and apparently rejected or shunned ads from other TV stations. There were also some crossovers between KRON-TV and the Chronicle including some news people and an occasional columnist. Art Finley (KRON's Mayor Art) also did a comic panel in the Chron called "Art's Gallery".

KRON-FM, though, was run independently of the Chronicle, and for the most part was classical with some easy listening music. I was told some years back that a longtime Chronicle manager run KRON-FM as his baby and the Chronicle was reluctant to do much more with it, letting the guy operate it more out of loyalty to him than to make money on it.

There was also the matter that KRON-FM was an FM station and news wouldn't have worked on FM in those days. What's more, KNBR and its FM already had the NBC radio affiliation, and as NBC O&Os weren't about to give that up. There wasn't much alternative in those days given that ABC and CBS also had O&Os here, and Mutual was the network nobody wanted. That kind of killed it for a news-oriented KRON-FM.

 

[LKellerIII]

The Chronicle also owned KRON-FM, though I don't think the station's programming had anything to do with news. I'm not sure, because it was before my time in the Bay Area.
[....]
Nevertheless, despite my sarcastic first post, I think that it's an interesting idea, and could encourage Chronicle readers to watch KRON news, and encourage KRON viewers to actually buy a Chronicle.

In earlier days, the Chronicle used to highlight the KRON-TV listings in the TV listings, putting them in bold and featuring a bigger "4" than the other channel numbers. They also had lots of KRON-TV ads and apparently rejected or shunned ads from other TV stations. There were also some crossovers between KRON-TV and the Chronicle including some news people and an occasional columnist. Art Finley (KRON's Mayor Art) also did a comic panel in the Chron called "Art's Gallery".

KRON-FM, though, was run independently of the Chronicle, and for the most part was classical with some easy listening music. I was told some years back that a longtime Chronicle manager run KRON-FM as his baby and the Chronicle was reluctant to do much more with it, letting the guy operate it more out of loyalty to him than to make money on it.

There was also the matter that KRON-FM was an FM station and news wouldn't have worked on FM in those days. What's more, KNBR and its FM already had the NBC radio affiliation, and as NBC O&Os weren't about to give that up. There wasn't much alternative in those days given that ABC and CBS also had O&Os here, and Mutual was the network nobody wanted. That kind of killed it for a news-oriented KRON-FM.

All true, thanks. As I remember it, after KRON-FM went away - in the 70s and 80s - the station was never even branded as "KRON" ("Chron") until the last few years - it was always just K-R-O-N. So as I said, there wasn't a lot of synergy.

Yes, KRON4 News has become pitiful under the dying Young regime, but did you ever watch Channel 4 Newswatch in the early 70s? That was pitiful, too. It improved later on. At least under Young, they've kept a multi-hour commitment to news, which is more than you can say about most independent stations.

 

[1069_KIFR]

What was the frequency of KRON-FM? And what is on that frequency today?

 

[travisl5678]

It was at 96.5, KOIT today

 

[emprex]

about Kron, This might be off topic, but what the heck.

From Yahoo, Fiance

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The Country Network (TCN), a country music video television network located on Music Row in Nashville, TN, has signed an agreement to air on the following four Young Broadcasting stations:


It is anticipated that the stations will begin broadcasting TCN by December,