The stations all put out a good signal in most of the area.
David is a broadcaster so when he usually says comes from business site of broadcasting.
There are two kinds of audience figures: cume and AQH. Radio's cume is off by about 5% since 1995.
The amount of time spent with radio people are talking about lately is influenced by the pandemic. We are nearly at the pre-pandemic levels again, and that means that OTA radio is getting an average of 9 hours a week per person among adults. What is less evident is that some of the loss to AM and FM has gone to streams of the same stations. But the AFTRA rules prevent stations from streaming most agency spots, so the numbers are often lost. As all audio is measured in one product, we'll see how station streams do in the future.
Nearly all the EMF conversions were failed stations. They had little audience and in many cases the EMF formats have done as well as or better than the former format. And they released dollars to the remaining commercial stations.
Goodwill and the Red Cross and St. Jude's Hospital all get the same treatment. They are organizations that do not seek profit and don't distribute income or pay dividends.
Then why in many markets are either the EMF or commercial contemporary Christian stations in the top 5? In LA, while we had numbers, the EMF station that replaced a rock station was getting higher ratings than the old format.
"Good" is subjective. Are there areas where they would not have a 65dbu signal if they turned off one or more of the stations?
Even if you run a non-commercial station, you are still running an enterprise. It's just the financing that is different.
If you are selling your house, do you take the low offer instead of the high one?
But that is a classic case of a format that became irrelevant due to changing ethnicity and market demographics. It's a good example.
Remember, a big part of this is that the revenue in San Jose as a separate market has nearly dried up. Population: 38th nationally. Radio revenue: 101st nationally,
1. 3 of the frequencies are the same tower. 1 is a directional signal. One of the guys in the amateur radio club is also an engineer for many stations in our area as well the next state over. He drives around the whole area with measuring equipment taking readings and 4 of the signals hit all areas. The directional one is aimed at a valley that has issues with signals.
If I am selling a station, I go for the highest price. If I have lenders, they will force me to go for it.
This is very close to the way I feel personally. And I am, on the whole, conflicted. On the one hand, having operators like EMF, VCY, Relevant, Bott, and the like has the effect of removing commercial competitors whenever they acquire or affiliate with a station. But there comes a point where, in my opinion, the cumulative effect is to remove so many that listeners are left with too few choices. And I have always objected to the lack of any local community-based content (EMF, particularly, tends to close the local studios and offices when they acquire a station and just install a dish at the transmitter to receive the national program feed). And from a purely self-serving perspective, fewer stations means fewer potential clients. I don't object to religious programming -- and in fact I give Salem a ton of credit for making a successful business model from it on their stations -- but I keep asking the questions "how many transmitters does God really need" and "shouldn't God be able to communicate without any transmitters at all" and to be honest a lot of the programming I hear on these stations are non-music and should be just as effective on AM, static and all. (Ironically, one market where Relevant is heard on AM is Albuquerque, where they occupy the same frequency that my Eighties Channel first was broadcast on a decade ago.)
While that makes perfect sense, if you're a large conglomerate, and you need to divest a station, you might intentionally choose to sell to an EMF with the knowledge that's one less signal competing for advertising dollars. That has happened, and will (I'm sure) happen again.
My aunt recently sold a rental, directly to the person who was living in it instead of going to market where she probably could've go more. But the tenant was always helpful to her and performed all the maintenance on the thing and he saved up for a big down payment. Sales like that don't happen very much, but they do happen.
EMF would say that they report to a higher authority.
Except that it more often than not isn't one of the major corporate owners. Except for cases where divestiture of a station has been necessary to stay below ownership caps after a merger (that's how EMF acquired 100.3 in Los Angeles, as an example) it's been smaller owners that sell out. I think the Cumulus sale in 2019 was the last spinoff by one of the big players. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I hate to say this but they actually have three! "Boost" is Christian Hip-hop.
And "K-Love Classics" that they had for awhile on mostly on FM translators and HD channels. A Classic Hits version of Contemp. Christian, with a lot of Amy Grant, Michael W .Smith, etc I think it was replaced by "Boost"
The FCC ceased to regulate formats when they stopped protecting classical stations nearly 50 years ago. They do regulate and control EEO matters, fairness in political rates and, albeit nebulously, profanity. Other than that , licensees can find the format they wish to have and there is no intervention in the content.
