But isn't KSFO conservative talk?
Where as, KGO was liberal talk?
Since I heard conservatives do better with talk radio, maybe that is why Cumulus sent it to 810, they had the chance to give it a bigger signal, no ???
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KSFO To 810
- Thread starter lanceventa
- Start date
But isn't KSFO conservative talk?
Where as, KGO was liberal talk?
Since I heard conservatives do better with talk radio, maybe that is why Cumulus sent it to 810, they had the chance to give it a bigger signal, no ???
KGO was originally non-DA, but it operated at 7500 watts. It increased to 50K in 1947 when directional antennae became available.
KGO & WGY were both owned by GE at the time, but WGY was deemed the "showcase station" by the company. I doubt expense was a consideration.
KSFO is conservative talk. It's also AM radio in San Francisco. Ten years ago, with Michael Savage live in middays, they were getting three shares. Their best number in the last six months has been a 1.4.
There is an absolute ceiling to the audience for conservative talk radio in the Bay Area, and KSFO hit it a long time ago.
KGO was not as liberal as conservatives like to make it sound (see earlier comments from myself, @DavidEduardo and others). And the audience for moderate-to-liberal talk, even in San Francisco, isn't on AM any longer. 12 years is a long time (and it was longer ago than that when KGO was at its peak).
What you'd need to succeed today would be to be on FM, and to try to share audience with KQED...and there's no guarantee that would work. Most of that audience gets its fix for talk via podcast and the whole phone-in thing is pretty much an anachronism.
Wanna bet that a certain video blogger isn't pushing such an idea?
As you are well aware, 5kW has better ground wave conductivity on 560kHz low end of AM band than 50kW with less ground wave conductivity at the upper end of the AM band. Yes, 810 probably has a better signal except for where the null to the east is located at. Coverage is pattern dependent, frequency dependent and to a lesser extent power dependent. A good antenna system at a lower frequency with great ground wave conductivity will always out perform higher power at 1500 kHz just because of the physics involved.
I'm aware of the generalities. Do you have any specifics on comparative ground conductivity? Both are located on San Francisco Bay.
I cannot summon up the needed level of masochism to watch Rich. Reading him was bad enough.
In my decades of listening it seems WGY doesn’t make it west of the Mississippi River due to a number of co-channel stations.
Listening to 810 in Austin in the 1960s I never heard WGY or KGO, instead receiving KCMO in Kansas City, or a station in Tampico, Mexico.
In Amarillo in the early 1980s I could hear KGO during the early morning night hours with a mediocre signal. However KNBR was pretty solid all night long. KCBS was lost under KRMG.
As much as I resisted it, and hate to accept it, while I believe there was a window for more varied talk on FM... In most markets it's closed, because technology advanced and the investments weren't made when it could have been developed and rooted enough to still be viable. The best I can hope for now is a few intrepid PDs or companies that rearrange those Titanic deck chairs for a better view on the end of the ship that is more slowly sinking.
Real Radio in Orlando is still a successful non-partisan talk station. Are they launching any new ones? The product was created in a different time by a different owner when "podcasting" wasn't even a word and sustained. Trying to do it from scratch now, unless you're Bezos or Elon and you just have a fetish for radio, seems like a non-starter. KMBZ in Kansas City (FM) is programmed very well by Alan Furst. Did Audacy call him up to be a talk format captain and evolve stations like WPHT? Did they call Diane Newman at WWL? No.
For whatever reason, this is the product we get, the KSFO type stations and they're going to ride it till the wheels fall off, apparently. Look at WLS. I grew up with that being not a rock and roll station, but the home of Don and Roma, Catherine Johns, Jay Marvin, Ty & Ed, they even had local hosts on weekends. Then they go all in on conservative talk. They make a half-hearted attempt to moderate with Bruce St. James, the ratings remain anemic, and they "repent" and go all in on the Trump wing. The ratings still stink but they stay the course.
In St. Louis, Audacy owns two big talk outlets, the legendary KMOX and the successful KFTK. KMOX is a more mild in tone outlet that appears to be more moderate (to be honest, I'm not familiar with two of their anchor shows, they've changed them since I was more regularly listening) and conservative talk KFTK. It appears KMOX may be moving more towards the KMBZ model, but until those changes, KMOX was also heavily conservative and has three competing fully-Trump friendly outlets (an iHeart "Patriot" and two local independents that go even further - "Real Talk" and "NewsSTL".)
I'd love to believe it could change. I still love radio. But I'm about over putting any hope in it being what it was for me again, both as a listener and as a career. And I was listening to Chip Franklin till the very last, so it's not like every KGO listener was in those high and difficult to sell demos, but there's not enough of us, and I doubt even if you rebooted the entire project on FM, it would recapture half of what it used to be, financially or audience wise.
And I hate that. Because live, reacting in real time radio, with the discipline and pacing and interaction can be magic. You can't replace it with a podcast. I can get more out of three hours of truly lively talk radio than unstructured rambling for three hours with Joe Rogan. But I grew up on that format, it resonates with me. Even the biggest national conservative talkers mostly don't make Rogan bucks. So... here we are. And speaking of Chip Franklin, they gave him a couple of fill-ins on KIRO in Seattle. He was great. He hasn't been back in what, two years now? That time slot is running with a solo host because even slower to cut Bonneville had to make budgetary adjustments. Even some of the most talented and experienced are screwed because of this. So "talent development" is barely a concept. They're trying to bail the water out, not bring on more weight - even if that's a better crew than what they've got on board.
Real Radio in Orlando is still a successful non-partisan talk station. Are they launching any new ones? The product was created in a different time by a different owner when "podcasting" wasn't even a word and sustained. Trying to do it from scratch now, unless you're Bezos or Elon and you just have a fetish for radio, seems like a non-starter. KMBZ in Kansas City (FM) is programmed very well by Alan Furst. Did Audacy call him up to be a talk format captain and evolve stations like WPHT? Did they call Diane Newman at WWL? No.
For whatever reason, this is the product we get, the KSFO type stations and they're going to ride it till the wheels fall off, apparently. Look at WLS. I grew up with that being not a rock and roll station, but the home of Don and Roma, Catherine Johns, Jay Marvin, Ty & Ed, they even had local hosts on weekends. Then they go all in on conservative talk. They make a half-hearted attempt to moderate with Bruce St. James, the ratings remain anemic, and they "repent" and go all in on the Trump wing. The ratings still stink but they stay the course.
In St. Louis, Audacy owns two big talk outlets, the legendary KMOX and the successful KFTK. KMOX is a more mild in tone outlet that appears to be more moderate (to be honest, I'm not familiar with two of their anchor shows, they've changed them since I was more regularly listening) and conservative talk KFTK. It appears KMOX may be moving more towards the KMBZ model, but until those changes, KMOX was also heavily conservative and has three competing fully-Trump friendly outlets (an iHeart "Patriot" and two local independents that go even further - "Real Talk" and "NewsSTL".)
I'd love to believe it could change. I still love radio. But I'm about over putting any hope in it being what it was for me again, both as a listener and as a career. And I was listening to Chip Franklin till the very last, so it's not like every KGO listener was in those high and difficult to sell demos, but there's not enough of us, and I doubt even if you rebooted the entire project on FM, it would recapture half of what it used to be, financially or audience wise.
And I hate that. Because live, reacting in real time radio, with the discipline and pacing and interaction can be magic. You can't replace it with a podcast. I can get more out of three hours of truly lively talk radio than unstructured rambling for three hours with Joe Rogan. But I grew up on that format, it resonates with me. Even the biggest national conservative talkers mostly don't make Rogan bucks. So... here we are. And speaking of Chip Franklin, they gave him a couple of fill-ins on KIRO in Seattle. He was great. He hasn't been back in what, two years now? That time slot is running with a solo host because even slower to cut Bonneville had to make budgetary adjustments. Even some of the most talented and experienced are screwed because of this. So "talent development" is barely a concept. They're trying to bail the water out, not bring on more weight - even if that's a better crew than what they've got on board.
I will never understand how KGO was labeled as Liberal talk. Why do people forget about conservative curmudgeon Jim Eason, and the combative conservative Lee Rodgers. Those two are examples of great hosts to listen to, even if you didn't agree with politically.
Probably not. The reason that station still exists is because of its heritage, and the audience still has an allegiance to that heritage. What I'd suggest you do is look outside the talk format for talk-based radio that's being done on heritage rock stations such as WMMS Cleveland or KISW Seattle. It's non-political talk by hosts who understand the format and the audience. These are FM stations that get great ratings and very sellable demos.
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Not to mention enough potential listeners to make it a viable business proposition. But it's much easier to blame it on the "suits", right?
KGO next generation after the reboot was not a bad lineup. I really liked it. Mark Thompson, and Pat Thurston during the day were great listening, as well as Chip Franklin. The problem wasn't the content, it was just not profitable.
There are two descriptors you'll hear often from conservatives: "Conservative" and "Liberal".
A word you hear far less often is "Moderate", and that's because many conservatives consider anything that allows for compromise (which being a moderate by definition requires) as selling out. So "Moderate" gets called "Liberal".
True story: I first heard the term "RINO" in 1986 in Phoenix, Arizona.
I was interviewing a group of Vietnam veterans who were working to secure the release of any surviving POWs still in Vietnam 11 years after the fall of Saigon and the return of any remains of those who did not survive.
I was new to Phoenix, had only been there a few weeks and had met then-Congressman John McCain, who was campaigning to succeed retiring Senator Barry Goldwater.
Since McCain was himself a POW, I suggested in the interview that this group was likely excited to gain someone with first-hand knowledge of the POW situation as a United States Senator.
"MCCAIN? THAT F***ING RHINO?"
Never having heard the term, I thought they meant "rhinoceros" in some sort of insult I didn't understand. I told them I didn't get it.
"R-I-N-O. Republican In Name Only. McCain's a goddamn Commie."
That was my peek into the future of what was then considered the "wacko wing" of the Arizona Republican Party.
KGO had many hosts, and the vast majority of the dayside ones were moderate left-to-moderate right leaning. You mentioned Eason and Rodgers. Ronn Owens was a moderate liberal when he started out but drifted rightward as he got older. Gil Gross was moderate left, Gene Burns libertarian. Those are just in the last decade or so before Cumulus blew up the station. (Also let's not forget Dr. Dean Edell and "law-yah" Len Tillem, neither of whom did an overtly political show.) But there were raging liberals in the late evening and overnight, Bernie Ward (until he got into legal trouble and went to prison) and Ray Taliaferro, which happens to coincide with when KGO's nighttime signal blasted up and down the West Coast, hitting the vast majority of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Baja Mexico and British Columbia, so those are the hosts many skywave listeners heard instead of the more moderate folks. That's why so many people who don't know what they're talking about insist KGO was a leftist station.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't. KGO's original site is now in a pretty rough Oakland neighborhood, but who would have known that in the 1920s or 1930s?
I'm in a time crunch at the moment, so I'm not able to do much research, but from what I recall, there was an issue with co-ownership requiring KGO to have the more restrictive nighttime facility. I'll also note that an omnidirectional signal for KGO would have covered a lot of dolphins, generally not considered a desirable audience for advertisers. The current pattern does a great job of covering the West Coast without expending wattage over the Pacific Ocean.
It's possible that KOA's having clear-channel status (since GE owned KOA on-and-off over the years) had something to do with it as well.
And lose signal to the northern and southern ends of the Nielsen/Arbitron/ARB market?
If you are going to be severely directional, it is better to have similar or identical day and night patterns unless the day pattern misses much of the market. Since the San Francisco radio market is tall and thin, from Santa Rosa to Gilroy, the pattern actually favors them. They make no money off coverage elsewhere, and have not for the last 60 or so years.
Except that the pattern is off the sides of the towers, not the ends. Electrically, the two "side towers" push the signal to the middle, to the NNW and SSE.
It was decaying far earlier than that.
No. And, particularly, not with the polarization of the market in the political and social sense.
KCMO was a post-WW2 drop-in. In 1979, it dropped nighttime power from 10 kw to 5 kw in order to have a pattern that was less tight. Classic problem: the population of the Kansas City metropolitan area grew into the nulls, especially the one to the west.
Much, much worse. Very harsh and raspy.
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