KSFO To 810

[davideduardo]

KGO was originally non-DA, but it operated at 7500 watts. It increased to 50K in 1947 when directional antennae became available.

Directional systems began in the very early 1930's with the systems developed for WTMJ Milwaukee and WSUN on Tampa Bay on 620. Once it was seen how effective they were, many stations all during the 40's increased power by going directional. Many of the regional channel stations, of which so many were 5 kw day and 1 kw night, non-DA, found they could be 5 kw fulltime with a directional system.

And most of the 1-B clear channel stations were directional.

 

[TheBigA]

Directional systems began in the very early 1930's

One would think engineers at General Electric were aware of that.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Nope. BetQL is distributed in syndication by Cumulus' Westwood One. Barter deal within its own company.

BigA addressed that point.

Again why? What common listener will know the difference or even notice between "KSFO San Francisco, KGO San Francisco" and "K___ San Francisco, KSFO San Francisco". And its buried at the TOH. The could keep 810 as KGO forever and brand it as "810 KSFO"

Well, what common listener would spend what's currently ten pages of screens discussing the fate of these two stations?

 

[KilowattKat]

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.

That's right, there was also Dr. Dean Edell, one hour of health and medical advice. The buffer between the noon news hour and Jim Eason. And don't forget KGO was straightforward All News during AM and PM drive with no political opinions, just reporting with features.

The polarization of politics has ruined talk radio.

 

[Miss Tuned]

Extremely nitpicky thing that no one's probably going to notice other than me - but no one had Gill Sans on their computer to match 810 to KSFO?

View attachment 8074

View attachment 8075

The BBC dumped Gill Sans a few years ago - partly to use its own typeface ("Reith") and avoid further licensing fees, but partly because Eric Gill was a highly unpleasant character, look him up.

 

[davideduardo]

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.

As BigA says, Real Radio has a certain heritage that sustains it. However, the market has changed and Real Radio is now much lower in rankings than it used to be. The principal reason is that Orlando is not over a third Puerto Rican and that format has little appeal to that group, even though nearly all are bilingual. Beyond that, the market... which long ago used to be called "the southernmost city in Georgia" is now very different.

 

[Delete My Account]

KISW is a great example, I agree. I listen. It's a lifestyle station, and the music is secondary. But if you add up KISW, WMMS, and Real Radio - there's still not much "mass" on that version of the talk format. The anchor shows are built on history - the Mens Room originated in Baltimore what, 20+ years ago? How long has Rover been in Cleveland? Again, he made his name in the 90s.

It's not even the politics thing. It's the entertainment factor.

I listen a lot to LBC in the UK. It's a wide spectrum of opinion, callers, and even non political topics. It works on a national level. Why no US company bears down and commits to an FM, podcast, Twitch type all hands on deck strategy for either varied current events or non-political talk, with a REAL TIME interactive element, is... well, it's probably a money thing.

I get your point that hosts like Alan Cox, Charlamagne, the Men's Room, exist and succeed. But traditional talk radio has a situation where the demographics (and often the ratings) suck but exist as a national product - market clearance from Seattle to St. Louis, for brands like the Patriot, or the Salem talkers. And I'm suggesting that you take this FM talk product (be it political or not) and put it in real time, cross-platform. The interactivity is important to younger people, let's invest in that. The morning show on KPNT in St. Louis is a great example of this. I always expected more from satellite radio in that regard (XM in particular tried.) If you're going to embrace national, then as David E has often said, take those hosts and build something around it.

But you also have to have a stellar team of producers and support staff to manage that level of content. I probably sound like I'm describing something that already exists or has been done, but my perspective is that the scale and "real time" aspect of it are what makes it more compelling than a podcast or just a syndicated show dropped into a "local" station that doesn't even have live bodies in the first place. That was why I tuned into KGO. The immediacy and the conversation. Can't get that in podcasts in the same way.

 

[Miss Tuned]

I listen a lot to LBC in the UK. It's a wide spectrum of opinion, callers, and even non political topics. It works on a national level. Why no US company bears down and commits to an FM, podcast, Twitch type all hands on deck strategy for either varied current events or non-political talk, with a REAL TIME interactive element, is... well, it's probably a money thing.

This is because a version of the "fairness doctrine" applies to UK broadcasting. You aren't allowed to run a conservative talk station, or indeed a liberal talk station. If the rules were scrapped, several UK stations would go all one way very quickly, there are some which would love to do it right now (TalkRadio, GB News) - the current output on the likes of LBC is a product of rules and regulations.

 

[Weiserguy]

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.

What I surmise you're thinking of is when NBC owned both KPO (later KNBR) and KGO. KPO was on the NBC Red network and KGO the Blue Network. (So named, if anyone cares, because the patch cords at AT&T for NBC's network wires were either red or blue, depending on which network it was.) The FCC might have told them they couldn't own two Class I-A stations in the same market. Although if that was the case, how do you explain 660 WEAF (the Red Network's flagship, later 66WNBC) and 770 WJZ (Blue, later 77WABC) both being I-A's covering most of the Eastern and Midwest states back in the '30s and '40s? Or Chicago's 670/WMAQ and 890/WLS?

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.

Dolphins enjoyed listening to Owen Spann's show to stay updated on bridge traffic.

 

[TheBigA]

I'm suggesting that you take this FM talk product (be it political or not) and put it in real time, cross-platform.

That may be in the pipeline as we speak.

But you also have to have a stellar team of producers and support staff to manage that level of content. I probably sound like I'm describing something that already exists or has been done

You are. Those producers and support staff are also trained at the various conferences I mentioned in the other thread, and are also being taught at a handful of colleges. They work on podcasts and video as well as basic talk shows.

Morning Show Boot Camp 2023

Talentmasters Presents the 28th Annual Morning Show Boot Camp.

www.morningshowbootcamp.com

 

[Delete My Account]

This is because a version of the "fairness doctrine" applies to UK broadcasting. You aren't allowed to run a conservative talk station, or indeed a liberal talk station. If the rules were scrapped, several UK stations would go all one way very quickly, there are some which would love to do it right now (TalkRadio, GB News) - the current output on the likes of LBC is a product of rules and regulations.

But LBC wouldn't be viable if it wasn't drawing an audience for how it's programmed, and there's outlets like talkRADIO, GB News is pretty much right-wing. My understanding of the UK regulations wasn't so much that you couldn't have a "conservative" channel in practice as that there were more restrictions on what was considered hateful speech, which the likes of Katie Hopkins routinely tested. Maybe you can't license it as a "conservative" channel but then again, "channel drift" seems to be the norm and OFCOM doesn't seem to be holding radio too tightly to any particular format these days. It's all becoming AC or classic hits.

So my point goes to the fact that the audience is there, on a national level. Yet in the US, there is not a national equivalent of James O'Brien on the radio. And I often ask myself why that is?

 

[radiofan2023]

This is because a version of the "fairness doctrine" applies to UK broadcasting. You aren't allowed to run a conservative talk station, or indeed a liberal talk station. If the rules were scrapped, several UK stations would go all one way very quickly, there are some which would love to do it right now (TalkRadio, GB News) - the current output on the likes of LBC is a product of rules and regulations.

@Andy Travis
I liked listening to Petrie Hosken, she was on BBC Radio London and then she went to TalkTV a few years ago. But I haven't watched/listened to her show since then.

 

[semoochie]

What I surmise you're thinking of is when NBC owned both KPO (later KNBR) and KGO. KPO was on the NBC Red network and KGO the Blue Network. (So named, if anyone cares, because the patch cords at AT&T for NBC's network wires were either red or blue, depending on which network it was.) The FCC might have told them they couldn't own two Class I-A stations in the same market. Although if that was the case, how do you explain 660 WEAF (the Red Network's flagship, later 66WNBC) and 770 WJZ (Blue, later 77WABC) both being I-A's covering most of the Eastern and Midwest states back in the '30s and '40s? Or Chicago's 670/WMAQ and 890/WLS?

Dolphins enjoyed listening to Owen Spann's show to stay updated on bridge traffic.

The FCC did tell NBC that they couldn't own more than one network, which is why we got ABC in 1943.

 

[fybush]

A few important historical notes:

By the time KGO upgraded to 50 kW, it wasn't co-owned with WGY.

GE handed off KGO to NBC in 1930, still operating with 7500 watts day, 2500 watts night from the old site in Oakland.

The NBC/Blue split occurred in 1943 and KGO obviously went with Blue/ABC. It wasn't until 1946 that KGO applied for 50 kW from the Dumbarton Bridge site.

At that point, WGY was the I-A clear on 810 and everything else, including KGO, had to protect it. Even with as much distance as there was between WGY and KGO, there needed to be directionality at night to protect Schenectady.

I agree that the KGO daytime DA probably wasn't designed to protect anything but rather to push more signal along the north-south axis where most of the population was. Nobody was living in the Tri-Valley area or other areas to the east back then.

For ABC back then, that north-south coverage mattered. KGO would have been the default station for ABC network programming for a huge swath of the west coast, from Monterey up to Fort Bragg and beyond.

But for GE, none of that would have mattered by 1946. It didn't own KGO anymore, just WGY and KGO.

 

[KilowattKat]

Here's the detailed history of KGO's early years.

KGO Radio History

History of radio station KGO San Francisco

www.theradiohistorian.org

 

[Delete My Account]

That may be in the pipeline as we speak.

I've worked in news & talk, so I'm aware that there are people who do what I'm describing. My point is more the scale of it and the interactivity. It seems to have not "broken through" outside of these handful of national shows. And to the above quote, that's what I'm hoping to see. A full force, all hands on deck cohesive product in real time. "Real Radio" didn't have to be an Orlando thing. It could have been a USA thing.

What I loved about a previous era of talk radio was the vitality. When you'd get something explosive, be it Trump nominations on the political side, or something in pop culture, you could get real time reaction on the radio with a dialogue back and forth, host and audience. From multiple points of view. I listen to Charlamagne and he's got people in the room, there's a liveliness to it. I know, social media is where a lot of that is at. But the radio element sounds amazing when done right. So much of the national talk radio product sounds canned. It might as well be a podcast alone. And the ratings are't great. I'm not saying go back to the days of letting some random elderly person rant about social security for 8 minutes and depend on lousy callers. Embrace the new media, but retain the "reactive" element radio has always excelled at when done right.

We've talked about KEXP, and the community around that. When something big happens that affects social issues, I know I can tune them in and hear someone choosing music, reading texts and reflecting on it live. Even if I were fully in the conservative camp, much of what I hear on talk radio sounds canned, like someone ranting to themselves. We've mentioned KISW - the Mens Room has good audience participation features. I'm saying... and maybe it IS in the pipeline... expand that. Make it bigger. Make it the greatest shows on earth, 24/7 and invite the audience into that. That's what made radio so attractive to me as a kid, and that's a sense of community that can be built in ways outside of the right-wing niche 90+ percent of this format seems to be riding to the end. I'm not dismissing the efforts of things like MSBC, I know a lot of people who have gone. But in most cases that's still packaged around music, not current affairs. So it may bring up some of the mid-tier shows in that world, but it's not scaling in the way that right wing talk radio has. Even if you want to stay in that realm, how many fresh takes on that have turned up? Rogan speaks to those guys, less so Bongino or Clay Travis.

To use a cliche that fizzled with the failure of CBS' FM talk experiments, make it the talk that rocks. And it does take the resources, the producers and new media people. I know a top 20 market talk station that went from a 2 person night show with a producer and a board op, to 1 host and one producer/board op hybrid. Now they have no night show. I get the financial argument - but I also get that if you want to do something at proper scale, you need a lot of fuel and people who can focus on excellence in each aspect. So to do something at this scale, you have to go big. BBC Radio 1 big.

People worry about Soros' involvement in Audacy. In my view if Soros, or Musk, or anyone had an agenda that involved radio pushing their views, you'd get the top talent (including rising stars on weekends/late nights) and build a video-forward, high grade studio. You'd put it on your best FM signals in the major markets, and support it with a podcasting and video "network" online. And you'd do it live, and bring in the audience. I'm not a sales guy, I don't know the revenues on this, but I'm speaking from a quality perspective. We're pointing to Seattle and Cleveland, shows here and there. I'm saying bring it all together and go all in. iHeart will do something like "BIN" - but they have Charlamagne. Why isn't it all tied together to a bigger deal, a lively Fox News/MSNBC take on urban perspectives in news, politics, social life and culture? BIN is dry and canned, Charlamagne's three hours out of a day condensed to 90 minutes on a podcast.

I may not be articulating this as well as it could be, but I'd like to see a whole lot more boldness out of radio. Take what's been done well and do it everywhere - all the platforms, and do it LOUDLY. I love radio, I love talk radio, and I'd love to see something really shake the earth and the medium out of its perceived one-sided politics. Even if you do politics, there's other ways to do it that are compelling.

 

[TheBigA]

I may not be articulating this as well as it could be, but I'd like to see a whole lot more boldness out of radio.

I agree and the key to it will be financing. As I said in another thread, it's a lot easier to operate from a position of strength when you don't have to worry about revenue. Right now, revenue is the primary worry, and it's not just in commercial radio. Public radio is also under attack, and the next four years will be challenging for public radio and the educational institutions that support them. The reason conservative talk radio is so prevalent is because it found a financial structure that wasn't dependent on traditional advertising. My view is that programmers need to seek out funding that supports their programming ideas BEFORE they put them on the air. That's how you program from strength rather than from weakness.

 

[KilowattKat]

It'll be a while. They need KSFO on 560 to tell listeners to move to 810. Expect that (in some form---simulcast, endless loop, whatever) to be weeks. Maybe a month or more.

Since the FCC eliminated AM duplication rules in the same market, this simulcast could continue for a very, very long time. Cumulus may be in no hurry to find separate programming for 560, until they get the best deal for leasing it.

 

[TheBigA]

Since the FCC eliminated AM duplication rules in the same market, this simulcast could continue for a very, very long time.

Then again, the new chairman of the FCC voted against eliminating the AM duplication rule. So that situation may change in a few months.

 

[davideduardo]

Then again, the new chairman of the FCC voted against eliminating the AM duplication rule. So that situation may change in a few months.

I really doubt that the new commissioner will be very worried about the near-dead AM band when his major concern is new media and telecommunications.