KYA or KFRC

[michael hagerty]

We lived in the foothills (Cameron Park) in 88-89. At that time Sacto was a bit more expensive than CP but both were far more expensive than Phoenix where we had lived prior to '88. CP began exploding right after we returned to AZ and I felt most of Sacto was a dump. For the state capital of CA I thought Sacto was a dumpy little border town. Schools sucked. Traffic sucked. Taxes sucked. Prop 13 would have been great had we lived there long enough but it didn't outweigh the negatives. The house we moved into from Sacto in '93 was approximately the same as the one we had in CP. The CA house was about $40K when we moved out which was about $30K more than the Phoenix house. Gas, food, property taxes and utilities were all higher in CA than AZ.

Ah, Tuna. I love how you answer every question calling for facts with a personal anecdote and opinion.

Gasoline is a given, as well as the cost of housing (though you build equity quicker here).
The difference in the property tax rate is 0.17, in Phoenix’s favor.

My auto insurance (same company) dropped by $100 a month when I moved from Phoenix to Sacramento, my summertime power bills peak at about $250 a month for three months out of the year instead of being over $500 a month for five months. Car batteries last five years instead of 18 months.

Phoenix is still cheaper, thanks to housing and fuel—-but pay is better here. Most professional jobs in Sacramento pay at least $10,000 more than a comparable position in Phoenix.

The difference ends up being fairly small, compared to San Diego, which is considerably more expensive, Los Angeles (even more so) and San Francisco (as Dr. Akbar would say—-yikes!).

 

[alok]

I liked both KFRC & KYA . . . I was in the SF Bay Area during both stations Top 40 days.
I recall Tom Campbell (from KYA) when he went to KLOK 1170 in San Jose for a short time . . . it was a weekend thing if I recall correctly. He'd lend out his Corvette to a listener, for say just a few hours . . . does anybody recall this?
Like I said I liked KFRC because of The Drake Format & KYA because they had a good overall sound too.
I lived close to the bay (near south Bay) so KYA's signal was good.

Al

 

[michael hagerty]

I recall Tom Campbell (from KYA) when he went to KLOK 1170 in San Jose for a short time . . . it was a weekend thing if I recall correctly. He'd lend out his Corvette to a listener, for say just a few hours . . . does anybody recall this?


Al

Yes, that was a big thing of Tom's...he'd lend out his Corvette for a listener to go on a date, or his record player and record collection for listeners to throw a party. A lot of people put him down as just running a gimmick---but he built trust with his audience and said once that he'd never gotten burned by having anything returned to him in worse condition than when he lent it out.

 

[xkxrx]

Yes, that was a big thing of Tom's...he'd lend out his Corvette for a listener to go on a date, or his record player and record collection for listeners to throw a party. A lot of people put him down as just running a gimmick---but he built trust with his audience and said once that he'd never gotten burned by having anything returned to him in worse condition than when he lent it out.

I remember he was one of the few that actually had a phone in his car, this was way before cellular was invented. He even gave out his number out and you could call him and "rap" with him.

 

[michael hagerty]

I remember he was one of the few that actually had a phone in his car, this was way before cellular was invented. He even gave out his number out and you could call him and "rap" with him.

Tom's home phone number, car phone number and secretary's phone number were printed on at least one KYA music survey:

Tom Campbell (KYA Radio Personality) | Bay Area Radio Museum

 

[landtuna]

Ah, Tuna. I love how you answer every question calling for facts with a personal anecdote and opinion.

Calculating exact or near exact COL between major cities is not easy or very accurate. I found the following approximations at Nerdwallet. They don't go back far enough to be very accurate but the numbers do have a story that hasn't changed much over the past 25-30 years.

Summary: Sacto COL is 14% higher than PHX

...........Category................................. PHX Metro Sacto Metro
Median home price (3BR, 2BA) $459,796 $560,171
Transportation Costs 18% higher
Food 6% higher
Entertainment 16% higher
Health Care 20% higher

My auto insurance (same company) dropped by $100 a month when I moved from Phoenix to Sacramento, my summertime power bills peak at about $250 a month for three months out of the year instead of being over $500 a month for five months. Car batteries last five years instead of 18 months.

In Phoenix my commute was 1.5 miles. In Sacto 20+ each way. I don't have those old bills to compare but my total annual bill in 2022 is now about $1400 (two cars newish, two drivers, no tix or collisions). That is way cheaper than Sacto now (of course we are a bit older now).

My highest power bill in AZ was just over $160/month (2,400 sq. ft. 5-bed ranch style house). We did have both refrigeration and evap cooling, and a pool. CA highest was just over $225 (2,400 sq. ft. 4-bed 2-story), no pool). Winters were much cheaper by month in AZ than in CA. Both houses were electric only.

I have found car batteries last around 3-4 years in Central AZ. If yours is lasting much less you are buying really cheap batteries, your charging circuits are maladjusted/failing or the vehicle has a much greater power draw than normal for the model.

Phoenix is still cheaper, thanks to housing and fuel—-but pay is better here. Most professional jobs in Sacramento pay at least $10,000 more than a comparable position in Phoenix.

I didn't look at income vs costs but AZ, particularly the Phoenix metro east valley is full of high wage earners (coincidentally the same company, Intel, seems to be feeding both locations. I remember just before I left Intel that they had adopted a 12 or 15% over the board income raise as a COL adjustment for the Bay Area and Sacto Intel employees. AZ hasn't done that yet but they have continued expanding the two big factories and a Taiwan fab is building an even larger operation in the NW part of the Valley. I'm not aware of any major building plans for Intel in CA.

And remember, the more you earn your federal taxes increase as well (all other things being equal). The Tax Foundation reports AZ Marginal Individual Rate at 4.5% while CA's is 13.3%. That's a very big hole to fill with "higher wages".

 

[michael hagerty]

Calculating exact or near exact COL between major cities is not easy or very accurate. I found the following approximations at Nerdwallet. They don't go back far enough to be very accurate but the numbers do have a story that hasn't changed much over the past 25-30 years.

Summary: Sacto COL is 14% higher than PHX

...........Category................................. PHX Metro Sacto Metro
Median home price (3BR, 2BA) $459,796 $560,171
Transportation Costs 18% higher
Food 6% higher
Entertainment 16% higher
Health Care 20% higher

My auto insurance (same company) dropped by $100 a month when I moved from Phoenix to Sacramento, my summertime power bills peak at about $250 a month for three months out of the year instead of being over $500 a month for five months. Car batteries last five years instead of 18 months.

In Phoenix my commute was 1.5 miles. In Sacto 20+ each way. I don't have those old bills to compare but my total annual bill in 2022 is now about $1400 (two cars newish, two drivers, no tix or collisions). That is way cheaper than Sacto now (of course we are a bit older now).

My highest power bill in AZ was just over $160/month (2,400 sq. ft. 5-bed ranch style house). We did have both refrigeration and evap cooling, and a pool. CA highest was just over $225 (2,400 sq. ft. 4-bed 2-story), no pool). Winters were much cheaper by month in AZ than in CA. Both houses were electric only.

I have found car batteries last around 3-4 years in Central AZ. If yours is lasting much less you are buying really cheap batteries, your charging circuits are maladjusted/failing or the vehicle has a much greater power draw than normal for the model.

Phoenix is still cheaper, thanks to housing and fuel—-but pay is better here. Most professional jobs in Sacramento pay at least $10,000 more than a comparable position in Phoenix.

I didn't look at income vs costs but AZ, particularly the Phoenix metro east valley is full of high wage earners (coincidentally the same company, Intel, seems to be feeding both locations. I remember just before I left Intel that they had adopted a 12 or 15% over the board income raise as a COL adjustment for the Bay Area and Sacto Intel employees. AZ hasn't done that yet but they have continued expanding the two big factories and a Taiwan fab is building an even larger operation in the NW part of the Valley. I'm not aware of any major building plans for Intel in CA.

And remember, the more you earn your federal taxes increase as well (all other things being equal). The Tax Foundation reports AZ Marginal Individual Rate at 4.5% while CA's is 13.3%. That's a very big hole to fill with "higher wages".

Thanks for that. Again, everyone's mileage may vary (mine certainly did when it came to power bills in AZ. I bought 96-month car batteries and they fizzled in 18 months. Then again, I was parking outdoors, and you're probably garaging.

Anyway, the original point was that the difference between Phoenix and Sacramento is less than that between Phoenix and San Diego, L.A. or San Francisco.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Bill Lee former KFRC Host 4 decades ago was on KTZO-TV's Dance Party. Note in its early years of James Gabbert managing TV 20 he contracted KFRC-AM to appear on Dance Party as a co-production. From 1986-early 1990's they subsequently used KOFY 1050 AM as a co-production for Dance Party.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

When we moved from L.A. to the Bay Area in 2009, KOFY ( pronounced "coffee") was showing re-runs of its "Dance Party" show with James Gabbert. Even as a middle-aged viewer, I used to watch that because it was so much fun and had such a retro atmosphere around it. Later, they brought Dance Party back in present day as an 80's themed show with a different host, I think: but James Gabbert still showed up from time to time. He seemed to influence a lot of programming at KOFY, with its upbeat and creative shows. For a long time, James Gabbert did the station breaks himself, in his cheerful voice, with the cute dogs sitting in the chair. It was refreshing and much different than major network programming. JMO -- Daryl

 

[adradio]

Thanks Michael for digging up those very specific daypart numbers from the 60s. Maybe KYA's signal disadvantage was less of an issue in the 1960s-early 1970s than today, because there was so much less man-made noise back then?

KYA had a better signal within the SF city limits than KFRC. However, in the suburbs, KFRC was much better. KYA marketed the station for San Francisco, while KFRC was more about the entire Bay Area. Part of the ratings shift in the '70s was likely due in part to growth of Bay Area suburbs in the South Bay and East Bay, where KFRC had a much better signal. Of course, once Dr. Don Rose arrived, it was game over for KYA.

 

[davideduardo]

KYA had a better signal within the SF city limits than KFRC. However, in the suburbs, KFRC was much better. KYA marketed the station for San Francisco, while KFRC was more about the entire Bay Area. Part of the ratings shift in the '70s was likely due in part to growth of Bay Area suburbs in the South Bay and East Bay, where KFRC had a much better signal. Of course, once Dr. Don Rose arrived, it was game over for KYA.

Up until Arbitron started rolling out its diary based survey, the two major surveys were restricted by cost, geography and logistics.

Pulse and Hooper used in-home or telephone methodology. They did not survey an entire week, just coincidental or 24 hour recall. The San Francisco telephone method only used zones that were "free" calls from wherever the calling was done from. The in-home extended out only to "easy drive" locations.

Unfortunately, not much data on 60's ratings by Pulse and Hooper survive. If anyone reading this has any 60's surveys by those companies, I'd love a copy of at least the Description of Methodology for use on www.worldradiohistory.com.

In any case, Arbitron redefined the survey system using weekly diaries that were mailed to the survey area. And the survey area was redefined to be county based and covered all counties where "home" stations got over half the listening.

So, suddenly markets were redefined. But Arbitron did not become totally dominant until it began doing coordinated Spring and Fall books covering every larger market simultaneously (and smaller ones just Spring) in the early 70's. Once they did that, and pushed their sales efforts towards agencies instead of just at the station level, Hooper soon died although Pulse lasted until the late 70's in some markets.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I wish I could find it---it may be in the posts the board lost years ago, but John participated here back in the 2000s.

In one of those posts, John told the story of his departure from KFRC. Basically, he did let ego get to him once and lived to regret it. In 1979, he and everyone else at KFRC was making $37,000 a year, apart from Dr. Don Rose, who reportedly was at $300,000.

John went to Les Garland (the PD) and demanded a raise. Les told him he was right, that he was an important part of the station's success, went to the GM and came back with an offer of $60,000 a year (that's $246,000 adjusted for inflation). John told Les that was an insult. Les went back to the GM, they both went to RKO and they came back to John with an offer for $90,000 a year ($369k adjusted).

John told them to stick it and walked out. No radio gig. He went to work for the Dale Carnegie ("How To Win Friends And Influence People") organization---an irony that wasn't lost on him later on.

Things got worse. John says Carnegie reneged on the agreement and never paid him. John worked for KCBS-FM and its successor KRQR, but was little more than a time and temp album jock--at one point relegated to overnights. He got back to afternoon drive and CHR at KWSS in Gilroy/San Jose, and that got him back into SF, at KIOI, KSFO/KYA-FM and even at KFRC in its oldies incarnation---but that was when the industry was playing corporate musical chairs with talent. This is a pretty good summation:

KFRC's John Mack Flanagan: The BARD Interview (Summer 1992) | Bay

Eventually, John took a gig as a security guard/greeter at Embarcadero Plaza---the same building where he'd worked at KCBS-FM and KRQR.

In the late 2000s, he got lured back to KFRC's re-birth on 106.9 with a Sunday Beatles show---and got let go with everyone else when the station flipped to a simulcast of KCBS a few months later.

I corresponded with John for a bit from there until his death in 2018. A good guy who deserved a lot better from the business he loved.

Here is a John Mack Flanagan aircheck when KFRC was on 99.7 FM.

 

[davideduardo]

In one of those posts, John told the story of his departure from KFRC. Basically, he did let ego get to him once and lived to regret it. In 1979, he and everyone else at KFRC was making $37,000 a year, apart from Dr. Don Rose, who reportedly was at $300,000.

As a reference, $35,000 was a GM salary for a second tier station manager in a Top 15 to Top 20 market at that time. That was what Metroplex offered me to manage Y-100's AM Spanish language AM station in Miami in 1980. So it was not great money, but hardly the near-poverty level it seems to be today.

 

[davideduardo]

Ah, Tuna. I love how you answer every question calling for facts with a personal anecdote and opinion.

As a researcher, I file this under n=1 and that means reliability=0.

 

[Lou_S]

The other factor in the KYA-KFRC battle's early days was listener loyalty. KYA's air talent, Gene Nelson, Mike Cleary, Johnny Holliday, Sean O'Callaghan, Ed Heider, Tony Bigg---all were involved in the community. They'd show up at local high schools---in fact, their basketball team, the KYA Oneders, would regularly play local high school faculty teams.

It wasn't the Oneders, but shortly after a Swensen's Ice Cream store opened up in San Rafael a couple of the KYA jocks came to do an in-store appearance as a stop on a chain-wide promotion, giving away 45 RPM records as door prizes.

When they arrived they found the store stereo was on KFRC, which was booming in. They tried to re-tune it to KYA but due to it's transmitter location and the intervening terrain (downtown SF and several east-west mountain ranges) KYA wasn't more than a rumor in that area. So they turned the radio off.

And the 45s they gave away were the B-flop promotional records they received from distributors that would have otherwise ended up in the trash.

 

[JoeLouis]

It wasn't the Oneders, but shortly after a Swensen's Ice Cream store opened up in San Rafael a couple of the KYA jocks came to do an in-store appearance as a stop on a chain-wide promotion, giving away 45 RPM records as door prizes.

When they arrived they found the store stereo was on KFRC, which was booming in. They tried to re-tune it to KYA but due to it's transmitter location and the intervening terrain (downtown SF and several east-west mountain ranges) KYA wasn't more than a rumor in that area. So they turned the radio off.

And the 45s they gave away were the B-flop promotional records they received from distributors that would have otherwise ended up in the trash.

Some of those promotional 45s were interesting, I have "Fakin' It" by Simon and Garfunkel, display time on the 45 is 2:74 (commercial release shows 3:14)

 

[Lou_S]

Eventually, John took a gig as a security guard/greeter at Embarcadero Plaza---the same building where he'd worked at KCBS-FM and KRQR.

John MacFlanagan's last fulltime radio gig was middays at oldies KMGG in Santa Rosa. He was a great guy and commuted an hour and a half+ each way from his home in Colma. Because of the commute he refused to do any extra promotion or live appearances, which eventually led to a parting of the ways. His autobiography said this happened at another station, but I think just one of the inconsistencies due to the lack of proper editing in the book.

A few months later I booked a one way flight from SFO to Phoenix to pick up an RV I bought there. When I got to the airport I was pulled aside for additional screening due to the lack of a return ticket and I recognized the agent as John Mac.

He didn't give any sign of recognizing me as he patted me down and I did the same. I wasn't sure if it would get me further into hot water or not.

I'm pretty sure this was just an interim job for him between KMGG and the Embarcadero 1 security gig. It should be noted that KCBS and KRQR were still in EC1 at that time so he would have been interacting with the staff from both stations.

 

[michael hagerty]

John MacFlanagan's last fulltime radio gig was middays at oldies KMGG in Santa Rosa. He was a great guy and commuted an hour and a half+ each way from his home in Colma. Because of the commute he refused to do any extra promotion or live appearances for the station, which eventually led to a parting of the ways. His autobiography said this happened at another station, but I think just one of the inconsistencies due to the lack of proper editing in the book.

A few months later I booked a one way flight from SFO to Phoenix to pick up an RV I bought there. When I got to the airport I was pulled aside for additional screening due to the lack of a return ticket and I recognized the agent as John Mac.

He didn't give any sign of recognizing me as he patted me down and I did the same. I wasn't sure if it would get me further into hot water or not.

I'm pretty sure this was just an interim job for him between KMGG and the Embarcadero 1 security gig. It should be noted that KCBS and KRQR were still in EC1 at that time so he would have been interacting with the staff from both stations.

I had heard about the SFO gig and had forgotten. It was before Embarcadero Center, which came after the CBS move to 855 Battery.

John’s book (“Tight & Bright”) was a worthwhile but difficult read. It absolutely needed an editor.

 

[landtuna]

John MacFlanagan's last fulltime radio gig was middays at oldies KMGG in Santa Rosa.

I've always remembered John's name spelled and pronounced as "John Mack Flanagan". Am I losing my mind?

 

[michael hagerty]

I've always remembered John's name spelled and pronounced as "John Mack Flanagan". Am I losing my mind?

No, you’re correct.