KYW No Longer Says "1060", Only "103.9."

[davideduardo]

I seem to recall people saying they listened to this as far north as Myrtle Beach. Although the rocker there was a daytime-only AM. Maybe it wasn't on the air yet.

I remember around 1959 when I was taken to Ormond Beach, FL, for spring break, every radio on the waterfront was tuned to WAPE. That was a good 90 miles from the Big Ape's transmitter on the far west side of its city of license, yet it was an absolute local signal.

I believe the Brennans put this on the air in later 1958, the third of their 50 kw daytimers (Birmingham and Montgomery were first). The last was in the Chattanooga market and actually had a night operation.

 

[davideduardo]

I’m curious, what ”innovation” is recommended for local radio? What magic bullet is out there? One that, importantly, would make money?

Let's look at the "new" formats since block programming died with the advent of television in the post-WW II decade. In other words, in the last 70 to 75 years... three quarters of a century.

• Top 40. Created by Todd Storz in the very early 50's in Omaha.
• Adult contemporary. Began in the early 70's and was called Chicken Rock. It was Top 40 without the harder rock and harder Soul and a few more oldies.
• Oldies. A by-product of Top 40, with the big hits that no longer were currents. Early FM oldies station: WMOD in DC arouund 1968-69.
• Classic Hits. As "oldies" became a format for people over 55... who advertisers mostly rejected... a new set of gold that was 15 to 20 years younger became a separate format.
• "Music of Your Life". As old line MOR stations died in the 70's, former musician Al Hamm created a format based on crooners and big bands and the like. It targeted older people, and died along with them.
• MOR. A by-product of the end of network drama, comedy and block programming where personable talents spun more traditional music from Sinatra to Mantovanni and one-way chatted with the listeners.
• All talk. This was a by-product of the MOR style, with no music. It ranged from current events topics to Bill Balance and sprung out of the absence of network shows and lack of MOR music in the later 60's and developed more in the 70's with what we'd call "hot talk" or "shock jocks".
• All news. First one in the US was Extra News Over Los Angeles done by McLendon in about 1960. "Domesticated" in the late 60's in New York and LA.
• Country: actually a format on independent stations back to the later 40's in the South, but became more and more sophisticated by the 60's in larger metros.
• Urban / r&b (called by now derogatory terms in the industry). This grew out of amazing stations like Memphis' WDIA (1949) that date back more than 60 years. WOOK, WERD, WJMO and many others were doing Black music in cities with larger Black populations.
• Urban AC. Grew out of the division between hip hop and r&b starting about 40 years ago. As hip hop grew, older partisans of traditional Black music needed their own format without that newfangled stuff.
• Beautiful Music. This grew out of "easy listening" which was the non-classical music option most often used by early FMs in the later 50's and much of the 60's. When FMs were mostly required to stop simulcasting in the late 60's, this became a strong option in an era where instrumentals were universally popular... we had everything from The Ventures to Percy Faith, and the softer stuff became a very sophisticated format.
• Smooth Jazz. As Beautiful Music died in the late 80's, this format arrived. It had cross-racial appeal, mostly in large markets.
• Rock: A variety of format variants, from Album Oriented Rock (AOR) to progressive to Alternative were all based on the late 60's option of removing The Archies and The Monkees from CHR and supplementing with album cuts and harder stuff.
• AC derivatives. As AC grew, it was seen that there were gold based, soft, more recent blends that were subsets of AC. Not new, just variants for competitive situations.
• "Jack" and wannabee Jacks. A derivative of oldies and album rock, a jockless blend of several decades of music that were not too hard, not to pop and aimed at purely adult audiences.
• All sports. As AM stations died, Jeff Smulyan, who is a big sports fan himself, and his Emmis team made a NYC AM all sports and found instant success by delivering solid adult male demos to advertisers. Guy talk was the key.
• Contemporary Christian. The K-love format, with many local variants of AC based Christian music.
• Hispanic formats. Out of a one-size fits all from the later 40's and 50's, stations appealing to Hispanics became almost as divided as general market ones, with at least 6 or 7 viable formats in markets in the US.

I did not include educational/non-com station formats, as they tend to be block programmed and evolved over decades rather than popping up as new formats. Similarly, religious formats have evolved for the most part.

The real issue is that in over 6 decades, we have seen about a dozen "new" format evolve and everything else is just a hybrid or variant of these core concepts. For example, Jack is a variant of rock... K-love is AC adapted for content and lyrics.... Urban AC is a fragmentation based on changes in Black music... Classic Hits is a modernization of Oldies.

So really, in 6 decades in general market radio there have only been 6 to 8 really distinctive new formats that are not fragmentations or derivatives of existing ones.

So the idea that there are lots of new formats waiting to be created is just a chimera or a pipe dream.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Even setting aside formats and flavors thereof, there just are limitations to what a one way medium can innovate at this point in time. I’m not intentionally discounting the owners who got well into the streaming audio game. That’s a necessity. But since the question or complaint was local radio, I’m just pondering if there’s some elusive innovation to be had.

 

[semoochie]

Let's look at the "new" formats since block programming died with the advent of television in the post-WW II decade. In other words, in the last 70 to 75 years... three quarters of a century.

• Top 40. Created by Todd Storz in the very early 50's in Omaha.
• Adult contemporary. Began in the early 70's and was called Chicken Rock. It was Top 40 without the harder rock and harder Soul and a few more oldies.
• Oldies. A by-product of Top 40, with the big hits that no longer were currents. Early FM oldies station: WMOD in DC arouund 1968-69.
• Classic Hits. As "oldies" became a format for people over 55... who advertisers mostly rejected... a new set of gold that was 15 to 20 years younger became a separate format.
• "Music of Your Life". As old line MOR stations died in the 70's, former musician Al Hamm created a format based on crooners and big bands and the like. It targeted older people, and died along with them.
• MOR. A by-product of the end of network drama, comedy and block programming where personable talents spun more traditional music from Sinatra to Mantovanni and one-way chatted with the listeners.
• All talk. This was a by-product of the MOR style, with no music. It ranged from current events topics to Bill Balance and sprung out of the absence of network shows and lack of MOR music in the later 60's and developed more in the 70's with what we'd call "hot talk" or "shock jocks".
• All news. First one in the US was Extra News Over Los Angeles done by McLendon in about 1960. "Domesticated" in the late 60's in New York and LA.
• Country: actually a format on independent stations back to the later 40's in the South, but became more and more sophisticated by the 60's in larger metros.
• Urban / r&b (called by now derogatory terms in the industry). This grew out of amazing stations like Memphis' WDIA (1949) that date back more than 60 years. WOOK, WERD, WJMO and many others were doing Black music in cities with larger Black populations.
• Urban AC. Grew out of the division between hip hop and r&b starting about 40 years ago. As hip hop grew, older partisans of traditional Black music needed their own format without that newfangled stuff.
• Beautiful Music. This grew out of "easy listening" which was the non-classical music option most often used by early FMs in the later 50's and much of the 60's. When FMs were mostly required to stop simulcasting in the late 60's, this became a strong option in an era where instrumentals were universally popular... we had everything from The Ventures to Percy Faith, and the softer stuff became a very sophisticated format.
• Smooth Jazz. As Beautiful Music died in the late 80's, this format arrived. It had cross-racial appeal, mostly in large markets.
• Rock: A variety of format variants, from Album Oriented Rock (AOR) to progressive to Alternative were all based on the late 60's option of removing The Archies and The Monkees from CHR and supplementing with album cuts and harder stuff.
• AC derivatives. As AC grew, it was seen that there were gold based, soft, more recent blends that were subsets of AC. Not new, just variants for competitive situations.
• "Jack" and wannabee Jacks. A derivative of oldies and album rock, a jockless blend of several decades of music that were not too hard, not to pop and aimed at purely adult audiences.
• All sports. As AM stations died, Jeff Smulyan, who is a big sports fan himself, and his Emmis team made a NYC AM all sports and found instant success by delivering solid adult male demos to advertisers. Guy talk was the key.
• Contemporary Christian. The K-love format, with many local variants of AC based Christian music.
• Hispanic formats. Out of a one-size fits all from the later 40's and 50's, stations appealing to Hispanics became almost as divided as general market ones, with at least 6 or 7 viable formats in markets in the US.

I did not include educational/non-com station formats, as they tend to be block programmed and evolved over decades rather than popping up as new formats. Similarly, religious formats have evolved for the most part.

The real issue is that in over 6 decades, we have seen about a dozen "new" format evolve and everything else is just a hybrid or variant of these core concepts. For example, Jack is a variant of rock... K-love is AC adapted for content and lyrics.... Urban AC is a fragmentation based on changes in Black music... Classic Hits is a modernization of Oldies.

So really, in 6 decades in general market radio there have only been 6 to 8 really distinctive new formats that are not fragmentations or derivatives of existing ones.

So the idea that there are lots of new formats waiting to be created is just a chimera or a pipe dream.

In that the station no longer exists, a victim of the expanded band, I can no longer look up the information but KLIQ Portland OR was the first All News station in the country, beginning and ending the format in 1959. They were fairly busy changing formats that year, having just hired all the old KVAN Top 40 jocks, when that station was sold to Don Burden and became KISN. That format existed for a matter of weeks before changing to something else, which gave way to All News and soon, Talk, which was their mainstay in the 1960s and '70s.

 

[vchimpanzee]

• Contemporary Christian. The K-love format, with many local variants of AC based Christian music.

Long before K-Love, Contemporary Christian was being done by individual stations starting in the late 80s.

 

[CTListener]

Long before K-Love, Contemporary Christian was being done by individual stations starting in the late 80s.

And there was also the Southern Gospel format, largely in the South. The music has a strong country influence. Not sure if it was ever a money maker, but it skews way too old to be one today.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Even setting aside formats and flavors thereof, there just are limitations to what a one way medium can innovate at this point in time. I’m not intentionally discounting the owners who got well into the streaming audio game. That’s a necessity. But since the question or complaint was local radio, I’m just pondering if there’s some elusive innovation to be had.

HD was supposed to save AM, but they (that is, everyone from the FCC to iBiquity to broadcasters) did more of their research in hindsight as opposed to being prepared. As a result, they discovered massive interference, and the original HD signals didn't get out very far to begin with. I might place my bets on the new MA3 standard of all-digital radio coming out, but hopefully this time they'll do their research so they don't have to shut down hundreds of HD signals like they did the first time around.
-----
If nothing else, I wonder what it would take to get DRM to the US?

 

[CTListener]

If nothing else, I wonder what it would take to get DRM to the US?

Willingness by any manufacturer to start producing radios again, which would have to be preceded by evidence that American consumers want to buy radios again. We're talking the proverbial icicle's chance in Hell of that happening.

 

[ZantennaG1]

Willingness by any manufacturer to start producing radios again, which would have to be preceded by evidence that American consumers want to buy radios again. We're talking the proverbial icicle's chance in Hell of that happening.

The good 'ol snowball or icicle clause. I will buy a radio, because that's my thing, but in a world of streaming, most will miss the point.

 

[davideduardo]

HD was supposed to save AM, but they (that is, everyone from the FCC to iBiquity to broadcasters) did more of their research in hindsight as opposed to being prepared. As a result, they discovered massive interference, and the original HD signals didn't get out very far to begin with. I might place my bets on the new MA3 standard of all-digital radio coming out, but hopefully this time they'll do their research so they don't have to shut down hundreds of HD signals like they did the first time around.

HD had been in some form of development for over a decade prior to iBiquity forming to take over the research done by, among others, the old AT&T Laboratories.

The developer believed they had to have an AM as well as an FM solution, and of the issues was to avoid the standoff situation of dueling technologies that held back the original analog AM stereo.

If nothing else, I wonder what it would take to get DRM to the US?

DRM requires new frequencies as it can not run, like HD, in tandem. There are no spare channels in the US. The only place DRM seems to be making inroads in India, where the government controls all AM channels and can create a web of 1,000,000 and 500,000 watt stations with smaller fill-in facilities. That project is well on its way.

 

[davideduardo]

Long before K-Love, Contemporary Christian was being done by individual stations starting in the late 80s.

I just mentioned K-love as an example of the format, not the originator.

 

[semoochie]

Long before K-Love, Contemporary Christian was being done by individual stations starting in the late 80s.

KCMS has been in Seattle, first as KBIQ, since the '70s!

 

[CTListener]

DRM requires new frequencies as it can not run, like HD, in tandem. There are no spare channels in the US. The only place DRM seems to be making inroads in India, where the government controls all AM channels and can create a web of 1,000,000 and 500,000 watt stations with smaller fill-in facilities. That project is well on its way.

What frequency range is used for DRM in India? The conventional AM band (medium wave) or some other range? And are analog stations still allowed to broadcast on the AM band?

 

[ZantennaG1]

KCMS has been in Seattle, first as KBIQ, since the '70s!

Ironically KBIQ is now a Contemporary Christian station in Colorado Springs. That's dedication!

 

[ZantennaG1]

DRM requires new frequencies as it can not run, like HD, in tandem. There are no spare channels in the US. The only place DRM seems to be making inroads in India, where the government controls all AM channels and can create a web of 1,000,000 and 500,000 watt stations with smaller fill-in facilities. That project is well on its way.

What frequency range is used for DRM in India? The conventional AM band (medium wave) or some other range? And are analog stations still allowed to broadcast on the AM band?

I was wondering the same thing, considering how DRM was meant for shortwave, and yet they adapted it for MW. David, have you heard if the citizens in India like/dislike DRM?

 

[davideduardo]

I was wondering the same thing, considering how DRM was meant for shortwave, and yet they adapted it for MW. David, have you heard if the citizens in India like/dislike DRM?

SW, just like Medium Wave, is historically AM. There is really no adaptation, other than the transmitter RF design, for DRM to work on the MW band. The major difference is that stations will depend on groundwave coverage for the most part.

The folks in India have little choice. Commercial FM is limited to the urban areas of the biggest cities, and there are only around 400 stations in the larger cities.

FM broadcasting in India - Wikipedia is a rather superficial coverage of the subject.

For the majority of Indians outside the big cities, it is just All India Radio on AM, FM in some places and DRM. And this is all complicated by the multiple languages spoken by the 1,4 billion people in the nation.

There is nothing not to like about DRM; it is higher fidelity and cleaner (no AM noise).

Note: at the beginning of commercial radio about 2 decades ago, stations could not carry newscasts. There was a proposal to allow this, but I do not know the status.

 

[ZantennaG1]

SW, just like Medium Wave, is AM. There is really no adaptation, other than the transmitter RF design, for DRM to work on the MW band.

The folks in India have little choice. Commercial FM is limited to the urban areas of the biggest cities, and there are only around 400 stations in the larger cities.

FM broadcasting in India - Wikipedia is a rather superficial coverage of the subject.

For the majority of Indians outside the big cities, it is just All India Radio on AM, FM in some places and DRM. And this is all complicated by the multiple languages spoken by the 1,4 billion people in the nation.

There is nothing not to like about DRM; it is higher fidelity and cleaner (no AM noise).

Note: at the beginning of commercial radio about 2 decades ago, stations could not carry newscasts. There was a proposal to allow this, but I do not know the status.

It sounds like they gutted the analog stations except for All India Radio, (What a nice acronym, AIR), which give them the wiggle room to try DRM. So if I liked it and wanted to try it, it would be an all-digital method, like MA3 is, right?

 

[ZantennaG1]

It sounds like they gutted the analog stations except for All India Radio, (What a nice acronym, AIR), which give them the wiggle room to try DRM. So if I liked it and wanted to try it, it would be an all-digital method, like MA3 is, right?

Edit to clarify: I'm not saying that the US is anywhere close to making this a reality, just a hypothetical. So no, I won't go out and buy a DRM transmitter and try to put it on the air, or anything like that.

 

[davideduardo]

It sounds like they gutted the analog stations except for All India Radio, (What a nice acronym, AIR), which give them the wiggle room to try DRM. So if I liked it and wanted to try it, it would be an all-digital method, like MA3 is, right?

India was never congested with AM stations. Just a few hundred for the whole sub-continent. So they could easily put the DRM stations on using regionally vacant frequencies. The few things I have read seem to indicate that they just added a DRM transmitter at many existing sites with the idea of simulcasting until DRM radios are fully available and in use.

There were no private AM stations there. Just the AIR services in various languages.

 

[CTListener]

It sounds like they gutted the analog stations except for All India Radio, (What a nice acronym, AIR),

In the pirate/clandestine columns in Popular Communications and Monitoring Times (both, sadly, long defunct), a pirate station calling itself Partial India Radio was often reported, I assume with the usual sophomoric hijinks such stations were known for rather than anything remotely connected to the Subcontinent.