Re: Phoenix Radio Dial Most Diverse
Some good responses to my post, and (of course), I have some opinions on them.
First, saladressing, since your response is the one in front of me, I'd prefer 13 stations to 24--or at least these 24. I'm talking fantasy in the following sentence, but I'd rather see 11 low-powers trying to fill niches than copycats of copycats.
Legend_City, good post, definitely elicited a smile.
David Eduardo, point well taken. I generally don't feel I fit in with the way this market works, so maybe Seattle is a better all-around choice for me. (Even if specialty coffee isn't my thing, and I never liked Nirvana.)
Also, David, while I realize the owners of 100.3/106.3 and 105.3/105.9 are doing the best with what they have, (and KHOT's ratings are, well, caliente), some work needs to be done to reduce the mishmash on the dial and coordinate it in a way that makes sense.
It's not like 105.3 is concerned about Wickenburg, or 106.3 is concerned about Sun City West. As long as these facilities are openly targeting Phoenix, owners should work together to apply for better and less redundant facilities.
It's crazy to have Family Radio on 88.3/88.9 (satellator), K-Love on 89.1/105.5--each with less-than-adequate valley coverage--and the other examples cited above.
If nothing else, it's wasteful. Everyone gets slivers, when organized reshuffling (which has been done in other cities) could improve marginal pieces into more workable wholes.
The Phoenix dial is a spread-out, chaotic mess, and it's not like there are clusters of cities and states surrounding us.
I realize there are restrictions for transmitters near the Mexican border, and that massive work, comprehensive agreements and lots of time would be needed to rectify this, but I'm surprised more hasn't happened along those lines. (Or maybe it has, and I just don't know about it.)
And kudos to 97.5 for doing something different. No matter what the future holds, I always prefer more types of music on the dial to many stations vying for a piece of the same pie.
I'm talking listener preferences here. I've been in the biz, and know all the arguments. But when I turn on the radio, I'm a listener. And I really prefer diversity, which to me means more formats of different types.
By the way, no one has addressed how the nine-hour full-power Shaw Butte 88.3 Family Radio and the 88.9 24-hour Shaw Butte Family Radio satellator can legally co-exist. I'd love to know how it can be justified, especially the nine-hour duplication.
Oh, (while it lasts), KXXT has a better Air America schedule than Seattle's Air America affiliate. That's one superior thing about Phoenix. There's local programming on 1010, and most of it's decent. In Seattle, on its Air America station, you can hear Clark Howard and ESPN Radio and they air low-key Al Franken on afternoon drive. Forgot about that in my original post.)
