Little Rock Tourism and KAAY

[brewaskew]

I was reading the ADG online today and saw two very interesting articles. One was on the egg-shaped area of the country that the Arkansas tourism bureau considers it's advertising market. It has a north/south orientation from Minnesota to New Orleans, LA. and stretches east west from OKC to Nashville. That's pretty close to the nighttime service contour of the old KAAY. What IF the folks at citadel take a long hard look at doing something with that signal the way it was originally intended. They can start making money the old fashioned way, selling traditional advertising instead of all the paid religious stuff that hardly anybody listens to. They could use any format, but it would not be bad to do something like they did with KOKY, "the legendary K double a Y" and bring back the sound of the original, at least part-time. I know that Barry Mac does that a little with the midnight hour on Saturdays already.

The second article was on the project that the LRCVB, Tommy Smith and David Bazzel on KABZ are doing to find a new nickname/slogan/whatever for Little Rock. It got me thinking: what do vacation-minded age 45-60 baby boomers with cash and RV's throughout the midwest know of LR other than Clinton and Central high...could it be...K-A-A-Y? The state would buy buttloads of ad time as well as any other businesses that want to cash in on the trend.

CITADEL! STRIKE WHILE THE DAMN IRON IS <font color=red>RED HOT!</font> FLIP IT NOW!<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by brewaskew on 06/11/05 09:38 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[MediaMogul]

> I was reading the ADG online today and saw two very
> interesting articles. One was on the egg-shaped area of the
> country that the Arkansas tourism bureau considers it's
> advertising market. It has a north/south orientation from
> Minnesota to New Orleans, LA. and stretches east west from
> OKC to Nashville. That's pretty close to the nighttime
> service contour of the old KAAY. What IF the folks at
> citadel take a long hard look at doing something with that
> signal the way it was originally intended. They can start
> making money the old fashioned way, selling traditional
> advertising instead of all the paid religious stuff that
> hardly anybody listens to. They could use any format, but it
> would not be bad to do something like they did with KOKY,
> "the legendary K double a Y" and bring back the sound of the
> original, at least part-time. I know that Barry Mac does
> that a little with the midnight hour on Saturdays already.
>
> The second article was on the project that the LRCVB, Tommy
> Smith and David Bazzel on KABZ are doing to find a new
> nickname/slogan/whatever for Little Rock. It got me
> thinking: what do vacation-minded age 45-60 baby boomers
> with cash and RV's throughout the midwest know of LR other
> than Clinton and Central high...could it be...K-A-A-Y? The
> state would buy buttloads of ad time as well as any other
> businesses that want to cash in on the trend.
>
> CITADEL! STRIKE WHILE THE DAMN IRON IS RED HOT! FLIP IT NOW!
>


Until Citadel can be shown on paper that the nighttime billing with a new format will be as substantial as what they have not with little or no overhead, I don't think it is going to happen. Believe me, it's what we all want, but unfortunately it would probably be a short-lived format much like WSAI was in Cinncinatti. The all-religion format prints money, so from a business standpoint, Farid and Judy will see this from Citadel HQ and go, "Why change?"

KAAY is probably the only station that can bill what it does with a 0.2 share or whatever the latest trend was. Moneywise though and profit-wise, I think it actually outperformed Alice in the last quarter.

 

[brewaskew]

> > I was reading the ADG online today and saw two very
> > interesting articles. One was on the egg-shaped area of
> the
> > country that the Arkansas tourism bureau considers it's
> > advertising market. It has a north/south orientation from
> > Minnesota to New Orleans, LA. and stretches east west from
>
> > OKC to Nashville. That's pretty close to the nighttime
> > service contour of the old KAAY. What IF the folks at
> > citadel take a long hard look at doing something with that
>
> > signal the way it was originally intended. They can start
> > making money the old fashioned way, selling traditional
> > advertising instead of all the paid religious stuff that
> > hardly anybody listens to. They could use any format, but
> it
> > would not be bad to do something like they did with KOKY,
> > "the legendary K double a Y" and bring back the sound of
> the
> > original, at least part-time. I know that Barry Mac does
> > that a little with the midnight hour on Saturdays already.
>
> >
> > The second article was on the project that the LRCVB,
> Tommy
> > Smith and David Bazzel on KABZ are doing to find a new
> > nickname/slogan/whatever for Little Rock. It got me
> > thinking: what do vacation-minded age 45-60 baby boomers
> > with cash and RV's throughout the midwest know of LR other
>
> > than Clinton and Central high...could it be...K-A-A-Y? The
>
> > state would buy buttloads of ad time as well as any other
> > businesses that want to cash in on the trend.
> >
> > CITADEL! STRIKE WHILE THE DAMN IRON IS RED HOT! FLIP IT
> NOW!
> >
>
>
> Until Citadel can be shown on paper that the nighttime
> billing with a new format will be as substantial as what
> they have not with little or no overhead, I don't think it
> is going to happen. Believe me, it's what we all want, but
> unfortunately it would probably be a short-lived format much
> like WSAI was in Cinncinatti. The all-religion format prints
> money, so from a business standpoint, Farid and Judy will
> see this from Citadel HQ and go, "Why change?"
>
> KAAY is probably the only station that can bill what it does
> with a 0.2 share or whatever the latest trend was. Moneywise
> though and profit-wise, I think it actually outperformed
> Alice in the last quarter.
>

I thought somebody would bring this up--i'm not in the radio biz but I'm not naive about it either. Money talks and bull---- walks. Praise the loard and pass the collection plate.

 

[bdcast_tech]

I agree that ALL parties involved would like to see KAAY come back and do something grand, save one... the people making decisions. Much like Mogul, I don't fault them, because it does make pretty substantial money from what I understand, but there is something to be said for that nostalgic KAAY feeling coming back.
I think they could make fists full of money, even if they did religious programming daytime - Rock and Roll (oldies) at night and sold regular ads like any other station.

Thankfully not all of KAAY's history is lost.

 

[wpiv926]

Mogul is right. If Clear-Channel had got KAAY though, you could bet that they would have gone head-to-head with Citadels' KARN. Besides Barry Mac and the old power hungry 50 KW transmitter, they have little overhead past that, so the Citadel think-tanks will be hard pressed to change anything. But I agree with the old-time feeling stuff. From time to time, whenever I happen to be close to highway 365, I slip over to Wrightsville and go by the 3 tower transmitter site, complete with huge porcelin insulators on the guys and a vintage two story building with garage door. I've got plenty of pictures of it. And for anybody who is familiar with the history of KAAY, you ought to go by it. You can almost hear the ghosts of the old KAAY while at that site. I can't really explain it, but it's a treat for anybody with a feel of the old-school type radio. The new Alice 107.7 tower is within sight of KAAY.

 

[collinsradio]

Your idea has merit, but not in Little Rock. Little Rock just doesn't have that much happening for tourism to require such a station. KAAY under different owners would likely switch to some type of News-Talk format with 30 days. To Citadel,t here is no rommance in the old calls, just revenue without risk in their brokered programing niche. It won't happen.

 

[radioboss]

As a former resident of Conway (now a broadcast owner in the Northeast US) and a person that grew up listening to KAAY; I can't see Citadel changing the flow of money over the wishes of many like us radio nuts out here that see KAAY coming back to life as an Oldies or TOP 40 station of the past.

However, if Citadel found a way to move the religion over to say KPZK 1250 / 101.7 and change 1090 to the format we're talking about... WELL there's possibilities!!!

 

[collinsradio]

The only reason KAAY is so profitable is the hourly price
they can charge for the mega signal. Otherwise the logical
thing to do would have been to move the brokered religion
over to KARN-AM.


> As a former resident of Conway (now a broadcast owner in the
> Northeast US) and a person that grew up listening to KAAY; I
> can't see Citadel changing the flow of money over the wishes
> of many like us radio nuts out here that see KAAY coming
> back to life as an Oldies or TOP 40 station of the past.
>
> However, if Citadel found a way to move the religion over to
> say KPZK 1250 / 101.7 and change 1090 to the format we're
> talking about... WELL there's possibilities!!!
>

 

[mikebatchelor]

I have long wondered why Citadel didn't move KARN to 1090, putting religion on 920, and some sort of music format on 102.9. It would seem like there would be more benefit for them money wise by putting music on the FM, then they would make on pay for play.

In looking at the coverage map, it looks like KARN-FM throws a good signal across the entire market, and 1090 certainly has good 24 hour coverage, although the signal doesn't seem to be what it once was.

I think KAAY is the only religious station that Citadel owns, except for a couple of Black Gospel FMs in the South, so I guess it must be a cash cow for them to stick with the format.

Still though, it seems like a waste of Arkansas' only 50kW Clear Channel AM.

> The only reason KAAY is so profitable is the hourly price
> they can charge for the mega signal. Otherwise the logical
> thing to do would have been to move the brokered religion
> over to KARN-AM.
>
>
> > As a former resident of Conway (now a broadcast owner in
> the
> > Northeast US) and a person that grew up listening to KAAY;
> I
> > can't see Citadel changing the flow of money over the
> wishes
> > of many like us radio nuts out here that see KAAY coming
> > back to life as an Oldies or TOP 40 station of the past.
> >
> > However, if Citadel found a way to move the religion over
> to
> > say KPZK 1250 / 101.7 and change 1090 to the format we're
> > talking about... WELL there's possibilities!!!
> >
>