MeTV FM?

[K.M. Richards]

With the above mentioned ownership caps, local radio ownership was allowed to thrive. Most of the local ownership was on the FM side of things as AM radio was king during that time period and the larger ownership groups were still trying to figure out how to monetize the FM frequencies across the country as most were either classical or easy listening elevator music formats.

I'm afraid you missed one key factor. Docket 80-90 tilted the playing field by creating new FM allocations in areas where the extra stations made it nearly impossible for everyone to get enough of the available ad dollars to survive. That imbalance is what led to consolidation, as failing owners sold out just get away from the red ink. That led to the FCC having to eliminate the old 7-7-7 ownership caps and instead set caps on the percentage of population any one owner could cover with their stations. Still, the business was "over-FM'd" and that led to loosening restrictions on number of stations in a given market.

And then came more non-radio competition, and that was the nail in the coffin of the local ownership that you decry the loss of. But 80-90 was what started it all downhill.

Here, read it for yourself. This is the required posting of the docket as approved:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-90-49A1_Rcd.pdf

And here are some more links to discussions of why 80-90 was the fuse for what came later:

Docket 80-90

tenwatts.blogspot.com

Docket 80-90 – DickTaylorBlog

Posts about Docket 80-90 written by Dick Taylor, CRMC/CDMC

dicktaylorblog.com

BLACK RADIO OWNERSHIP AND THE FCC’S FAILED ATTEMPT TO DIVERSIFY THE AIRWAVES

African Americans were effectively shut out of radio station ownership until the 1970s. Discriminatory practices made it virtually impossible for Blacks to acquire broadcast licenses awarded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Efforts to address the issue were taken up during...

drum.lib.umd.edu

Broadcast History

Broadcast History FAQ

www.oldradio.com

 

[TheBigA]

If I recall correctly 1960 era FCC rules for the major broadcast ownership groups allowed for no more than seven AM/FM radio pairs per city, seven TV stations total for the entire country.

Yes but at that time there were about 4000 radio stations total in the country. So there was such a thing as "scarcity of spectrum." By the 70s, that idea was gone, and the FCC started adding more stations. It wasn't long before there were more than 13,000 radio stations. So all of a sudden, stations had twice as many competitors in the same market, and the ad pie hadn't grown. So twice as many stations were dividing the same amount of money. Do the math. All of a sudden, those 60s rules made no sense. So by the 80s, they increased the limits to 12-12-12. It still wasn't enough because the FCC was still adding more stations.

But yes, the stations thrived when they had a limit on the number of stations in a market. Once that went out the window, so did the profits. A lot of the heritage owners sold their stations. The diversified corporations that owned radio for investment sold their stations. No more GE, NBC, or Nationwide. From then on, it would be mainly radio-only companies owning stations. That's not good, because you need revenue diversity to make it through the dips in the economy.

This paved the way to the larger conglomerates we have today of Audacy, iHeart and Cumulus all of which have filed for at least one or two bankruptcies in recent years, cutting cost, laying off talent, gutting live a local programing in favor of voice tracking.

You ignore the fact that there were several recessions and a pandemic in there. Economic crises will lead to bankruptcies. There were radio bankruptcies before the 1996 Act too. They were caused by the various financial crises. Keep in mind that the lenders lost money in those bankruptcies. Those lenders would never have loaned money if they thought it was going to lead to bankruptcy. But there are factors beyond what very good businesses can control. That's what has happened to radio. The same thing would have happened, although quicker, had there not been consolidation.

 

[TomásEstefan]

If you are basing that on the fact that they don't appear in the public ratings that appear on Lance's site, please remember that Cumulus has been delisted while the lawsuit is pending. No Cumulus stations, in any market, appear in the current ratings.

And that also answers @JoeU's question. No one can tell him what he wants to know because none of us can see the ratings for KSFO at present.

Thanks for the info...but I would guess that 810's ratings are not very good.

 

[4dude]

I wish them well... Are they connected with MeTV???

 

[K.M. Richards]

Thanks for the info...but I would guess that 810's ratings are not very good.

We can all guess, of course, Tomás. But none of us can say for certain. Even those inside Cumulus do not know what the ratings are for any of their stations, in any market.

 

[davideduardo]

If I recall correctly 1960 era FCC rules for the major broadcast ownership groups allowed for no more than seven AM/FM radio pairs per city, seven TV stations total for the entire country. If you owned a major news paper that was also considered for what your total ownership per market could be as well.

And if you wanted to reach lots of people, you had to have a paper or a radio or a TV station. Papers were limited by the cost of operation vs. available revenue. Radio and TV by both economics and the number of possible spectrum allocations.

Today, audio and video streams as well as podcasts and news/opinion websites have no limit. So if I want to start a "radio station" online dedicated to one city, I can do it by tomorrow. Maybe I want 10 "radio stations" with different formats, all targeting that city. And 10 more targeting another city and ten more...

I can do that, with a relatively small investment, instantly.

AM and FM radio are not a silo that is isolated from everything else. They are the weaker element in audio sources, in fact, as they need lots of ads to sustain themselves. A stream with a subscription fee can do that with no ads and a wide variety of formats. Look at Sirius/XM!

With the above mentioned ownership caps, local radio ownership was allowed to thrive. Most of the local ownership was on the FM side of things as AM radio was king during that time period and the larger ownership groups were still trying to figure out how to monetize the FM frequencies across the country as most were either classical or easy listening elevator music formats.

Most of the early FMs were owned by AM stations. FM operators tried lots of formats between 1940 and the late 1960's. It was not until FM radios could be made without paying the Armstrong patents, until FM stereo was authorized, until the FCC required the ending of most AM-FM simulcasts that FM "took off".

And that "easy listening elevator music format" was renamed "Beautiful Music" in the very late 60's and stations with that format were often #1 or near that position in the ratings.

The ownership rules were basically done away with mid 90s. Ownership groups were allowed to buy up properties and consolidate into larger conglomerates. Syndication became the norm throughout the 80s and the 90s.

"Syndicated" programming was called "Blue" and "Red" and "CBS" from the late 30's onwards. It's nothing new for stations to get programming from outside the market.

Technology in the late 60's and 70's allowed stations to get formats... whether Bonneville or SRP or Drake-Chenault and over a dozen others... and play them off tapes locally. Satellite distribution brought more options starting in the following decade.

The conglomerates also owned the syndication structure as well dictating what programs were to be fed the local stations in the chain.

SRP (Shulke) was privately owned, as were nearly all of the syndicated format creators. The only significant one that was tied to a broadcast group was Bonneville, which only owned a small group of stations.

This paved the way to the larger conglomerates we have today of Audacy, iHeart and Cumulus all of which have filed for at least one or two bankruptcies in recent years, cutting cost, laying off talent, gutting live a local programing in favor of voice tracking.

That has nothing to do with the origination of programming. The financial issue has to do with changes in listener preferences. In 2020 the average Persons Using Radio was around 20. Today, Persons Using Mass Media (radio and its streams) is around 5. That means that listening is off by 75%. And revenue is off proportionally if you adjust for inflation.

This is the broadcast industries definition of progress.

There is no progress when more and more people want to listen on demand or to a variety of streamed sources.

Reminder: when consolidation happened in 1995 half of all stations were not profitable. The industry needed a solution. And consolidation worked for about a decade and a half until we had the combination of the introduction of the PPM (it showed about a third lower listening levels), the Great Recession and the introduction of the Smart Phone (giving access to thousands of "radio stations").

Radio was the "victim" of this, and you are blaming the victim rather than the causes.

 

[TheBigA]

"Syndicated" programming was called "Blue" and "Red" and "CBS" from the late 30's onwards. It's nothing new for stations to get programming from outside the market.

I'm entertained by the fact that we're talking about syndicated programming in a thread about MeTV FM, which is in fact a syndicated format that happens to be heard in Chicago, but is also heard in numerous other markets where Weigel Broadcasting owns TV stations.

MeTV FM has no local or syndicated personalities. It's everything the poster says is bad about radio. Yet it's a popular station in Chicago despite all of these things.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm afraid you missed one key factor. Docket 80-90 tilted the playing field by creating new FM allocations in areas where the extra stations made it nearly impossible for everyone to get enough of the available ad dollars to survive.

The company I was Operations Manager / GSM for in the 80's and early 90's was born in Puerto Rico. We had the maximum station count there, and about 20% of all local revenue.

So the owner bought an AM/FM in a small FL market to "get our feet wet" on the mainland. There was another AM in the market, and an AM/FM in an adjacent market. We all did well, and were able to be live and local in important hours. We had local news all day, a noon wrap-up that included even births and deaths and club news, a morning news insert in every hour at :00 and :30 with locally produced news along with network news, high school sports, lots of community activity remotes and the like.

Docket 80-90 gave the market 4 new FMs that were "local" signal wise. So instead of 3 of us (two AM/FM combos and one AM only) there were 7 operators in the market. The new guys dropped rates. We had to cut the news department, the community features, and even the high school sports as one of the newbies paid to cover them and we could not make money that way.

So everyone ended up with 24/7 satellite formats and no local service.

This happened over and over in the majority of locations in the US. And the solution was what happened in 1995: relaxation of owner limitations.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm entertained by the fact that we're talking about syndicated programming in a thread about MeTV FM, which is in fact a syndicated format that happens to be heard in Chicago, but is also heard in numerous other markets where Weigel Broadcasting owns TV stations.

MeTV FM has no local or syndicated personalities. It's everything the poster says is bad about radio. Yet it's a popular station in Chicago despite all of these things.

And it's popular among older folks, usually called "seniors". A group that nearly all agencies do not want to address and which local advertisers are very selective about.

 

[TheBigA]

And it's popular among older folks, usually called "seniors". A group that nearly all agencies do not want to address and which local advertisers are very selective about.

So I guess that makes it OK, even if its a syndicated format with no personalities.

We saw the same acceptance when John Sebastian launched his Wow Factor format. No personalities, and it uses a national music log.

For a time, it was a Top 5 station in Phoenix.

 

[K.M. Richards]

So I guess that makes it OK, even if its a syndicated format with no personalities.

Technically, what I am doing in Albuquerque with KRKE was designed as a syndicated format. It still technically is, even though I only have one client station, because it could be easily installed in any other market that wanted to run it.

The difference is that KRKE's owner has essentially allowed me to be a remote PD, with a huge amount of autonomy in how I program the station. He will be the first to tell you that his strengths are engineering and sales, and my strength is in programming. We make an excellent team, have no arguments about what we are doing, and the station is in the black less than four years after launch.

Yeah, it's a jukebox. But it seems that's what works now. Don says a lot of our ad sales is to local business owners who listen themselves to 93.7 and like what they hear. My conclusion is that those owners have a mindset that "if I like the station, other people who like the station will be good customers for me". And we deliver ... we have a lot of clients who have been running continuously for long periods of time (years, for some) and neither one of us cares what Nielsen says.

What makes a station "OK" is programming that attracts an audience that can be monetized. I get the impression that "MeTV FM" affiliates (not counting Weigel-owned stations, who run it because it's their format) have minimal ad sales staff, and/or an inefficient sales strategy. That, in my opinion, is a major part of what went wrong with John Sebastian's format. Success is measured in ad dollars, and KOAI didn't bring in enough of those dollars.

It also helps that I tweak my playlist constantly, especially the Forgotten 45s category. The days of "sign with Drake-Chenault, receive the reels, put them on a Schafer 903 and let it run" are long gone.

 

[TheBigA]

The difference is that KRKE's owner has essentially allowed me to be a remote PD,

That's what iHeart is doing now. They have a PD in Minneapolis running the Top 40 station in Cleveland. Everybody is screaming how that's killing radio. I guess if it was done by a local owner, nobody would know.

There's this mythology that before 1996, every station was locally owned with live & local staff. It's not true. There were big corporate owners before 1996. Some of them were huge international conglomerates like General Tire, GE, Westinghouse, and RCA. They ran their radio stations with corporate program directors. There were also local PDs who oversaw the local staff and implemented the music decisions. The main difference between radio before 1996 and after was that the companies that owned radio stations after 96 for the most part owned nothing else. There were some exceptions, but not many.

 

[powers]

MeTV FM has no local or syndicated personalities. It's everything the poster says is bad about radio. Yet it's a popular station in Chicago despite all of these things.

Actually, I know it runs like that in many markets, but as mentioned before, it was said that KMEE in Palm Springs was just a placeholder for what would become KGAY. However, I seem to remember that they were employing an actual midday jock for a while, which would tell me that perhaps Brad Fuhrman did believe in that station's plans for the market. I'm not sure if any other MeTV FM (or Music) stations had or have local talent.

 

[davideduardo]

That's what iHeart is doing now. They have a PD in Minneapolis running the Top 40 station in Cleveland. Everybody is screaming how that's killing radio. I guess if it was done by a local owner, nobody would know.

Yet for 5 years I programmed a station in Argentina from my home in Glendale, CA. Logs, DJ airchecks, planning for events and contests, special programming and the rest of the stuff. We generally had around an 18 share and were #1 in a market a bit larger than New York City. The distance did not matter. I spent 4 full weeks a year there, every 3 months, and even visited ad agencies and record companies.

It makes no difference.

There's this mythology that before 1996, every station was locally owned with live & local staff. It's not true. There were big corporate owners before 1996. Some of them were huge international conglomerates like General Tire, GE, Westinghouse, and RCA.

Add in drug company Plough and church "company" Bonneville. And publisher Doubleday and, earlier on, appliance maker Crosley. Then there was ceramics company Pfaltzgraff. All were international in some respect. There are others, but less significant.

They ran their radio stations with corporate program directors. There were also local PDs who oversaw the local staff and implemented the music decisions. The main difference between radio before 1996 and after was that the companies that owned radio stations after 96 for the most part owned nothing else. There were some exceptions, but not many.

Most of those smaller companies with outside interests sold during consolidation as they did not want to risk more money in a business that they had become scared of.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

I'm not sure if any other MeTV FM (or Music) stations had or have local talent.

WMEX in Boston had local talent when they ran the Me-TV music feed. IIRC they ran the feed at night and most of the weekend, and maybe for a couple hours mid-days.

 

[sjs1959]

And it's popular among older folks, usually called "seniors". A group that nearly all agencies do not want to address and which local advertisers are very selective about.

And of course that’s the irony of the radio business as it is today; the very demographic that the agencies are chasing with their dollars is the very Group that is dramatically reducing their use of the medium.

 

[TheBigA]

And of course that’s the irony of the radio business as it is today; the very demographic that the agencies are chasing with their dollars is the very Group that is dramatically reducing their use of the medium.

Which translates into less money being spent by advertisers on radio, and that in turn leads to staff reductions.

Of course there can be no staff reductions at MeTV-FM, because there are no DJs.