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News Talk FM

J

Jay F

One of the trends in radio is simulcasting or moving AM news/talk stations to FM. The most recent example will be all-news KCBS/San Francisco simulcasting on FM, replacing low rated classic hits KFRC. From what I have seen, moving to FM has brought big gains 25-54 to these news talkers. This makes sense considering few people under 55 listen to AM.

What's your opinion of this taking place in Las Vegas? KXNT has the most popular syndicated talk shows and KDWN has the best local news coverage in LV radio history. Either of these stations would make big gains 25-54 if they were put on FM. The first station that moves to FM would instantly have a huge competitive advantage over the station that stays on AM. Both CBS and Beasley have a couple of low rated FMs that would be good candidates for a change, although CBS is for sale and probably wouldn't make any format flips, maybe the new owner will?

This might not happen anytime soon, but I wouldnt be surprised if EVERY market has a news-talk station on FM in the next 3 years. Las Vegas will be no exception, it's just a matter of who is going to do it.
 
Jay, you guys have had "AM970- K-News" there for a while. It seems, at one time, they were All News? I am picturing a la WCBS-A/NYC, KFWB/LA, the aforementioned KCBS-A, or even KYW/Philly. Would this be the case? Now that they are biz news, it seems all news tanked in Vegas, no?

Unless it is a stalwart like the above-mentioned, it takes a lot of money for the operation and upkeep of a strictly news product, especially on AM in this day and age.
 
KNUU hasn't been a pure all news station since they were a daytimer back in the late 70s/early 80s. By the mid-80s they added talk shows such as Bruce Williams and Larry King. I wouldn't say K-NEWS tanked because they never were much of a player to begin with. For the past 15-20 years or so, even before they went mostly business, KNUU has had basically no presence in the market, sometimes it's easy to forget they even exist.

Not all of the news-talk stations moving to FM have a 24 hour all-news format (which as you mentioned is very expensive to operate and only found in major markets). Some FM talkers have a similar format to KXNT, with lot's of syndicated conservative talk, the only difference is the demos are younger.
 
The decision by CBS to simulcast KCBS (AM) on KFRC(FM) has nothing to do with programming options, lowering demographics or anything else. It's a matter of one station a year into a new formatic approach with a 1 share & not having more impressive numbers to share with agencies and potential advertisers. In other words, it isn't paying for itself; therefore it is deemed an 'eggsucker'.

Those above-listed factors would have inherent advantages if the simulcast concept were to work in their favor, but the decision is not programming-driven; it is economy-driven. One station is always cheaper and easier to run than two. This is a distinct advantage to today's multiple-station operator. A non-music, spoken word approach will stand out on the FM dial as it concerns the current SF competitive matrix. In the end, however, programming is a sidebar issue w/operational expenses being on the front burner. Remember, the economy is in the dumper at the time of this post (at least perceptually).

BTW, I am under 55, listen to AM radio almost every day, & have no problem in so doing. Remember the 'AM is dead' naysayers of the late '70s & '80s? They had to eat their words eventually whether they wanted to or not. The vast majority of the KCBS-KFRC simulcast numbers will come from the AM; older, younger, or anywhere inbetween ... like it or not.
 
In previous cases moving news-talk to FM was done to lower demos and it has worked well. In this KCBS situation I am now inclined to agree with you, this was all about cutting costs. Like many companies, CBS is making drastic budget cuts, for example the bloodbath that took place at CBS/Tampa today.

I would disagree with you Phil on the state of AM. With a few scattered exceptions across the country, AM IS dead with listeners under 55. Some would go as far as saying FM and radio in general is dead. I wouldn't go that far (although FM is in decline/slowly dying).

I have been listening to talk radio since I was a teenager in the early 80s. Yet even after all this time I am still younger, perhaps significantly younger, than the average news-talk listener. Part of this is because many people under 55 never listen to AM, it doesn't even cross their mind to do so.
 
I agree on that, too. Radio is still a very healthy industry, but it may seem better than it was back than the early 80's when record & revenues were declining badly, not like it was today. I hope syndicated shows & voicetracking may boost morale in the radio industry once again, even that localism is dead somewhat.
 
Newsperson responds:

For whatever reason the management and middle management at KFRC-FM were unable to make any sucess of KFRC-FM. You cannot run a station in a major market unsucessfully and expect the owners to continue paying for it. Instead of changing to a different music format it became more viable to simulcast an existing station.

In this situatation KCBS became the beneficiary for a second outlet.....that it didn't need but is able to take advantage of.

In Las Vegas an AM News/Talk station would gain coverage from an FM class C simulcast because many of the AMs around Las Vegas (except 720 KHz.) have interference at night.

The difference in Las Vegas is that there aren't FMs in Las Vegas that are doing as poorly as KFRC-FM (so you would be throwing away a format)........or am I missing any FM stations that are failing there?

Newsperson
 
No stations are failing in Las Vegas at the level of KFRC-FM simply because there aren't nearly as many signals here as in the Bay area. .

Let's put it this way. If stations nationally needed to get down to the level of KFRC before considering themselves failures enough to change formats, there would rarely ever be any format flips.
 
Now that CBS has pretty much gutted the KXTE staff it would be the perfect time for 107.5 to become KXNT-FM. The Extreme format was never meant to last this long, it's over and it's time to move on.

FM news-talk is hot, check out KTAR-FM/Phoenix, WIBC-FM/Indy or WPGB/Pittsburgh just to name a few. KXNT had a nice trend, being on FM would give them enough of a boost to push them all the way to #1.
 
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