Pair Of Spanish Format Launches In Las Vegas

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/199752/pair-of-spanish-format-launches-in-las-vegas/

Radio Activo Broadcasting has launched two new Spanish music brands in Las Vegas.

Recently acquired 93.5 KADD Logandale has flipped to Regional Mexican “La Mejor 93.5“. Radio Activo agreed to purchase the former Mandarin Chinese “iCity Radio” from Golden City Broadcasting for $450,000. KADD has picked up the KLAX Los Angeles based El Terrible for mornings.

 

[Gregg.]

KADD 93.5 is apparently switching from Mandarin to Regional Mexican. I suppose with so few tourists coming to the casinos, the number of Mandarin speakers has dwindled. I assume there isn't a large enough full-time population of Chinese-Americans to make a Mandarin station profitable. (While all Chinese use pretty much the same characters, not all speak Mandarin. There are scores of languages or dialects in China, so that's why you say Mandarin and not Chinese for the standard language. It is also spoken in Taiwan.)

So KADD might as well go with people who are moving in permanently, the Mexican-American population. But that's only one Spanish Language format starting in Las Vegas. Not two.

 

[Kent]

KADD 93.5 is apparently switching from Mandarin to Regional Mexican. I suppose with so few tourists coming to the casinos, the number of Mandarin speakers has dwindled. I assume there isn't a large enough full-time population of Chinese-Americans to make a Mandarin station profitable.

I can't imagine the casinos would have too many Chinese speaking customers, though I haven't been to Las Vegas since I've been old enough to gamble. Would you happen to know what kind of programming KADD used to air in Mandarin? The only Chinese-language stations in my area are LPFM's run by Chinese Christian churches. So, they generally air a mixture of spoken word and religious music.

(While all Chinese use pretty much the same characters, not all speak Mandarin. There are scores of languages or dialects in China, so that's why you say Mandarin and not Chinese for the standard language. It is also spoken in Taiwan.)

As someone who has lived in Hong Kong and Taiwan and studied Chinese, the gist of that is correct. It's oversimplified, but I doubt people want to read a paragraph about Chinese characters on a radio board! That's a language that really gets away from you quickly if you don't use it regularly, and I find I don't understand it that well on the radio after roughly a quarter century of only using it when visiting Chinese restaurants.

So KADD might as well go with people who are moving in permanently, the Mexican-American population. But that's only one Spanish Language format starting in Las Vegas. Not two.

The other Spanish-language format he's referring to is the change at 94.5. It was already running programming in Spanish and has just changed to another version of it, though.