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Radio One Acquires Cox Houston

Isn’t El Zol a tropical format? Past chatter on this board is that tropical really doesn’t work in Houston. Is there enough of a market for it now, or is it a concept that can be customized to fit here?
Names are not formats. Those are all generic names that can be applied to any kind of format.

"Mega" in Argentina is local rock. In Venezuela it is CHR. In NYC it is tropical and rhythmic. In Puerto Rico it is English language CHR. In LA it is reggaetón. In Stockton it is throwbacks.

El Sol has been used in Latin America and the US for a dozen distinctly different formats, and the name is meaningless (except in Perú where it is also the name of the currency).,
 
Doesn’t contain anything not already discussed here, but RadioInsight has this analysis of the deal: Looking At The Radio One/Cox Houston Deal - RadioInsight


Isn’t El Zol a tropical format? Past chatter on this board is that tropical really doesn’t work in Houston. Is there enough of a market for it now, or is it a concept that can be customized to fit here?

Zol is more of a tropical-hinged CHR (actually, just a brand name). But yeah, it is probably going to be Regional Mexican La Ley 92.1 with El Terrible in mornings and Entravision's Erazno y la Chokolata in afternoons.
 
It was English-language CHR. Now it is standard CHR (which inevitably involves a lot of English CHR anyway) and personality talk, even sports talk during lunchtime.
I base my description on the "majority of songs" which have been English since it began in the late 80's when Raúl Fuster owned it.

If my comment was mistakenly interpreted to mean that the presentation was in English, it's important to note that, other than WIVV and WBMJ and, now, K-Love, there is no full English language radio in PR and no non-religious such operation at all.

In the 60's we had WKYN 630 and WHOA on 1400 and then 870 in English. In 1968, we got WBMJ owned by Bob Hope. WKYN became Spanish language WQBS in the early 70's and WBMJ became Radio Rock in Spanish in about 1973. WHOA lasted into the 80's. For a while, from around 1976 to just before the Hurricane, we had 1030 WOSO, founded by Augie Cavallaro and then run by Simon Wildman until it could not pay expenses.

We also briefly had Top 40 on 1520 in the later 70's under Bill Johnson and where iHeart's Pedro Javier González began his career at the old studios on Calle Mayagüez. By the early 80's, we had Radio Fidelity under Payito Acosta (the son of the founder) doing all English AC.

There were also some unremarkable rock efforts like The Family out of studios across from the Hospital del Maestro and a few FMs "on the Island" like Radio Heavy in Mayagüez that were all or mostly English music, but all jocks in Spanish.

For those unfamiliar, most Top 40 stations in PR, going back the the mid-60's Radio Uno, part owned by Luis Vigoreaux and 1968's WKAQ transition outside of AM Drive under Mike Joseph, have played not just English and Spanish pop, but also mass appeal salsa and even merengue hits. English language music has always been a big part of most station's playlists except for the very targeted ones like All Salsa Z-93 which began in 1979; even very "popular class " KVM included a few songs in English

For a while, around 1970-1972, we had WKAQ and WUNO (with PD Alfred D. Herger) both doing very intense Top 40 and generally each tying the other in ratings.
 
I base my description on the "majority of songs" which have been English since it began in the late 80's when Raúl Fuster owned it.

Pure Spanish CHR hasn't really existed in Puerto Rico. Even if it did, since reggaetón is so dominant, it would largely sound like SBS's WODA anyway.

The English CHR station in PR is WTOK, which takes pot shots at competing stations por playing "bachata and reggaetón". A lot of hip, suburban, UPR-educated Puerto Ricans consider that music to be "cafre", and you can just imagine how they feel about jocks like Molusco.

It is similar to how AC's in the 2000s boasted about playing "Today's hits without the rap" but without the racist baggage that did that slogan in.

I don't think this applies much to Houston, where most people are from Rural Mexico and thus listen to their equivalent of country, Regional Mexican. There are reggaetón listeners, but KAMA and KLOL cover those.
 
Pure Spanish CHR hasn't really existed in Puerto Rico. Even if it did, since reggaetón is so dominant, it would largely sound like SBS's WODA anyway.
For a while, WUNO in the 1971-72 period was almost pure Spanish language Top 40 (The term "CHR" was 10 years away from being fabricated by Radio & Records) but it still included one or two English language songs an hour, but nowhere near as many as WKAQ.
I don't think this applies much to Houston, where most people are from Rural Mexico and thus listen to their equivalent of country, Regional Mexican. There are reggaetón listeners, but KAMA and KLOL cover those.
We are starting to see the total of reggaetón AQH listeners approaching that of Regional Mexican: LA looks close to seeing one of the reggaeton stations challenging the #1 position.
 
Isn’t El Zol a tropical format? Past chatter on this board is that tropical really doesn’t work in Houston. Is there enough of a market for it now, or is it a concept that can be customized to fit here?
POWERFM 105.3 tried Tropical and even know they still day in Spanish.

The other station plays Reggaetón and more Reggaetón, here we play the music you like. And then they start playing Reggaetón 😂
 
Names are not formats. Those are all generic names that can be applied to any kind of format.
Well yes, I know that.:p I was just responding to a comment that SBS might bring El Zol to Houston. SBS’ own website has all their EL Zol branded stations as Tropical, so I assume the previous poster was thinking of that format. Past attempts here with a Tropical leaning format have been short lived.

As was discussed earlier, you would think all the Hispanic targeted viable formats are already present in Houston, with the possible exception of a music intensive Regional Mexican outlet, in contrast to the personalities and chatter on 98.5 and 102.9. La Mejor on 102.5 constantly promotes its “less talk” philosophy.

Going to be quite interesting if the eventual KROI “new entrant minority owner“ is not SBS.
 
We are starting to see the total of reggaetón AQH listeners approaching that of Regional Mexican: LA looks close to seeing one of the reggaeton stations challenging the #1 position.
Is there enough audience for a full-time reggaeton in Houston in the near future?

Hard to imagine reggaeton on 93.3 wouldn't have a much larger audience than TUDN, but that would also hurt Latino Mix.
 
Going to be quite interesting if the eventual KROI “new entrant minority owner“ is not SBS.
I'm not totally convinced the potential buyer is SBS, but it does seem to make the most sense.

Radio One isn't going to sell a viable signal to someone who also specializes in black audiences, which could hurt Magic or The Box.

So as far as minority broadcasters are concerned, that leaves Spanish-language or maybe Asian. Probably targeting South Asian communities. But it would be a huge purchase to target a relatively small audience, much of which is in a relatively small geographic area around For Bend County.

As far as Spanish-language broadcasters, SBS has the financial resources and is apparently comfortable running stand alone stations in large markets.


There are, however, other Spanish-language specialist who could probably finance a deal like Entravision...
 
Is there enough audience for a full-time reggaeton in Houston in the near future?

Hard to imagine reggaeton on 93.3 wouldn't have a much larger audience than TUDN, but that would also hurt Latino Mix.
You have to remember many of the same songs that air on LATINO MIX are also on AMOR, There isn’t a real full Regional Mexican radio station.

La Mejor can’t be heard unless you’re closer to Humble or 290 and Beltway 8.

La Grande 104.5 is just a translator,

KQQK is a rimshot, 92.1 KROI Can knock KQQK off with good programming.
 
KQQK is a rimshot, 92.1 KROI Can knock KQQK off with good programming.
Now that you mention it, I wonder if Estrella is buying KROI to simulcast one of their rimshots. Could they do that with their current financial situation? I know they went bankrupt a few years ago
 
Now that you mention it, I wonder if Estrella is buying KROI to simulcast one of their rimshots. Could they do that with their current financial situation? I know they went bankrupt a few years ago
Not only are they already in the market, Estrella could not even afford to rebuild KJOJ.

Radio One isn't going to sell a viable signal to someone who also specializes in black audiences, which could hurt Magic or The Box.
I came to two conclusions over the weekend, and Ryan and I are on the same page:

1) If 92.1 is to be sold to a minority operator, it’s not going to be an operator that specializes in Black audiences.

2) With Radio One holding 93Q, it’s in their best interest to get Country Legends gone too, as to consolidate country listening between their 93Q and Audacy’s Bull. And if 97.1 was to go in a religious direction, well, that’s more ad dollars for commercial stations that remain.

Unfortunately, it’s also less choice for those listeners (depending on how you look at it, of course), and if the loss of 97.1 gets a listener to figure out their CarPlay once and for all and give up on 93Q, well, then that didn’t work out so well.
 
Another company we haven’t mentioned is the guys from Radio Libertad. Do they have that kind of money at the moment to move in to Houston?

Good idea but I don't think they have all their current signals on the air... If it happened though, from what I've read, it would be one of the legal Spanish Christian operations.
 
Yet it is about 32nd in market revenue. It's 65 dbu covers less than 25% of the market population.
It’s a good flanker for 93Q. When we flipped our classic country to sports, we actually didn’t want to do it because it took money and a few shares from a competing radio group in town, who had a country format. I dont think it’s a good idea for RO to not hang onto 97.1. The signal is useless in Houston. The signal is in highly rural areas. Who would give RO the right amount of money for that signal? 97.1 costs nothing to run and it’s a safe format that no other company in Houston will try to compete against. It would be a mistake for them to sell 97.1
 
Urban One probably doesn't want to sell 97.1. It can't, however, own 6 FM's in Houston. Getting rid of it makes more sense than getting rid of another station in the new cluster.
I didn't think much about this, but what if Urban One just keeps running 97.1 through an LMA after the sale?
 
Was in the Woodlands-Conroe area earlier today, and had an additional thought about the RO/Cox deal.

Earlier posts have pointed out that the presumed demise of Country Legends on 97.1 will improve listener share on 93Q as well as The Bull. But there is another station that is probably thrilled to see a format change on 97.1: KVST.

In Montgomery County the 97.1 signal is equal to the Missouri City Sticks (Including 92.9 and 100.3) so K-Star Country 99.7 has three format competitors at the same good strength. The deal should bring that number down to two, which ought to make the folks at New Wavo quite happy.

Country KSAM 101.7 in Huntsville is probably smiling as well, as the 97.1 signal is also strong there.
 
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