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The l o n g term plans for 106.9?

S

secret

Guest
It might be that CBS jumped into simulcast as a quick stop-loss measure, but if history is any indication, without a callsign change, the company isn't fully committed.

The mis-manglement of KFRC is nothing short of "New Coke" stupidity. Perhaps some day science will discover the gene that gives people the ability to fail their way to the top and prosper! :'(
 
> ...without a callsign change, the company isn't fully committed.

Not necessarily true. Call letters don't mean much of anything in 2008. It's content and branding, not call letters.

Movin' 99.7 initially kept the KFRC call letters after the format change. KNBR/1050 is still KTCT. K-You Radio (1550 AM) is still KYCY. RKO even kept the KFRC calls on 610 when the station was re-branded as "Magic 61."

Why can't they just keep the KFRC calls on 106.9? Those letters once belonged to an M-O-R station, a Top 40 station, a CBS network station back in the 1930s, an Oldies station and a Big Band station ... and they were all the same station, just different iterations. Why not an All News station, too?

And who's to say they haven't put in a call letter change with the FCC? They may park the KFRC calls elsewhere to see if they can wring some brand equity out of them in the future.

That is, if they haven't drained the last drop out of them already.
 
BossRadioDJ said:
> ...without a callsign change, the company isn't fully committed.

Not necessarily true. Call letters don't mean much of anything in 2008. It's content and branding, not call letters.

Movin' 99.7 initially kept the KFRC call letters after the format change. KNBR/1050 is still KTCT. K-You Radio (1550 AM) is still KYCY. RKO even kept the KFRC calls on 610 when the station was re-branded as "Magic 61."

Why can't they just keep the KFRC calls on 106.9? Those letters once belonged to an M-O-R station, a Top 40 station, a CBS network station back in the 1930s, an Oldies station and a Big Band station ... and they were all the same station, just different iterations. Why not an All News station, too?

And who's to say they haven't put in a call letter change with the FCC? They may park the KFRC calls elsewhere to see if they can wring some brand equity out of them in the future.

That is, if they haven't drained the last drop out of them already.
Click to expand...


Agreed. C'mon - call letters only need to be read once per hour for legal requirements. Are the call letters K-I-T-S an indication that CBS isn't fully committed to Live 105? Maybe they should try to buy KLIV from 1590 AM in San Jose to show their commitment. Maybe KLVE is available. KITS has been Alt-Rock "Live 105" for about 20 years, I think. It was Hot Hits KITS for about a minute and a half. Nobody cares.

Not to sound like a broken record, but the KFRC calls have heritage and value. CBS may be able to bring them back for another music station some day, or sell them to another radio corporation for some money. They don't have that option if they just turn them back to the FCC. In the meantime, it's easy to park them at 106.9 and give them a rest.
 
Call letters with "heritage" are a thing of the past with PPM. Chances are you will hear stations never giving their names or sell lines (calls legally once per hour)...station recall, phantom cume, etc is a thing of the past with PPM. We broadcasters have to accept this paradigm shift. Flush our old ways of thinking. It's a very different PPM world out there.
 
TinaDelgado said:
Call letters with "heritage" are a thing of the past with PPM. Chances are you will hear stations never giving their names or sell lines (calls legally once per hour)...station recall, phantom cume, etc is a thing of the past with PPM. We broadcasters have to accept this paradigm shift. Flush our old ways of thinking. It's a very different PPM world out there.
Click to expand...

But some radio station call letters are still "brands," such as KGO or, to many, KFRC.

I've noticed that several TV stations have gone almost entirely away from using their call letters as part of their branding. KNTV is "NBC Bay Area," KGO-TV is "ABC 7," etc.

In the opposite vein, TV20 in San Francisco has reverted back to the old "KOFY" call letters and branding.

DJ
 
740 KCBS may see some rating increase. When there was KSFO/KYA, together they had good overall ratings. When they split them up the results were not good. When we had KFRC AM/FM their ratings were high. But we all know what happened when they sold the AM.

Although it will not be FM Talk, but all news, it may have a good chance to see a higher rating then the current programing of 106.9

I know that an FM Talk station won't work in SF, but all news? Just maybe.
 
secret said:
It might be that CBS jumped into simulcast as a quick stop-loss measure, but if history is any indication, without a callsign change, the company isn't fully committed.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. They could be holding the KFRC callsign for some other plan (regardless of its past cache it's easily memorable), or they just don't think it matters. Remember that KYCY originally stood for "Young Country" and it was originally on 93.3. The format lasted, what, 2 years and the callsign 14 or 15.

In Portland, KINK has been a consistent callsign for a station that has been a hippie rock station, AOR, AAA, "environment" music, and whatever it is now, which I think is "smooth jazz". It has prospered under most of those formats without having to change callsigns.
 
Let's not forget either, the fate of several call letters that once called the Bay area home:

KKHI: Now smooth jazz in the Denver area
KTIM: low-powered travel info in St. George, Utah
No one has claimed KYUU, but its predecessor was KNAI, which is a Regional Mexican shared frequency station around Phoenix.
For San Jose-area residents, KXRX now belongs to a rock station in Washington's Tri-Cities area. No one seems to have picked up the old KEEN, but then there's the saddest one of all .... KFAT: Hip hop in Anchorage!
 
SCV_Ears said:
Let's not forget either, the fate of several call letters that once called the Bay area home:

KKHI: Now smooth jazz in the Denver area
KTIM: low-powered travel info in St. George, Utah
No one has claimed KYUU, but its predecessor was KNAI, which is a Regional Mexican shared frequency station around Phoenix.
For San Jose-area residents, KXRX now belongs to a rock station in Washington's Tri-Cities area. No one seems to have picked up the old KEEN, but then there's the saddest one of all .... KFAT: Hip hop in Anchorage!
Click to expand...

A few others:

* The KMEL call letters were for "Camel 106," the AOR station in the late 70s and 80s, but nobody cared when the call letters were retained for the "All Hit" station that morphed into Hip-Hop.

* We've kind of forgotten by now, but KSFO were the call letters for an iconic MOR and personality station of the 50s thru the 70s. Now it's just another right-wing talk station.

* KSOL meant "Soul" music at 1450 AM, 107.7 FM, and Classic Soul at 98.9 FM. But they're now great calls for a Spanish station with the sun (" el sol" in Spanish) as a logo.

* KEWB is now "Power 94," a Hip Hop station in Redding, CA.

* The X-100 call letters (KXXX) now belong to a hardcore porn TV station in Des Moines, Iowa.

(OK - I was kidding about that last one)
 
Lkeller said:
SCV_Ears said:
Let's not forget either, the fate of several call letters that once called the Bay area home:

KKHI: Now smooth jazz in the Denver area
KTIM: low-powered travel info in St. George, Utah
No one has claimed KYUU, but its predecessor was KNAI, which is a Regional Mexican shared frequency station around Phoenix.
For San Jose-area residents, KXRX now belongs to a rock station in Washington's Tri-Cities area. No one seems to have picked up the old KEEN, but then there's the saddest one of all .... KFAT: Hip hop in Anchorage!
Click to expand...

A few others:

* The KMEL call letters were for "Camel 106," the AOR station in the late 70s and 80s, but nobody cared when the call letters were retained for the "All Hit" station that morphed into Hip-Hop.

* We've kind of forgotten by now, but KSFO were the call letters for an iconic MOR and personality station of the 50s thru the 70s. Now it's just another right-wing talk station.

* KSOL meant "Soul" music at 1450 AM, 107.7 FM, and Classic Soul at 98.9 FM. But they're now great calls for a Spanish station with the sun (" el sol" in Spanish) as a logo.

* KEWB is now "Power 94," a Hip Hop station in Redding, CA.

* The X-100 call letters (KXXX) now belong to a hardcore porn TV station in Des Moines, Iowa.

(OK - I was kidding about that last one)
Click to expand...

Oh and KMEL used to be KFRC-FM
 
Personally, I still believe the call letters carry meaning and value, but, most likely to those of us
who have been around a bit to know that certain calls have lasted over time. Perhaps a few
business corporations "might" see a hook on keeping a specific call, i.e.: KFRC, KSFO, KDON, KWAV,
and a few more, but my guess is not likely.

If calling the radio station "Movin 99.7" or "The Wave KWAV97" or
or something like "97-9 Where Hip Hop Lives, (as for KYZZ in Salinas) is more of a way to "catch"
there audience, then that is what most likely will be done.

And speaking of long time calls holding on, KDON 1460 AM (then) and now 102.5 has been kept for
a very long time, and so has KWAV 96.9 even KIDD 630 still there to this day. (Monterey Bay Area).
But, if it wasn’t for the "DON" in KDON, the "WAVE" in KWAV or the "KID" in KIDD, some stations would not be remembered nearly as well.., ok lets add The "PIG" (KPIG) and The FAT ONE (KFAT)....
Mike~
 
There are NO long term plans...it's all about today. That is problem #1.
As for the calls themselves, 1550 is IDing as KFRC, so I assume that they are now officially KFRC-AM and 106.9 is KFRC-FM...no one would want someone else in the market to grab those calls, PPM or no PPM.
 
CALGUY : Oh and KMEL used to be KFRC-FM
Click to expand...
Yep, AND for a brief few months in the 70s, before morphing into KMEL, KFRC_FM was KKEY-FM, remember that?
NORCALVET: There are NO long term plans...That is problem #1.
Click to expand...
We give them credit for planning when often what they are really doing is experimenting. Crudely, at that, and without little
validity in what they purchase as "research."
 
The KCBS/KFRC-FM combo is now top 3 or 4 25-54...KCBS by itself was usually just inside the top 10...this is the kind of rank increase
that should result in a good opportunity of revenue increase...maybe not right this minute, but when, hopefully, things economically turn around.
 
norcalvet said:
There are NO long term plans...it's all about today. That is problem #1.
As for the calls themselves, 1550 is IDing as KFRC, so I assume that they are now officially KFRC-AM and 106.9 is KFRC-FM...no one would want someone else in the market to grab those calls, PPM or no PPM.
Click to expand...

Are you SURE there are no longterm plans for 106.9? Ratings have shown that talkers and news stations get better ratings when they have an FM outlet. It's 2009, not 1979.

I also continue to note that CBS is one of the few group owners that is making any money. I therefore defer to their judgment on how to run radio stations.
 
DavidKaye said:
In Portland, KINK has been a consistent callsign for a station that has been a hippie rock station, AOR, AAA, "environment" music, and whatever it is now, which I think is "smooth jazz". It has prospered under most of those formats without having to change callsigns.
Click to expand...

KINK is a female targeting AAA which dominates the 25 - 54 ratings and revenue stories in their market. They don't sound much like KFOG, but AAA is a flexible format.

It's true they've gone through some changes at KINK, but they've been evolutionary in nature, not format flips.
 
raydioheadfm said:
The KCBS/KFRC-FM combo is now top 3 or 4 25-54...KCBS by itself was usually just inside the top 10...
Click to expand...

KCBS, for December, comboed with KFRC FM, was 3rd 25.54. In the most recent week, it is 6th. In July, the AM alone was 9th, moving to 3rd in October, then 5th in November. Since, IIRC, the FM was added 10/27, two weeks into the November book, we can see that the AM alone, in October, did better (4.9) than the 4.5 in November 4.5 for the combo.

News tends to be more event sensitive than even talk, so we are likely looking at wobbles. And it will take a while for the FM station to add anything to the numbers... right now, it seems to be dividing the existing audience, even in 25-54.

I'm wondering why they don't do single line reporting.
 
I'm wondering why they don't do single line reporting.
Click to expand...

In a strange twist, at least in PPM markets, ARB is not updating their simulcast lists more than once per quarter, at the beginning of each quarter. CBS folks says that
the first weeklies for the January month will have single line.
 
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