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WCBS #1 IN BIG APPLE....AND THE BAY HAS NO CLASSIC HITS/OLDIES STATION??
- Thread starter airpab
- Start date
SF has an tough situation, because in the eyes of CBS, it's a format they tried and failed with. And no one else wants to touch what is viewed as a format that failed. The bigger problem, and the real reason, is that even with the #1 station in the biggest market in the country, WCBS-FM is #16 in billings, tied with stations that are getting 1 shares. So there's not much money to be made with a format that's seen as problematic. They'd rather get smaller, but younger audiences.
The Walrus came out of absolutely nowhere in San Diego and almost instantly scored ratings!
When WCBS, KRTH and KOOL were just "Oldies" and not enhanced as Classic Hits/Oldies, they didn't enjoy the same level of success they're enjoying now!
This format has PPM appeal and seems to work well in most major and many smaller markets.
When WCBS, KRTH and KOOL were just "Oldies" and not enhanced as Classic Hits/Oldies, they didn't enjoy the same level of success they're enjoying now!
This format has PPM appeal and seems to work well in most major and many smaller markets.
airpab said:
Yes, it makes a lot of sense.
(1) Have you ever asked yourself why New York city can't support a commercial classical music station? The San Francisco Bay Area with 1/4th the population CAN.
(2) Have you asked yourself why New York can't support a moderate or left of center talkstation? SF CAN. Hell, WABC doesn't even have live and local talkshows, does it? Meanwhile, KGO is all live and local.
(3) Have you asked yourself why New York can't support a real JAZZ station while the SF Bay Area has done it continuously since 1959?
It sounds like our Bay Area audience is a lot more sophisticated than the NYC audience, so it's no wonder that they like to listen to re-treads from the 1960s.
About Classic Hits on HD Radio,96.5 HD-2 is an oldies station,and has less personality than the other two.Kool Oldies 103.7 HD-2 probably has the most personality because it is a network feed from Clear Channel with bumpers inserted.However the one that I listen to the most(even when I'm west of the tunnel and can pick all three of them up) is KFRC 106.9 HD-2.
On a slightly unrelated topic, I have been thinking that CBS kept the KFRC calls at 106.9 so they could still use the KFRC calls on 106.9 HD-2
On a slightly unrelated topic, I have been thinking that CBS kept the KFRC calls at 106.9 so they could still use the KFRC calls on 106.9 HD-2
The "Bring back KFRC" bandwagon appears again. Althogh I enjoyed KFRC during it's 99.7 years, I always felt thet 93.3 KYA was a far superior station in terms of playlist. I say better to bring back KYA than KFRC.
Mike
Mike
travisl5678 said:
I think CBS probably kept the KFRC calls to hedge their bets (those calls have some historical value), and because nobody really cares anymore. Nobody listening to All News KCBS cares whether or not the top-of-the-hour ID says "KFRC-FM HD1" for 2 seconds. Just like the K-I-T-S call letters, which have some potential value to CBS...probably for a potential future "hits" station in some market. But listeners don't care that Live 105 isn't KLVE, KLVV, or any other permuation of "Live."
Same with "Star" (KIOI), The Bone (KSAN) or others.
DavidKaye said:
To respond to your points:
NYC long supported WQXR. The Times sold it because they needed the money to fund their struggling newspaper. They wanted to make sure that whomever they sold it to would keep it classical and that was the WNYC Foundation, who made it a non-comm. The downside was WQXR had to give up the full-signal at 96.3, which was sold to Univision. 'QXR moved to 105.9, which in NY is a very limited signal. Despite their signal issues, 'QXR was only one-tenth of a point behind WPAT-FM (Amor 93.1) with a full signal.
New York could easily support a moderate talk station. WABC only does as well as it does because it has almost no competition. WOR could fill in the void with more local programming but chose to keep costs down and be content to make a living. There's a market to be tapped, but WOR's owners are choosing not to do so. They're trailing WABC by a full two rating points.
There is more than enough happening in the NY area to fill up a talk station! Last year you had a governor's race in NJ, a mayoral race in NYC, the Yankees won the World Series, NY State governement was in turmoil. This year, there's a governor's race in NY State. THERE IS NO PLACE TO TALK ABOUT IT ON NYC RADIO! WABC and WOR might as well be satellite stations! They never talk about New York! Other markets have talk stations that split 50-75% local/syndie, but not NY. I'm a native NYer, but talkradio in NY is the worst in the country!
As noted, WBGO is a non-commercial jazz station and doing well.
Also there is left-of-center talk available in NY, on WWRL (1600 AM), a station almost nobody receives!
2 things, IMO, that would be needed for "Classic Hits" to work (I should say 2 of the TOP, or course there are many factors):
1) PERSONALITY
2) DON'T call it KFRC
...us old timers will always have a soft spot for KFRC, and nothing done today will ever compare. So why not an entirely NEW spin on it. A few fresh ideas wouldn't hurt the market.
1) PERSONALITY
2) DON'T call it KFRC
...us old timers will always have a soft spot for KFRC, and nothing done today will ever compare. So why not an entirely NEW spin on it. A few fresh ideas wouldn't hurt the market.
BnRinBayArea said:
Great, except the audience really doesn't accept "fresh ideas." They want this format to revive the past. Play the old songs, with the old personalities, and maybe even the old jingles and imaging. Change the formula and it's not authentic. There's a reason why Oldies has worked at WCBS, and it's because of consistency. The "fresh ideas," such as infusing some 80s music, isn't universally popular with the hard core fans.
radioguy39nj said:DavidKaye said:
To respond to your points:
NYC long supported WQXR. The Times sold it because they needed the money to fund their struggling newspaper. They wanted to make sure that whomever they sold it to would keep it classical and that was the WNYC Foundation, who made it a non-comm. The downside was WQXR had to give up the full-signal at 96.3, which was sold to Univision. 'QXR moved to 105.9, which in NY is a very limited signal. Despite their signal issues, 'QXR was only one-tenth of a point behind WPAT-FM (Amor 93.1) with a full signal.
New York could easily support a moderate talk station. WABC only does as well as it does because it has almost no competition. WOR could fill in the void with more local programming but chose to keep costs down and be content to make a living. There's a market to be tapped, but WOR's owners are choosing not to do so. They're trailing WABC by a full two rating points.
There is more than enough happening in the NY area to fill up a talk station! Last year you had a governor's race in NJ, a mayoral race in NYC, the Yankees won the World Series, NY State governement was in turmoil. This year, there's a governor's race in NY State. THERE IS NO PLACE TO TALK ABOUT IT ON NYC RADIO! WABC and WOR might as well be satellite stations! They never talk about New York! Other markets have talk stations that split 50-75% local/syndie, but not NY. I'm a native NYer, but talkradio in NY is the worst in the country!
As noted, WBGO is a non-commercial jazz station and doing well.
Also there is left-of-center talk available in NY, on WWRL (1600 AM), a station almost nobody receives!
Good analysis, Radioguy. Right about WQXR being viable, not a huge ratings or cume-grabber, but viable as a commercial station nonetheless. And doing pretty well as a non-comm, according to recent ratings, just a few months after changing frequencies.
I was just thinking about WOR vs. KGO recently, after visiting the Bay Area from NYC. Say what you will, but KGO never fails to impress me, and I wonder all the time why there is so much right-wing talk on NY AM airwaves (WABC, as well as WNYM (970...zzzz) and WOR). It's equally bizarre that the only local talk is on WNYC (NPR) for a couple hours a day, and a few short hours a day on WOR. Bizarre. It's not that New York is particularly short of people. For YEARS, WOR has seemed like a slumbering operation, content to stick with its aging audience and a strange melange of right-wing talk, non-political chitchat, and John Gambling. But current ownership, with a conservative predilection to begin with, seems content. Meanwhile, the other strong sticks in NYC all have great or decent gigs going -- WFAN with sports, the aforementioned WABC (to me, unlistenable), WCBS and WINS with all news (2 of 'em!), and then... there's WEPN, the ESPN/sports underperformer.
What does all this have to do with the Bay Area? KGO, of course -- I firmly believe that NYC is one market where the KGO model would work well. I'd make it live, very LOCAL a la KGO, center or left-of-center but definitely less politicized than its competitors -- and I think you'd have a lot of people finding a reason to tune in, in spite of the abysmal trends buffeting AM radio. If done imaginatively and well, it wouldn't do any worse than WOR, and maybe considerably better. (One thing that's interesting to me about SF versus NY is how much better KQED does in ratings and cumes versus WNYC. I would think that audience doesn't overlap greatly with KGO, but on the other hand, I think this says a lot about the differences between the two markets.)
I also wonder a lot where else a KGO might work in an America saturated with not-particularly-challenging right-wing talk. Conservative talk works, but it's so heavily syndicated and to me, it's mostly just lazy and unchallenging programming that turns its back on even trying to produce anything local and successful. So sue me, that's what I believe.
Back to the Bay area, and about WCBS-FM: It's strange to me that the SF market has A LOT of CHR now and feels to me like its skewed pretty heavily toward younger demos. I haven't lived in the Bay Area, have only visited frequently, so I don't know the intimate details of KFRC's long and storied history. But what's notable about WCBS-FM is that post-Jack, it's a classic hits format, not really oldies in the usual sense. Also what is surprising is how well the station has done recently not only in 25-54, but really also in 18-34. It's actually a player in younger demos. Who knows why? Anyway, CBS-FM seems to do a fair amount of promotion, and it's loaded with name-DJs that other "younger" stations have sloughed off over the years, most of whom are well known to New Yorkers.
If I were CC or CBS, I'd take a look at a KKSF or, say, KITS, maybe even Alice and ask whether a classic hits format couldn't be done quite successfully along those lines. "Heritage calls" like WCBS or KFRC might be helpful, but how helpful? However, I have no idea how those stations perform in terms of revenues, so feel free to question my choices of which stations might be good places to put a format like that.
As BnRinBay Area suggested, you might want to avoid the KFRC calls altogether, regardless of how dear they are to older listeners' hearts. Remember that WCBS changed its formula to something newer and younger, rather than moving back to the same old WCBS oldies, however much their former listening base might have valued consistency. The WCBS calls are golden, but how much do the calls really matter to listeners, when all's said and done?
SFStatic said:
80% of diary mentions did not contain call letters either. Under age 55 or 60, even fewer.
icybluelake said:
Your assummption is that KGO is doing well. It's not. While billing is slower to decline (although it is off 40% since '02), KGO spends most of the time in PPM somewhere south of 20th in 25-54, the key sales demos. KQED is, on the other hand, in the top two or three, even if they are not commercial. And KCBS, an AM and FM simulcast, is around 5th.
Aside from the now-dismal ratings, KGO is a product of around 40 years of being in the format. A startup in talk on a good AM facility in today's economy might have years of losses... and never succeed if on AM.
What I'm getting at in comparing formats and stations is that NYC and SF are different markets. The people have different backgrounds and they support different formats because their tastes are different. Oldies has been tried time and again in this region, and it just doesn't work well enough to bother with.
KFRC(AM) 1550 apparently works well enough to keep the channel open with inoffensive music between the ballgames. That's probably about as well as 1550 is going to do.
KFRC(AM) 1550 apparently works well enough to keep the channel open with inoffensive music between the ballgames. That's probably about as well as 1550 is going to do.
DavidKaye said:
I agree with some of your points, David. But it's worth pointing out that 99/7/KFRC "worked" for well over a decade - maybe 13 or 14 years. I can't recall the years exactly, but the Oldies format came in about 1992 or 93, and lasted until 2006. And before the station flipped to MOViN, it was making somewhat of a comeback in the ratings as mainstream Classic Hits, despite CBS's short but ill-advised foray into 'Lite" Classic hits.
What didn't work was 106.9, and many (including me) would argue that the execution of that station really sucked.
However, I agree that another revival of KFRC on FM would not work now. If the format ever comes back, somebody else will have to do it.
icybluelake said:
icybluelake, there is a link between KGO and WABC. They're both owned by Citadel! KGO's long-time profitability was likely the reason Citadel didn't take a blow torch to it. On the other hand, WABC was ABC's and is now Citadel's flagship station. Most of the major conservative syndie talk shows from both Citadel and Premiere air on the 770 AM blotwtorch.
You're right in that WOR is a slumbering operation. Speculation about a possible sale surfaces occasionally but nothing happens. The WOR call letters are a well-known brand in NY and needs to be re-invented, perhaps on FM with an emphasis on New York area issues. Talk on FM would bring much better demos. KCBS is seeing that with its news simulcast on 740 AM & 106.9 FM.
Here's my take on the classic hits/oldies problem in the Bay Area. When KFRC was revived on 106.9 FM, the station was stuck with the A's baseball games. Because it's played every day, baseball wreaks havoc on a music format espcially on a station trying to find a new audience. When that deal was done, the A's thought they were going to be with 106.9 FREE-FM. No need to elaborate there! Classic hits/oldies was doomed from the start on 106.9 because of that contract. Also, I'm aware the A's are the "other" baseball team in the Bay Area. If classic hits/oldies is to be done in the Bay Area, it has be with a clear market focus. Heritage call letters are nice, but not necessary. It's the on-air product that counts.
As well as the revived CBS-FM is doing in the NY ratings, their ad revenue is low. In fact, their billing is at about the same level as during the ill-fated JACK experiment. During the 80s and 90s as a true oldies station, they were among the highest. CBS-FM listeners are blindly loyal, but advertisers don't want them. Most are over 50! To Madison Ave, that's undesirable!
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