What would you do to radio if you won the Lottery?

[MisterRadio]

With the recent Mega Millions jackpot that everybody got so crazy about and after reading a few posts on here, I got to thinking about what I would do if I won a jackpot like that in terms of local radio. Now I know most people might just get the hell out of this crazy business and buy an island somewhere or something, but most of you on this board, like me, have worked in radio for a long time or just have it in your blood. So, if you won that jackpot and could make a big splash in either Austin or San Antonio radio, what would you do?

 

[purpledevil]

What a cool thread to start. As most know, I am from Houston. However, I have family in Schertz and San Antonio. If I were to win the lottery, I'd purchase the Cox cluster in San Antonio. That's all I need. PBG's (Purpledevil Broadcasting Group) station cluster would look like this:

99.5 KISS-FM, San Antonio's True Rock Station. Rock, without alternative. It would sound a lot like Z-Rock used to before it went soft and eventually died.

100.3 KCYY-FM, Y-100 would be joining together the classic country on 680 with the currents on it now.

101.1 KONO-FM, "Radio 101, San Antonio's Alternative". From Pearl Jam to Rob Zombie, if it's Alternative it's Radio 101. ( this bastard just killed our Oldies station!)

105.3 KSMG-FM "Club 105, Where San Antonio parties 24/7/365". Dance, Techno, Trance, Electronica. No Rap whatsoever. I'd leave that to The Beat. Boy, would jras be happy about this.

106.7 KTKX-FM "K 106-7", This would be a decades format specifically dedicated to the 80's pop songs, with only the chart toppers from the 70's and 90's thrown in where applicable.

680 KKYX, with Classic Country moved to FM on KCYY this opens up a home for...wait for it...standards. "Swingin' 68 KKYX". I know, Standards on AM? Well, it's already on 1310, and I would give 'em a run even with the 103-7 stick.

860 KONO, "The Big 86" San Antonio's home for the great Oldies that you know and love. All 50's and 60's, none of the "classic hits" nonsense. Featuring Motown, R&B and those wonderful top 40 hits from yesteryear we all know and love. (See, I didn't kill the oldies...only put them back where they belong. )

Well there's my ideas. Now if I could just win that lottery........

 

[jras20]

I would buy out KVET, return it the way it use to be, and KPEZ and make it actually a hip hop station.

 

[Mediafrog+]

This thread reminds me of the old joke:

How do you make a small fortune in radio?

Start out with a large fortune.

I have a feeling some of the ideas that will be expressed on this topic would severely deplete any lottery winnings...

 

[purpledevil]

This thread reminds me of the old joke:

How do you make a small fortune in radio?

Start out with a large fortune.

I have a feeling some of the ideas that will be expressed on this topic would severely deplete any lottery winnings...

I know Frog, but if I had 640 million dollars to blow....I wouldn't care. At least it would be interesting until I ran out of money....

 

[JDawg512]

If I ever won that kind of money I would bring Dance/Electronica back to the FM airwaves in Austin. Name it Energy have real DJs and real time live mix shows.

 

[jras20]

If I ever won that kind of money I would bring Dance/Electronica back to the FM airwaves in Austin. Name it Energy have real DJs and real time live mix shows.

Good luck at making it work on "analog" I think Mega 1035 HD-2 is sounding good.

 

[willdav713]

If I won I would buy stations in the Houston, San Antonio and Austin cluster.

Here is the list of stations and formats I would have on:

For Austin:

KXBT 98.9- Keep it the same of course, but drop the Pointless 80s music they have on once or twice an hour. Continue the True Oldies feed
KFMK 105.9 flip it to Urban Oldies from the 60's 70's 80's and early 90s. The New 1059 Jamz
KVET 98.1- Dance/Electronic/House with classic dance on HD2. Power 98 fm.

For Houston:

KHMX 96.5 flips back to KNRJ 96.5 Energy 96.5 acquire the 95.7 HD2 intelectual property.

KILT 100.3/610 AM flip that to the "Big 610 AM and 100.3" Your music is back playing the music from the late 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s

KHPT 106.9 acquire the KTJM calls and flip it to Urban Oldies "Jammin 106.9"

For San Antonio:

KXXM 96.1 flip that to KSAQ Q96fm keep the current Top 40 fare but add more Dance and Electronica plus a Saturday night mixshow just like with Hypersonic.

KTFM 94.1, KTSA 550 will become the True Oldies Channel KTSA 550 and 94.1
KQXT 101.9, and WOAI 1200 Drop Q1019 and simulcast WOAI AM.
KTKR 760 flip that back to Urban AC and revive the KSJL calls.
KTXK 106.7 flip that one to an Urban Adult Hits and revive the KITY calls name it City 106.7 The music designed for San Antonio.

 

[JDawg512]

If I ever won that kind of money I would bring Dance/Electronica back to the FM airwaves in Austin. Name it Energy have real DJs and real time live mix shows.

Good luck at making it work on "analog" I think Mega 1035 HD-2 is sounding good.

I like Mega as well but I think it will work on analog. two stations flipped to all dance on FM recently in the U.S. the most recent is Denvers Hot 107. Im hoping this is the new trend that will spread across the country as Dance continue to dominate Top 40.

 

[fredcantu]

two stations flipped to all dance on FM recently in the U.S. the most recent is Denvers Hot 107. Im hoping this is the new trend that will spread across the country as Dance continue to dominate Top 40.

That's kind of a Catch 22 for the Dance format. When the music is popular, Dance stations will have to compete with the same music playing on CHRs; when the music is not popular... well it's not popular.

 

[Pete Pyeatt]

Mega HD-2 is one of the last awesome radio stations. I'm glad it isn't showing up in the ratings. Keep it commercial free!

 

[MisterRadio]

I am still baffled by the number of people on this board who desperately want a dance music radio station. I am assuming you are talking about the kind of music they play in those clubs down on 6th Street (house/trance/techno/etc) and not like Big Band Dance music or two-stepping music. Dance music is one of those generic terms that has changed over time much like Top 40 which isn't really a style of music, although many people seem to think it denotes a certain kind of music. Anyways, more power to you, but outside of actually being in a place where there is dancing I don't like to listen to it and I would be surprised if there is a large audience for it. Still, I'm sure I could be proven wrong.

 

[JDawg512]

I am still baffled by the number of people on this board who desperately want a dance music radio station. I am assuming you are talking about the kind of music they play in those clubs down on 6th Street (house/trance/techno/etc) and not like Big Band Dance music or two-stepping music. Dance music is one of those generic terms that has changed over time much like Top 40 which isn't really a style of music, although many people seem to think it denotes a certain kind of music. Anyways, more power to you, but outside of actually being in a place where there is dancing I don't like to listen to it and I would be surprised if there is a large audience for it. Still, I'm sure I could be proven wrong.

When people say Dance now they mean Dance/Electronica or EDM (Electronic Dance Music) which covers a large array of sub-genres such as House, Trance, Techno ect... A bit off topic here but most of the actual Dance clubs are not on 6th street. Most bars and clubs on 6th stay very much mainstream with the exception of a couple. The Warehouse District is where you find the true Dance/Electronica clubs.

There is an audience for it or we would not see so much Dance/Electronica influenced Top 40. Turn on Kiss and more times than not nowadays you will hear a Dance song. Now it is true that there may be more of an audience that prefer a Dance leaning Top 40 station over a full Dance format and that is fine. But I prefer not to listen to Hip Hop or alternative pop music when I listen to Dance I like it to be all Dance. When I choose to listen to something els I switch to whatever im in the mood for. Everybody will have their preferences so it all just comes down to choice. Right now there are enough choices for people to listen to. This is all just wishful thinking anyways since this thread was just about our station fantasy if we had the kind of money to do it. No harm in dreaming ;D

 

[bobdavcav]

I was just looking at the board and stumbled across this thread. Here's what I would do,
1. Buy KMCQ here in Seattle and actually put some money into it, get at least a couple of personalities on there, and transform it into what WCBS and KRTH are, or something similar, maybe even aquire the KBSG calls.
2. Purchase KFMK and restore the River. I'm surprised no one on this board mentions they miss that station? I think it was great and am still annoyed at Christa for doing what they did to it.

 

[willdav713]

I was just looking at the board and stumbled across this thread. Here's what I would do,
1. Buy KMCQ here in Seattle and actually put some money into it, get at least a couple of personalities on there, and transform it into what WCBS and KRTH are, or something similar, maybe even aquire the KBSG calls.
2. Purchase KFMK and restore the River. I'm surprised no one on this board mentions they miss that station? I think it was great and am still annoyed at Christa for doing what they did to it.

The River was a cross between an soft rock station and a christian music outlet. To get the river you would have to mix the old kqxt kq102 and add KLove together. It wasn't really profitable, but if the lottery amount you would win was a lot, it doesn't really matter. But years later you might have to sell it. Christian Adult Contemporary stations are rare compared to Christian Rock, and Contemporary Christian stations.

 

[bobdavcav]

If it wasn't really profitable, how did CC make it sound so good? For a format they were willing to give up, it sounded really good! I discovered it a couple of months after I had stopped listening to our local KCMS and switched to KPLZ. I discovered it purely by accident, it was a featured station on the old CC player when they still had it, this was May 2010, as a matter of fact I think it was the Thursday after the frequency swap. I do think Citadel made the switch at the wrong time as well, as I probably would have listened to KFMK more had WRQX not switched players and greatly improved the quality of their audio stream at the same time. Darn, if I hadn't deleted that recording I made of KFMK that summer.

 

[fredcantu]

If it wasn't really profitable, how did CC make it sound so good? For a format they were willing to give up, it sounded really good!

The River just never connected with listeners here, especially after they started mixing in AC tunes. That attempt to broaden the appeal really appeared to turn off the Christian core.

 

[bobdavcav]

Hmm. Does anyone have any audio from that format, either on 102.3 or 105.9?

 

[MisterRadio]

Hmm. Does anyone have any audio from that format, either on 102.3 or 105.9?

All of the air personalities are still around, so you might find something. Gary Walsh is still at CC doing promotions, Heather White is on the KASE morning show, Steve Ethridge is the stadium announcer for Texas State Sports, Roxanne is on the Liquidation Channel (night shift I think).

I believe that Fred is correct about the problems with the River. It was started as a pet project of CC to make them seem less nasty I think. It was started as a completely contemporary Christian format although they acted like it wasn't using the "Family Friendly" tag. Because of their real format, most of their advertising and relationships were with Churches and businesses that were overtly Christian. Ratings didn't really follow and I think that the writing on the wall said that they needed to move more in the direction of Majic (which had also taken on the Family Friendly moniker) so they added music first from Christian bands that had moved into the mainstream and then eventually just softer rock and pop making it more of an AC format. They never really could compete with Majic and they were kind of caught between them and the other Contemporary Christian stations around town. When the CC privatization happened, it was determined that the Austin cluster had to sell off one of its FM's and 105.9 was the weakest of the frequencies. Since 105.9 had made a successful transition to The Beat and it was going great guns, they decided to flip the formats and put The Beat on the 102.3 frequency. The River then only existed until 105.9 was sold to Christa Ministries.

 

[johnnyu]

I wouldn't do anything to radio. I would by a better radio receiver.