Disney's last radio station for now is KRDC Los Angeles and it's translator on 99.1 FM. It will be interesting who the candidates are to get KRDC. VCY is one of them as a rumored candidate for now.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
VCY Acquires KESN
- Thread starter Ryan Williams
- Start date
Fox Sports airs overnights on KTCK AM/FM. Now if iHeart wants to flip KEGL to sports then yea they could take the affiliation back for 97.1. As far as The Ticket's signal issues....they seem to be doing quite well.
A
AnyHuman
Guest
I think they have one show on the weekend but it's only an hour or two. Plays Southern Gospel.
They carried USA Radio Network News for a long time. Couple decades. Very professional delivery. I always liked it on that alone. They had 2 versions of the newscast. A Commercial version that ran 5min on the top of the hour. A lot of stations carried it. Was easy to do, barter. Didn't cost anything. They also had a Christian radio version. Basically the same newscast, different music, no commercials, and an added block of news that might have been of interest to Christians. VCY carried that version. Nowdays they carry Salem Radio News (SRN)
VCY is in a "Christianity is under threat" mindset. There are a lot of Conservative Christians that believe this to be true so it's not very unusual. I particularly liked their music programming growing up. It was relaxing. I didn't really care for their politics. I'm basically a Democrat politically but I am also a Christian. I have listened to Christian radio, VCY included since I was a kid. Some of it is good. For a long time, until Salem bought what is now EMF's 105.3 WLVE (K-LOVE) in 2001, there was no Christian radio on FM in Milwaukee aside for WVCY and Family Radio's WMWK. We had Entercom's 1250 WEMP which went from Oldies to Brokered Preaching, Ethnic and Contemporary Worship Music under Sinclair in 1998. Entercom bought it in 1999 and wanted to flip it but it was too profitable. They flipped to Sports 1-1-05. Then there was Saga's WJYI (Joy 1340) which ran Salem's CCM network with a lot of African-American Church broadcasts (Church Of God In Christ in specific) in the afternoons. They also had a Christian CHR show on Saturdays. It's now all brokered preaching and Ethnic. Nobody can compete with K-LOVE for CCM. Especially on AM. I always listened to the music. Wasn't really into the preaching. I still listen to Air1 every so often but it sounds depressing at times. A lot of college kids like Worship music, so they're focusing on Worship mostly rather than the Pop. A lot of the Christian pop is pretty good. CCM and Worship is a lot like Country. Same words and terms used over and over again. Air1 regulars like NEEDTOBREATHE, Mat Kearney, Lauren Daigle and for KING & COUNTRY have crossed over onto mainstream radio in recent years.
Aside from my personal experience, I should point out that these networks have listeners who are more than willing to open up their pocket book and donate to keep these stations running. EMF always had successful pledge drives. Do a Youtube video "Air1 Fully Funded" or "K-LOVE Fully Funded" and you'll see video of them in studio as they reach their goals. I think EMF's revenue is something like 200 Million. Record labels also still save songs for Christian radio to play before they are released to the streaming services, which means a lot of songs can still only be heard on the radio before they are released. This is almost unheard of in mainstream radio these days. It used to be the norm.
Last edited:
Thank you for that well worded analysis of VCY and others. I would caution that VCY is an unknown in the DFW Metro. While the same is true for Air One and Way FM, musically they are not unknown. VCY is a different delivery with no prior track record. I'm sure they've done their research and know what to expect.
Aside from their music and Crosstalk, a lot of their shows are national. Among them: In Touch (Charles Stanley, Southern Baptist), Grace To You, Telling The Truth, Thru The Bible, all of these are national. They also run Unshackled, which consists of a lot of vintage radio dramas that were produced originally in Chicago. Saturday mornings they run vintage Childrens programs and dramas such as Sailor Sam (Also from WMBI), Patch The Pirate, The Brinkman Adventures, among others. All of them are or were nationally syndicated at some point.
Majority of Sundays is music. I can best describe their music as soft instrumental music and hymns, lots of soft piano. They also play a lot of barbershop quartet kind of hymns. Their overnight show Music til Dawn was actually offered for syndication and touted as a way to help people who were struggling to get to sleep at night.
Majority of Sundays is music. I can best describe their music as soft instrumental music and hymns, lots of soft piano. They also play a lot of barbershop quartet kind of hymns. Their overnight show Music til Dawn was actually offered for syndication and touted as a way to help people who were struggling to get to sleep at night.
Honestly, i think it is very unlikely iHeart makes a move to full time sports on any of their FMs. I could see them gradually adding more and more guy/hot talk. Think more WTKS and less KFAN.
Some of those programs also air on KAAM. There is generally not market exclusivity for ministry block programs. The ministries will continue to be on multiple stations as long as there is adequate listener response and it makes financial sense or there is some strategic reason for continuing. In the case of VCY and KWRD, considering all the programming that is very very little overlap.
They could probably make a lot more with ESPN+. It's subscription-based and doesn't rely on terrestrial radio signals to carry programming.One would think, as it's such a great sports town. A few years ago, ESPN built a bunch of local web sites that focused on particular sports cities, and Dallas was one. They were going to integrate the site and the local station:
Sports in Dallas - Scores and News covering all Dallas teams
Get the full coverage of all Dallas sports teams on ESPN, including the Texas Rangers, the Cowboys, the Stars, the Mavericks and FC Dallas.www.espn.com
That idea may have fallen by the wayside. More money to be made with ESPN+
prolly no where. The only way ESPN Radio comes back is if iHeart pulls Fox Sports from KTCK AM/FM and then KTCK picks up the affilation. But who knows.
Hmmm, don't you mean Cumulus? They don't have the vested interest in Fox that iHeart has.
No thats CBS Sports Radio. If i recall, Cumulus and CBS had some deal that CBS would program the network and Cumulus handled some sales and marketing and carried some programming on their sports stations. I don't know if that partnership carried over to Entercom/Audacy. At one point, KTCK and KRLD-FM both carried some CBS Sports Radio programming overnights and weekends. The Ticket picked up Fox Sports some time in 2020.
I misread your post. I thought you said iHeart owns KTCK. But yes, CBS Sports Radio was originally done between CBS and Cumulus. But it wasn't included in the sale to Audacy. Neither was CBS News Radio. I think it benefits KTCK to carry ESPN play by play when they can. If that comes with a catch to carry some long form programming, I'd guess they'd jump on it if there's an out in the Fox Sports affiliation. I'm not aware of any PBP with Fox Sports.
Well right now both KESN and KTCK are running the ESPN College football broadcasts. Maybe Cumulus will pick up the play by play (NBA/MLB/NCAA Basketball) from ESPN Radio. Cumulus could put it on KTCK and if there is a Stars conflict then it would air on KLIF/570...if there is no TCU Horned Frogs basketball conflict.
The Ticket ran some outside network content last decade on delay as a result of The Fan carrying live programming at the time. They carried Dan Patrick for a while at 9 p.m. and had Scott Ferrall on during the same time slot later.
Does any one know when this sale is going to close and the new programming is starting?
Things have been moving slower (which says a lot) at the FCC because of covid, so I guess by the summer.
It's interesting that the sale announcement did not mention an LMA.
A
AnyHuman
Guest
Maybe no LMA because ESPN is looking for a new signal and they want no interruptions.
- Status