• 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

Rumor Mill Reports Big Changes This Week

TheBigA said:
Which is why I say the two Audacy signals in Chicago are so vulnerable.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, it takes 50 kw to cover well a metro today with all the new man-made noise from lighting, wall warts, computers, LEDs and the like. Remember, power vs. coverage is not linear: 10 kw does not cover twice as much as 5 kw... it takes 20 kw to double the coverage.

The only place "double" works in Chicago is with Doublemint gum.
 
No Class A should downgrade to any less than a 90 electrical degree tower, at the absolute least. They should probably look for a tower that can be diplexed and or modified. There should be little to no problem finding that tall of a tower. I know someone who tried to put an FM broadcast antenna on an existing AUXILIARY Class A AM tower. He even made a significantly better offer to buy the towers (MAIN and AUX) than the tower buyer made, and they refused to sell it to him. He is putting a tower up nearby, and suspects that the tower owner will sell the site from out from under the AM station and that the station will soon need to lease his tower to avoid delays and NIMBYs.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
No Class A should downgrade to any less than a 90 electrical degree tower, at the absolute least. They should probably look for a tower that can be diplexed and or modified.
Click to expand...
Obviously, there are alternatives such as top loading or a tophat. KFI could not get its .625 wavelength tower back, so the are using top-loading, and it seems not to have made any difference. I sense that there is a bit closer skywave vs. groundwave cancellation around Banning / Beaumont, CA, but that is about 50 miles beyond the limits of the LA market.
Schroedingers Cat said:
There should be little to no problem finding that tall of a tower. I know someone who tried to put an FM broadcast antenna on an existing AUXILIARY Class A AM tower. He even made a significantly better offer to buy the towers (MAIN and AUX) than the tower buyer made, and they refused to sell it to him. He is putting a tower up nearby, and suspects that the tower owner will sell the site from out from under the AM station and that the station will soon need to lease his tower to avoid delays and NIMBYs.
Click to expand...
That is the biggest problem of new AM arrays today. Many neighboring residents buy into all kinds of "towers give you cancer" to full-blown conspiracy theories and won't pay any attention to actual science.

Some even think that those towers secretly will guide in little green men and their spacecraft when Earth is invaded. These are the same people that put masking tape over their phone's cameras so they can't be spied on in the shower (who the H takes their phone into the shower, anyway?)
 
Not only did they reduce coverage beyond the usually quoted "750 Mile" 0.5 mV/m 50% skywave contour, but they changed the skywave model that caused the protected contour to be reduced by hundreds of miles. This is based on the geomagnetic midpoint. If you notice on fccdata.org, on nondirectional and near symmetric North South DA patterns, the contour goes further South than North based on that model. The new skywave model does not apply to 50% skywaves of Class A stations in Canada and Mexico.
 
Last edited:
KFI Antenna Diagram.Screen Shot 2023-04-01 at 2.59.47 PM.png
Screen%20Shot%202023-04-01%20at%202.59.47%20PM.png
 
I think Audacy should just blow up The Score honestly if they are trying to save some cash. WBMXs ratings are ok and B96 bills well regardless of mediocre ratings both stations have very low overhead . With B96 only having a local morning show which is syndicated and the former morning show host doing middays who also has a show on the score. Everything else is tracked from another city and 104.3 only has a solo morning host and a afternoon jock who does a laundry list of other chores as well. To add both these formats Compared to 670 who has a slew of local hosts and you need local hosts to make a local sports radio station. But in addition the ratings are not hot and you can only cut a sports station so much . Audacy on the other hand could make a national morning show and make all the CHRs carry it if they wanted to . Obviously not some of their top rated CHRs KRZ Scranton WKSE Buffalo etc. But I definitely don't think they will blow up B96 or 104.3 they can consolidate sports in with 105.9 or give them 96.3 hd2 which use to have great dance music I don't know what the h€LL is on their now.
 
RadioJ55 said:
I think Audacy should just blow up The Score honestly if they are trying to save some cash. WBMXs ratings are ok and B96 bills well regardless of mediocre ratings both stations have very low overhead . With B96 only having a local morning show which is syndicated and the former morning show host doing middays who also has a show on the score. Everything else is tracked from another city and 104.3 only has a solo morning host and a afternoon jock who does a laundry list of other chores as well. To add both these formats Compared to 670 who has a slew of local hosts and you need local hosts to make a local sports radio station. But in addition the ratings are not hot and you can only cut a sports station so much . Audacy on the other hand could make a national morning show and make all the CHRs carry it if they wanted to . Obviously not some of their top rated CHRs KRZ Scranton WKSE Buffalo etc. But I definitely don't think they will blow up B96 or 104.3 they can consolidate sports in with 105.9 or give them 96.3 hd2 which use to have great dance music I don't know what the h€LL is on their now.
Click to expand...
The Score is the market's 4th highest biller. WBBM is the highest biller in the market, and WBBM-FM is about 8th.

Audacy has nearly 30% of market revenue, leading all others... iHeart around 20% and Hubbard at 15% and Univision at 8%. Why would they change anything?
 
I really think Audacy is in a situation to where they can’t flip an FM to a simulcast of the score. If Audacy really wanted to they would’ve made this move before the Cubs season opener
 
DavidEduardo said:
No, it did not. There was no listening to stations 1000 miles away from the 26 Class A clears, so they lost nothing. And their daytime coverage was totally unaffected.
Click to expand...
Unless you count people like me.

Though I guess online is a substitute for that now. I lost interest some years ago.
 
And people like me. My go-to late-night station is CFZM 740 Toronto.

FYI, the 670/780 tower in Bloomingdale is on Army Trail Road, a built-up mix of shopping centers and trucking warehouses incluiding a couple right next door. So the land is worth something. But having made a mint from the sale of the WBBM tower site a few miles east and directly along the 290 expressway, and having gone to great pains to duplicate the coverage of WBBM on the WMAQ/WSCR tower, albeit at slightly lower power to match the slightly taller tower, I'd be surprised if Audacy throws in the towel on two 50 kW AMs in Chicago.
 
PB Randolf said:
I'm not sure how much local radio even plays into the midset of the average 25-35 year old. The connection to "local" doesn't really compute anymore.
Click to expand...
If we're talking about sports, being "Chicago guys" talking about Chicago teams is about the only thing that matters. The Score has survived 30+ years on Ancient Modulation by being local.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Unless you count people like me.
Click to expand...
In consumer research, you are one of what are called "outliers". Those are people so extremely outside mainstream tastes that they are excluded from tabulated results as they can poison the data.
vchimpanzee said:
Though I guess online is a substitute for that now. I lost interest some years ago.
Click to expand...
Nah, why would you substitute fading, low fidelity, static and interference for a clear, higher fidelity, clean "signal"?
 
The way the rules are, WBBM had to reduce the Day power to 35 kW. It is also several miles further from the center of population. This is due to adjacent channel stations that they had to reduce or maintain the same ground wave overlap. The 42 kW Night is probably closer to the same inverse field, but still farther away.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In consumer research, you are one of what are called "outliers". Those are people so extremely outside mainstream tastes that they are excluded from tabulated results as they can poison the data.

Nah, why would you substitute fading, low fidelity, static and interference for a clear, higher fidelity, clean "signal"?
Click to expand...
True! One lucky week, a Nielsen TV rating book arrived in the mail, along with two crisp dollar bills. I was an early satellite TV adopter. It happened to be the week of Live Aid. For the rest of the week, I wonder what the loggers thought of my book, with outlets like CBC North in it.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom