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Country in San Francisco?
- Thread starter radcat
- Start date
HCochet said:
Nobody listens to Demento anymore. He doesn't even syndicate anymore. it's funny how these things go in cycles. At one time his program was so hot that MOR-formatted KSFO used to run it! Dr Demento was the cat's pajamas in quirky late-nite/weekend radio. And then little by little he kept losing affiliates.
The KFAT successor, KPIG, tried putting their format on 1510 here for over a year, but didn't even show up in the ratings. Pigs don't fly here...
While I'm not saying KPIG would be successful in the San Francisco market, I don't think you can say a music format failure on AM 1510 proves anything.
briancraig said:
It proves that after a year of trying, as well as putting up billboards and distributing bumper stickers -- and remember that KPIG already had a reputation in the Southbay and Monterey -- it just didn't work. KPIG should at least have had *some* ratings impact, even if it was a 0.5 share.
Trying to get back to the original topic..what could Cumulus do differently with Country in San Francisco that hasn't already been tried? The Bear lasted less than 2 years. The Wolf had a relatively long run of 4 years. Maybe because the original PD was a successful country programmer and they did lots of marketing. But it still wasn't good enough. Will Country ever work in market #4 again?
DavidKaye said:
KPIG isn't really a country station. At least, not the last time I listened. Nobody's going to do well on a music station high on the AM dial. KPIG might have done better with an FM frequency, but no corporation is going to give up a valuable spot on the FM dial for an experiment.
I can't see anybody starting a country format in the Bay Area right now. The 80s were different - there was a lot of pop culture interest in the "country" music lifestyle - country bars were very popular...Urban Cowboy and all that.
Last I heard, Saul Levine's KKGO in Los Angeles (the only Country station in that market) is not doing particularly well in the ratings - not since the PPM. The last THREE country stations in the Bay Area (since the early 90s) have tanked - 'Young Country,' The Bear, and The Wolf. Why would anybody try that again?
I listened to The Wolf a bit - good jocks, fun format, and initially decent ratings. But it was all downhill from there. BTW - Their HD2 was great - lots of classic country from the 40s through the 90s.
radcat said:
If you're talking about Nashville sound, no. It's hackery and most people here simply don't like it. But if you're talking about real country (Cajun, oldtime, honky-tonk, bluegrass, newgrass, Western swing, hillbilly, rockabilly, etc) then there are several stations already playing it:
"America's Back 40" on KPFA; "Bluegrass Signal" on KALW; "Down on the Farm" on KFJC, "Why Baby Why" on KALX, "Gospel Caravan" on KPOO; "Prairie Home Companion" on KQED Radio -- and those are the ones that come to mind.
Lkeller said:
I don't know about demographic breakdowns, but in the most recent book, KKGO had a 3.0 overall, tied with KROQ and KLAX (12th place). And better than stations like KNX and KLOS. I'd say that's pretty decent in a market like L.A. And considering how Levine's stations have typically done in the ratings, that's even better.
And it's quite interesting that KRTY does very well in San Jose with a very miniscule signal.
FightingIrish said:
In the interests of accuracy, we should leave Saul's AM out of the equation. It's signal challenged on top of being an AM in Los Angeles.
The station that is now KKGO did extremely well in 15 years as a classical station....managing to stay above a 2 through most of the 90s and not dropping below a 1.5 at any point.
In its 30 years as a jazz station, it did very well too, and for two years (1969 and 1970) was in the top 10...ranging from a point to only half a point behind the then-legendary and dominant personality MOR, KMPC.
FightingIrish said:
LA is different from SF. Rightwing talkradio has always done very well there, not so here. Oldies have also done well there and not so well here. Meanwhile, KQED Radio (NPR) SF has nearly triple the share that KPCC LA's NPR affiliate does. The markets are simply different.
FightingIrish said:
In the last 8 books, KKGO has ranked between 19th and 24th in 25-54. That is, generally, a share between 1.5 and 2.0.
It beats The Fish, KDLD and KDAY.
DavidKaye said:
KPCC has 600 watts to cover the enormous LA geography. KQED has 110,000 watts. It would be natural to expect KPCC to significantly underperfom any metric set by KQED simply because it only covers about a third of the market well.
DavidKaye said:
They were never listed in Arbitron and to the best of my knowledge never installed a PPM encoder. You're right - they should have at least shown up somewhere. Even the high school station in Concord did (back when Arbitron was publishing the ratings for non-participating stations). From my discussions with the people who work(ed) there it was simply a "build it and they will come" attitude, without a huge push on the sales side.
But KPIG is really a form of "album oriented country". The country equivalent of AOR stations of the '70s. What we're speculating here, I'm sure, is something formatted as top 40.
Dave B.
DavidEduardo said:
And in West LA, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica (etc.) most NPR listeners probably prefer KCRW, which runs a lot of its own programming (Morning Becomes Eclectic, etc.), but sticks to NPR news programming during drive times.
I stream KCRW sometimes from the Bya Area, but I have no idea how good or bad its signal is.
I really wonder if anyone can make a go of country in the San Francisco market. Entercom's. 95.7 The Wolf was one of the best sounding and most well produced country stations in the U.S., and even that couldn't do it. Unless Cumulus just wants to operate a signal as a cheaply ran national feed to simply secure the San Fran market in national ad buys. Might be worth it to them in that respect, but ratingswise, I just don't know.
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