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Is a Translator in KBME 790AM's Future?

rbrucecarter5 said:
That antenna location is still far South of that large hill in the South part of Austin.
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But the tower is 1257' high and the antenna is at about 2000 feet above sea level. The objective is not to just cover the city of Austin but all the folks in Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties who are, every one of them, in the Austin radio market (Metro Survey Area) and have an equal and proportional chance of being in the ratings sample.

Over 50% of the market population of the Austin MSA is not in the city of Austin.

Between Oltorf and Riverside is an elevation change of several hundred feet - I lived there for a year and a half.
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However, the center of the city is at less than 500' AMSL. The tower and elevation of the site are actually quite useful for covering all of Travis County and all the metro except extreme northern Williamson, which is of a low population density.

There are parts of Austin where I don't get KBPA as well as I used to in Cypress. Especially when I go up to Cedar Park, down to Lake Travis, etc. That real estimation of their coverage is going to be interesting, but not nearly as interesting as looking at 101.1 in the Austin area!
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It has a good enough signal to be, based on the average of Jan to March books, the #1 25-54 station in the market. It's cume is, on average, fully 30% of the entire 12+ population of the market and 33.5% of the 25-54 population.

Any hilly metro will have some shadows, holes and the like. KBPA is proven to have a signal good enough for it to be #1.

Back to the subject of fringe ratings. Houston, you got a problem. The Woodlands and Conroe. Populations booming, population density heading in the worst possible direction for the Senior road installation.
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It's a 2000' tower holding full C's. The 60 dbu extends to the far top of Montgomery County. Harris County has 9 times the population of Montgomery County, and most of the Montgomery population is in the southern quarter of the county anyway.

By the time the population far into Montgomery becomes an issue, we won't be using AM or FM to reach listeners anyway.

What makes sense for hip-hop reaching the early wards won't make sense for country or top-40 because their listeners aren't in those wards. Their listeners are in Katy, Cypress, Spring, the Woodlands, Conroe, etc.
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You make the mistake of thinking that hip hop listeners are only in low income neighborhoods. That is just not correct. Neither is the assumption that country listeners only like out in the rural parts of a metro.
 
Any word on KBME attempting to acquire a translator to make up for a weak nighttime signal? I asked Matt Thomas live on the air, but of course he didn't know anything and that sort of thing is not a priority to him.

Who would I be able to get in touch with to ask if KBME has plans to acquire a translator southwest of the city? KBME has to include cities like Rosenberg, Beasley, and Kendleton an important part of its listening area, and during the nighttime hours (which is mostly when the Astros play), those cities to the southwest are not able to pull in KBME.
 
The Rimshot said:
Any word on KBME attempting to acquire a translator to make up for a weak nighttime signal? I asked Matt Thomas live on the air, but of course he didn't know anything and that sort of thing is not a priority to him.
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How do you expect any AM station like KBME to fill in the gaps in its night pattern with 250 watts on FM? There's more ground to cover than a translator can handle.

Why do you think I <3 would think that's a smart use of money?
 
johndavis said:
How do you expect any AM station like KBME to fill in the gaps in its night pattern with 250 watts on FM? There's more ground to cover than a translator can handle.
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I think if KBME picked up the 95.1 or the 99.5 translator, it would fill in the gaps in its night pattern adequately.

KBME's problem isn't to its south and southeast, as it dumps all of its power into the Gulf.

KBME's signal strength is lacking to the southwest and west, missing out on major Houston suburbs like Sugar Land, Katy and Richmond/Rosenberg. 95.1 or 99.5 would fill in those gaps, even with translators that are not running at 250 watts of power.
 
stan said:
Just simulcast KBME on KQBT and that full coverage signal will be adequate. :)
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As 2Speakers says, why would they blow up a hugely successful radio station. The KQBT format is successful as a staand-alone concept, and even more so in rounding out the cluster.
 
stan said:
I shouldn't use sarcasm. However, they blew up KKHH already so why not.
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KQBT = iHeart
KKHH = CBS

Both are among the most successful major market format flips in the last coupla' years.
 
The Rimshot said:
I think if KBME picked up the 95.1 or the 99.5 translator, it would fill in the gaps in its night pattern adequately.
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Sports is very much an in-car format (as are talk and all news). Much more than music formats.

Translators, whose signals you can drive into and back out of during a single trip or commute, are not going to be very productive for that sort of format where listeners are widely dispersed across a very huge 11 county metro.
 
I can't say I disagree with any of that, but I know the area better.

KBME's nighttime signal hits The Woodlands/Conroe to the north, Mont Belvieu/Dayton/Liberty to the east, and Galveston to the South.

The only real area it needs improvement is Katy to the west and Sugar Land/Richmond-Rosenburg to the southwest.

K236AR or K258BZ would fill in those two holes.
 
The Rimshot said:
I can't say I disagree with any of that, but I know the area better.

KBME's nighttime signal hits The Woodlands/Conroe to the north, Mont Belvieu/Dayton/Liberty to the east, and Galveston to the South.

The only real area it needs improvement is Katy to the west and Sugar Land/Richmond-Rosenburg to the southwest.

K236AR or K258BZ would fill in those two holes.
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For interference free reception (both man-made and co-channel skywave) it is pretty much necessary today to have a 10 mV/m signal in highly populated metros. There is very little reported listening outside that contour.

What it looks like is the night 10 mV/m contour gets Harris and Galveston Counties and a fair piece of Chambers and a touch of Brazoria. It either has signal at that level or hits just tiny parts of Austin, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Polk, San Jacinto or Waller and a southern slice of Montgomery.

That is more than what just one or even two translators will fill in, and represents a significant piece of the MSA population in what is an 11-county metro.
 
What I'm concerned with is that listeners in Sugar Land (population 216k) and Richmond-Rosenberg (60k) do not have access on a terrestrial basis to listen to the Houston Astros. These listeners are only 45 minutes away from Downtown Houston, yet cannot tune in and listen to their hometown team. Blasphemy.

Now, whether this is more an "Astros Radio Network" concern than a KBME concern, that is debatable, but these listeners need for Astros Baseball is an absolute necessity, and this problem (we are speaking only about nighttime hours, daytime hours are fine, but the majority of Astros' innings played is during nighttime operation) is very serious and needs to be addressed.

What is the best way to address it?

1) KBME enlists a translator in Sugar Land (either K236AR or K258BZ)
2) The Astros Radio Network adds KQUE 980AM Richmond-Rosenberg
3) The Astros Radio Network adds KULP or KIOX in El Campo
4) The Astros Radio Network takes out KBED Beaumont and replaces it with KLVI 560AM Beaumont, and you are covered from Lake Charles to El Campo
 
The question will be overlap of signals and if any of the above stations are willing to pay the money the Astros Radio Network wants to clear the games. After KBME shelled out for the market exclusive on radio do you really think they'd allow a second station regardless of their coverage? As for number of listeners, baseball is not huge on getting ratings you can sell when it comes to radio. You really need a big population to cover to make it work. In small towns, it is different as it is not ratings driven.
 
The Rimshot said:
What I'm concerned with is that listeners in Sugar Land (population 216k) and Richmond-Rosenberg (60k) do not have access on a terrestrial basis to listen to the Houston Astros. These listeners are only 45 minutes away from Downtown Houston, yet cannot tune in and listen to their hometown team. Blasphemy.

Now, whether this is more an "Astros Radio Network" concern than a KBME concern, that is debatable, but these listeners need for Astros Baseball is an absolute necessity, and this problem (we are speaking only about nighttime hours, daytime hours are fine, but the majority of Astros' innings played is during nighttime operation) is very serious and needs to be addressed.

What is the best way to address it?

1) KBME enlists a translator in Sugar Land (either K236AR or K258BZ)
2) The Astros Radio Network adds KQUE 980AM Richmond-Rosenberg
3) The Astros Radio Network adds KULP or KIOX in El Campo
4) The Astros Radio Network takes out KBED Beaumont and replaces it with KLVI 560AM Beaumont, and you are covered from Lake Charles to El Campo
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There is KOGT in Orange to contend with as they have the Astros...thus KLVI could not get it
 
ContinuousWave said:
There is KOGT in Orange to contend with as they have the Astros...thus KLVI could not get it
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There is no truth to that whatsoever. In Beaumont during the day, you can hear the Astros clearly on five different stations (KBME, KBED, KIKR, KOGT and KEZM). There is no rule that says one affiliate per market.

KBME overlaps KBED (Beaumont) as well as many other stations during the day (KVNN, KVET, KSIX, KULM, etc).

At night, KLVI would cover the gap that exists in Toomey, LA between KOGT and KEZM, as well as the gap between their signal and KBME.

Stan makes a good point. At night, You cannot hear KOGT in Beaumont, and some parts of the Beaumont area cannot pick up their own affiliate (KIKR), and you lose KBED completely, as it is a daytime only operation.

During the day, the Astros Radio Network has a great coverage area; at night, you are looking at a completely different story.

KLVI is the perfect answer to this bad situation, as you can hear its signal at night from Lake Charles all the way to El Campo.
 
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You clearly do not understand the definition of market. Tell me the two English stations that air the Astros in any of those cities. What two Beaumont stations air the Astros, for example? Just because a station can be heard somewhere other than their market does not mean it is a market station. Here's a clue: How are the ratings for KULM or KSIX in Beaumont? How about here in Houston? In addition, how many Beaumont stations buy local avails on KSIX or KULM? I'm in the business. The reason they can command a price for the Astros is the market exclusive factor.
 
b-turner said:
Tell me the two English stations that air the Astros in any of those cities. What two Beaumont stations air the Astros, for example?
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KBED and KIKR are two English stations that air the Astros in Beaumont.

b-turner said:
Just because a station can be heard somewhere other than their market does not mean it is a market station.
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I never said it was, B-Turner. The poster above mentioned that KLVI couldn't be an affiliate because it would overlap KOGT, and I was simply correcting him, and mentioned several stations are Astros Radio Network affiliates and do indeed overlap each other.


b-turner said:
The reason they can command a price for the Astros is the market exclusive factor.
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Even if powerhouse KLVI were to become an Astros affiliate, as they were for many years in the 80s and 90s, KOGT could still command a price for the Astros. I know this because the two co-existed on the Astros Radio Network for many years.

The point I was making was that I believe it is a travesty that listeners in Sugar Land/Richmond-Rosenberg and Katy cannot hear the Astros at night when they are less than 45 minutes away from Minute Maid Park. The area to the West and Southwest that KBME does not cover includes a 300k listening area, and the lack of a clear Astros affiliate 30-45 minutes away from the home team's stadium is a need that should be addressed.

In the early 90s, KPRC 950AM was the Astros' Flagship station, this area was also left unreached at night. The difference during this time was that KLVI was there to fill in the holes. Same goes for when KILT 610AM was the flag in the mid to late 90s. When KTRH took the reigns in 1999, KLVI was no longer needed and left the network. Now that KTRH dropped out, KBME is the flag and has the same problems its predecessors had, but does not have KLVI there to back them up. I just hate to see true Astros fans left out of the mix, and there is a huge number of potential listeners who do not have a choice on a terrestrial level. That's who I'm looking out for.
 
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