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104.9 The Horn Will be No More

R

Ryan Williams

radioinsight.com

104.9 Austin To Drop Sports - RadioInsight

Genuine Austin Radio will drop the Sports "104.9 The Horn" format on KTXX-FM Bee Cave/Austin on Tuesday, August 1. The Sports programming will continue to be heard on 1260 KTAE Elgin/101.9 K270CO Round Rock and on the station's streaming platforms. The message notes that its programming will...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

In the second big Austin radio story of the day, 104.9 The Horn is dropping sports at the end of the month. No word on the new format. No word on whom the Longhorns new flagship station will be.

1260 AM and 101.9 in Williamson County will carry on (for the time being).

This one feels like a big shift, with more shoes to drop.
 
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Sounds like another shoe has dropped. Radioinsight is reporting that Longhorn sports will be moving to KVET 1300/98.1.

With the timing of these announcements, I'm guessing UT deciding to move to iHeartMedia is the reason 104.9 will be dropping sports.
 
Kent said:
Sounds like another shoe has dropped. Radioinsight is reporting that Longhorn sports will be moving to KVET 1300/98.1.

With the timing of these announcements, I'm guessing UT deciding to move to iHeartMedia is the reason 104.9 will be dropping sports.
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The timing sure is close. I wonder if Waterloo made a pitch for the Horns and "Latino" was actually plan b.

I believe KVET was where the Longhorns aired prior to the current deal with GAR.

Next up... is 104.9 being sold or is KOKE FM or The Bat getting a simulcast or some new music format.

Second, the days of 1260/101.9 are probably numbered. Seems like they will finish their Texas Rangers obligation and probably fill the rest of the lineup with a network... be it Fox Sports Radio or CBS or SportsMap. Seems unlikely it can survive for long as a stand alone facility covering so little of the market.
 
1260 KTAE and its translator at 101.9 FM have local shows much of the day on weekdays. Without 104.9 KTXX as a simulcast, I doubt those local shows can last.

104.9 has a Classic Hits format known as "The Bat" on its HD-4 subchannel, which feeds a translator at 105.3. Would that be moved to the full signal?

Adult Hits KBPA 103.5 "Bob-FM" is consistently the top commercial station in Austin, currently with double digit ratings. Does it win so big because it has no Classic Hits competition and it's serving two functions in the market? Could a Classic Hits station at 104.9 cut into its numbers?
 
Ryan Williams said:
I believe KVET was where the Longhorns aired prior to the current deal with GAR.
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KVET acquired the rights to the Longhorns in 1990 from KLBJ. It took over the old KHFI 98.1 at least partly because the deal required it to air the football games (and possibly the men's basketball games) on AM and FM, and it didn't want to break programming on KASE.

Gregg. said:
1260 KTAE and its translator at 101.9 FM have local shows much of the day on weekdays. Without 104.9 KTXX as a simulcast, I doubt those local shows can last.
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The announcement seemed pretty vague about how many local programs would air on 1260/101.9. On the one hand, sports is usually easy to sell, and you don't need the numbers to sell it. On the other, losing the Longhorns is definitely going to translate to lost revenue because with the Longhorns came many other sales opportunities that are going to go away. Not sure what the deal with the Longhorns looks like, but, when I worked for a cluster that had a flagship station for a different college network, we didn't actually make money on carrying the games and the network sports related programming around it (like the weekly coach's show). All the spots on those shows were provided and produced by the network other than 30 seconds per game period when we were allowed to promote our own stations. I suspect we got a small cut of those local spots the network sold, but we didn't get much. Where we made money was selling the events we hosted around the university's athletic events. Having the broadcast rights to the university's sports afforded us access and promotional opportunities the other cluster didn't have. Every tailgate, athletic department press conference, and just about anything else you could think of was sold or sponsored.
 
The best part in all of this is the HD channels of The Horn, don't exist. All of the translators are being originated without the prerequisite HD channels. Says a lot about the shady ownership. Hope this has a lot to do with University of Texas wanting nothing to do with Jason Nassour. As well they should.
 
I’ve actually locked them in the Houston area fairly recently and heard their HD3 and HD4. I’ve never seen an HD2 the past 2 or so years. I have seen them sometimes with no HD or just an HD1 and the translators still on though. They do seem to eventually come back though.
 
Didn't know they were selling.

But honestly, who cares about HD signals and translators? If the FCC enforced their rules, that's one thing. But right now it's the Wild West™.
 
011nerve said:
But honestly, who cares about HD signals and translators? If the FCC enforced their rules, that's one thing. But right now it's the Wild West™.
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Not sure if it’s still the case, but Austin has typically had better FCC enforcement than Houston. Seems like a couple noncomms there have been busted for airing commercials, and I seem to remember a translator in the area getting into hot water, too.

Can’t vouch for the HD situation, but, so long as you have an HD1, you don’t have to have an HD2. You can have an HD1, an HD3, and an HD4 and be completely legal. When stations go into “live mode” and broadcast in analog (like during sporting events), most of them still have their HD signals accessible if you access them directly.
 
Kent said:
Can’t vouch for the HD situation, but, so long as you have an HD1, you don’t have to have an HD2. You can have an HD1, an HD3, and an HD4 and be completely legal. When stations go into “live mode” and broadcast in analog (like during sporting events), most of them still have their HD signals accessible if you access them directly.
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KLNO in Dallas hasn’t had an HD2 in awhile. They briefly had TUDN Radio there but I know it’s not needed. Now while KTXX sometimes has their HD off or only HD1 it hasn’t been off completely for 2 years. Also I didn’t know you could access the subchannels when in “live mode” that’s pretty cool! But a couple of checks on my SDR while their HD was off I didn’t see their HD sidebands.
 
jras20 said:
Saw on Facebook Koke fest was cancelled wonder what's going on there?
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I saw the facebook post about the cancellation and Eric Raines (ownership partner/host) said they are not closing down/selling and it will be addressed on air Monday morning. Apparently, Troy Kimmel, the stations meteorologist also exited a few months ago, around the same time the situation with the station's rent landlord, which caused the entire cluster to be locked out for a time. Doesn't look good, but we'll see what happens in the days and weeks to come.
 
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