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The Answer 860?

C

CaliRadioFan

Radio Insight reports that Salem looks to buy a third Bay Area AM station and have registered a domain name. The station in question is KTRB 860, current owner, Comerica Bank in a trust. At 50k Daytime, it would seem a good buy
 
CaliRadioFan said:
Radio Insight reports that Salem looks to buy a third Bay Area AM station and have registered a domain name. The station in question is KTRB 860, current owner, Comerica Bank in a trust. At 50k Daytime, it would seem a good buy
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It's still 50KW at night unless they've built out their construction permit for 5.
 
LKellerIII said:
I'm sure their listener is looking forward to it
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really I don't think people here in San Francisco really cares about 860AM. For Talk Radio here in San Francisco its really NPR affiliate KQED and KNBR the Sports talker here in San Francisco. 860Am will be buried somewhere down the list.
 
I think the Bay Area will enjoy this new outpost for the Salem Conservative's talk network. While I don't personally subscribe to the GOP/right-leaning views of their programming, I do find their hosts to be professional and current events driven. Dennis Prager is a compelling host (9a to Noon), Michael Medved approaches news topics with intellectual curiosity (noon to 3p here in Los Angeles), Hugh Hewitt in early AM has a Rolodex full of thoughtful guests (often professors) to assess the news of the moment (3a to 6a). I think 860 is going to have Mike Gallagher from 6a to 9a (who we do not get as we have a compelling local show on our Salem station here in LA). It may struggle to get a 1 share, but I think you will see it is a polished operation, albeit with a POV that does not match the SFO market. Then again, neither does KSFO and they do just fine.

As far as the other 50K talker in town, I think KGO would be smart to re-adopt its moderate to slightly left leaning focus it had in its 30 years of heritage period; as that political focus, with their monster signal, and if they assemble a roster of hosts who know how to make good talkradio, could certainly reclaim a healthy share of the local radio audience.
 
It seems for now, it's totally Salem Radio Network, 24/7. Late nights and weekends, they repeat some of their weekday shows. And nobody has mentioned that Salem once had its Conservative Talk line-up on the air in San Francisco, on AM 1220. But management decided the format wasn't working in Boston, Miami or San Francisco. So Salem put Spanish Religion on those stations in the first two markets and put Salem's dubious Business/Money format on 1220 in Palo Alto, which still has that format.

After a few years, Salem got new stations in Boston and Miami to put Conservative Talk back in those markets. And with the launch of KTRB 860 The Answer, the format is back on the air in SF. Right now it's a LMA (Local Marketing Agreement). But we can guess Salem will acquire the station ownership eventually. I wonder if Salem will invest in getting the station back to 50,000 watts at night? It was there when it first moved to SF from Modesto but with no money, Pappas Broadcasting got the FCC to reduce nighttime power when the transmitter was relocated to a new site.

BTW, has anyone noticed that in the latest ratings, KGO is ahead of KSFO by .1? I can't remember the last time KGO was the market's top commercial talk station. Maybe local talk does beat syndicated talk (Rush, Hannity, Beck, Savage, Levin) after all.
 
MarioMania said:
So how long will it last?
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If you are asking how long Salem's talk format will last, the answer is "a long time". Salem is very, very good at making money with this kind of operation.
 
The reason I ask

There's alot of Talkers in the Bay Area like KCBS, KGO and KNBR, Do you think people going to switch over to 860?
 
MarioMania said:
The reason I ask

There's alot of Talkers in the Bay Area like KCBS, KGO and KNBR, Do you think people going to switch over to 860?
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KCBS is a news station, not a talk station. KNBR is sports, not talk. You have KGO, KSFO and KKSF as the major signals in talk. And the leader, KQED, is somewhat of a talk and news hybrid.

LA, where Salem has a similar station in KRLA, there are KFI, KEIB and WABC in English language talk, as well as several sports stations and one all-news station. Like KQED in SF, there are a pair of signals doing the Public Radio type of talk. The Salem station does very well.
 
MarioMania said:
Fair, Let's see when the ratings come in
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The Salem stations are not ratings driven; in many of their markets they don't even subscribe to Nielsen.
 
DavidEduardo said:


KCBS is a news station, not a talk station. KNBR is sports, not talk. You have KGO, KSFO and KKSF as the major signals in talk. And the leader, KQED, is somewhat of a talk and news hybrid.

LA, where Salem has a similar station in KRLA, there are KFI, KEIB and WABC in English language talk, as well as several sports stations and one all-news station. Like KQED in SF, there are a pair of signals doing the Public Radio type of talk. The Salem station does very well.
Click to expand...

It sounds kind of funny for an LA centric guy to make a typo like that. :)
 
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