AMP???

miketheradioguy said:

I'm now thinking if Entercom will eventually flip the other AMP Radio stations in Detroit and Boston.

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Why Boston, which already has alt on commercial (WBOS, WXRV) and noncommercial (WERS) stations?

CTListener said:

Why Boston, which already has alt on commercial (WBOS, WXRV) and noncommercial (WERS) stations?

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I'm not talking about another AMP to ALT flip like the ones Entercom did in New York, Dallas, and Orlando (which has since rebranded as simply FM 101.9. Coincidentally, ALT 101.9 is already in use by Cumulus in Salt Lake City). Besides, both ALT 98.7 and ALT 103.3 are already in use by iHeartMedia in Los Angeles and Indianapolis, respectively, so Alternative rock wouldn't be an option for either station, given that Beasley already has ALT 92.9 in Boston and that iHeartMedia launched the format on 106.7 in Detroit.

CTListener said:

it's sad if an English-language all-news station would realize no benefit from getting on FM among black listeners and those of foreign origin who are comfortable with English or even communicate in it exclusively.

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No, sad is people not wanting to listen to a spoken word format on a 50,000 watt AM station.

I understand wanting music on FM, but AM news should be just fine. If people want to listen to news it's right there on 1070. Without all of the annoying multi-path interference that plagues Southern California FM stations.

brettbutlerisok said:

No, sad is people not wanting to listen to a spoken word format on a 50,000 watt AM station.

I understand wanting music on FM, but AM news should be just fine. If people want to listen to news it's right there on 1070. Without all of the annoying multi-path interference that plagues Southern California FM stations.

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FWIW, the Bay Area's primary sports station - KNBR 680 - does just fine in the ratings, so apparently even millenials can figure out how to switch to the AM band, difficult though that is due to repetitive strain injury from pushing that button all the time. We do have a sports station on FM, but it gets negligible listenership. Of course, KNBR has all the major teams, so...

KCBS here has been simulcasting on FM for probably 3 years now - but I get the sense that if they had been able to figure out something better to do with 106.9, they would have done it - the simulcast only came after 2 prior failed formats. - talk and classic hits.

LKellerIII said:

FWIW, the Bay Area's primary sports station - KNBR 680 - does just fine in the ratings, so apparently even millenials can figure out how to switch to the AM band, difficult though that is due to repetitive strain injury from pushing that button all the time. We do have a sports station on FM, but it gets negligible listenership. Of course, KNBR has all the major teams, so...

KCBS here has been simulcasting on FM for probably 3 years now - but I get the sense that if they had been able to figure out something better to do with 106.9, they would have done it - the simulcast only came after 2 prior failed formats. - talk and classic hits.

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Llew: Time flies. KCBS has been simulcasting on FM for more than 9 years now. The simulcast began October 27, 2008. My understanding is that more than half the listening comes from the FM. It's solid out to Vacaville.

LKellerIII said:

FWIW, the Bay Area's primary sports station - KNBR 680 - does just fine in the ratings, so apparently even millenials can figure out how to switch to the AM band, difficult though that is due to repetitive strain injury from pushing that button all the time. We do have a sports station on FM, but it gets negligible listenership. Of course, KNBR has all the major teams, so....

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Not that sports play-by-play on radio is a desirable-demo magnet. The talk shows seem to attract the elusive 25-54 males, but isn't that crowd usually watching the games on TV or via streaming rather than listening to them on the radio?

michael hagerty said:

Llew: Time flies. KCBS has been simulcasting on FM for more than 9 years now. The simulcast began October 27, 2008. My understanding is that more than half the listening comes from the FM. It's solid out to Vacaville.

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Thanks for starting my morning by making me feel old! I had not realized it had been 9 years already. I was thinking of their last format on 106.9 because my SO turned on the morning news on Channel 7...er...excuse me.."ABC7," and I noticed Sue Hall is doing traffic. She was the afternoon KFRC DJ on the 106.9 mess, and 99.7 for years before that. I had never actually seen her before. She looks great for an...uh...radio veteran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpjMvIWX3w

To what David said above about KCBS/KQED. I was an NPR junkie but swore off news the day after Trump was elected...too depressing. But I don't know how people can listen to commercial news stations anymore, on AM or FM. I get that it's an expensive format and stations need to make a profit, but it seems to go: short news story - 2 minutes of commercials - weather/traffic - 2 minutes of commercials - another short news story - 2 minutes of commercials, etc. Bill Drake somewhat revolutionized Top 40 radio by realizing it was smart to play a few songs back to back ("Morrrre Muuusic...KFRC!"). But somehow Drake stations got in about as many commercials as the other Top 40s that rarely, if ever, played two songs back to back. I think commercial news stations would benefit from this...run more commercials in pods, but run them less often.

LKellerIII said:

I think commercial news stations would benefit from this...run more commercials in pods, but run them less often.

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That's the thinking behind two 8 minute commercial breaks an hour, which is what most music stations do today. It ends up being 6 of one, half dozen of the other. In either case, you're going to have a lot of commercials. People will complain either way.

LKellerIII said:

Thanks for starting my morning by making me feel old! I had not realized it had been 9 years already. I was thinking of their last format on 106.9 because my SO turned on the morning news on Channel 7...er...excuse me.."ABC7," and I noticed Sue Hall is doing traffic. She was the afternoon KFRC DJ on the 106.9 mess, and 99.7 for years before that. I had never actually seen her before. She looks great for an...uh...radio veteran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpjMvIWX3w

To what David said above about KCBS/KQED. I was an NPR junkie but swore off news the day after Trump was elected...too depressing. But I don't know how people can listen to commercial news stations anymore, on AM or FM. I get that it's an expensive format and stations need to make a profit, but it seems to go: short news story - 2 minutes of commercials - weather/traffic - 2 minutes of commercials - another short news story - 2 minutes of commercials, etc. Bill Drake somewhat revolutionized Top 40 radio by realizing it was smart to play a few songs back to back ("Morrrre Muuusic...KFRC!"). But somehow Drake stations got in about as many commercials as the other Top 40s that rarely, if ever, played two songs back to back. I think commercial news stations would benefit from this...run more commercials in pods, but run them less often.

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But a lot of stations sell adjacent spots. "Traffic brought to you by Bob's House O Crap, with more crap than you can handle." Traffic report. Commercial for Bob's. Kinda hard to sell sponsorships for traffic, weather, local news, national news, etc and jam pack all those spots into one break. Where's the client advantage they're buying at a premium there?

LKellerIII said:

Thanks for starting my morning by making me feel old! I had not realized it had been 9 years already. I was thinking of their last format on 106.9 because my SO turned on the morning news on Channel 7...er...excuse me.."ABC7," and I noticed Sue Hall is doing traffic. She was the afternoon KFRC DJ on the 106.9 mess, and 99.7 for years before that. I had never actually seen her before. She looks great for an...uh...radio veteran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpjMvIWX3w

To what David said above about KCBS/KQED. I was an NPR junkie but swore off news the day after Trump was elected...too depressing. But I don't know how people can listen to commercial news stations anymore, on AM or FM. I get that it's an expensive format and stations need to make a profit, but it seems to go: short news story - 2 minutes of commercials - weather/traffic - 2 minutes of commercials - another short news story - 2 minutes of commercials, etc. Bill Drake somewhat revolutionized Top 40 radio by realizing it was smart to play a few songs back to back ("Morrrre Muuusic...KFRC!"). But somehow Drake stations got in about as many commercials as the other Top 40s that rarely, if ever, played two songs back to back. I think commercial news stations would benefit from this...run more commercials in pods, but run them less often.

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But a lot of stations sell adjacent spots. "Traffic brought to you by Bob's House O Crap, with more crap than you can handle." Traffic report. Commercial for Bob's.

Kinda hard to sell sponsorships for traffic, weather, local news, national news, etc and jam pack all those spots into one break. Where's the client advantage they're buying at a premium there?

mistermicrophone said:

But a lot of stations sell adjacent spots. "Traffic brought to you by Bob's House O Crap, with more crap than you can handle." Traffic report. Commercial for Bob's.

Kinda hard to sell sponsorships for traffic, weather, local news, national news, etc and jam pack all those spots into one break. Where's the client advantage they're buying at a premium there?

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Yeah, I get that for segments like traffic and sports, but what about regular news stories? It's not like they say, "Today's stupendously ignorant comment by President Trump brought to you by Vlad's Dirty Tricks. If you've got an election to fix, call Vlad..."

So perhaps they could do more news stories in a row, then pile on the ads during the other segments.

LKellerIII said:

Thanks for starting my morning by making me feel old! I had not realized it had been 9 years already. I was thinking of their last format on 106.9 because my SO turned on the morning news on Channel 7...er...excuse me.."ABC7," and I noticed Sue Hall is doing traffic. She was the afternoon KFRC DJ on the 106.9 mess, and 99.7 for years before that. I had never actually seen her before. She looks great for an...uh...radio veteran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFpjMvIWX3w

To what David said above about KCBS/KQED. I was an NPR junkie but swore off news the day after Trump was elected...too depressing. But I don't know how people can listen to commercial news stations anymore, on AM or FM. I get that it's an expensive format and stations need to make a profit, but it seems to go: short news story - 2 minutes of commercials - weather/traffic - 2 minutes of commercials - another short news story - 2 minutes of commercials, etc. Bill Drake somewhat revolutionized Top 40 radio by realizing it was smart to play a few songs back to back ("Morrrre Muuusic...KFRC!"). But somehow Drake stations got in about as many commercials as the other Top 40s that rarely, if ever, played two songs back to back. I think commercial news stations would benefit from this...run more commercials in pods, but run them less often.

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Llew:

I'll see that video and raise you one...scroll into the nine-minute point and see Sue live from the Sturgeon on KFRC in 1983!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ9EQQNDEI4


As for commericals....no. KCBS' wheel goes something like this:

:00 Legal ID/CBS Network News
:03 Local news
:06 Commercial break
:08 Traffic/Weather
:10 Local news
:13 Commercial break
:15 Sports
:16 Commercial break
:18 Traffic/Weather
:20 Local news
:25 Business/Money
:26 Commercial break
:28 Traffic/Weather
:30 Local news
:36 Commercial break
:38 Traffic/Weather
:40 Local News
:45 Sports
:46 Commercial break
:48 Traffic/Weather
:50 Local news
:55 Business/Money
:56 Commercial break
:58 Traffic/Weather

So that's six minutes of news off the top, two minutes of news between the first break and sports, five minutes between the second break and business/money, and repeat for the bottom of the hour. Given that most of the stories are pretty tightly written...20 seconds or so, there's a decent story count in there. The spot breaks are eight minutes apart. In the old days, Drake could have put three records back-to-back between each of the spot breaks.

As for Bill Drake, a couple of corrections:

Drake imposed a strict 14-minute commercial limit. Most of his competitors were running 18. But Drake also had a hard-and-fast rule until 1972 that no spot break could exceed 70 seconds and three units. A :60 and a :10, fine. Two :30s and a :10, fine. Two :60s or three :30s or seven :10s, not fine.

That meant that Drake's stations had to do a lot of breaks. There was at least one two- or three-record sweep per hour (the threes usually were between :57 and :06), but past that, listen to an unscoped aircheck of KHJ, KFRC or the others and you'll hear a spot break after most records.

Yes, I remember. Most Top 40 stations were record-break-record-break-etc. for most of the hour. But Drake cleverly ran songs back to back, IIRC, at the top of the hour, often when competitors were in news. So when you got out of school at 3:00, you could tune in KRLA and hear news, KFWB, and hear the typical song-commercial-song-commercial (IIRC, KFWB news was right before the TOH), or put on KHJ and hear The Real Don Steele play 3 songs in a row. J. Paul or Marv had been done by 2:50 and was probably having a cocktail down the street, because he had 3 hours until 5:40.

The problem for me with commercial news radio - and I think the reason KQED is so popular in the Bay Area - is NO commercials, and the extra time taken to make stories detailed, and interesting. Perhaps they're too long for some. When I first started listening to KQED/NPR, I remember joking that they could make a 10 minute story out of yodeling. But then I really listened and discovered I learned so much more than from that "22 Minutes, and We'll Give You the World" model, which for me at least, is rather outdated and soooo 20th Century.

And don't you work in news radio now?

LKellerIII said:

Yes, I remember. Most Top 40 stations were record-break-record-break-etc. for most of the hour. But Drake cleverly ran songs back to back, IIRC, at the top of the hour, often when competitors were in news. So when you got out of school at 3:00, you could tune in KRLA and hear news, KFWB, and hear the typical song-commercial-song-commercial (IIRC, KFWB news was right before the TOH), or put on KHJ and hear The Real Don Steele play 3 songs in a row. J. Paul or Marv had been done by 2:50 and was probably having a cocktail down the street, because he had 3 hours until 5:40.

The problem for me with commercial news radio - and I think the reason KQED is so popular in the Bay Area - is NO commercials, and the extra time taken to make stories detailed, and interesting. Perhaps they're too long for some. When I first started listening to KQED/NPR, I remember joking that they could make a 10 minute story out of yodeling. But then I really listened and discovered I learned so much more than from that "22 Minutes, and We'll Give You the World" model, which for me at least, is rather outdated and soooo 20th Century.

And don't you work in news radio now?

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Llew: Yes, I do. In fact, I'm the news director for KFBK, Sacramento. Whether you prefer commercial or public radio news has a lot to do with your lifestyle. If you get your news in the car on the way to work and have a 20-minute commute, you can get an in-depth look at three or four stories with one, or the salient points of pretty much every story that matters at that moment on the other. Different strokes.

michael hagerty said:

Llew: Yes, I do. In fact, I'm the news director for KFBK, Sacramento. Whether you prefer commercial or public radio news has a lot to do with your lifestyle. If you get your news in the car on the way to work and have a 20-minute commute, you can get an in-depth look at three or four stories with one, or the salient points of pretty much every story that matters at that moment on the other. Different strokes.

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There's some Sacratomato radio history there, Michael. I remember my father (who grew up in Sac) talking about KFBK, when he was a kid. He'd be 105 if he were alive today.

I used to drive to Oakland from SF for work and park at Sears (now condos)..about a 15 minute commute. I recall parking one day, then sitting in my car, listening to a fascinating story on KQED, but not wanting to leave the car until the story was over. I could hear KQED coming out of at least 3 other cars that were parked near me. When the story was over, all of us got out of our cars at the same time. So I guess their equivalent slogan would be "Give us 22 minutes, and we'll give you 3 really good stories...and maybe traffic, if you get lucky"

There's been a lot of speculation about what Entercom would do with KAMP after the departure of Carson Daily. Now we get word via the Atlanta board that the station has been assembling a new morning team, and they're adding comedian Brian Moote, who has been part of The Bert Show.

http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/201...e-bert-show-after-two-years-returning-to-l-a/

It's a return home for Moote, who went to Atlanta from LA.

AMP has snagged Edgar Sotelo and Brian Moote for mornings, starting next month.

https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/...97-1-amp-radio-los-angeles-taps-edgar-sotelo-

Sotelo is originally from LA, as well, and had his start in radio as a part of Piolin's morning show. He's worked in San Fran/San Jose, Dallas, New York and now LA.