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XLNC1 to close March 1

Sammi Brie

Sammi Brie

Star Participant
It's a shocker!

"[FONT=&quot]Dear listeners, it is with a heavy heart that we inform you that as of March 1st, XLNC1 will no longer be broadcasting on the air (104.9FM). We will, however, maintain our streaming service online via our website at [/FONT]www.xlnc1.org[FONT=&quot], and you will still be able to listen to us through our App on iPhone and Android devices. We are truly grateful for all the years we have been able to reach our wonderful audience in San Diego and Baja California, and we sincerely thank you for all of your generous support through the years."

Radio frequencies rarely show up in the Tijuana area. If they don't assign their concession, this could set off an interesting and lengthy application. It could be years, too. At least they will be online.[/FONT]
 
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Wonder if the fact that two other classical stations can be heard in the San Diego area (KPBS HD2 and KUSC) caused them to give up over-the-air. Plus, they were broadcasting in mono -- and had a sketchy signal.
 
Signal Geek said:
Wonder if the fact that two other classical stations can be heard in the San Diego area (KPBS HD2 and KUSC) caused them to give up over-the-air. Plus, they were broadcasting in mono -- and had a sketchy signal.
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A classical station? In mono? Yikes!

That said, I'm sure someone in Mexico will want that facility. There hasn't been a new FM radio station awarded to the area, migrant XHKT excluded, since XHLNC in 2000 (XEUT 1630 came on air two weeks later), or alternatively since XHBCE moved in later in the decade. It is assigned as a social station, which means it can be operated noncommercially but some paperwork would be needed if the state government or the UABC wanted to take it on. It cannot be operated as a commercial radio station.

To turn in the concession and then have the entire frequency allotment sit for years, which would obviously happen, would be a waste.
 
Signal Geek said:
Wonder if the fact that two other classical stations can be heard in the San Diego area (KPBS HD2 and KUSC) caused them to give up over-the-air. Plus, they were broadcasting in mono -- and had a sketchy signal.
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If memory serves, XLNC1 came to be because Victor Diaz liked classical music, and he had the means to do so.

Wiki says that after his death, his will specified that they couldn't change XLNC1 and set aside funds to run it. So they've been operating on that plus donations.

Anyone who has tried to run a classical station today will tell you that you need a lot of corporate support to do this. There aren't enough individuals giving $50/month to operate a station. My hunch is that the fund from the Diaz estate is starting to run out and there aren't other grants to take its place.

It's had a long run. It started as a digital project when digital was in its infancy, it made it to the air after a couple of years online in the days of dial-up, and now it's returning to digital. Victor Diaz intended for this to be his legacy, and they've done well by him.
 
It's a big loss for the community, as many folks don't have HD Radio just yet to get KPBS 89.5 HD2 and KUSC 91.5 can be heard in north county but not on HD Radio. JG
 
One of the replies they left says

"The frequency will change formats and be run by a different radio station completely unassociated with us."

At the very least, this won't go through the years-long process that surrendering the concession would set in motion.
 
So San Diego will soon join Atlanta, Houston and Miami as top 20 markets with no classical station. All the other large markets still have at least a part time classical outlet, such as Detroit and Philadelphia, which have classical music in the daytime. Atlanta has some classical music on its local NPR station but only late nights and weekends. Long Island has to get its classical music from NYC's WQXR, which really doesn't cover Suffolk County. And Tampa gets its classical music from a station in Sarasota, which has a translator in Tampa.

I wonder if KUSC will be looking for an FM station in the San Diego area to turn into a simulcast? It has repeater stations in Palm Springs, Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara, in addition to the powerful 91.5 KUSC (39,000 watts at 2923 feet) which hits northern San Diego County, as mentioned above. And USC is also the owner of KDFC in San Francisco and its simulcast stations in nearby regions. So it knows how to do this. I wonder if USC could lease a Tijuana FM and simulcast to San Diego, just as XLNC was based in Tijuana but targeting both cities? Maybe even make it bilingual as XLNC was, instead of a KUSC simulcast? I assume a Tijuana FM station would be cheaper to lease than buying or leasing one in San Diego.

In recent years, the Educational Media Foundation has bought up several San Diego-area stations for its Christian music formats, 96.1 and 102.1 for K-Love, 92.1 for Air 1. But I suppose KUSC doesn't have the money that EMF has.
 
Gregg. said:
So San Diego will soon join Atlanta, Houston and Miami as top 20 markets with no classical station. All the other large markets still have at least a part time classical outlet, such as Detroit and Philadelphia, which have classical music in the daytime. Atlanta has some classical music on its local NPR station but only late nights and weekends. Long Island has to get its classical music from NYC's WQXR, which really doesn't cover Suffolk County. And Tampa gets its classical music from a station in Sarasota, which has a translator in Tampa.

I wonder if KUSC will be looking for an FM station in the San Diego area to turn into a simulcast? It has repeater stations in Palm Springs, Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara, in addition to the powerful 91.5 KUSC (39,000 watts at 2923 feet) which hits northern San Diego County, as mentioned above. And USC is also the owner of KDFC in San Francisco and its simulcast stations in nearby regions. So it knows how to do this. I wonder if USC could lease a Tijuana FM and simulcast to San Diego, just as XLNC was based in Tijuana but targeting both cities? Maybe even make it bilingual as XLNC was, instead of a KUSC simulcast? I assume a Tijuana FM station would be cheaper to lease than buying or leasing one in San Diego.

In recent years, the Educational Media Foundation has bought up several San Diego-area stations for its Christian music formats, 96.1 and 102.1 for K-Love, 92.1 for Air 1. But I suppose KUSC doesn't have the money that EMF has.
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The idea of USC leasing out XLNC1 would deal with legal hurdles. I expect the new operator to be a Mexican group, potentially a private university. I personally think we'll either see XEUT "move" to FM, though the legality of a social -> public concession conversion is questionable, or a takeover by a private university. (Heck, the LFTR is silent about transfers of social concessions.)

As for which private university, the Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana just launched an online radio station. Another contender might be the Universidad Autónoma de Durango, the largest private university operator of radio stations in Mexico (3 stations on air and another 4 on the way).
 
Gregg. said:
So San Diego will soon join Atlanta, Houston and Miami as top 20 markets with no classical station. All the other large markets still have at least a part time classical outlet, such as Detroit and Philadelphia, which have classical music in the daytime. Atlanta has some classical music on its local NPR station but only late nights and weekends. Long Island has to get its classical music from NYC's WQXR, which really doesn't cover Suffolk County. And Tampa gets its classical music from a station in Sarasota, which has a translator in Tampa.

I wonder if KUSC will be looking for an FM station in the San Diego area to turn into a simulcast? It has repeater stations in Palm Springs, Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara, in addition to the powerful 91.5 KUSC (39,000 watts at 2923 feet) which hits northern San Diego County, as mentioned above. And USC is also the owner of KDFC in San Francisco and its simulcast stations in nearby regions. So it knows how to do this. I wonder if USC could lease a Tijuana FM and simulcast to San Diego, just as XLNC was based in Tijuana but targeting both cities? Maybe even make it bilingual as XLNC was, instead of a KUSC simulcast? I assume a Tijuana FM station would be cheaper to lease than buying or leasing one in San Diego.

In recent years, the Educational Media Foundation has bought up several San Diego-area stations for its Christian music formats, 96.1 and 102.1 for K-Love, 92.1 for Air 1. But I suppose KUSC doesn't have the money that EMF has.
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What's interesting is that KUSC used to provide programming for it.

It's a shame that San Diego will no longer have a classical station, at least they have their jazz station.

https://people.well.com/user/dmsml/xlnc/index.html
 
KUSC can be heard in other areas of San Diego besides North County. It comes in OK in the metro area and East County as well. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, KPBS-HD2/San Diego is full-time classical, with a full-service signal (albeit in HD). So, most of San Diego *does* have other places to hear classical music over-the-air.
 
Signal Geek said:
KUSC can be heard in other areas of San Diego besides North County. It comes in OK in the metro area and East County as well. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, KPBS-HD2/San Diego is full-time classical, with a full-service signal (albeit in HD). So, most of San Diego *does* have other places to hear classical music over-the-air.
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No doubt it is syndicated content from Minnesota or Chicago. XLNC was local...
 
XLNC was local but almost always automated. That's not a knock. I thought simply having a prerecorded voice announce each work was enough. One voice in English, one in Spanish, one before the piece begins, one as it ends.

Meanwhile, I believe KUSC is live from early morning to late night. I'm not sure if it voice tracks the overnight shift (as does WQXR NYC) or carries one of the public radio classical services mentioned above, one from Minnesota Public Radio, one from WFMT Chicago.
 
For some reason, XHLNC got a reprieve of a few more days. My guess is that whoever is gearing up to take this station on can't do it until after the weekend or further technical adjustments were needed.

Looking at some of the material, I need to ask a question. Did they ever run even the Mexican PSAs that they are required to? Especially the electoral ones? Even if only on the OTA signal? That's an important compliance burden, and I'd be surprised if they didn't air any at all at any time.
 
The reprieve is over, and so is all the speculation:

https://twitter.com/LARSAVISIONTV/status/969796533049688064

It's a noncommercial station being operated by a commercial station group — what I call a social wolf. A lot of this activity is from companies that just want to be in a given market, very much fitting Larsa (they've done a ton of expansion in the last year, with new stations from one end of the border to the other and even an HD3-translator in Tucson).
 
pjc1961 said:
Splash page website (for now) which includes the Listen Live link: http://larsavision.tv/estaciones/tijuana/104.9/
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The "Toño" format is used by Larsa, albeit commercially, in quite a few of their markets. It's Adult Hits, which in Spanish means ballads, light pop, and softer regional / grupera music. It does not have the rock flavor many US Adult Hits stations have; it leans traditional regional Mexican.

Interestingly, this is a Spanish language format that was created in the US (at KRCD in LA in 2000) and initially rejected in Mexico. In Mexico, it was thought it would have mostly lower income appeal (groups D and E) and be of little impact in A, B and C. But when it was tried, it got considerable B and C+ listening, and has now been adopted in many markets.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The "Toño" format is used by Larsa, albeit commercially, in quite a few of their markets. It's Adult Hits, which in Spanish means ballads, light pop, and softer regional / grupera music. It does not have the rock flavor many US Adult Hits stations have; it leans traditional regional Mexican.

Interestingly, this is a Spanish language format that was created in the US (at KRCD in LA in 2000) and initially rejected in Mexico. In Mexico, it was thought it would have mostly lower income appeal (groups D and E) and be of little impact in A, B and C. But when it was tried, it got considerable B and C+ listening, and has now been adopted in many markets.
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I've mentioned this, but I learned a few months ago how it got its name and I feel some here will like this story.

You see, Grupo Larsa is named for its owner, Luis Antonio Ramos Méndez.

What's his nickname? Of course, Toño.

It can be reasonably said that Toño is Larsa's flagship format, and it is the first thing they introduce when they expand to a new market.
 
In all actuality, XLNC was no ball hit out of the yard. Their pension to play a mishmash of classical and The Carpenters and Bryan Adams was downright weird. But the real killer was their terrible decision to move to 104.9 fm. This was supposed to be a signal improvement, but was not.

Their advertising and marketing was also a mess. They NEVER would have in their print ads XLNC 104.9 Classical Music. They avoided using the word "classical music." So if you would move to San Diego and would want to hear that kind of music, you would never know where to find it if you saw it.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
In all actuality, XLNC was no ball hit out of the yard. Their pension to play a mishmash of classical and The Carpenters and Bryan Adams was downright weird. But the real killer was their terrible decision to move to 104.9 fm. This was supposed to be a signal improvement, but was not.

Their advertising and marketing was also a mess. They NEVER would have in their print ads XLNC 104.9 Classical Music. They avoided using the word "classical music." So if you would move to San Diego and would want to hear that kind of music, you would never know where to find it if you saw it.
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Sounds like their former "Galaxy" format mixed with classical music. There was no rhyme, reason, or research to Galaxy's "soft rock heaven," either. It was the Diaz family personal jukebox.
 
The use of classical pop music, at least from what I remember, was incidental. Yes, you might hear a Boston Pops-style version of a Beatles or Carpenters tune. But hey, the Boston Pops was popular. And it only happened occasionally. Most hours were all-classical.

It was a greatest hits classical format. Many selections were Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, what the average person would know.
 
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