95.7 The Game/San Francisco Reveals Revamped Lineup

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://news.radio-online.com/articles/c40980/957-The-Game-San-Francisco-Reveals-Revamped-Lineup

Entercom has announced a new lineup to take place on 95.7FM on October 12th.

Entercom has announced a revamped weekday lineup for KGMZ-FM (95.7 The Game)/San Francisco, effective October 12. The Sports outlet welcomes Kate Scott as morning co-host, while midday co-host Bonta Hill and night host Joe Shasky will move to morning drive to join Scott for "The Morning Roast," weekdays from 6-10am PT. Current morning personality Dan Dibley will join the station's midday show "Steiny, Guru and Dibs" alongside Matt Steinmetz and Daryle "The Guru" Johnson from 10am-2pm.

Dormer morning co-host Lorenzo Neal will join the show every Monday and serve as the station's NFL contributor. Station contributor John Dickinson will succeed Shasky as night show co-host, joining Ryan Covay for "Covay and JD." The station's afternoon and evening programming will remain the same.

 

[Gregg.]

For a sports station that has an all local line up weekdays from 6am till late evening, KGMZ-FM's ratings are pretty bad, tied for #27. Currently it's not even getting a full rating point. I wonder how that could happen. Sure, Sports stations with modest ratings still make money. It's hard to reach men with radio. And a sports station does not play in the background, so the listeners really are hearing the ads. The host can do live reads, which help drive customers to the sponsors. Still...

KFOG-AM-FM are at #6. Both KFOG-FM and KGMZ-FM have Class B signals, both apx. 7,000 watts. KGMZ-FM's tower is 1290 ft above average terrain, KFOG-FM is about 1500 ft. Not a big difference.

How bad could KGMZ-FM be that it is soooo poorly rated?

 

[HenryOchs]

For a sports station that has an all local line up weekdays from 6am till late evening, KGMZ-FM's ratings are pretty bad, tied for #27. Currently it's not even getting a full rating point. I wonder how that could happen. Sure, Sports stations with modest ratings still make money. It's hard to reach men with radio. And a sports station does not play in the background, so the listeners really are hearing the ads. The host can do live reads, which help drive customers to the sponsors. Still...

KFOG-AM-FM are at #6. Both KFOG-FM and KGMZ-FM have Class B signals, both apx. 7,000 watts. KGMZ-FM's tower is 1290 ft above average terrain, KFOG-FM is about 1500 ft. Not a big difference.

How bad could KGMZ-FM be that it is soooo poorly rated?

Maybe a format change on 95.7 very soon? Maybe to another form of talk radio or back to a music format.

 

[Signal Geek]

Not sure what else would work better on this frequency. The Bay Area has many major-league teams, and giving up sports would leave that niche entirely to KNBR/KFOG/KTCT. Also, before it was all-sports, 95.7 tried several music formats without success.

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe a format change on 95.7 very soon? Maybe to another form of talk radio or back to a music format.

More likely the problem is with the talent. Thus the lineup change. KNBR's staff apparently does a better job attracting an audience.

Entercom has a similar problem with it's sports station in Boston.

Beasley's WBZ has double the share of WEEI. They should probably do a lineup shuffle there too.

 

[408listener]

For a sports station that has an all local line up weekdays from 6am till late evening, KGMZ-FM's ratings are pretty bad, tied for #27. Currently it's not even getting a full rating point. I wonder how that could happen. Sure, Sports stations with modest ratings still make money. It's hard to reach men with radio. And a sports station does not play in the background, so the listeners really are hearing the ads. The host can do live reads, which help drive customers to the sponsors. Still...

KFOG-AM-FM are at #6. Both KFOG-FM and KGMZ-FM have Class B signals, both apx. 7,000 watts. KGMZ-FM's tower is 1290 ft above average terrain, KFOG-FM is about 1500 ft. Not a big difference.

How bad could KGMZ-FM be that it is soooo poorly rated?

One likely reason: KGMZ has not had live play by play coverage for many, many months. For many years, KGMZ was the home of Oakland A's and Raiders games. In 2016, the station even picked up the broadcast rights to Golden State Warriors. But last year, the A's withdrew from the station, and the Raiders moved to Las Vegas this year. Also, COVID-19 prematurely ended the Warriors' (horrible) 2019-20 season. So that means the last time you could listen to a game on "The Game" was in March. In other words, there are limited cross promotional "listen to the Warriors game tonight!" opportunities on the talk shows. (But one reported reason why the A's left this station was the team perceiving a lack of promotion of the team on the talk shows.)

 

[Gregg.]

I wrote KFOG-AM-FM but I really meant KNBR-AM-FM. KFOG became KNBR-FM.

There must be something else wrong with KGMZ to fall below a 1 rating. If you had a staff of local hosts from morning drive until evening, just reading from the phone book, you should be able to generate a higher rating. I'm sure it's true that having some sports teams idle isn't helping some sports stations. But if two MLB teams play in the Bay Area, and there are two FM sports stations, how did KGMZ let the Athletics drift away?

NYC, Philadelphia and Boston have competing FM sports stations. WFAN-AM-FM have a good lead over WEPN-FM in NYC. WIP-FM has a good lead over WPEN-FM in Philly. At one time, WBZ-FM and WEEI-FM were competitive in Boston. But much of this year, WEEI-FM trails WBZ-FM, even when the city's beloved Red Sox are playing on WEEI.

Yet no market has this giant gulf between two full power, fully staffed FM sports stations.