LBI Media exits bankruptcy, gets new leadership

[BamaTX]

How would another Mexican Regional station do in the market of Houston? Something more music driven like KLOL with no big on air personalitys. Knowing Raul Brindis is married to Univision and probably locked down to a good contract. If someone had a signal covering better than KQQK and KTJM? If you look at the landscape of the Martek is Only Que Buena,La raza and El Norte.

The fact that Univision pulled the plug on KQBU should tell you all you need to know. The market is saturated.

I'm starting to think you work for the people who run the Translator cluster. If so, then it is a bad sign that you're on here trying to get free consultation.

 

[Mrtejano]

The fact that Univision pulled the plug on KQBU should tell you all you need to know. The market is saturated.

I'm starting to think you work for the people who run the Translator cluster. If so, then it is a bad sign that you're on here trying to get free consultation.

They pulled the plug because having 93.3 FM running Que Buena and also have 102.9 running KLTN with no name wasn’t making sense nor making money. The signal isn’t that good here in houston and it helps LATINOMIX reach farther.

And all the full FM stations that could hurt KLTN are making good money as is. Why would they compete against UNIVISION?

Who would even compete against them?


Comcast using Telemundo as a marketing scheme??

Telemundo Radio?

Not likely since even Univision uses Univision for their names. They us UFORIA as the name of the stations? I heart? CBS?

 

[DavidEduardo]

The fact that Univision pulled the plug on KQBU should tell you all you need to know. The market is saturated.

That is not why KQBU quite being a separate format.. it was to benefit Latino Mix which has a nice central market signal, but gained quite a lot by adding the additional coverage towards the east.

It's a lot easier to sell one 3-share station than a 1 share station and a two share station.

 

[old school radio]

BamaTX play nice. No one is asking for free consultation. It's called Radio Discussion. I see roughly 25-30 million dollars per year in the Mexican Regional format (one format) with only 3 players KTJM, KLTN AND KQQK. New census estimates show the Hispanic population growth continues to surpass white population growth, with Hispanics on pace to soon represent a plurality. 37% of the Houston metro area is Hispanic, the fifth-highest percentage among U.S. metros
How can you say the Market is saturated?
I would ask David the same question in New York,Chicago or Los Angeles.The Hispanic growth ia projected by 2050 to be 132.8 million people, or 30.2% of the nation's total projected population on that date. Just so you know the reason I was asking David about a new Mexican Regional format in the Houston Market was
A.) Big players like I heart Media flipped stations across the country to Spanish with very little success (KLOL and some Preciosa Networks) being the exception.
B.) Was I heart and CBS ahead of their time?
C.) Could a General Market player like Entercom or Radio One flip a station like KROI . "I know it was done in the past" but that was 15 years ago.

So Please BamaTX don't take my questions for ignorance. Don't be that guy at the bar that gets angry picking fights with first 2 beers. Enjoy the booze we are just Radio guys shooting the **** for a while.

 

[DavidEduardo]

How would another Mexican Regional station do in the market of Houston? Something more music driven like KLOL with no big on air personalitys. Knowing Raul Brindis is married to Univision and probably locked down to a good contract. If someone had a signal covering better than KQQK and KTJM? If you look at the landscape of the Martek is Only Que Buena,La raza and El Norte.

Radio One tried that. Had a good PD, but it did not work.

The two distinctly different flavors of Regional Mexican are covered by the two former LBI stations, and are the flavor of KLTN, too And KOVE is a Mexican hybrid, including regional, grupera and softer pop.

There is not really an avenue for another, and unless it has a vastly superior signal, it won't make it.

 

[old school radio]

Yes, Fernando Perez and right after Jesus Robles. Good guys. I remember Fernando Perez was the protege of Bill Tanner and Pio Ferro at KLAX and KXOL after being replace by Maria Nava/Cucuy. I guess It's a little weird that I like rooting for the underdog /people/small stations that seem primed to lose.

 

[BamaTX]

They pulled the plug because having 93.3 FM running Que Buena and also have 102.9 running KLTN with no name wasn’t making sense nor making money.

That's not it. Where do you come up with this misinformation?

The branding had absolutely no effect on station's ratings or revenue. As a matter of fact, 102.9 didn't even adopt the "Que Buena" moniker as soon as it became available.

Also, 102.9 has been offering a Spanish version of a daytime Hot Talk format for a while. KQBU was strictly music. I don't recall the numbers, but the departure of KQBU did not cause KLTN's numbers to jump more than what they usually do.

The signal isn’t that good here in houston and it helps LATINOMIX reach farther.

The increase was minimal. Outside of Galveston proper and a small part of Montgomery county, KQBU did not add much that KAMA didn't already cover. Furthermore, those areas that KQBU added aren't even Hispanic neighborhoods. You can make a case that Galveston has a lot of Hispanics, but the coverage that was added barely falls within the -60 dbu contour (which is practically useless according to some around here).

And all the full FM stations that could hurt KLTN are making good money as is. Why would they compete against UNIVISION?

Who would even compete against them?


Comcast using Telemundo as a marketing scheme??

Telemundo Radio?

Not likely since even Univision uses Univision for their names. They us UFORIA as the name of the stations? I heart? CBS?

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. Maybe you're in the wrong thread?

 

[stan]

Radio One tried that. Had a good PD, but it did not work.

There is not really an avenue for another, and unless it has a vastly superior signal, it won't make it.

KLOL has a superior signal. Why isn’t it doing better?

Also, KQBU doesn’t appear in the Beaumont ratings either so how is its success measured?

 

[DavidEduardo]

BamaTX play nice. No one is asking for free consultation. It's called Radio Discussion. I see roughly 25-30 million dollars per year in the Mexican Regional format (one format) with only 3 players KTJM, KLTN AND KQQK.

Even Mexico City with a 21 million person metro only had two grupera stations for decades; a third entered this year and it remains to be seen if it can be profitable. Media buyers in Mexico are not fond of the format as it only reaches C-, D and E Income levels.

New census estimates show the Hispanic population growth continues to surpass white population growth, with Hispanics on pace to soon represent a plurality. 37% of the Houston metro area is Hispanic, the fifth-highest percentage among U.S. metros

There are quite a number of markets with higher percentages... from Miami to San Antonio to LA to Riverside-San Bernardino to Fresno to Bakersfield to El Paso to McAllen to Albuquerque to Stockton. Houston is up there, but there are more than 5 measured markets with higher percentages of Hispanics.

How can you say the Market is saturated?

There are only a couple of formats that are viable for Spanish language stations in the Southwestern US, and all are covered in Houston, with two of the formats covered by several stations. If any of those formats is further fragmented, the revenue will just go to the top two or three anyway. Most Hispanic buys do not go very deep. And the way LBI used to operate was to bottom feed, picking up the businesses that could not afford the "good" stations so they had to deal with Lenard & Company.

I would ask David the same question in New York,Chicago or Los Angeles.The Hispanic growth ia projected by 2050 to be 132.8 million people, or 30.2% of the nation's total projected population on that date.

You already have markets like ABQ and San Antonio and El Paso and McAllen where less than a quarter of Hispanics are Spanish dominant. In no market except Miami (where the whole economy is based on services for Latin America) is the percentage of Spanish dominants growing. In ones like LA and Phoenix and Dallas and Houston, less than half of all Hispanics are Spanish dominant.

The rest don't use Spanish language radio.

Oh, and many Hispanics who come to the US don't listen to Spanish language music. There are huge shares from Mexico to Argentina for stations playing English language MOR, AC, Oldies, Top 40 and other blends. My first station in Ecuador over 50 years ago played half non-Spanish language music and it was #1 in the market.

In any case, you have to look at Spanish dominants... about 18% (or less) of Houston, not 36%. And you have to consider that many Spanish dominant Hispanics listen to English language music.

Just so you know the reason I was asking David about a new Mexican Regional format in the Houston Market was
A.) Big players like I heart Media flipped stations across the country to Spanish with very little success (KLOL and some Preciosa Networks) being the exception.

Preciosa was a bad copy of Univision's Recuerdo... and Recuerdo was one of the few "new" formats ever created in the US in the last three or four decades in any language. And even Univision's version has gone through metamorphosis as there is not as much replacement 80's, 90's and more recent material to replace the 60's and 70's songs that built Recuerdo starting in 2000.

B.) Was I heart and CBS ahead of their time?

No, they jut did not know how to program.

C.) Could a General Market player like Entercom or Radio One flip a station like KROI . "I know it was done in the past" but that was 15 years ago.

With the current economic situation, the opportunities to promote a new station are limited, and the job of getting through to Hispanic media buyers is far more challenging. Probability not even 5% probability any significant signal station would switch.

So Please BamaTX don't take my questions for ignorance. Don't be that guy at the bar that gets angry picking fights with first 2 beers. Enjoy the booze we are just Radio guys shooting the **** for a while.

If you look at the market and the current depressed Coronavirus revenue, nobody is going to discard even limited revenue on an ongoing format to start an uncertain new format in a crowded marketplace.

 

[DavidEduardo]

KLOL has a superior signal. Why isn’t it doing better?

Huh? It is second in the Hispanic arena, and 12th in total market billing. That is a very good performance

 

[DavidEduardo]

The increase was minimal. Outside of Galveston proper and a small part of Montgomery county, KQBU did not add much that KAMA didn't already cover. Furthermore, those areas that KQBU added aren't even Hispanic neighborhoods. You can make a case that Galveston has a lot of Hispanics, but the coverage that was added barely falls within the -60 dbu contour (which is practically useless according to some around here).

It added an average of 0.5 to 1.0 to KAMA, placing it in a much better territory for sales. That was the simple and effective strategy of the station simulcasting instead of fragmenting.

That was enough to move the station into the top tier of stations, leaving the Doberman stations at the bottom picking up low-rate clients.

 

[old school radio]

KLOL is a solid station. If i had a 30 millions sitting in my bank account I would buy it.

 

[DavidEduardo]

KLOL has a superior signal. Why isn’t it doing better?

Also, KQBU doesn’t appear in the Beaumont ratings either so how is its success measured?

The KLOL format has a somewhat more limited appeal than grupera ("regional Mexican" is a US record store construct), but it does marvelously well in its target demos and in revenue.

KQBU is not subscribed to the Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange ratings, so it is not in the public data. There is no purpose to subscribe as there is zero revenue potential there.

KQBU pushed it's simulcast partner into a higher level that made it vastly more competitive, nearly tripling the billing over the non-simulcast period.

 

[radiohits]

The KLOL format has a somewhat more limited appeal than grupera ("regional Mexican" is a US record store construct), but it does marvelously well in its target demos and in revenue.

KQBU is not subscribed to the Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange ratings, so it is not in the public data. There is no purpose to subscribe as there is zero revenue potential there.

KQBU pushed it's simulcast partner into a higher level that made it vastly more competitive, nearly tripling the billing over the non-simulcast period.

I remember it to be different.. after hurricane ike the numbers for La raza started to look strong, the panel was changing and the people were moving around and that is when the decision was made to flip 93.3 to que buena to compete and bring those numbers down because the goal was to protect KLTN . The add of 93.3 to Kama has always been a place holder and David may say it has helped in sales but honestly it has had very little effect/impact on the station.

 

[radiohits]

different times. When la mera mera was on the air Houston was still a diary market and with all the support raul had/has from tv he was able to have the brand and name needed on the streets to do well in the diary world and KLTN had the numbers . I think today la mera mera would have had a more positive response.

 

[DavidEduardo]

different times. When la mera mera was on the air Houston was still a diary market and with all the support raul had/has from tv he was able to have the brand and name needed on the streets to do well in the diary world and KLTN had the numbers . I think today la mera mera would have had a more positive response.

The only thing that the PPM did for Spanish language radio is reduce the huge TSL of the diary to more logical numbers. Hispanic diarykeepers tended to round up to full hours and even full dayparts, particularly those who listened to regional Mexican.

Of course, La Mera Mera switched in 2007 to the gospel format, after nearly 3 years of Houston PPM.

Most affected were the regional stations; most took big nosedives. KSCA in LA from top 4 in the diary down to around 9th or 10th, and in every market that was the case. Some stations were able to modify the programming and achieve higher levels, but the PPM is cume based while the diary tended to favor TSL.

This explanation is why Smooth Jazz died with the PPM: low cume, high TSL. Similarly, Spanish language stations depended on TSL as, being stations that did not appeal beyond Spanish dominant listeners, they did not have the cume growth that most general market stations did and thus got "left behind".

Interestingly, the secondary Spanish language formats like AC (KLVE for example), Adult Hits (KOVE) and the reggaeton format (Spanish CHUrban) benefited due to appealing generally to a bit more educated and technology friendly audience.

Remember, the Houston Spanish language stations had nearly 4 years of the PPM test in Houston which began in late 2004 after the Philadelphia test had reached the point where a market with more ethnic diversity was needed. Those who were on the PPM committee, including me, (and not necessarily people from the actual Houston and Philly stations) were seeing the results and forming conclusion well in advance of the institution of the PPM system for advertisers and all subscribers.

KLOL fine-tuned its format during the PPM test years and was well positioned to welcome the PPM with a format that was appealing to people who might also be in Nielsen families.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I remember it to be different.. after hurricane ike the numbers for La raza started to look strong, the panel was changing and the people were moving around and that is when the decision was made to flip 93.3 to que buena to compete and bring those numbers down because the goal was to protect KLTN . The add of 93.3 to Kama has always been a place holder and David may say it has helped in sales but honestly it has had very little effect/impact on the station.

Of course, you are forming a conclusion based on outside events.

Stations never make programming decisions as a reaction to transitory conditions. We don't change based on December and Holiday numbers, we pay less attention to out-of-school summer numbers. And we skip making conclusions when things like a blizzard, a hurricane or, today, a pandemic and a social upheaval, are going on.

As I was, as they say, "in the room" (and on the payroll) when the move was made, I'm "familiar" with the reasoning that the effects of having the rimshot station doing regional was not making a salable format while it might have been peeling more hair off the Big Dog of KLTN instead of reducing the shares of Lenard's puppies. Then it was realized that supplementing the smallest of the Houston signals, KAMA, would be an even better opportunity and it went into a simulcast of the pop station. Of course, the need to get closer to KLOL was a factor, too. KLOL and KAMA are sort of the equivalents of Hot AC and CHR and while they sound fairly similar, they are not the same any more than KIIS and KBIG in LA are.

The effect was immediate. The 18-34 target numbers increased by more than a share and 2018 billing was triple that of the prior year where most income came from night remotes at clubs and associated buys in the daytime and even interviews with artists in the morning show. KAMA now bills nearly 4 times what it did prior to adding the simulcast.