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October numbers are here

Engineering said:
Why do crooks rob banks? Because that's where the money is. Therefore, it seems to me that Univision should hire a proficient engineer and look into moving the station into the Houston market.
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It's not a matter of poor engineering or bad consulting, it's the FCC's own spacing rules (73.207).

In the case of KQBU-FM 93.3, which is a Class C FM, two of the primary obstacles to getting closer to Houston are KKBQ 92.9 and KQBT 93.7. Both of those are second-adjacent (two channels away) and Class C stations. Both 92.9 and 93.7 broadcast from Missouri City, but KQBU is slightly further east.

What is the FCC's spacing rule regarding a second-adjacent Class C to Class C? 65 Miles. How far is KQBU-FM's Devers tower to KQBT? 66 miles. It's practically as close as it can be barring a major rule change from the FCC.
 
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It seems to me that some enterprising fellow applied for a translator on 93.3 in Sugarland. Of course, we're comparing apples and oranges because a translator is (obviously) not a Class C. Yet it was still successfully opposed by Univision. Which means they are still actively pursuing this fetish of selling their station as a Houston station, and how is that working out? The October numbers are out, and how did KQBU score on that chart?
 
Engineering said:
Where is Devers County? Devers is in Liberty County, and the city of license is Port Arthur, which is at the south end of Jefferson County.

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I think you might be trolling in here, but I am going give it one more shot...

Devers is a city in Liberty County. Liberty County is in the Houston radio market. Look at the map of red counties on the previous page of this thread.

You are getting too hung up on City of License. Univision could change KQBU's CoL to Channelview or Baytown or Anahuac. It's still licensed to Port Arthur for historical reasons, but it doesn't matter.

The studios are in City of Houston. The far majority of listeners regardless of format will be in the Houston market. The station is marketed toward the Houston market for economic reasons already mentioned. The sales department is selling against the audience in market six not market 150. It will never go back to focusing on the "Golden Triangle". And the station is transmitting from inside the Houston market. It's a Houston market station.

A translator (Class D) and a Class C FM couldn't be any different. Sugarland is within KQBU-FM's 50 dBu signal. That's listenable on most car radios. Of course a same channel translator should not be licensed on the same channel in that area of signal strength.
 
Engineering said:
Where is Devers County? Devers is in Liberty County, and the city of license is Port Arthur, which is at the south end of Jefferson County.
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You are fixated on Community of License and transmitter location, when you should concentrate on where the programming is targeted and what is within the signal coverage area.

All of the rimshots between Houston and B/PA target Houston with their programming, and have done so since those facilities were built 15-35 years ago. The Houston market is where the money is.

Those transmitters cannot be moved closer to Houston due to FCC separation rules for second adjacent signals. Were those rules ever relaxed, then you would see a flurry of moves to closer facilities.

Note that for two of the rimshot signals the COL is actually closer to Houston than the transmitter. This is due to the separation rules (KFNC and KHJK.)

I think you are stuck in an outdated pre-1980s view of the relationship between COL, transmitter location, and target market.
 
Engineering said:
Where is Devers County? Devers is in Liberty County, and the city of license is Port Arthur, which is at the south end of Jefferson County.

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Sorry, I did a backspace and removed "in Liberty County" after "Devers". That really does not change the point of my post: "the transmitter is inside the Houston market and the radio revenue available in Houston is about 50 times greater than what is spent in B/PA". OK?

But my point is the same: the transmitter is inside the Houston market, Radio ratings are not based on cities, but they are named after one or more of the main cities that define the market. In no case is just a city a whole Nielsen market.

There are a few cases of counties being split between markets, or huge counties only partially being part of a market... but none of those exceptions apply to the Houston Metro Survey Area or to any county in Texas.

Arbitron and Nielsen check counties and metros every year, and there are occasional market redefinitions where counties can be added or removed. The basis for outer area counties being included in a market definition is a plurality of listening to the stations of the market and an analysis of commute patterns within the metro. This is different from the Census' Metropolitan Statistical Area which does not include radio, of course, but does include certain statistics related to commerce.
 
Ryan Williams said:
I think you might be trolling in here, but I am going give it one more shot...
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Ya' think? Or maybe "Engineering" is just nitpicking with data that is irrelevant in the real world of station revenue and audience.
Ryan Williams said:
Devers is a city in Liberty County. Liberty County is in the Houston radio market. Look at the map of red counties on the previous page of this thread.
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And that map is right out of the Nielsen 2022 website.
 
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Ryan Williams said:
The studios are in City of Houston. The far majority of listeners regardless of format will be in the Houston market. The station is marketed toward the Houston market for economic reasons already mentioned. The sales department is selling against the audience in market six not market 150. It will never go back to focusing on the "Golden Triangle". And the station is transmitting from inside the Houston market. It's a Houston market station.
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Quite true. KQBU's studios have been in Houston for some time now. Even during the period when they were required by the FCC to maintain an actively-managed studio within their Grade A contour. The studio was in Downtown Beaumont, and both Beaumont and Port Arthur were (and still are) well within that contour.

The reason is for economic as well as logistical reasons. If you're going to program all of the radio stations in the Houston cluster from the Southwest Freeway monolith, why not the station in Port Arthur? My issue is that they are marketing this station as a Houston radio station, when in fact it is not. It covers Houston as a "rimshot" (which is a euphemism for "not very good). And how's that working out for Univision? I think the ratings speak for themselves.

So what's wrong with selling it as a Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange radio station? Unlike Houston, where Hispanic owned or operated radio stations are stacked one on top of each other (thanks for the Great Translator Invasion), the Golden Triangle is wide open for quality Lantinx broadcasting. Especially since the Commission finally dispatched that Franken FM on 87.7.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and as I said, the numbers speak for themselves. It's time for a change. An unintended consequence of rising ratings is building station value, in the event Univision wants to sell off more of its broadcast properties.
 
Engineering said:
So what's wrong with selling it as a Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange radio station? Unlike Houston, where Hispanic owned or operated radio stations are stacked one on top of each other (thanks for the Great Translator Invasion), the Golden Triangle is wide open for quality Lantinx broadcasting. Especially since the Commission finally dispatched that Franken FM on 87.7.
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There are about $400,000 Hispanic dollars at most in B/PA. The market is only 14% Hispanic, meaning about 7% Spanish speaking. The station bills ten or twelve times that as the only Spanish language sports outlet in Houston. There are lots of national Hispanic sports dollars and this is the only Spanish language sports station in Houston.

And, as far as I can tell, there are just about no national Hispanic dollars for B/PA because it's only got around 24,000 Spanish dominant Hispanics. Houston has around 1.7 MILLION.
Engineering said:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and as I said, the numbers speak for themselves. It's time for a change. An unintended consequence of rising ratings is building station value, in the event Univision wants to sell off more of its broadcast properties.
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Sports does not sell on 12+ ratings. Again, for 20 years the #1 billing station in New York City was never above 15th in 12+ ratings... WFAN.
 
Engineering said:
My issue is that they are marketing this station as a Houston radio station, when in fact it is not. It covers Houston as a "rimshot" (which is a euphemism for "not very good). And how's that working out for Univision? I think the ratings speak for themselves.
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I can almost guarantee there’s more people listening in the fringe areas in Houston than the entire Golden Triangle. As mentioned here before KQQK has decent ratings also being a rimshot.
 
KTJM has also been able to achieve decent ratings with its signal in the past as well. Even the KQBU-FM facility was achieving much better numbers back in the 2000s than it is now as both Qué Buena and as Party.
 
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HTX said:
I can almost guarantee there’s more people listening in the fringe areas in Houston than the entire Golden Triangle. As mentioned here before KQQK has decent ratings also being a rimshot.
jt99 said:
KTJM has also been able to achieve decent ratings with its signal in the past as well. Even the KQBU-FM facility was achieving much better numbers back in the 2000s than it is now as both Qué Buena and as Party.
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My theory is that 102.9, 104.9, nd 106.5 are Univision's "money" stations, and it's better to stick with winning formats that generate ad revenue. 93.3, on the other hand, is a station that they can be a little more experimental, and as long as it doesn't threaten their bread and butter revenue, then it doesn't really matter how well or badly it performs.

Changing programming for KQBU is easy. Everything is done right out of Houston. Making engineering changes are a little more difficult, because of the physical distance from Houston and location of the transmitter.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
We pick on KROI because it is capable of doing much better.
KROI is a textbook example of a station that would be better off under different ownership . . .
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That statement is true of hundreds of radio stations, so constantly picking on KROI is boring.
Try picking on the 13 stations with lower ratings for a change.
 
ThatVoice22 said:
That statement is true of hundreds of radio stations, so constantly picking on KROI is boring.
Try picking on the 13 stations with lower ratings for a change.
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I’ve picked on KFNC and KQBU in plenty of posts.😈

Of the rest of those 13 stations we have:

A bunch of webstreams (👍 for making a showing)

Non-comm FMs that aren’t going anywhere🧐

Zombie AMs😴

And a couple of HD-2 stations (Classical still has a pulse)🥳

So I’ll say it again: KROI is capable of much more but is caught in an ownership trap.
 
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