Upgrade Worthy?
A few stations on weak or rimshot facilities over-perform their clustermates with full-market signals. Are those formats worth an upgraded facility move?
Each month as the new Nielsen radio ratings come out, which you can always find the latest 6+ numbers over at the ratings section at our friends at RadioInsight, there are a few situations where stations with rimshot or marginal facilities are consistently over-performing compared to their full-market clustermates. In a few cases, the owners are making adjustments. Last month, for example, in Atlanta, iHeart promoted R&B WRDG 105.3 “105.3 the Beat” from a rimshot signal to the full market signal of what was top 40 WWPW 96.1 “Power 96.1,” which went the reverse course to the rimshot 105.3 facility.
There are other markets where it is easy to wonder “what if…?” for similar situations. Of course, there are always caveats and trade-offs to format changes. As well, the 6+ ratings numbers do not always tell a full story as a station may perform less strongly overall, but perform exceedingly well in a demo. So, this is more of a musing of what looks to be candidates worth a look…
Dallas/Fort Worth: What If Adult R&B Returned To A Full-Market Signal?
Locally owned Service Broadcasting owns full-market signaled R&B KKDA-FM 104.5 “K104” and rimshot adult R&B KRNB 105.7 “Smooth R&B 105.7.” Urban One owns full-market signaled R&B KBFB 97.9 “97.9 the Beat” and rimshot adult R&B KZMJ 94.5 “Majic 94.5.” It’s an unique situation where both players only have two stations in the market and both have the situation of one of them being a rimshot.
KKDA-FM has been R&B since it moved out of its disco format in the late 1970s. After more than four and half decades, the “K104” brand is well-known locally and in the industry. KRNB is the former country KSTV-FM 105.7 Stephenville TX that changed city of license to Decatur TX and moved into the D/FW market on September 16 1996 as adult R&B KRNB. However, it is site-restricted and broadcasts from rural Wise County about 45 miles NNW of Fort Worth and 65 miles NW of Dallas. Even for a full class C, that is a long distance. As such, it lacks a city grade signal over most of the city of Dallas, particularly in southern and eastern Dallas, which has a large African-American population that KRNB does not cover well (see the KKDA-FM and KRNB coverage comparison map below).
K104’s rival, 97.9 the Beat, came on in September 2000 after being sold to what is now Radio One and the format was changed from AC “B97.9” to R&B. Sister KZMJ has had multiple formats aimed at an adult African-American population since the fall of 2000 when modern rock KDGE, then at 94.5, swapped intellectual property with rhythmic oldies KTXQ 102.1 “Magic 102” after the 94.5 signal was spun off to what is now Radio One. Since 2000, 94.5 has been rhythmic oldies KTXQ “Magic 94.5,” adult R&B KSOC “K-Soul,” then rebranded as “Old School 94.5,” then back to “K-Soul,” then to classic hip hop “Boom 94.5,” and then to adult R&B KZMJ “Majic 94.5” in 2017. In KZMJ’s case, it is site-restricted well away from the population center to a location near Collinsville TX in rural southwestern Gryason County about 50 miles north of Dallas and 60 miles from Fort Worth.
Adult R&B has been tried on a full-market signal before — but that was over 25 years ago now with KRBV 100.3 “V100,” and the market is different now.
Fairly routinely now — and for quite a while now — KRNB is significantly ahead of KKDA-FM; recently it has been in the top 5 of all stations Nielsen reports on. PPM has been unkind to R&B/hip hop outlets in a number of markets — and that has been particularly true in D/FW where KKDA-FM and KBFB have slumped in recent years from their traditional top 10 placings. More recently, KZMJ has pulled ahead of KBFB. In the latest month, the combined adult R&B share of KZMJ and KRNB had 66% more share than the combined rating of KBFB and KKDA-FM. Given that a sizable amount of the target audience can’t received a strong signal from either adult R&B outlet, adult R&B appears to be really over-performing on the rimshot signals vs KKDA-FM and KBFB’s full-market signals from the big tower farm in Cedar Hill, SSW of Dallas.
So, what if … either adult R&B KRNB or KZMJ got their format moved to the facility of their full-market sibling? Or perhaps in KRNB’s case, since it would be hard to imagine the K104 brand not in Dallas, merging with K104 to take it adult? Certainly, there have been other heritage R&B outlets, like KMJQ 102.1 “Majic 102” Houston down I45 many years ago that shifted to adult R&B and kept the heritage brand thriving.
Oklahoma City: What If One Of The HD Subchannels Moved To The Main 107.7 Signal?
For a quarter century beginning in 1987, KRXO-FM 107.7 was OKC’s home of classic rock. Following sale, in 2013, it flipped to sports “107.7 The Franchise." The classic rock format and KRXO branding moved to 107.7HD2 and its analog translator K283BW 104.5. KRXO-FM operates another subchannel/translator combo with Spanish-language “Exitos 96.5” on 107.7HD3/K243BJ 96.5. As translators are capped at 250 watts (0.25 kw), any translator majorly disadvantaged against a 100 kw signal. In this case, neither translator fully covers the Oklahoma City city limits. Note: Technically the HD subchannels do, but listenership is typically minimal. The vast majority of listening in these situations is to the analog translator…which is why, in this case, the HD2 is branded around the 104.5 frequency and the HD3 is branded around the 96.5 frequency.
The sports scene in Oklahoma City is pretty crowed. FM sports incumbent WWLS-FM 98.1 leads all the competitors by a hefty margin. Aside from WWLS-FM and KRXO-FM, there are four AMs with small shares: KWPN 640, KGHM 1340, KREF 1400, KEBC 1560 (KRXO-FM’s clustermate). As well, KINB 105.3 rimshoots from the northwest. Between 2021 and 2023, full-market KREF-FM 94.7 also was in the format; it recently changed to classic rock KOKQ “Q94.7.”
Sports formats are attractive since they have high spot loads and also get access to sports marketing dollars that general audience stations do not get access to. Even so, KRXO-FM has been running around a 1 share, even with KREF-FM gone. Recently in Dallas, iHeart pulled the plug on the sports/hot talk format on KEGL 97.1 after also being mired in the 1s.
Even with Q94.7 now as competition, classic rock “104.5 KRXO” on that 250 watt 104.5 translator runs about even with the big 100 kw sports format. So, the 250 watt signal is over-performing compared to the 100 kw signal. The KRXO brand also has about 37 more years of equity than Q94.7 that should be some advantage if the format and brand got an upgrade.
The “Exitos” brand also performs about even as the full-market sports format. Moving it to the main signal would allow it flank co-owned regional Mexican KTUZ-FM 106.7, creating a more robust cluster to market to Hispanic media buyers as Telemundo affiliate KTUZ-TV 30 is also co-owned. Those would also be the only full power Spanish-language FMs in the market.
Columbia SC: What If One Of The HD Subchannels Moved To The Main 93.5 Signal?
The situation in Columbia has been similar to the one in Oklahoma City…and for quite a while. The current “Live 93.5” brand on WARQ 93.5 is often on par with or behind one of its HD subchannels/translator combos — in particular, modern rock 93.5HD2/W259CL 99.7 “Alt 99.7” and AAA 93.5HD4/W235CH 94.9 “94.9 the Palm.” The signal difference is not as great as Oklahoma City as WARQ is a class A. Even so, a class A is going to have the fair advantage to a 250 watt translator.
For about two decades, WARQ ran some variation of an active rock format. An aircheck from its rock days in 2005 was in the very first RTWBT. It moved to hot AC “Q93.5” in 2014 and then evolved to top 40. As those post-rock days have been underperforming, the signal is mostly remembered for its rock days. WARQ does not seem well positioned to dethrone 100 kw top 40 rival WNOK 104.7 either as it has never come close to posing a threat in the ratings.
Given the signal’s association with rock and the lack of a current rock or modern rock outlet in the market — a market home to the large University of South Carolina and nearby Fort Jackson — what if … Alt 99.7 got the promotion to the main signal?
Other Scenarios?
What do you think of these? What other scenarios do you see as possible candidates for moving a performing format off a weak facility to a stronger one? Leave a comment…