First Atlanta saddles us with the 2 Live Stews, and now 93.9 KZLA has gone to rap?

What in the name of Porter Waggoner is going on here?

Rap? I thought it was "pop". Rick Dees also resurfaced.

What in the world indeed ...

Not a soul saw this move coming apparently, all the work on the new format was done away from the main studio, so the airstaff, sales staff, et al were caught just as off guard as the listeners.

For now, the format has been exiled to a web stream & an HD-2 signal (for the 12 people in the country who have HD radios I guess). But the speculation is rampant, as always, about what stations in the market are considering a move to grab the suddenly available audience.

Did you know that Los Angeles is the #1 market in the US for country album sales? And did you know that KZLA was the highest billing country radio station in the U.S.? (The latter in spite of being consistently around 20th in the market in the ratings)

Those sales numbers are why I figure that somebody will indeed step up to the plate & cover this unfortunate format hole sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, once the curiosity bump in ratings subsides after a few months, I think it's very questionable whether Emmis will be able to make a break in what some market observers call Clear Channel's "Wall of Women" in the market. (basically all the top stations for the various female demos are owned by CC). If they can't crack that rotation, then they probably gone through all this for nothing, since they'll be trying to sell as the #5 or 6 option in a niche instead of the #1 option in another.

Yeah, I read an article about this a few days ago. One of the on-air guys had about 10 minutes notice - he had a country song cued, then they gave him some R&B-type song to put on next. Crazy.

XM Radio is trying to use the KZLA flip to get more XM listeners in LA, by advertising that they can get 7 country stations through XM. Also, KZLA was sponsoring a concert (Gretchen Wilson, ect..) with tickets to go on sell in like 2 weeks, but they were going to drop the concert after the flip. XM does the smart thing and comes in and picks up the concert. I wonder how well this will do for XM in getting some more listeners in the LA radio.

And as a country and Keith Urban fan, a little trivia is that, besides his new single that was the highest debuting country single ever, is that one of his songs was the last ever played at KZLA.

This is from one of the articles earlier this week:


At 10 a.m. on Thursday, Peter Tilden and Ashley Paige were still morning-drive hosts at KZLA-FM (93.9), billed as "America's most listened to country station." At 10:15, they were notified that the station's format was changing immediately from country to pop and that they were out of work.

Did you know that Los Angeles is the #1 market in the US for country album sales?

Yup.

And did you know that KZLA was the highest billing country radio station in the U.S.? (The latter in spite of being consistently around 20th in the market in the ratings)

Again, yeah. That's why I'm so shocked. Being tops in the US in the format while being 20th in overall regional ratings smells to me like the beauty of being in a 'megalopolis,' as an old college professor of mine put it.

When you have the kind of population the SoCal area in general does, that kind of thing can happen.

My brother and I discussed the change last night, and we both seem to be leaning towards satellite. The thing is, he's probably going to go Sirius, and I have no idea which way, if any, I'm going to end up going.

I wonder if 94.3 will boost their signal again, like they were doing in the early '90s. Are they even still country?

Does anybody know, as an afterthought, whether there's a way to add specific streaming radio links within iTunes, or do I have to use an external program for that?

Again, yeah. That's why I'm so shocked. Being tops in the US in the format while being 20th in overall regional ratings smells to me like the beauty of being in a 'megalopolis,' as an old college professor of mine put it.

It is indeed, although another factor in their favor here is sort of radio specific. Basically, because they were the only station in the format, they are doubtless getting a steady number of ad buys that dictated something like "buy the top 2 AC's, the top 2 CHR's, the #1 Country & the #1 Smooth Jazz" or whatever combination of formats happened to generally fit somebody's target demo. That means they get more buys than their ratings would otherwise dictate ... which in turn means demand is higher than their ratings would normally justify, which drives up their unit cost. Multiply those things together with the uber-market & you get big bucks big time.

I wonder if 94.3 will boost their signal again, like they were doing in the early '90s. Are they even still country?

If the 94.3 you mean is the one licensed to Garden Grove then the answer is no. They flipped first to what was basically a forerunner to the Jack format & were then sold again leading to them becoming part of the Que Buena trimulcast along with 105.5 FM in Long Beach & 94.3 FM in San Fernando.

If the 94.3 you mean is the one licensed to Garden Grove then the answer is no. They flipped first to what was basically a forerunner to the Jack format & were then sold again leading to them becoming part of the Que Buena trimulcast along with 105.5 FM in Long Beach & 94.3 FM in San Fernando.

I'm not certain. I don't know who previously owned KIK FM. I had thought they were based out of San Diego County initially, but this Mark Newland article I found in a Google search suggests that they were LA-based, which probably makes them the Garden Grove station you reference.

I'm so confused.

Been a couple of weeks since we've gotten the Stews in LA, so I wonder if that means their show bombed as badly as I hoped it would. Been a steady diet of Tim Brando - who isn't great, but isn't nearly as annoying as the Stews, either.

As far as country goes, I've been able to get 100.7 out of Ventura lately, but I will say it's a little odd crossing over the 5 on the way to work and having the song shift from a George Strait classic to Huey Lewis and the News before shifting back to Strait.

I wonder if we're just barely in range of the 100.7 signal, or what.

I wonder if we're just barely in range of the 100.7 signal, or what.

Here's a KHAY coverage map FWIW.
http://www.805advertising.com/mediakits/khaymap.pdf

Thanks, Jon.

Looks like I'm well inside both their predicted and actual coverage areas. I'd guess it's probably the terrain that causes the weird overlaps, since the part of the SCV I'm in is kind of mountainy.

In LA, the formerly K-MOTZART channel has turned country, 105.1, Other then that 95.1 is still county, but I think they are out in the IE and you might not get them that far west.