Idaho Radio News Etc.

I just pulled up Citadel Broadcasting’s stock chart for the past six months. Ouch. The company is off nearly 30% from the first of the year (and $4.6/share lower than it’s 52 week high). And don’t blame it on a tough year for the sector — Journal & Clear Channel are off less than 10% — and Entercom & Infinity are actually up slightly. (chart)

The Jack FM “variety hits” format launched in another market Friday — Las Vegas, NV. That brings the total number of licensed Jack stations to 17 – including 2 of Boise’s regional sister markets: Salt Lake City & Seattle.

But what would happen if a station decided to throw caution to the wind and get all Jack-ed up. For the sake of argument — let’s say that Jack grabbed the following percentage of overall share (12+) from these stations.

• 15% from KCIX
• 10% from KXLT
• 10% from KQXR
• 15% from KJOT
• 5% from KZMG
• 5% from KSAS
• 20% from KRVB
• 15% from KKGL
• 15% from KJOT
• 15% from KTHI
• 15% from KLTB

Admittedly, those numbers are all possibly a bit high — and even a bit random. The River gets a higher number purely because the formats are more alike, KZMG and KSAS likely wouldn’t lose a large chunk of audience… etc.

Now, let’s expand that and say that Jack would get about 5% of the “others” (country, the ether – etc.) Add that to the numbers from above – and Jack would score a 7.29. That would make it the second highest rated station in the market. OK… let’s step back in this hypothetical exercise and say that my assumptions are twice as high as they should be. That a 3.65 — not nearly as impressive.

But — Jack would have to take over one of the market’s frequencies. Let’s assume it wouldn’t be the country stations, or AM. So that means it is one of the stations already listed above. What station would you flip? At least for now, it won’t be Mix or Lite — or Kiss or Magic. Clear Channel could be bold and follow Infinity and blow up it’s heritage Oldies, KLTB — but I don’t see that in the cards right now. So what’s left? KJOT or KKGL. Perfect. Think about it — two established rockers in a town that of late doesn’t seem to be able to support both. And through a nice coincidence — they have an identical 12+ share: 3.7.

Let’s say that the station loses half of it’s share to the other rocker — but holds on to about half. Add that 50% percent to my lowball number above: 3.65 — and you have a 5.3, which sandwiches you between KTHI & KXLT — not bad company to be in.

This is all 100% pulled out of left field of course – but you can see where I’m going with it. The new station would get a huge buzz factor (trust me – here in Seattle, I hear a lot of people talking about the new Jack), and could possibly be a player.

From an R&R story on a “Jack panel:

Federated Media COO Tony Richardson believes that the emergence of the Jack-like formats has forced the industry to reconsider airing tight, heavily researched playlists and has re-ignited radio’s creative streak. “We’ve been trying to make a science out of something that is supposed to be an art,” he said.

KBOI’s website is now free of it’s annoying, surprising audio intro. But now KTPZ.com is blasting you with unexpected audio. Somehow it’s not as bad… but still.

KLTB’S Big Jack Armstrong put himself on the line — letting folks try to hit golf balls at him.

Boise Mayor Dave Bieter declared Thursday “1350 KTIK The Ticket Day” in the City of Trees.

WHEREAS, 1350 KTIK “The Ticket” signed on the air in June of 1994; and

WHEREAS, “Idaho Sports Talk” with Jeff Caves and Mike Prater has been recognized as the best sports program in Idaho by the Idaho State Broadcasters Association; and

WHEREAS, KTIK has been the play-by-play radio home of the Boise Hawks, Idaho Steelheads, NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, PGA, triple crown horseracing, and college football and basketball; and

WHEREAS, In a time where most radio stations change formats over the years, KTIK has remained, through its 11th anniversary, Boise’s all-sports radio station;

NOW, THERFORE, I DAVID H. BIETER, Mayor of the City of Boise, Idaho, do hereby proclaim Thursday June 23, 2005 to be

1350 KTIK THE TICKET DAY

in Boise, Idaho.

Hmm. Seems like they left those whereases from the morning show out.

Didn’t Tom Cruise JUST SAY he doesn’t believe in electro-shock therapy??

I recieved the latest River Advisory Panel (from KRVB) survey in my e-mail the other day. The song selection is interesting — and the back end is well done: you can listen to the song before you rate it.

Songs like “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth” by REM sit next to “Positive Vibration ” Bob Marley & The Wailers , and listeners are asked to rate each song on a scale of 1 to 5 — then users are asked wether the station should “play it more,” “play it the same,” or “play it less.”

Totally off topic, but amusing none-the-less… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m told ratings hit the street this Friday for the Poky/IF market. My source notes that there are three relatively new stations — Arrow 107, The Hawk and X94.

One of our favorite sources called the Journal Boise radio office to ask for an e-mail address to send a community event to.

The person that answered the phone said “we don’t accept e-mails. We have a BIG firewall!”

Huh?

I’ve made a pretty major behind-the-scenes upgrade to the site. Only a very few things have changed.

You can now become a registered member of the site. You don’t have to, but there are a few benefits –

• Only you can use your registered name
• You can post links in your comments (up to now that’s been off-limits)

Register here.

I’ve been wondering for a few weeks why there aren’t really any air-staff blogging in B-town. It’s come to my attention that someone is… kinda.

KZMG’s Nate Dogg blogs on his website FuzzyWalnut.com (I won’t block access to it :))

It’s somewhat sporadic — but a good effort none-the-less. I still want to see a Spud Brothers blog.

So says Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co.

In financial terms, “Variety Hits” shot up 11% year-to-year.

Rock down 9.7%. Classic Rock down 1.1%.

Mexican? Up 14.4%. Yowza.

Pack a lunch and read this article on Clear Channel’s struggle for the next stage

The Idaho Statesman’s annual Best of Treasure Valley survey is out: no individual radio station award, but they are asking for “best local Radio personality.”

I wasn’t aware radio is a proper noun. But I digress.

Let the ballot stuffing begin!

KZDX/Twin Falls PD Brock is set to exit the station I’m told — his last day with Lee Family is Friday.

Ad appearing on IdahoStatesman.com (trade deal with Citadel):

Lowry Mays’ to-do list:

• Purchase 1,200 radio frequencies in nearly every US market. Check.
• Own a magazine to cover those 12-hundred stations. Check.
• Own software company that develops program that runs said stations. Check
• Own companies with giant outdoor signs, to promote the stations. Check.
• Own company that provides syndicated programs for those crazy stations. Check.
• Own ratings company to tell us how many people listen to the stations. Ch — Hey… Mark & Randall… I told you start one of ‘dem radio ratings companies!

That’s right… another assault on the likes of Arbitron and Nielsen… CCU put out a request for proposals to create a new electronic monitoring service (is that like the thing Martha has to wear?).

Gotta love the soundbite from Arbitron’s communications chief: “Let them try. We’ve got a five-year head start.”

…because arrogance is the way to stop Clear Channel (see above).

From the mailbag:

I thought I wuold mention something to you that has been bothering me: Mix 106 has been running spots about their shorter commercial breaks (all the other ClearChannel stations probably are as well but I haven’t heard it on any of them). But the weird thing is that they talk about how “we won’t mention it to you” even though that promo is mentioning it to us, and they run it ALL THE TIME. Kind of weird.

Late last month, we reported that Aaron Traylor had been picked to program Boise’s version of the Clear Channel Kiss brand: KSAS 103.3 Kiss-FM. What follows is an in-depth conversation with Traylor. Read on — you’ll learn about some program changes for the station — plus a former Boise morning show host finds a new home.
Read the rest of this entry »

Less than a year after podcasting caught the public imagination, the radio industry is beginning to wake up and smell the money.

That’s the lead to a Wired News article on Podcasting. Rush Limbaugh is charging $50/year for his Podcast — and Dr. Laura may be next. San Diego’s KFMB-FM (a Jack station… surprise) is charging users a paltry $5/month to download its morning show.

KLTI/MMLT/KELT in the SoCal area blew up its soft AC format for a Jack-like format targeted at women.

A couple notes about this site:

» You’ve probably noticed the new icons along the left side. If you click on one, you’ll get the corresponding station’s website. The “Archive” link for each brings up a list of stories for that station (back to August 2004). You’ll notice that – for now at least – a few stations are missing icons and website links – I think you can deduce why. I’ve got some other surprises in store as well. Is there something you’d like to see? E-mail me and I’ll think about it.

» I haven’t talked much about how much traffic this site grabs — you might be surprised. In May, 2,579 unique users logged on. That’s another record (growth is a little better than 10% per month. Those 2, 579 users looked at 26,579 pages (579 is the magic number apparently) — about 10 pages per user. So even though about 10 people regularly post comments — there’s a bundle more reading them. And we’re on track to beat the record again this month, even without our friends on Bannock Street.

» Any time I use the word “Podcast” in a post, weird things happen. Podcast.

» I’m working to include a little more in-depth reporting – like the stories on KTPZ and Boise Community Radio Project. If you have something you’d like me to check in to, drop me a line.

Check this out. It’s called the “CC Radio Plus”

But it’s not what you think. Strange.