We get email …

“Here’s a radio station that’s low powered and plays the music I like that other stations gave up a long time ago. I just heard The Beatles ‘This Boy’ followed by Bowie’s ‘Rebel, Rebel’ and now ‘Our Day Will Come’ by Ruby and the Romantics. Now how cool is that?!!?

“You’ll also find some familiar DJs like Rick Dees in the afternoons weekdays, The Real Don Steele doing his 60s shows Saturday afternoons, and my favorite DJ, Von Hot Rod Wednesdays at noon. That guy rocks!!!

This is an Inland Empire gem so you can’t get on your radio out there in L.A. Check it out on the web! Take care” — Jaime

Jaime is referring to KQLH (92.5 FM), a low-powered FM station serving the community of Yucaipa. Available for online listening via various apps and at KQLHradio.org, the station airs an eclectic mix of music from, as they say on the website “the ‘40s,’50s, ’60s, ‘70s and beyond.” This includes big bands and “rock not heard otherwise.”

There is also public affairs programing as well as local community information and announcements of events of interest to residents. Catholic Mass? They have that too, Sunday mornings at 8, followed later by MG Kelly’s Back to the ‘70s at noon.

Perhaps my memory is failing me, but wasn’t there a KQLH playing hot adult contemporary music from the IE on a full-power signal back in the 1990s?

“Where is KABC (790 AM) ranked? I listen to it every day, and the station always seems to have plenty of callers. My favorite program is the John Phillips show with Randy Wang. Why doesn’t the station show up in the ratings?.

“Love your column, read it each time it is in the paper. Thank you”  — Steve Keller, Mission Viejo

KABC no longer subscribes to Nielsen, and haven’t for a while, so they won’t show in the ratings reports. Same goes for KSPN (710 AM) and — for a month last holiday season, as Meruelo Media negotiated their agreement with the ratings company — Power 106 (KPWR, 105.9 FM) and KDAY (93.5 FM) and Cali 93.9 (KLLI).

In the past — at least in the days of hand-written diaries, where those chosen to help calculate the ratings would literally write down their daily listening — Arbitron (which was bought by Nielsen) would still include the numbers in the calculations, and the earned ratings would be reflected (as missing) in the totals.

For example, if a station did not subscribe back then but earned a 5 share, the total of those that were listed would only add up to 95%. Today, with the measurements being made electronically by a meter, a non-subscribing station would just be ignored because it would not be sending out the special signal that the meters decode.

To this day, no one at Meruelo knows how their stations did in the Holiday 2023 book because they lapsed while negotiating.

Also interesting, because some say the signal is degraded by the encoding used by the ratings meters, non-subscribing stations could theoretically sound better than subscribing stations. I’m not sure I could tell, but those with better ears say the encoding is very noticeable. Regardless, if I had to pick a number, I’d out KABC at about a 0.8 share.

Random Thoughts from a Cluttered Mind

• Did you notice in last week’s ratings roundup that Go Country did better over the holiday season by playing country as normal with an occasional holiday tune, rather than going all-Christmas? On the other hand, I did enjoy the holiday tunes on the K-Mozart app as well as 105.1 HD2. We’ll have to see what happens next year…

• Will apps take over the AM band? With transmitter site property values often outpacing station values, transmitter sites are vulnerable, especially for lower-rated stations. And this doesn’t even take into account the electricity required to run a transmitter’s full power of up to 50,000 watts. Can apps make the difference? Doesn’t seem likely in the short-term, but there are many who believe it is radio’s future. You certainly can’t complain about the sound quality, often much better than a typical radio. 

• In addition to his recently-acquired afternoon duties on KLOS, Nik Carter is taking over for longtime “Off the Record” host Joe Benson, who stepped down last month. The program airs on KLOS Sundays at 9 p.m. and is available on many stations throughout the country.

It’s an information/interview show, going in depth behind the scenes to tell the stories about creative artists and their music. I believe it is the longest-running radio program of its type.

Started by Mary Turner back in the mid 1970s; Benson has hosted, if memory serves correctly, since the early-mid 1990s. The question that remains unanswered, because the memories of those involved are hazy, is: was there a another host, possibly between Turner and Benson?

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