{"id":2916,"date":"2024-03-01T11:31:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T19:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/?page_id=2916"},"modified":"2024-03-01T11:31:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T19:31:35","slug":"2024-0301","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/2024-0301\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio Waves: March 1, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why\u00a0does<\/em> Soros want Audacy?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

There\u2019s been a lot of conjecture regarding the financial problems with Audacy recently, due to George Soros buying up roughly $400 million worth of debt and possibly becoming, once the company emerges from bankruptcy, the company\u2019s largest shareholder.<\/p>\n

Audacy is the second-largest radio group behind iHeart, and owns 235 stations across the United States in roughly 48 markets. In Los Angeles, it owns KNX (1070 AM, 97.1 FM) KRTH (101.1 FM), KTWV (94.7 FM), KCBS-FM (93.1) and KROQ (106.7 FM).<\/p>\n

It brings up an interesting question \u2026 why would Soros be interested in Audacy? Does he believe the slump in radio advertising revenue is almost over, and that buying the debt will leads to huge payoffs? Or will he, as some fear, use the company\u2019s stations to further his social agenda?<\/p>\n

The answer is probably neither. Or both. Or something else\u2026 Inside Music Media\u2019s Jerry Del Colliano mentions that the Soros Group consists of idealogues \u201clooking to influence politics, policy and society in general.\u201d But he also mentions that for now and in the immediate future, it will actually be \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d for Audacy, as Soros would be unlikely to have influence over programming content unless he expands his position even further.<\/p>\n

Even then, I\u2019d say it\u2019s a wash. I would not be surprised if Soros does indeed have aspirations of influence in radio, but it\u2019s been tried before and failed. In the case of Audacy, they just don\u2019t have that many political talk stations to start with \u2014 none in Los Angeles \u2014 and future talk stations will have a tough time attracting an audience. Remember, outside of a few hosts, political talk has never been the ratings winner everyone thought it would be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My hunch? If the reason is for investment or influence, it will fail. It it is for a tax write-off, it will be a huge success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Slogans<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When does a slogan become dated?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alt 98.7 launched in September of 2007. Their top-rated morning Woody Show has been on the air for over ten years. The afternoon Booker and Stryker show just celebrated its two year anniversary. Overall, the station has been beating KROQ (106.7 FM) in the ratings for years. How much longer can the station rightfully call itself \u201cLA\u2019s New Alternative?\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping in mind that Alt is among my favorite stations, I think that in addition to buying an AM station to play top-40 (is KHJ available yet?), I\u2019ll buy a second station and call it \u201cLA\u2019s newer<\/i> alternative.\u201d Just because.<\/p>\n

Moving Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After many years entertaining us on The Sound KSWD (now KKLQ, 100.3 FM) and for the past six years on The SoCal Sound (KCSN, 88.5 FM), Andy Chanley is moving East to Chicago and the airwaves of WXRT. Billed as \u201cChicago\u2019s Finest Rock\u201d and \u201cChicago\u2019s home for music lovers,\u201d WXRT plays a format similar to, though distinct from the SoCal Sound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Men at Work, The Black Keys, Pete Yorn, Queen, and Depeche Mode were played while I wrote this segment; the station lists Green Day, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam and U2 among \u201cyour favorite artists.\u201d In other words, oldies with a few new songs thrown in to pretend they play new music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did note that during another hour they at least played a few newer artists, including Tame Impala and Cage the Elephant, and Cracker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to try it for yourself, you can stream WXRT on the Audacy app and online at audacy.com\/wxrt, which directs you to \u2026 the Audacy app, unfortunately. The terribleness of the iHeart app is beaten only by the Audacy app \u2014 perhaps the most annoying app I have ever used.<\/p>\n

Mighty Thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Last week\u2019s discussion on The Mighty 690 brought out some interesting emails including one that had an aircheck attached. It all made me realize a couple things:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The station was very simple. Music, personalities, jingles, contests. not even big-budget.\u00a0 <\/span>And yet it was fun, and sounded \u2014 like so many popular top-40 stations of the past \u2014 bigger than life. It proves that a good station can be done on a budget, as long as you have the right personalities.<\/p>\n

\u2022 AM did then and can still compete successfully playing music. If you play what others do not, present it in an exciting way, and make sure people want to hear it, they will tune in. In fact, ratings held for the Mighty 690 until they dropped top-40 and went to oldies \u2026 similar to so many other stations that lost ratings in an attempt to find something better. In almost every case, ratings dropped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why\u00a0does Soros want Audacy? There\u2019s been a lot of conjecture regarding the financial problems with Audacy recently, due to George Soros buying up roughly $400 million worth of debt and possibly becoming, once the company emerges from bankruptcy, the company\u2019s largest shareholder. Audacy is the second-largest radio group behind iHeart, and owns 235 stations across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2916","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2917,"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2916\/revisions\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socalradiowaves.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}