Category: idaho radio news

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IdahoRadioNews: Movin’ to the country

With the spring book right around the corner, a flurry of changes in recent weeks on the airwaves — especially those waves that carry a country twang.

Cumulus personell moves

KQFC/97.9 Nash FM has swapped out its local morning show with a syndicated product. Long-running host Cory Mikhals gave way to Blair Garner and America’s Morning Show. The show is part of the Nash brand launched by KQFC owner Cumulus last year, and will be heard on a wide variety of stations across the, er– country.

At sister station KIZN/Kissin’ 92.3, 15-year veteran morning team Mee in the Morning is out. The married pair (somewhat better known as Kevin & Brenda) segued out of the station earlier this month. The reason behind the parting of ways is unknown – but sources say contract negotiations had been going on for a while. Nielsen (Arbitron) ratings for the Mees, and KIZN in general, have flagged in recent years.

cory-mikhalsThe Mee-team will be replaced this week by — wait for it — Cory Mikhals. Mikhals will switch studios in the Cumulus building effective Tuesday.

Here’s the announcement of the Nash & Kissin’ changes.

Bull moseys back into town

tNCrhmSjFriday, another development for country listeners: Boise got another Western-themed station. KQBL/100.7 The Bull replaced KPDA/100.7 La Poderosa at 5 p.m., replacing the regional Mexican format used by the Impact-owned station in recent years.

The change on 100.7 happened at the same time Impact officially sold off 99.1 FM to Lee Family Broadcasting of Twin Falls. 99.1 now leaves the Boise market (more on that in a moment).

With the chess moves, Impact now operates four English-language music formats and a sports radio frequency: KSRV/96.1 Bob FM, KWYD/Wild 101, KQBL/100.7 The Bull, KZMG/My 102.7 and KNFL/96.5 ESPN Boise. Those moves double the number of music stations in Impact’s… bull-pen.

So why all the fancy footwork? Ultimately, Impact trades away a rough signal that broadcast out of Mountain Home for a strong signal on top of Bogus Basin.

Not mentioned in all this country fun: KAWO/Wow Country 104.3. The Townsquare Media-owned country station is the market leader in the segment, and hasn’t made any recent shifts.

Here’s the launch of The Bull:

My 102.7 still spot-less

myKZMG/My 102.7 is still without commercials — but that may not last long. Impact could not own the station until it closed on the sale of  99.1 FM due to FCC rules. Now that’s happened, expect commercial messages soon.

The station is introducing a variety of interactive features. Some are routine, while others are novel to the Boise market. Listeners are invited to dial up my1027fm.com and vote songs up and down. They can also get a text or email alert when their favorite jam is about to play. During work-hours, the station will allow listeners to pick the first song played at the top of the hour from its website (from a pre-selected list).

99.1 to the dogs

Last year, Lee Family Broadcasting announced it would format 99.1 as “La Perrona” – a Regional Mexican station. When Lee Family got its hooks into the station, it launched… 99.1 The Dog.  Imaging takes swipes at cross-town country station Kat Kountry. It isn’t really clear to me the long term story here. You can hear the launch of 99.1 The Dog below:

(Update: 99.1 has now transitioned to the La Perrona format)

Don Day is the Digital Sales & Product Manager for KTVB, and wrote and edited IdahoRadioNews.com for more than six years.

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IdahoRadioNews: Kiss tops Fall radio ratings

The new year means a new set of radio ratings – this time for the fall of 2013 ‘book’ that ran from mid-September through early-December.

1013275_678280445523079_1618957351_nThe big winner: KSAS/103.5 Kiss FM. In fact, the station is one of the biggest winners in a single book I’ve seen in my 15 years watching the Boise radio market. Among listeners 12 years and older, Kiss notched a 9.6 rating – 30% higher than the number two station.

Kiss made a splash as it changed dial positions from 103.3 to 103.5 FM right in the middle of the rating period. Billboards and digital ads helped support the switch. Even when you filter out teens and young adults, KSAS is on top in the 25-54 demo, tied with sister station KCIX/Mix 106.

Comparing the numbers to last fall, KBOI-AM saw a large drop – losing more than 25% of its ratings. This comes as a surprise as KBOI generally has a strong fall rating book buoyed by Boise State football.

KRVB/94.9 The River, which we profiled here earlier this year did a major image makeover – and saw ratings go up, though the rise was only 7%. The River was up slightly in the 25-54 as well.

KSRV/96.1 Bob FM saw large decreases from fall 2012 as well, falling from a 5.1 to a 2.9 12+. In the 25-54 demo the decease for Bob was even more pronounced, falling from first place to 10th, losing half its audience.

KKOO/99.5 Kool Oldies saw a surprising rise from nowhere, to land a 3.3 12+ rating. But when you look at folks younger than 54 years old, the station has a very small 0.3 number. The shortcut: There are a large number of folks well outside the advertiser demo listening to this station.

The group with the big bragging rights is Townsquare Media (formerly Peak Broadcasting). Its stations – Kiss, Wow, Mix and Lite make up four out of the top five stations in both 12+ and 25-54 ratings. No group really comes close, though Cumulus Media comes in a distant second.

(A note: Nielsen purchased Arbitron last year, and now conducts the radio ratings in the market with the same methods used previously. The Nielsen radio ratings period is conducted separately from the Nielsen television ratings period).

The full rundown, 12+:
KSAS/103.5 Kiss FM – Townsquare – 9.6
KAWO/Wow Country 104.3 – Townsquare – 7.1
KCIX/Mix 106 – Townsquare – 6.7
KBOI/670 AM – Cumulus – 5.9
KXLT/107.9 Lite FM – Townsquare – 4.6
KQFC/97.9 Nash FM – Cumlus – 4.2
KIZN/Kissin 92.3 – Cumulus – 4.2
KQXR/100.3 The X Rocks – Journal – 4.0
KTHI/107.1 K-Hits – Journal – 3.8
KWYD/Wild 101 – Impact – 3.4
KRVB/94.9 The River – Journal – 3.3
KKOO/ Kool Oldies 99.5 – Treasure Valley – 3.3
KSRV/96.1 Bob FM – Impact – 2.9
KKGL/96.9 The Eagle – Cumulus – 2.7
KJOT/Variety Rock 105.1 – Journal – 2.7
KIDO/NewsRadio 580 – Townsquare – 2.1
KTIK/93.1 The Ticket – Cumulus – 1.5
KNFL/96.5 ESPN Boise – Impact – 1.0

Top 12 25-54:
Kiss FM – 8.7
Mix 106 – 8.7
Wow Country – 7.6
The X – 5.1
Lite FM – 4.7
Kissin 92.3 – 4.4
KQFC – 4.0
The Eagle – 4.0
Bob FM – 3.6
KBOI – 3.3
Wild 101 – 3.3
Variety Rock 105.1 – 3.3

Disclosure: Don Day is the digital sales & product manager for KTVB. Ad campaigns for several local stations ran on the products he oversees during the ratings period. He wrote the IdahoRadioNews.com blog for more than six years.

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IdahoRadioNews: My my, changes are afoot

A number of changes are rolling across the radio dials of Boise and Twin Falls. Stations are changing hands, flipping formats, and getting new competitors.

On October 31st, KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM moved up the dial to 103.5 FM. This was the first, and for the Boise market at least, most visible part of a plan that’s been in the works since 2006.

myShortly after KSAS moved, a brand new station joined the radio dial at 102.7 FM. The station moved in from Elko, NV – getting a prized transmitter on Deer Point with full coverage of the Boise market. It took on the call letters KZMG (the long-time heritage call letters of Magic 93.1, which date back to April of 1990; the new station has no direct relation to Magic).

KZMG signed on playing non-stop music under the name My 102.7 FM — taking aim at KCIX/Mix 106 and to some degree KXLT/107.9 Lite FM.  News came late last week that FM Idaho/Impact Radio would purchase the station from its current owner, giving Impact a new, full-market signal. The station should complement sister KWYD/Wild 101 with female demographics and sales efforts, in much the same way Town Square Media’s (formerly Peak Broadcasting) Kiss FM & Mix 106 do.

With recent shifts at KRVB/94.9 The River, the number of stations playing some version of pop or adult contemporary hits stands at six – KWYD/Wild 101, KSAS/103.5 Kiss FM, KCIX/Mix 106, KZMG/My 102.7, KRVB/94.9 The River and KXLT/107.9 Lite FM. You can visualize the way the stations lay out with this handy little chart:

layout

La PerronaThe next piece of the puzzle is the purchase of KINF-FM from Impact Radio by Lee Family Broadcasting of Twin Falls. KINF currently serves both the Boise and Twin Falls markets, but soon will shift entirely toward the Magic Valley. Lee Family announced it would buy KINF and flip the format from talk to  Regional Mexican under the name La Perrona 99.1 FM with call letters KPNA.

It’s my understanding a few more things will change up affecting some stations not listed here in coming weeks. We’ll provide an update on that soon.

Update: If it wasn’t clear which station Impact was targeting, this Facebook post makes it so:

Screen Shot 2013-12-16 at 2.09.28 PM

Don Day is the Digital Sales & Product Manager for KTVB, and wrote and edited IdahoRadioNews.com for more than six years.

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IdahoRadioNews: Changes on the Boise radio dial

The changes in the Boise market never stop.  KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM transitioned to 103.5 FM on Thursday. The move was smartly marketed as an “upgrade” and is part of a number of station moves around the state.

Screen Shot 2013-11-01 at 11.09.20 PMA new station, KPHD/102.7 FM will soon light up in the market. It is currently broadcasting in the Elko, NV area, but once it begins to air in Boise it will have full market coverage (map at right). It is presently owned by Kevin Terry, who also owns a group of stations in Montana. It is unclear if Terry will operate the station. I’ve heard unconfirmed reports an existing local group will run the station.

KZNO/102.9 The Zone in Twin Falls is also moving – to 103.1 FM. KSKI Sun Valley will move from 103.7 to 94.5. Those three moves make up enough space on the FM band for the new signal at 102.7 (essentially moving all three around to open up the slot).

When first proposed this was even more complicated and impacted another half a dozen or so additional stations. To give you an idea of how long this process took, I first wrote about it in 2006 – more than seven years ago.

1013275_678280445523079_1618957351_nAs for Kiss – the station put a big push into the move. The transition itself had a few neat hooks for radio geeks. Music director Chris “Lucky tha DJ” Stewart played “Ooops… I Did It Again” by Britney Spears as the penultimate song on 103.3 FM. This was the very first song played when Kiss took over for a rock format in 2000.

They then played a song related to the station’s long-standing child abuse prevention awareness campaign. After an extensive bit of imaging, the station segued to 103.5 FM — and played… Baby Got Back by Sir Mixalot.

Then, since it was Halloween, Stewart played Thriller by Michael Jackson.  Thriller is a favorite of Darrell Calton at rival Impact Radio – who often plays the song on loop when launching new stations in the market. Hoss Grigg, the first program director for Kiss FM told me the station actually played Thriller during its transition from rock to pop as well. Neat symmetry.

You can hear an iPhone recording of the flip here:

(Don is the Internet Sales/Product Manager for KTVB, and the former editor of IdahoRadioNews.com).

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IdahoRadioNews: Peak Boise sold

pctIt’s a year of big changes across the Boise media landscape. In the wake of KBOI-TV’s sale to Sinclair and KTVB’s pending sale to Gannett, Peak Broadcasting announced Friday it  entered into an agreement to sell its stations to Townsquare Media. In addition, Townsquare is going to purchase a raft of stations from Cumulus Media — but not the ones in Boise.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Boise’s Peak stations (KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM, KFXD/Sports 63, KCIX/Mix 106, KXLT/107.9 Lite FM, KIDO/580 AM, KAWO/Wow Country 104.3) will now be owned by Townsquare Media
  • Boise’s Cumlus stations will remain owned by Cumulus
  • Fresno’s Peak stations will be purchased by Townsquare, but immediately traded to Cumulus
  • Townsquare will buy a number of other stations from Cumulus

In all, Townsquare will add 71 net stations across the country.  Oak Tree Capital owns debt in both Townsquare & Peak — and may have been the “man behind the curtain” on this deal to some degree. Townsquare will be focused on small & medium markets (hence the spin out of Fresno to Cumulus) and Cumulus appears to be shifting to larger markets (all the stations it trades to Townsquare are in markets on the smaller end of the spectrum).

I’m getting an upbeat and hopeful tone from folks in the Peak Boise building. Four of Peak’s stations  were in the first four places in the spring Arbitron book in the A25-54 demo..

The deal will reunite the Boise Peak stations with their former sister stations in Twin Falls which are owned by Townsquare (KLIX, KEZJ, KSNQ). Both groups were once owned by Clear Channel.

Disclosures: I work for KTVB and wrote about radio news for six years on IdahoRadioNews.com