Holiday bump is showing & the future of 103.1

[CAwasinNJ]

This is for the December ratings period which ran November 7 - December 4.

FM100 showed a noticeable uptick, though the public data doesn't show how much of that was when. They were Christmas almost the entire rating period.

The Bull is on a downward slide again. They've been up and down significantly all year, so I'm really not sure what's going on there. The other country stations are pretty steady. Maybe it depends on what the current hot country songs are?


And now the broken record on AM/FM simulcasts. KLO AM/FM is going absolutely nowhere. Even with the FM simulcast the ratings are virtually the same as before. This experiment is a failure, and KLO isn't alone there. KFBK in Sacramento just downgraded their FM simulcast from a full market class B to a rimshot B1 that doesn't even cover half the metro with a city grade signal. KLO-FM already being a rimshot here isn't helping, but I don't see that as being a major factor. The Eagle has identical facilities and is getting 4 times the ratings that the combined KLO AM/FM is getting.

It's time to put KLO-FM out of its misery. Capitol needs to flip the station and it needs to flip it now. Multiple new FM's are coming on the air........sometime, and they're going to need a format. Waiting is only going to put whatever ends up on 103.1 at a disadvantage. It almost doesn't even matter what the format is. It would be hard to be worse than the way things are now. Personally I'd suggest a 50's 60's based Classic Oldies format. Nothing past the mid 70's at the latest. (And if they don't do it, somebody else who needs a format should.) An all live & local classic country format could work. That has before. If they want to do it on the cheap, they could simulcast Classic Country 1370 and see how that works.

There are a lot of possibilities. The status quo isn't one of them.

[David]

The Jack FM format probably never should have been dumped from 103.1--at least the station showed up in the ratings on a regular basis when 103.1 was airing Jack FM. However, 100.7 has a very similar type of format now, so "real oldies" (similar to KDYL's format before the station was leased to CRI) would be a good choice, as would classic country or adult standards. Those are three formats that are more or less open in the Salt Lake/Ogden/Provo market.

KLO's problem is not that the station was only on AM until recently; as you've pointed out, the FM simulcast has proved that. IMHO, KLO's problem is their programming, much the same as it is with KKAT-AM 860. Since those stations switched to talk formats I don't think they've showed up in the ratings more than two or three times. Back in the Len Allen days when KLO played adult standards and KKAT-AM was airing either True Oldies or classic country, both stations showed up in the ratings at least a couple of times a year. Second rate talk formats just don't seem to have much of an audience in the Salt Lake market--a news/talk station has to be like KSL or KNRS to succeed in the ratings.

An alternative to classic country or real oldies on 103.1 would be to bring back the smooth jazz format of the Breeze prior to their format flip. That would doubtless attract more listeners than the KLO-AM simulcast.

[CAwasinNJ]

Good point about the "smooth jazz" (even though I hate the name <g>). Even on a rimshot and with the rather poor ratings The Breeze got it would probably be an improvement over the current situation. Maybe a combination smooth jazz/lite AC combo could keep things a little more interesting. Most smooth jazz sounds pretty much the same and I think that's a TSL problem. throw in some appropriate lite AC (think KOSY a long time ago) like Manilow, Streisand, Neil Diamond and so on and that could make an interesting format.