What would you do with.... 94.9 KENZ (Power 94.9)

[CAwasinNJ]

This is the fourth in the WWYDW series. The idea is to imagine you're given ownership and complete control of 94.9. You have the resources (money, personnel, etc.) to do whatever you want with the signal without having to worry about higher ups on the corporate ladder, what clustermate stations are doing, etc. You can leave it as is, completely change it, or anything in between, but the ideas should be at least plausible/possible. What do you do?

For this one I'm not concerned as much with the format as I am with the duplication. Duplicating 94.9 and 101.9 is just too much of a waste for me. I know that 94.9 will get better reception in Utah County and down into central Utah than any of the Farnsworth stations, but there's too much of an opportunity cost. On the other side, 94.9 alone has a disadvantage in Salt Lake County and a bigger disadvantage further north. My solution jumps a little ahead of myself and pairs 94.9 with 95.5 KYFO-FM, similar to what KOSY did with 106.5 and 107.9/106.9 when 106.5 was on Lake Mountain. That does still leave the combined station disadvantaged in Salt Lake, so I would want the format to be something that a listener would be willing to put up with that to hear. I'm thinking that would be a standards/nostalgia format (Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Glenn Miller, etc.) that would not succumb to the pressure to add more modern music to lower the demos. It probably wouldn't be all that profitable, but maybe it would give my company a touch of class.

[oldiesfunhouse]

I had always thought 94.9 would be a good outlet for CBS Sports Radio in this market. It's always bothered me that Jim Rome doesn't have an affiliate here. But it bothers me much more that we don't have a nostalgia/standards format so ... yeah. Memories 95, 949 the Touch, Timeless 94.9 and 95.5. Or, how about we move the Wave to 94.9 and 95.5 and put the standards on 103.1. We could try and get the KJQN call letters for 95.5 and go back to the KJQ branding. They were on 95.5 back in the day I recall. then KLO could go back to how 1430 was right before it became KMES. Unforgettable 103.1 KLO. And the Weber State games could stay on 103.1 but the Wave listeners wouldn't have to go withouth during those games.

[Terry]

FWIW: 95.5 is non-commercial and when it was last sold the contract required it never be be resold as commercial.

[CAwasinNJ]

oldiesfunhouse, is the reason you'd want The Wave on 94.9/95.5 because KJQ was on 95.5 decades ago? You could of course, I'm just wondering if moving the station might lose listeners. There's always some risk when a station moves.

As far as Jim Rome, he's been on at least 3 different Salt Lake metro stations over the last 15 years. He never stuck, though the last time he was booted was when KLO became Unforgettable so that's different.

I know that 95.5 is currently licensed as a non-comm, but from an FCC perspective there shouldn't be a problem in relicensing it as commercial. What might be in a contract is another story. I'd like to take a look at that contract to see what the wording actually says. Is there someplace I could see it?

[CAwasinNJ]

P.S. The KJQN calls are available so no problem there.

[oldiesfunhouse]

I know Jim Rome was popular in the mid 90s when KFAN (KFNZ) started carrying him. It was a 4 hour show then. KFAN only carried the first three hours. In fact I remember KJZZ TV was interviewing, I want to say, Greg Ostertag from the Jazz and someone from KFAN  was there and someone in the audience hollered, "Give us the 4th hour of Rome." Greg immediately responded that they shouldn't carry any of that guy's show. Greg probably didn't appreciate that Jim refered to him as "Oster-fat." It wasn't too long later that KFAN asked people to call into a hotline and vote ... "Jim Rome for 4 hours, or Jim Rome for none." You had till a certain day to vote. On that day, they said the response was overwhelming to have Jim Rome for 4 hours so they did. At that time, Jim's show was syndicated by Premier Networks whose parent company was Jacor/Clear Channel which, of course, is now known as iHeart. Jim Rome was moved to KALL 910 which, at that time, was owned by Clear Channel. They actually said on KFAN to remember that it was them who dared to bring him to Salt Lake in the first place and the reason he was moving to KALL is because the same company that owned Premier owned KALL. At one point, KALL decided to tape delay Rome and carry his show from 2 to 5. I called KALL's program director and asked him why. He told me that they wanted their stronger program to air in a better part of the day. He told me that TV news shows and stuff were tape delayed so wny not a radio show? I told him that TV news shows were not interactive and that shows like Rome's were. I think the tape delay only lasted a few weeks. The first day they started carrying him live again, KALL's voice guy, who incidentally is still 700's voice guy said, "After thousands of emails and tons of phone calls, THE CLONES HAVE SPOKEN!!! Jim Rome is back on live ..." (Clones, for those that don't know, are what Jim Rome calls his listeners. Like Rush's listeners were diddo heads.) KALL was still carrying Rome when they moved to 700. My memory is hazy after that. I know KFAN picked him up again at some point and Jim cut a liner that said something like, "It's great to be back home on 1320 KFAN." Jim Rome moved from Premier to CBS Sports Radio during all this. I know 1230 KJQS was running CBS Sportsw Radio including Rome ("Van Smack is back") on reduced power. KZNS FM 97.5 had him for a time too. As you mentioned, 1430 KLO was his last radio home here. I thought that was weird. All these conservative political talk show with an edgy sports talk host right in the middle with them. Perhaps his popularity has waned over the years, but I think him not sticking has more to do with the fact that our sports stations here are only affiliated with ESPN and Fox. I could be wrong, but if he wasn't huge here in the late 90s and early 2000s, it sure seemed like it to me. I'm out!

[buster]

Format is fine but…Put some local talent on, spice up the imaging, go big on promotions, hit the streets, build more of a presence on social, plaster I-15 with billboards (especially in Utah County).
Power did such a great job at disrupting the market in the beginning because they were so different, I don’t feel that same energy from them anymore.
Not that they don’t well, they’ve definitely held their own over the years.
However, I feel like they’re the one station in the Top40 space that could really dominate the market.

[CAwasinNJ]

I should clarify. When I was referring to Rome never sticking I was referring to the past 15 years. I don't remember what happened before that, so I will bow to your wisdom there.


As for a partial timeline...

KALL moved to 700 on May 1 2003. (Didn't realize it's been almost 20 years.)

Rome moved to KFNZ (K-Fan) August 31 2009.

Somewhere after that he moved to KZNS The Zone. He left The Zone in October 2012.

CBS Sports Radio debuted Jan 2 2013 on KFNZ and that included Rome's show.

When KFNZ went off the air, Rome went to KLO around March 2017.

In 2018 he was on both KLO and 1230 which was KRRF at that point. KLO started preempting the show in the middle of the year and flipped completely by the end of the year. KRRF's sale also happened late in the year.


I'm looking at the schedule for CBS Sports Radio and the only big name I see there is Rome's. I think Rome would be a good name to have somewhere in the market, but is there enough coming from CBSSR to justify building a station around it?

[David]

KZNS and KALL have had plenty of time to pick up Rome's show since it was dropped by KLO, and both have declined to do so. I just don't think his show is as popular as it was 20 or even 10 years ago, or some station would have added "The Jungle" to their schedule by now. Then again, maybe the sports radio listeners in Utah prefer the live and local hosts on KZNS and KALL to syndicated shows like Rome.