All Jack Eyes on Fresno

[jon]

KMJ AM Radio Goes FM Too!
CBS

The music format on 105.9 JACK FM in Fresno was switched over at 5:00 AM Thursday morning to a talk format similar to KMJ 580 AM.

The station that played a little bit of everything has been flipped to a talk radio format and it has a familiar name.

For years, KMJ AM 580 has been the market leader and now KMJ is expanding to the FM dial with the FM KMJ at 105.9.

Todd Lawley, President and CEO of Peak Broadcasting said; “The 29% growth of KMJ listenership over the past year underscores the appetite for live, local, and committed news, sports, and talk programming throughout Fresno and the Central Valley.”

The FM KMJ will share some of the KMJ AM programming and will add a few national shows like Glenn Beck, Dave Ramsey and Michael Savage, as well as a new local sports show called No Static Sports with Alexan Balekian.

On the weekends, KMJ FM will play oldies from the 60’s and 70’s.

[Howaboutthat]

That's an interesting idea. Talk during the week and music on the weekends instead of infomercials. I hope it works for them. ANYONE IN CANADA PAYING ATTENTION!!!!

[cart_machine]

That's an interesting idea. Talk during the week and music on the weekends instead of infomercials. I hope it works for them. ANYONE IN CANADA PAYING ATTENTION!!!!

HAT, the station is American FM. Would the Canadian FM regs allow a station to do talk during the week and music on weekends?

I know that had been mulled over CKO at one point to try network music programming on weekends, but they were hemmed in by the CRTC and category percentages. I realise that was close to 30 years ago and things may have changed.

cArtie.

[Howaboutthat]

Well, they apparently allow the complete simulcast (save an hour or so) of a TV station on an AM radio frequency, so why not allow actual programming! But you're right cArtie, FM gets weird treatment from the regulator.

[jon]

As best I recall, the FM rule is a minimum 50% music without the CRTC doing special licensing. Even overnights and weekends only comes out to 45%. And that assumes no commercials or other talking during the overnight/weekend music periods.

CKO had a specialty license that disallowed music likely to appease competitive station interventions ("What's to stop them from competing with us Day Two by dropping All News and going to a music format?").

Without straying too far off topic, CKO on FM made absolutely no sense to me at the time. No coverage outside metro areas. I'm assuming that there were no AM frequencies available at the time. Or was there another reason?

[cart_machine]

As best I recall, the FM rule is a minimum 50% music without the CRTC doing special licensing. Even overnights and weekends only comes out to 45%. And that assumes no commercials or other talking during the overnight/weekend music periods.

Aren't FM hit/non-hit ratios different on FM, too?

I guess my point is regulations are so different here than in the U.S. that what the Fresno stations are doing would be impossible here without a lot of lobbying.

CKO had a specialty license that disallowed music likely to appease competitive station interventions ("What's to stop them from competing with us Day Two by dropping All News and going to a music format?").

More or less. I thought I had a copy of the original proposal by Canada All-News Radio Ltd. to the CRTC but I don't. It's amazing. The thing that still sticks in my mind is the promise of "housewife reporters."

Without straying too far off topic, CKO on FM made absolutely no sense to me at the time. No coverage outside metro areas. I'm assuming that there were no AM frequencies available at the time. Or was there another reason?

Why would you want coverage outside your local area? That isn't your audience and you don't sell it. Frankly, I never did understand the "FM should be for music, AM should be for talk" attitude. If the programming is something that appeals to you, you'll listen to it wherever it is.

I'm sure David Ruskin or whoever explained why they wanted to go with FM in the proposal but I can't remember what the logic/spin was. And I wasn't there at the outset.

cArtie.

[jon]

Why would you want coverage outside your local area? That isn't your audience and you don't sell it.

Maybe it is just a Prairie thing, but CHED and CFCW make big bucks selling advertising to sponsors wanting the Rural audience across a large area that could never be served on FM without several dozen repeaters.

I had always thought that All News formats needed the largest possible audience, and coverage area, to do well. And wondered why the Rogers Edmonton FM All News proposal was never challenged by the CRTC for not serving anything but an Urban audience.

[Howaboutthat]

I had always thought that All News formats needed the largest possible audience, and coverage area, to do well. And wondered why the Rogers Edmonton FM All News proposal was never challenged by the CRTC for not serving anything but an Urban audience.

Jon, one of the biggest sellers of all news radio as far as I've heard, are the traffic reports every 10 minutes or so.... about outside of a, say 40 mile radius from the downtown core for the most part, they don't care who's listening.