Go Country 105.1 FM owner Saul Levine announced this week that Bruce Scott will start hosting the morning show on March 17th. If that name sounds familiar, it is because Scott hosted afternoons on KOST (103.5 FM) from 2012 to 2015.
Mornings have been underperforming on Go Country for a while, according to Nielsen ratings results, so Levine hopes the move will bring more listeners to the morning shift, and keep them there all day. “We’re back in the saddle again,” he told me.
An oldies station no more
Deep down, everyone knew it wasn’t going to last, but the AM diehards like me were hoping against hope.
Alas, the oldies on XEPRS (1090 AM) have gone away.
The man behind the format — Marc Paskin, owner of Marco Broadcasting — announced that his leasing agreement with the station ended on February 27, just three months after the launch. In its place, he told InsideRadio.Com, will be the same format airing on an FM station, that he says he is in the process of purchasing. Paskin gave no indication as to which station he’s buying, but said it “was worth about $100 million. Now it’s worth $4 million.” So now is a great time to buy.
If all goes according to plan, the format will return June 1st, though some observers question if it will return at all, pointing out that there are no stations known to be for sale or in the process of being transferred. I tried contacting Paskin directly for comment, but was unable to reach him by press time.
The format on XEPRS was fun but not perfect. The programs were interesting — mostly repeats of old radio shows with Wolfman Jack, “The Real” Don Steels, and “Machine Gun” Kelly, but the audio was always a bit strange due to only one channel of a stereo feed being sent to the transmitter. Hopefully, if the format rises again, we can hear both channels of audio …
I’d still like to see music return to the AM band; so many stations are just wasting electricity with few listeners as so few AM station offer a reason to tune in. If AM stations experimented with formats unavailable on FM … such rare oldies, metal, progressive, or even true entertainment top-40 with high energy personalities, I think it could potentially bring back listeners long ago lost when AM stopped being relevant in Southern California.
It works in other cities.
WION still winning
One of those stations playing music on AM is WION/Ionia, Michigan. This is a small-market station that plays a superb variety ranging from the 1970s through just shy of today. Over 6000 songs are in regular rotation.
What makes the station even more special is that it broadcasts in analog AM stereo, using the old Motorola C-Quam system from the 1980s. They send the signal over the air, receive it on a Carver TX-11b tuner, then encode that signal and stream it on the internet. Listening online, then, means you are hearing exactly how good AM radio can sound. And it can sound fabulous.
As of late, it seems to my ears that the music has been a bit more adventurous, including some alternative songs as you might hear on our own KROQ (106.7 FM) or Alt 98.7.
“Just coincidence,” says station owner Jim Carlyle. “We have added to the library from listener requests that we get on our ‘Mostly Request Thursdays’ from 9 to noon EST, but more likely it is just the occasional ‘shuffle’ that we do of the library tunes in the music scheduler.”
Hear it via apps or online at i1430.com.
Bongino Replacement
With Dan Bongino taking a position as deputy director for the FBI, the conservative talker is stepping down from hosting his syndicated program airing locally on KABC weekday mornings from 9 to noon.
Who will replace him? A few names have been bounced around, but one mentioned in a recent BarrettMedia.Com report is our own John Phillips, currently KABC’s early afternoon host. The mention came from an “unnamed Cumulus executive” … Cumulus being the owner of both program distributor Westwood One and KABC.
I personally think Phillips would be a good choice. He has a good rapport with listeners, a good sense of humor, and a way of looking at issues without just taking the side of conservatism “just because.” He also happens to be represented by the same agent as was Rush Limbaugh — Kraig Kitchin — and on many of the stations carrying Bongino, the time slot is the same as was held by Limbaugh’s show.
Other names mentioned were Vince Coglianese and Pete Mundo.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com