KJFK Reno To Drop Liberal Talk

[alp227]

Source: Radio Insight

Another Progressive Talker has reached the end of its lifecycle.

Americom’s 1230 KJFK Reno will cease broadcasting the format on Monday, March 18. In a letter to its listeners, the station states that the format has been operating at a loss but they wished to keep the station on through the past Presidential election.

No word on what format will replace the current Talk format, but the station has applied to take the KSGG calls from sister “Swag 97.3” which is in the process of moving to a translator on 104.9 to allow 97.3 to debut a new format.

Read more: http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/81225/kjfk-reno-to-drop-liberal-talk/

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KJFK sister station KBZZ 1270 switched from right wing talk to sports last month. Maybe this station is going to be either sports or right wing talk, especially since it may have an FM simulcast. KJFK explained: "...this station was never able to generate the revenue necessary to sustain, and we simply cannot absorb the financial loss any longer."

I've streamed Mike Malloy and Ring of Fire for nearly a year with KJFK. Now another market has no alternative to Rush Limbaugh. First it was Portland (KPOJ), Seattle (KPTK), Detroit (WDTW), now Reno, which has two right wing talk stations (KKOH and KNEZ). Heck I can even pick up News/Talk 780 KOH out here in the Bay Area at night and sometimes even KJFK despite KJFK's signal being less than 1 kW.

Peter B. Collins had this excellent article at Truthout, " An Insider's View of the Progressive Talk Radio Devolution " that breaks down why progressive talk never really hit the ground running:

In its initial business model, Air America made two major blunders: bundling and brokering. Embracing antiquated practices from the 1950s, they tried to force affiliate stations to carry all of their programs; when most station owners rejected this "bundling," they were forced to lease time on stations, which was costly and disastrous. Within weeks of launching, Air America was dumped from the fringe stations they had leased in Chicago and LA, reportedly due to bounced checks. In politically driven Ponzi style, checkbook Democrats bailed them out, and they were able to lease some big (and many weak) signals from Clear Channel in Boston, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, LA, Miami, Detroit and other markets. In San Francisco, insiders told me that Clear Channel was collecting $100,000 a month for running Air America 24/7 on a 5,000-watt station that did not cover the whole market. Along the way, Air America burned major liberal funders from George Soros to the millionaire club called the Democracy Alliance.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Crap, damn. nt.

[colsohlibgal]

2. This Is Becoming Worrisome

About every third day now it seems another station dumps liberal talk. Meanwhile, during the day when I'm in my car I can scroll through my radio AM dial and find Limbaugh all over it - one of the reasons so many folks minus a pot to pee in living in one horse towns vote republican. This insures that they will remain in poverty while billionaires get tax breaks.

[Grassy Knoll]

3. Thats not cool...

KJFK Reno is where they broadcast Stephanie Miller, Ed Shultz, Bill Press, Randi Rhodes. Fuck KKOH, Limbaugh,Hannity, and right wing hate radio, Liberal Media My Fuckin Ass.

[PFunk]

4. And this is how broadcast radio dies...

...or at least becomes a minor player. As more folks switch to podding and streaming because of this (specially since doing so on cellphones is becoming more common). And many folks like me have ditched their normal radios and went totally internet. Radio's gonna become less of a profit model for advertisers in the future.

[marble falls]

5. It dies because the left doesn't support it.

[LovingA2andMI]

6. Meanwhile at Blog Talk Radio

As a podcaster for over three years at BTR doing Independent-Left type internet radio, I was just hired as a Official Trainer for BTR's new hosts as podcasting is growing like WILDFIRE. Moral of this story...stop listening to traditional radio, hook up your smartphone to the audio plug in your car and get into streaming radio.

The platform is LOW COST and allows for Progressive/Independent-Left programming like mines to grow and thrive. We have over 25K podcast listeners per month and continue to increase listener-ship every month and have YET to deal with Corporate "Clear Channel" like radio. Also the BEST THING about podcasting....its' NOT FCC regulated.

One more thing....don't be fooled....conservative talk radio is dying too. It will take about another 3 to 4 years but Rush has lost so many sponsors, Clear Channel is dropping other hosts and radio stations like WILDFIRE AGAIN trying to keep paying his affiliate contract. No joke!

[diane in sf]

7. Great, heartening info, thank you!!!

[LeftyMom]

8. This. I listen to a freakin' ton of podcasts on widely varied topics

and most of them would simply be unavailable on the radio because they couldn't garner a sufficient audience to be profitable, considering the overhead.

I especially love history podcasts, and no radio station is going to run seventy plus hours of one guy telling the story of the Roman Empire from Romulus to Alaric.

[Berlum]

9. Broadcast radio is withering. BlogTalk Radio is catching the wave...

[penndragon69]

10. I only streamed them for a little while.

They play the same line up (as if any other line up exists) as all the other
Liberal stations do through tune in or progressive voices apps.

Still looking for a place where i can listen to MM in Indiana from midnight
to 3 AM while at work since pod casting just does not work out so well for me.

They will either go sports or christian now.

[LovingA2andMI]

11. Well, you can listen to BTR podcast via the internet (if available)

That are on archive --because I admit, not much goes on at BTR between 1-3AM ET in the morning but you have some podcast that lean progressive or independent-left that podcast until like 1:30 AM ET. The best thing about BTR and Archived files is you can listen at anytime and a majority of the podcast's are two hours. Here a list to check out and this one for just politics podcast's in general.

Good luck!

[MsLeopard]

12. Thank you for the info

Been a podcaster for years, and love your links. Thanks!

[alp227]

13. Try 92.1 the mic, Madison's Progressive Talk

Available via the I Heart Radio app! 921themic.com

[Left Coast2020]

14. I'm still keeping some bit of faith that we can reverse this trend

Call me thick headed, stubborn, or whatever. I'm not giving up on this. Yes, I read Peter B's article. I understand. I was in the business for 16 years. I was thrilled to hear Senator Sanders say something on this a few weeks ago. But nothing since.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but giving up is not in my DNA. How can who was damn near on the streets give up?

Sports teams who come from behind don't give up. Why should we?

I don't know who else to share this with. I'm not on Twit, or FB, so we're talkin grassroots, grassroots. On the bright side, a couple of documentary film producers are pushing for reform on the airwaves. See http://www.fmfilm.com

If you have not signed, we need you. Then tell your friends and ask if they can spread the word.


http://signon.org/sign/restore-the-airwaves

[dawn frenzy adams]

15. It's politics folks!

This is Clear Channel again playing politics. In 2006, when the Democrats took over congress, Air America was still on the air. All assumed that the Democrat's win, would assure an expansion of liberal talk radio. Instead Clear Channel responded by removing progressive stations from the air. They did it again when Obama won in 2008. They removed stations after Obama's 2012 victory too.

It has been proven that the ratings of right-wing radio are a complete fraud. A new system of ratings have revealed no one is actually listen to right-wing radio. Limbaugh's 20 million listeners is something he made up. The Right-wing has fake ratings, fake callers and a fake audience. The left has done little to demand that this farce is exposed.

Cenk Uyger did offer 10,000 dollars if anyone could prove Limbaugh's ratings are real. Here is video:

http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/videos/cenk-to-bain-capital-backed-rush-limbaugh-ill-give-you-10k-to-show-me-your-so-called-20-million-listeners

[alp227]

16. KJFK is owned by Americom Broadcasting not Clear Channel.

Still, other non Clear Channel/big corporate stations have dropped liberal talk, for example KYNS in San Luis Obispo dropped its liberal talk shows including Stephanie, Ed, and Thom in favor of the Washington Times' "America's Radio News Network". WCHL in Chapel Hill moved Thom Hartmann to overnights and replaced him with a generic local news show.