Seems like lots of stations go latino now. Does it really pay? Or is it just PC?
Rock 101 was THE major radio station in Houston for years. I am loss for words.
Yes, it pays. Legally or otherwise, the Latino demographic is growing.
It's part of catering to los illegales, the voting bloc that will be legalized in time to elect George P. Bush POTUS once he passes his 35th birthday.
Remember, you heard it here first.
of course it pays, otherwise clearchannel would not be doing it in San Jose...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/07/BAGVH9NIAI1.DTL&type=printable
The air talent was moved to their AM spectrum (1070AM?) and then through consolidation the parent corp found themselves with 3 "old folks radio" stations on AM. Now they are down to one (790AM KBME) and IT is changing format to sports radio in December.
Karts (not sure which letters spelled ARTS) 92.1FM was a commercial classical station. It was sold this year to become light grunge (early 90s light rock) but this may be a temporary format as I hear the parent corp. runs hip hop stations (2 in the city already).
I think that the objective here is to get "rich" people (read white people) to pay for radio every month. There wasn't much on the dial in Houston I listened to (outside of talk radio) and there is getting to be less.
1430AM KCOH is a 5 decade old locally owned black community radio station. I like some of the programming (talk in the morning, sometimes the music on Friday Night/Saturday afternoon, and early early morning/late late night, with some of the gospel on Sunday).
Forget about anything else though. KPFT does not serve the community; it serves the communists with a little music progamming added for charitible donations. KTRU is standard eclectic college radio; if you hear something good during the day, 9 times out of 10 you won't like the next song.
I doubt it is PC. I think it pays for a few of reasons. The listening audience may be tuning into satellite radio or listening to MP3s. Some listeners may even be moving to different formats like country, latino, hip-hop, top 40, or talk radio.
It pays. There are so few Spanish language stations as compared to English language stations, that the listener loyalty is in orbit somewhere, and the advertisers, knowing this, pay through the nose.
An Atlanta (Cheap Channel-owned) FM station floundered for years through a succession of formats, until it hit on a Spanish language format late this past summer. Now, as Viva 105.3, the station has jumped from obscurity to number 5 in the market -- in one ratings period.