{"id":463498,"date":"2026-09-14T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463498\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:46:08","slug":"will-the-trend-of-forming-regional-clusters-help-radio-press-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463498\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the trend of forming regional clusters help radio? \u2013 Press Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerry Del Colliano recently featured an interesting report on InsideMusicMedia.com<\/a>. It seems that there\u2019s a new type of consolidation in the radio industry, involving the formation of regional clusters due to financial problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cHighly leveraged national operators are shedding or rationalizing properties,\u201d he writes, referring to the large broadcast groups such as iHeart, Audacy and a handful of others, \u201cwhile smaller operators can acquire entire clusters for a few million dollars \u2014 or sometimes a few hundred thousand.\u201d Some examples:<\/p>\n

\u2022 A company in South Dakota purchased six stations \u2014 four FM and two AM \u2014 for $350,000, an average of just $58,000 per station.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Another in Arkansas purchased 11 stations for $6.7 million, averaging about $600,000 per station.<\/p>\n

These are prices, as Del Colliano says, \u201cthat would have been unimaginable during radio\u2019s consolidation boom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this a good thing? Well, perhaps it\u2019s not perfect. But regional ownership would at least bring some semblance of competition back to the industry, even if it is just region to region, breaking up the monopolies.<\/p>\n

This is a trend to watch, and I think it shows that radio still has some tricks left.<\/p>\n

Movin\u2019 On Up<\/p>\n

Long Beach low-power community station KLBP (99.1 FM within a few miles of the downtown transmitter or online at KLBP.org<\/a>) has opened some new digs at the aptly named Studio One Eleven \u2014 an urban design studio that now has its own radio studio \u2014 at 245 East 3rd Street.<\/p>\n

The new production center opened Sept. 8 and is used for recording news and public affairs programs that are then sent over to the main broadcast studio at Broadway and Pine.<\/p>\n

In other station news, Cal State Long Beach journalism professor Barbara Kingsley-Wilson, a long-time moderator to the campus newspaper, has accepted the position of News Director for KLBP. According to the station website, Kingsley-Wilson \u201cbrings a wealth of experience in student journalism and will also be assisting in our (new) Journalism Internship program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reader\u2019s Respond<\/p>\n

Reader David Schwartz was the first one to respond regarding the lack of special weekend programming on the radio, stating, \u201cSpecial weekend programming was a reason to listen to a station on the weekends. Now there is nothing special.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he has memories of a program from the past \u2014 Monitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some 20 years starting in 1955, NBC radio has a weekend program called Monitor, with name personalities, music and features. I have one sample on my YouTube page with Gene Rayburn as host, and there is a dedicated page to Monitor. There is also a book on Monitor, which was created by Pat Weaver, the same man who created the Today Show and the Tonight Show. The Monitor \u2018beacon\u2019 became a very famous tone.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can find the Monitor sample, and a lot of other historical broadcasting recordings, at youtube.com\/@davidschwartz8394\/videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clive Soden of Corona Del Mar is a fan of news and talk shows, and wanted to share his favorites. \u201cDuring the week, I listen to KFI (640 AM) for Gary & Shannon and news,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOn Saturdays, I listen to Rich on Tech.\u201d Soden says he likes the news reports on KNX as well. But he professes to be a fan of Ol\u2019 Blue Eyes: \u201cOn KKJZ (88.1 FM), I listen to Jerry Sharell either on Saturday night or Sunday morning \u2026 Jerry features Frank Sinatra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dennis Bell sent a note to ask about Inland Empire\u2019s oldies leader. \u201cLately KOLA has had four different men and two different women on the air doing the Saturday 7 p.m. to midnight shift. Are they auditioning people?<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the station changed the local phone number for requests and contests to an Area Code 949 number, which is in southern Orange County.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sent a note to KOLA programmer Gary Springfield, who sent a response immediately. Turns out to be, as Springfield put it, pretty mundane.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur regular weekend Saturday night guy \u2014 Trevor \u2014 wanted to not work on the weekend anymore so he can enjoy fishing and camping with his wife and kids,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried out numerous folks for the shift, but as it turned out, some of them could not do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping Justin will continue as the Saturday night host,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

As to the change in area code, \u201cwe had a major technical error that had us looking for a new phone number with a different company. That\u2019s about as deep as it gets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Listening Habits<\/p>\n

As I write this, 60 brave souls have ventured over to socalradiowaves.com<\/a>, letting me know how they listen to the radio \u2026 over the air using a radio, or via streaming, smart speakers and apps. If you have not taken it yet, please do so. I\u2019ll have the results soon.<\/p>\n

Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jerry Del Colliano recently featured an interesting report on InsideMusicMedia.com. It seems that there\u2019s a new type of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132,4201,420],"class_list":["post-463498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-radio","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}