Doc Searls Weblog

The radio station known since 1935 as KSFO, “The Sound of the City,” was a landmark at 560 on the Bay Area radio dial for most of the last century.  Other AM landmarks were KGO/810, KCBS/740, KFRC/610, and KNBR/680. KFRC went away in 2005, as religious programming moved to 610 AM from 106.9 FM, and KCBS added 106.9 as the FM service by which it now entirely identifies (even though KCBS-AM covers most of California and the FM mostly just covers the Bay). KNBR pushed KFOG off 104.5 and now identifies as KNBR/104.5. Never mind that KNBR/680 covers even more of California than KCBS/740 by day and the entire Western U.S. at night. As a kid in the ’60s I used to listen at night to it in New Jersey.)

But the worst pair of ignomies for the AM band were recently brought on by Cumulus Media, which owns both the 560 and 810 signals. First, it killed the KGO callsign, which had been in use for 101 years (during most of which it was the Bay Area’s top-rated station) on 810, and moved the KSFO callsign and programming—generic syndicated right-wing talk—to 810 from 560. Then it rebranded the 560 signal KZAC, did nothing with it, and took it off the air this past Monday, roughly on its 100th birthday. Thus, where once had stood two first-rank full-service radio stations, long on news and personalities, now stands one off-the-shelf talker and a blank silent space on the Bay Area AM band. Nice work.

But also on-trend.

For example, I just learned that WINZ/940, one of Miami’s landmark signals, will drop six of its seven towers, go from 50,000 watts by day and 10,000 watts by night down to just 16 watts at night: a signal that might cover a zipcode or two. Meanwhile, in Chicago, WSCR/670 and WBBM/780—two top-rank clear channel signals that each covered large parts of five states by day and much of North America by night) are moving to lesser facilities, with smaller signals, and losing their clear channel distinctions.

All three stations were downgraded so the land underneath their towers and ground systems (which require a lot of land) could be sold off. Two years ago, Las Vegas lost KDWN/720 and KXST/1140 because the land under their was sold so yet another shipping distribution center could be built on it. And both stations had already been downgraded in prior transmitter moves.  KVEN/1450, the only sports station on California’s South Coast, went away in 2021 when Cumulus turned in the station’s license. (Here is a photo album of KVEN’s two towers that I shot in 2022 before they were demolished. For the nothing it’s worth, I was one of KVEN’s listeners.)

AM in Canada has thinned as well. CHML/900 in Hamilton, Ontario, which I once listened to nightly in New York City, was born in 1927 and died last year. Long gone by now are CBA/1070 in Moncton, New Brunswick (another clear channel landmark), CINW/940 (formerly CBM) and CINF/690 (formerly clear channel CBF) in Montreal, and CBJ/1580 in Chicoutimi, Quebec. All had monster (also “clear channel”) signals that covered large parts of North America at night. Here is Wikipedia’s list of just the CBC’s dead stations, nearly all on the AM band. (See the list of former clear channel stations on Wikipedia for more headstones.)

Alas, most people are not missing these stations, AM radio, or radio at all. (FM is on death row as well, but executions are still a decade or two away.) But I think what Cumulus just did in San Francisco is worth a bugle call. And that call may end up being taps for Cumulus itself, which is killing off signals just to stay alive.

All three of the top owners of radio stations—Cumulus, iHeart, and Audacy—are what the financial world calls disstressed assets. Verging on financial worthlessness, Cumulus is about to be de-listed by NASDAQ.  iHeart filed for Chapter 11 November 2017, with $2.4 billion in debt, and since then has had lots of layoffs and restructurings. Audacy, which killed off all-news giant WCBS in New York last year, filed for bankruptcy in January and has been shedding people and assets constantly since then.

Irony alert: H.R. 979, the  AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025 requires an AM radio in every new car. This is like requiring a deck chair for every passenger on the Titanic.

Meanwhile, no bill requires that new cars have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. That’s because the market wants those. Younger demographics in the new car market barely know that AM radio exists. I know many young people. Only one I can name still listens to radio at all, and that’s mostly because he’s a musician and likes to know where his music—and music like it—gets played. He also says, “None of my friends listen to radio. They think I’m weird.”