Whipped Cream Difficulties

Austin has a decent radio station, KGSR, with a strong concentration on local and Texas music. That station has been at 107.1 FM roughly since Jesus was a second lieutenant.

At least, until today. According to the Statesman, KGSR is moving to 93.3 FM effective this coming Friday, replacing the hip-hop station that was on that frequency. The old 107.1 frequency is going to become yet another Spanish-language, “Regional Mexican” station.

The new station, whose name and line-up will be announced at 5pm on Monday, November 30th, will include personalities already familiar to Austin’s Spanish-speaking community, as well as dynamic, new talents. Advertisers will be able to reach the active Hispanic market of Central Texas beginning Wednesday, December 2nd via 107.1 FM.

As Lawrence put it, “Why not just go ahead and print the press release verbatim, you farking ho?”

The Statesman‘s questionable journalism aside, there are some interesting things going on here.

1. Is it really worth changing your long-time frequency and risking the loss of existing listeners in order to gain an estimated “100,000 more” prospective listeners? I will be interested in seeing how the ratings change after the switch.
2. The parent company of KGSR, Emmis Communication, has an interesting history with the Hispanic community over the past few months.  Back in July, two hosts of a talk show on one of the AM stations were suspended for two weeks, and the show cancelled, after one of them repeatedly used the term “wetback” on the air. Oddly enough, Emmis announced on Tuesday that they were bringing back the show and both hosts after everyone goes through diversity training. As the linked article notes, another pair of hosts on one of the FM stations were also suspended for one week after using the term “wet vacs” “in suggestive and insulting ways“.

I’m not a radio expert, but all of this seems odd.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Media, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.