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9/11 and the SoCal airwaves

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  September 10, 2026 The West Coast awakened with the horrible news that had happened just a couple hours ago. Both towers of the World Trade Center in New York were burning, having been hit by apparently hijacked airplanes. The North Tower collapsed first at about 7 AM local time, the South Tower 30 minutes later. We later heard about a plane crashing into the Pentagon, while a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania apparently en route to either the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House. Though many saw the tragedy unfolding on TV, many in LA were either just waking up or were already commuting to work. Radio became their primary source of what was unfurling in New York. Tom Haule offers this perspective 25 years later: 9-11 2001 was your typical Tuesday morning.   Linda Nunez and I went on the air at 5 AM with what seemed a fairly representative group of stories for the middle of the week.  We had the usual traffic reports every 6 minutes and Business News and Spo...
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Another Q&A: The future of 97.1 FM

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Much has been written about today's rebranding of 97.1 FM, transitioning from simulcasting all-news KNX to becoming all-sports “The Fan.” Lance Venta at Radio Insight provided an excellent summary explaining why Audacy is making the change, another comprehensive story is offered by John Mamola at Barrett Media .  Nonetheless, I’ve had a few questions that prompted me to do some digging. So it’s once again time for another round of Questions and Answers, this time about 97.1 FM. Wasn’t all-news KNX getting better ratings since adding an FM simulcast? This is one of those “yes, but…” answers. We refer you to the aforementioned story by Radio Insight’s Lance Venta. Still, at the risk of being redundant, what happened is KNX’s audience did grow, but in the wrong demographic. It appears the audience gain skewed toward older listeners, not the prized 25-54 demo. Compared to their sister stations across the country, KNX has underperformed – the LA outlet was #18 with the younger listener...
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"Betting" on KNX

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Numerous outlets, including the LA Times , are reporting on the future format change of 97.1 FM to "The Fan," an all-sports outlet debuting on May 11. The all-news format will continue on 1070 AM. For the last few years, Audacy has been expanding the reach of their BETMGM network, identified on air as "The BET." It's described as "sports programming and wager-tainment." The network is a partnership between Audacy and BETMGM, the latter based on a joint venture with MGM Resorts and London-based GVC holdings known as Roar Digital (I know, that's a lot). Roar Digital targets US markets where gambling is legal via sports betting and online gambling. One of The BET's prominent hosts is SoCal native Jim Rome . Other than 93.1 FM HD3, Rome has not been heard in the LA market since the demise of "The BEAST 980" (KFWB) in 2016. KNX has largely promoted their FM signal , although the AM signal continued to simulcast 90 percent of the programmi...
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