Salem Christian AC KGBI-FM Omaha rebranded today as “100.7 The Fish“. No other changes have been made to the station, which retains Salem’s trademarked “Safe For The Whole Family” positioning.
The move is tied to a new Salem initiative cross-promoting its three primary formats: Christian Music, Christian Talk, and Conservative Talk.
Salem Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SALM) announced today an aggressive campaign to cross promote its various formats in a new and imaginative way. After recent research performed by Neilsen Audio and Edison Research showed Salem that when listeners of its Christian Teaching and Talk stations leave for another station, they are most likely to go to a News Talk station or a Contemporary Christian Music Station, it made sense to make sure they were going to Salem stations in these formats. Listeners will soon begin hearing promos on one station designed to encourage listeners to sample the other Salem stations in a different format.
Salem will be driving listener traffic from its News Talk stations back to its Christian Teaching and Talk stations, or its Contemporary Christian Music stations, and vice versa. “This research was a real eye-opener,” said Salem Radio President Dave Santrella. “It showed amazing synergy between the three primary Salem formats, and it only makes sense that we should take advantage of this opportunity.”
This research also revealed that both listeners to our Christian Teaching and Talk stations and those that are considerably active in their faith but DO NOT LISTEN to a Christian Teaching and Talk station do listen regularly to a Contemporary Christian Music station and a Conservative News Talk station, the other two primary formats in the Salem portfolio. “We have always known of this amazing cross platform synergy, but the research verified how strong it is and revealed a true opportunity to better all of our stations by cross format promotion,” said Santrella. “All of our format partners will benefit from this strategy, especially our ministry partners on our CTT stations.”
Salem’s largest format is Christian Teaching and Talk with 40 stations in this format. Its second largest format is News Talk with 27 stations in this format. Its third largest format is Contemporary Christian Music with 12 stations. These new cross format promos have already begun on many of the Salem stations.
If Salem is serious about this initiative… could we expect 94.9 The Fish to hit Dallas soon? Are there any other Salem CCMs that don’t use the Fish branding?
KLTY is well known by its own call letters in the Metroplex, the Christian subculture and the industry in general. There is ZERO chance that Salem Communications will force a national brand onto KLTY.
And that has stopped other companies from rebranding their heritage stations Kiss or Nash when?
But Salem could [b]add[/b] “The Fish” to KLTY’s branding, as in “KLTY—The Fish”.
One could have said the same about KGBI. So, does Salem believe enough in the brand to ditch/minimize the KLTY branding — and add “The Fish” to the frequency’s heritage? I suppose only time will tell.
“Salem Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SALM) announced today an aggressive campaign to cross promote its various formats in a new and imaginative way. After recent research performed by Neilsen Audio and Edison Research showed Salem that when listeners of its Christian Teaching and Talk stations leave for another station, they are most likely to go to a News Talk station or a Contemporary Christian Music Station, it made sense to make sure they were going to Salem stations in these formats. Listeners will soon begin hearing promos on one station designed to encourage listeners to sample the other Salem stations in a different format…..”
Welcome to 1999.