Fresh Listen: KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco

It’s been a great six months for Bonneville’s KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco. 

In San Francisco, the CHR station is up 4.2-6.2 6-plus since June and No. 4 in the market. 

In San Jose, KMVQ is up 5.1-6.5 over the same period, taking over the market lead in November.

In that time, CHR shares have grown in the Bay Area. While 99.7 Now has opened up its lead over rival KYLD (Wild 94.9), Top 40 is up 6.9-8.2 in both markets, although the distribution is different in each.

CHR’s growth in the Bay Area has been atypical. Consultant Guy Zapoleon’s recent wrap-up of the year is headlined “2023 Marked Fourth Year of Worst Music Doldrums for Top 40 Radio.” In that article, Zapoleon suggests that the entire format is out of alignment, noting that today’s (mostly) rhythmic pop music makes up about 60% of what Top 40 plays, but only 22% of the hits on Billboard’s Hot 100.

I’ve been listening a lot to 99.7 Now in recent weeks. A new vehicle and its TuneIn interface has allowed me to effectively make KMVQ a button on my car radio, meaning I’m listening sometimes at work in hour chunks, but also occasionally for a few songs at a time, like a regular listener.

I’ve really enjoyed KMVQ. I’ve also observed how a lot of its musical building blocks are similar to what other CHRs are grappling with. It’s very much a rhythmic pop station, although some recent departures have included Mitski. With Top 40 relying more on throwbacks, Now’s gold can go back to the early ’00s, not counting holiday music. Harry Styles’s almost-two-years-old “As It Was” still plays 65x a week.

We’ve written recently — in an article about lower spotloads vs. PPM tactics — about one significant difference. Many hours on KMVQ are under 10 minutes of spots/promos. The 99-minute afternoon music sweep was bookended by a 5:30 stopset and a 4:45 break. Only about five hours a day are over 10 minutes. Only the 6 p.m. hour (with nearly 15 minutes) was in a typically heavy range. 

I don’t think that lower spotload explains everything for KMVQ. One of 2023’s other CHR success stories, WKQI (Channel 955) Detroit, has been winning with a more typical spotload. But punching in for a song or two at a time, usually in afternoons, I usually encounter music. And if lower spotloads are the biggest difference here, they support our recent contention that radio should fix those first.

Beyond that, if the rhythmic pop that has defined CHR everywhere for a decade (and much of the last 25 years) aligns with any market, it’s the Bay Area. Even on Now, there are differences from the format as heard elsewhere. Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” still plays 24x a week, for instance.

Here’s 99.7 Now just after 4 p.m. on Dec. 14, with p.m. driver St. John going into 99 minutes of continuous music:

• Beyoncé, “Cuff It”
• Dua Lipa, “Houdini”
• Tyla, “Water”
• Ed Sheeran, “Bad Habits”
• Jack Harlow, “Lovin on Me”
• Taylor Swift, “Cruel Summer”
• Lizzo, “About Damn Time”
• Ariana Grande, “Santa Tell Me”
• Paul Russell, “Lil Boo Thing”
• Harry Styles, “As It Was”
• Flo Rida f/T Pain, “Low”— like other gold I heard, not staged as a throwback, just there
• Doja Cat, “Agoura Hills”
• Taylor Swift, “Is It Over Now?”
• SZA, “Kill Bill”
• Tate McRae, “Greedy”
• Thuy, “Girls Like Me Don’t Cry” — 2022 release that has more than 800 spins on KMVQ and still played 4x this week
• Mark Ronson f/Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk”

Some other observations:

Power rotations on 99.7 Now have been fluid. When we wrote about power rotation across the CHR format in October, Now was playing only two songs upwards of 100x a week. This week, there are five — “Water,” “Paint the Town Red,” “Agoura Hills,” “Greedy,” and “Cruel Summer.”

San Francisco remains a great “new music” market. KMVQ was out-of-the-box on “Agoura Hills” and Tate McRae’s “Exes.” KYLD was first to cross over Victoria Monet’s “On My Mama” and is stepping out this week on McRae’s “Run for the Hills” and Nicki Minaj’s “Everybody.”

There is a lot of localism as a matter of course on KMVQ. Often, it was along the lines of “for Melody in San Mateo” or “to all the class of ’23 San Jose State grads.” But a few weeks ago, I heard an hour where all of middayer Mary Diaz’s breaks were dedicated to free holiday events around the area. By themselves, it would have been a host reading a PSA. Instead, it was an hour of local at a time when so many breaks on so many stations sound untethered from time or place.

This is a market with multiple success stories. KMVQ has been shattering its own records at the same time as the relaunched Alternative KITS (Live 105). Whatever the commonalities between the stations may or may not be, there may still be a “Barbenheimer” effect where two successful stations help reignite interest in radio.