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.
It looks like this radio station is doing good, solid, simple radio. Not too many
commercials, a mix of hits for their market. Local personalities with something to say. What a concept. Booneville does things the right way.
Sean, I just spent some time visiting some family in the region, and we got caught in more than a FEW traffic jams! Although the market is known for mass-transit, there is plenty of commute time to enjoy radio, and KMVQ does a good job of taking advantage of that with well-placed commercial-free blocks that they promote heavily. Combine that with a well-connected airstaff and well-researched music – you have a winner! The station was a great listen.
Yep! I’m a fan of St. John on NOW 99.7! More PDs, OMs, DJs, and MMs need to sit up and listen to what a radio station should sound like.
When I’m programming a radio station with personalities being personalities, keeping the music flowing, interacting with listeners on air, and shorter stopsets, we’ve been able to easily beat the competition.
-Mav3rick
If you truly want anyone to listen to what a radio station “should” sound like, I definitely would not use any US based CHR format as an example. You want to see genuine fun, creative, and interesting CHR radio, check out the UK, Cyprus, Italy, South Africa, Netherlands, etc. What do many CHRs in other parts of the world have in common to make ther CHRs more upbeat, fun and interesting that the US chooses to ignore? A person who can’t answer that I’d say is someone who isn’t qualified to speak with authority on what truly “good radio” sounds like for CHR. Although, I am aware that the standards are much lower for US based CHRs. When people try to ignore and dismiss an entire genre or sound that is popular on CHR in pretty much the majority of the world, of course it will seem like CHR is difficult to run and keep fresh, and of course people would have to do silly things like thinking going back to olde rmusic is the only solution to make up for many of the current hits that the US chooses to ignore based on genre discrimination. If you don’t even know what I’m talking about or if you don’t even notice that any specific genre is being ignored by US CHRs that are making it big in many other countries including Canada, then… I am not sure how you could speak with authority on what good radio is or what classifies ad radio being done the “right way.” When I say “you” I am referring to anyone reading my comment, despite the fact that this is technically in the “reply” section to a specific person.
We could easily do so much better in the US for CHR, and with a lot of the new music out now, there is NO REASON why the US should be struggling to make CHR radio succeed with current based music and without having to resort to throwbacks old school, etc. What is probably needed is for all the current people in charge of US top 40 radio to either resign or die off and let a whole new group of people who have international programming and charting experience give everything a makeover and bring back the variety and genre equality that existed on US CHRs throughout much of the 90s but in a modernozed fashion. Other countries have been able to do it and don’t have to rely heavily on throwbacks. Why can’t US programmers figure it out as well and stop with the dumb excuses for why everything “cannot work” and the excuses for why things have to be done in such a normal way in addition to basically discriminating against an entire genre of music and then wondering why everything modern sounds so stale on American CHRs? Now 99.7 does seem somewhat interesting by default because things are so bad in the US for CHR programming that any little thing that happens on local CHRs that are even the slightest deviation from the norm can feel exciting and hopeful. At least I can say that US CHR radio is better than what India has to offer for CHR lol.
It would even be better if the US FM dial could be replaced with the Satellite Radio station options, or if we could be smart, open minded and creative enough to accept and allow DAB radio to exist here in the US.
I do agree that St John (if it is the same St John I think it is) is great, but I am sure he is being very restricted and forced to be less creative than he could be if he were on a UK or Cyprus or Iraq or Greek or South African or Latin American or even Canadian and possibly Australian CHR station. He’d probably be much more welcomed in European styled CHRs in general, assuming it is the same St John I know.
What a difference from KZQZ and Dan Vallie being limited to do what he could with Top 40 under Bonneville.
It’s like KFRC FM and is a great correlation to 1976 Station of the Year KFRC-AM in that it makes it mark smartly and the old-fashioned way — hits for the region, info we need and no clutter.
Why aren’t they letting Billboard sales dictate what they play?
Unfortunately not how it works, although, it would very likely be an improvement overall for US based CHRs if it did work that way.