104.9 FM returning back to alternative music in bay area.

[zoiks]

Text

KCNL drops Spanish format
ALTERNATIVE MUSIC IN ENGLISH RETURNS
By Brad Kava
Mercury News

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Thirteen months after it was taken off the air and replaced by a Spanish music channel, KCNL-FM (104.9) is returning to broadcast alternative music in English.

The station, licensed in Sunnyvale with offices in San Jose, plans an ambitious new lineup, which will include listeners picking what to play and announcing songs from mobile studios built into two Scions that will rove the area.

``For a year we've been hearing that listeners want their station back,'' said program director Justin Wittmayer. ``We just had to look at it. When something is slapping you in the face, you have to address it.''

The station dropped its Spanish programming at 3 p.m. Monday, replacing it with construction sounds. At 5 p.m. today, the new music will debut.

Wittmayer said the new format will include new and older alternative songs, and will draw heavily from listener requests, a way to keep it competitive with iPods and Internet music.

It will skew more toward older listeners than before, focusing on a 25- to 34-year-old audience, not unlike that of San Francisco's KITS-FM (105.3).

That was the format Clear Channel was considering a year ago, when managers decided instead to shoot for a younger audience that wanted music in Spanish, a sort of Spanish alternative format.

In its last ratings book, for fall 2006, the station was 24th in San Jose for listeners over 12, with a 1.3 share of the 1.4 million people in the market. By contrast, a year earlier as an alternative station, it had a 3.4 share of the market.

The company kept the alternative path alive by broadcasting on the Internet from the two Scions, calling itself eChannelMusic.

``About 60 percent of the comments we got was that people wanted their old station back,'' Wittmayer said.

 

[leftyman]

Muchas Gracias

 

[halik]

They need more stations doing that in NYC... I swear suburban dretroit has more hiphop radio than all of NYC . Half of the spectrum here is in Spanish.

 

[zoiks]

I used to listen to this station all the time then it changed to spanish all of a sudden on Jan 1st of last year.
We now have 2 alternative music stations in the Bay Area. I've heard that there are none in NYC.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Not everyone shares the same 104.9 😉 The 104.9 is alternative rock / pop / hiphop 😛 With 10 min. strings of commercials :laugh:

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: zoiks
I used to listen to this station all the time then it changed to spanish all of a sudden on Jan 1st of last year.
We now have 2 alternative music stations in the Bay Area. I've heard that there are none in NYC.

WFMU in NYC. They have internet, so you can check them out.

There's way more than 2 alternative music stations in the Bay Area. I'm in Berkeley and I'm not even picking up 104.9 on my receiver in my bedroom. I can pickup 104.1 (Berkeley Liberation Radio, pirate station), and they are very alternative and often absolutely great! I work at KALX, Berkeley, 90.7 FM (DJ there!), and we are quite alternative and often really great. We stream, in case you can't pick us up by antenna.

In general, the college stations are the best choice for alternative music. There's very very little else in alternative music in the Bay Area, at least that can be picked up in Berkeley. I can probably pick up 104.9 on my best equipment but I have little hope that it is going to be alternative enough for my ears.

Besides KALX 90.7 for college radio, I recommend KUSF 90.3, KFJC 89.7 and KZSU 90.1.

Commercial radio sucks! Don't put up with it!

 

[CVSiN]

bring back KSJO you bastards..

 

[zoiks]

bumpity bump for the bay area folks.

 

[trmiv]

Nice! I used to listen to this station, and then it just went Spanish. Good to have it back. Now if they can just do what CVSiN said and bring back KSJO.

 

[JohnAn2112]

I used to listen to Channel 104.9 a few years ago. I'm glad their back for us South Bay folks, but I'll never go back to FM now that I'm with Sirius.