More good news for fans of the dumped duo, Fernando and Greg, formerly of KNGY 92.7. They’ve got a new slot on Bay Area radio station, 99.7 KMVQ-FM, a CBS outlet. The press release we received from CBS Radio yuks it up about the news.
“First, Levi Johnston agrees to pose nude and now Fernando and Greg land at Movin’ 99.7. I’m not sure I could be any happier. Can’t wait to wake up the Bay…again!” declared Fernando Ventura.
Hardy har, but seriously folks, this is a move up for these guys. It was a bummer that KNGY got sold and its popular Gay oriented dance format erased (including Fernando/Greg), but the signal was relatively small. 99.7 is much bigger. And being streamed by CBS, owner of last.fm, will probably get them piped through a bunch of mobile apps. The release mentions this but doesn’t offer details.
F and G will do mornings on KMVQ beginning Thursday, November 12. As we’ve already reported, they’re also running a show on Stitcher mobile. Who knows what’s next?
A footnote to the controversy over the loss of KNGY-FM, “Energy 92.7,” San Francisco’s Gay oriented dance music station. It appears that had the frequency’s new management wanted to, it could have retained the old format’s staff, or at least retained the services of Energy’s popular morning show duo: Fernando and Greg.
Radio Survivor has obtained a copy of the Asset Purchase Agreement between 92.7’s former owner, Flying Bear Media, and the buyer, Ed Stolz of Golden State Broadcasting. Section 7.9 of the agreement outlines personnel issues:
“7.9 Employee Matters. Within twenty (20) days following the date of this agreement, Buyer shall notify Sellers which of Sellers’ employees Buyer wishes to employ. Effective as of the Closing Date or the LMA [Local Marketing Agreement] Effective Date, Buyer shall offer employment to such employees.”
The agreement is dated July 13, 2009. According to the contract, a Local Marketing Agreement would have been triggered had both parties not closed the deal on Sunday September 13. But from the documentation it looks like Golden State owns the license outright, having purchased it for six and a half million dollars.
This gives a somewhat different picture of the choices that Golden State faced when it bought the station than I took from my brief interview with Stolz. During that conversation I asked him whether he had any inclination to keep the old format and staff.
Stolz pointed out that the prior owner had gone into default with its lender and dismissed its staff “long before we ever reached the building.” This contract suggests that, whatever financial condition Flying Bear was in, the company offered Stolz the choice of keeping the Energy 92.7 team.
That option appears not to have been taken. Golden State has picked new call letters for the signal: KREV, and gone to a Top 40 format which, so far, is entirely bereft of any on air talent.
I apologize to anyone who was offended by my phone call to Ed Stolz.
The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco has passed a resolution urging radio station owner Ed Stolz to “rehire the talented staff” of Energy 92.7, a station that “was adored and appreciated by so many fans throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area.”
Stolz should “reconsider his choice to abandon the successful format,” the Supes resolved.
As we’ve reported, KNGY’s Gay oriented dance music format disappeared from the airwaves early last week following the sale of the station to Stolz. Radio Survivor readers know that I called Mr. Stolz the other day just to get his reaction to all this, and he was not happy to hear from me, to put it mildly. But he did make what I thought was a reasonable point, that the previous station owner had abandoned the format, not him.
Pressure campaigns
Nonetheless, Fox News camp follower Brian Maloney has accused me of being part of a “pressure campaign” against Stolz, because I had the nerve to call him on the contact number that he or his staff gave to the Federal Communications Commission, and which is part of his public file. Plus I started “peppering” him with “questions about the operation.” Eeek! (more…)
As Jennifer Waits has reported, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is poised to pass a resolution calling on KREV station owner Ed Stolz to “reconsider his choice to abandon the successful format of Energy 92.7 and rehire the talented staff that provided a radio format that was adored and appreciated by so many fans throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area.” We’ve been covering this issue now through the week. Thousands of listeners to Energy 92.7 are upset that the station’s Gay/dance oriented format has been cast aside. They’re particularly unhappy about the loss of the former formats’ drive time duo, Fernando and Greg. Stolz’s Golden State Broadcasting Company took over the signal earlier this month.
So I figured, what the heck, I’ll see if I can find Stolz’s contact information and ask him what he plans to do with KREV. It’s not that hard. You just go to the FCC’s station search database, type in KREV, and out popped Golden State’s address and telephone number, which I called.
Stolz was, to put it mildly, not happy to hear from me.
“This is a private number,” he insisted. I pointed out that it was the number that he or his staff had put on the FCC’s General Information form, and asked if he planned to consider returning the station to its popular Energy format. Stolz pointed out that the prior owner had gone into default with its lender and dismissed its staff “long before we ever reached the building.” Fair enough—the point presumably being that the format was “abandoned” before he got there.
“Why did you buy the station?” I asked.
Stolz seemed quite startled by this question. “Beg your pardon?” he asked. “This is obviously a joke.” I asked him if he had any thoughts about the San Francisco Supervisor’s resolution. “We haven’t heard anything about this, so until we do, I have no comment. You’re asking some very odd questions and quite frankly reaching me on a personal number.”
I asked Stolz which of my questions were odd, and why. “We’re done. Ok?” he replied.
Somehow I don’t think that Fernando and Greg are coming back.
Both Matthew and I have recounted the recent ownership and format change of San Francisco station Energy 92.7. The formerly gay-friendly dance music station has proven to be a fan favorite, with many people expressing their displeasure over its change to top 40.
Even a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Bevan Dufty, has taken up the cause, sponsoring a resolution to encourage new station owner Ed Stolz “to continue with the Community/LGBT/Dance radio format that has made Energy 92.7 one of the most unique and popular radio stations in San Francisco and the Bay Area.”
According to a portion of the text of the resolution:
“…Energy 92.7 brought LGBT and straight listeners together using humor to break down barriers and to create understanding and good will, and…has been a strong partner to the City and County of San Francisco through their unwavering support of community based organizations raising both funds and awareness for non-profits that focus on HIV/AIDS, food banks, and breast cancer among countless others…
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors urges Mr. Ed Stolz to reconsider his choice to abandon the successful format of Energy 92.7 and rehire the talented staff that provided a radio format that was adored and appreciated by so many fans throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area.”
This resolution is up for a vote at tomorrow’s Board of Supervisors meeting in San Francisco at 2pm. And, as always, meetings are open to the public. If the resolution does pass, it is a strong statement about how radio can and does have an impact on a community. Unfortunately, Ed Stolz is probably thinking much more about economics, so it’s unclear if he’ll be swayed by encouragements from the powers that be in San Francisco.
On Monday over 6,000 San Francisco Bay Area radio listeners discovered to whom the public airwaves really belong, and it’s not them. They are not the first dedicated audience to receive this rude awakening, but that doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is that they tuned into their favorite Gay oriented radio station, KNGY, “Energy 92.7 FM,” and it was gone. Golden State Broadasting bought the license from Flying Bear Licensing on August 6. But nobody noticed this until Monday, a day after the escrow deadline passed, and the station dropped its dance format and popular drive time morning show duo, Fernando and Greg.
The new format, 92.7, “The Revolution,” sounds like something slightly to the left of High School Musical, and man, are Energy’s fans ever pissed. Here’s one of almost 500 comments from their Facebook protest page: ”
This is CRAP!!! Getting rid of the BEST station around, then replacing it with top 40 BS. No Fernando & Greg, how am I supposed to make it through my morning commute? No afternoon dance music I refuse to listen to the boring replacement for 92.7!”
There’s a lot of talk about how to bring the station back, but the Facebook groups’ founder, John McAleer, knows the score. “Here is a reality check,” he wrote to his followers. “It is not going to happen.”
That’s right. As radio station fans have learned over and over again, in the wonderfully deregulated world of broadcasting, it’s none of your business what comes and goes over the AM/FM airwaves. And any attempt to make it otherwise is damned by the conservative right as a sneaky attempt to bring the equivalent of Death Panels to the radio bands.
I noticed the format change yesterday, since I often listened to Energy 92.7 while driving up and down the 280 here in San Francisco. But I didn’t give it that much thought until my colleague Jennifer Waits posted her story about the switch for Radio Survivor. I thought Energy had its moments. Fernando and Greg were funny. My favorite line was a comment Fernando once made about people in the mid-west. “They love their churches, their shopping malls, and their strip clubs,” he crooned. The show also had some compelling late night talk radio, including an outraged commentary that I’ll never forget, aired late last year the night after Proposition Eight was argued before the California Supreme Court.
But like most radio today, Energy didn’t provide very much coverage of local issues. The morning show was mostly about yucking around—not really connecting to the Bay Area scene. But people are so starved for anything even remotely resembling reality based personality driven radio that they flocked to what Energy 92.7 did offer. And now, to their understandable dismay, it is gone.
A sincere concern
Some scattered intel about the new owner, Edward R. Stolz, who appears to own both Golden State Broadcasting and another company, Royce International. For many years the latter firm owned alternative rock station KWOD in Sacramento, where Man Show guy and self-appointed expert on gays and adoption Adam Carolla did a stint for a while. Then Stolz went into negotiations with Entercom Communications to sell KWOD, then tried to back out of the deal, then sued Entercom, alleging that the much larger company was essentially forcing Royce to sell.
“Royce stands for independence, localism and a sincere concern for the needs of the communities it serves,” Stolz declared at the time. But the sale went through, the Federal Communications Commission eventually approving the transfer last year.
In any event, it’s nice to know that Mr. Stolz stands for localism. Perhaps he’ll listen to the thousands of people who want Fernando and Greg back. Even better, perhaps the thousands of people who miss Energy 92.7 the way it was on Friday will support efforts by the FCC to pass some very mild rules that would require commercial radio licenses to establish local advisory boards. There the public could occasionally offer feedback and learn something about what is actually going on at these signals.
Here’s the good news: I keep thinking that over-the-air radio is dead. But it’s not. People really want the magic which is real music and real voices connecting to a real location. They want more than a server driven juke box service like Slacker. But making that kind of radio possible again will require creating the economic incentives for its revival, and setting up modest rules that require station owners to be up front with the audiences they serve. Maybe some of Fernando and Greg’s fans will pick up the torch for that cause.
San Francisco Loses its Gay (Commercial) Radio Voice
I rarely listen to commercial radio, spending the majority of my time devoted to college and community radio stations. So, I was caught completely unaware when I read yesterday that San Francisco was losing its gay-friendly dance music station Energy 92.7. I didn’t even know that it existed.
The 5-year-old station, KNGY, “often touted itself as the last independently owned radio station in San Francisco,” according to an article in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. The station played a dance music format and as of last Thursday night, they switched to mainstream top 40.
A television news segment on KTVU last night featured interviews with station DJs and fans. One listener recounted their feelings upon losing the station, saying, “It’s like a friend of mine died.”
I was amazed to see a report about radio on TV and was even more surprised to hear such strong feelings about a radio station. It’s a reminder that radio still does mean a lot to people, especially when a station has such a strong connection to a local community.
As the comments on the Chronicle article attest to, many people are upset about the station’s change in format and many seem particularly upset by the loss of their favorite morning show. One commenter wrote:
“A big disappointment for sure. Looks like I won’t be listening to the radio at all anymore, unless they resurrect Energy in some other fashion.
That station certainly had something for everyone interested in dance music, as well as a great morning show. It may have been gay-oriented in many ways but I think it was much more than that and I think it’s a loss not just to the LGBT community but to the whole city.”
As Examiner blogger Eric Ross explains, the gay-themed morning show on Energy 92.7 was unique for commercial radio:
“Fernando & Greg first aired on Energy 92.7 back in 2005 and was the first commercially broadcast gay morning radio show in the United States. The station went off the air on September 11th, much to the shock of everyone in the Bay Area. The gay friendly radio station was an icon for the LGBT community, and many people woke up to Fernando and Greg in the morning. Fernando and Greg even made it to Out magazine’s list of the top 100 most influential people in gay culture.”
One can track the morning show hosts quest for a new gig on their Facebook page and there is also a group devoted to saving the station (unlikely, since it’s already been sold off and has rebranded itself as 92.7 REV The Revolution).
It’s impressive to me that the Save Energy 92.7 group on Facebook has more than 6,000 members as of today. Who knows, perhaps they’ll work together to come up with some innovative ways to bring elements of the station back to the airwaves or to the Internet.
I refuse to listen to the boring replacement for 92.7!”
