Monday, November 8, 2010

No sibling rivalry for sister stations

Lately I've been hearing an odd promo for the local top-40 station. Nothing special, just someone saying that if you want to listen to today's new music, you should try 93.7 KRQ.

The odd part is that the promo appears on 92.9 "The Mountain."

Tonight I finally looked it up. Turns out they're sister stations, both owned by Clear Channel. So they're not actually competitors.

Still. Weird. Even deep into this age of deregulation and consolidation, you'd think Clear Channel would at least pretend they're not on the verge of becoming a total monopoly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They've been doing this on cable for a while now. A few companies own blocks of cable channels, so you'll see ads for one channel's shows on another. On occasion they will even show the same programs on different channels (presumably to fill airtime). But that's not even enough for everyone. Now, it seems, crossover promos aren't even out of the question.

I happen to watch SyFy channel's Ghost Hunters show. Well, it seems the suits in the boardroom decided it would be a good promotional idea to have one episode feature one cadre from their stable of "Stepford Wives of " shows on the Bravo channel. Um. Right. Not only does that render the Ghost Hunters show into a total circus (for those of us who don't necessarily consider such a topic one to begin with, that is), just who the hell do they think are they going to convince to watch that show on Bravo? Do they think someone who likes shows on paranormal topics is going to see a bunch of brainless Kept Women prancing around and decide, "Wow, they're awesome. I really want to watch their show now."

Ah, but such glories come with conglomerate control. Just wait....If to follow the same "logic," Clear Channel might start inserting Oompah or narcocorridos into their FM rock lineup to do some cross-promo work for their AM stations.

cinderkeys said...

That's the perplexing part. I should have made this clearer for readers not in Tucson, but the Mountain plays modern adult contemporary and KRQ is a top-40 station. Anyone listening to one is likely not interested in the other.