Thursday, March 22, 2007 by SDRadio.

San Diego’s News and Talk Station Expands Drive Time Programming

(From Clear Channel Communications)
Starting Monday, AM 600 KOGO, San Diego’s News and Talk Station, expands its local drive-time programming and brings San Diego the live broadcast of one of the nation’s most successful syndicated radio talk shows.

The Dr. Laura Show will be heard live in San Diego from noon to 3 p.m. and will feature expanded local news and traffic updates. Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s highly popular radio advice show has been on KOGO for the last 10 years, most recently heard at 6 p.m. She has written more than a half a dozen New York Times best-sellers and she is the proud mother of a deployed American paratrooper.

Mark Larson, who has hosted a successful local midday talk show on KOGO since 2004, will host his show from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. as part of KOGO’s new expanded drive-time line-up. The new show will feature all the big news of the day and live interviews with top newsmakers along with local news, traffic and weather updates to help serve KOGO listeners on their drive home.

Mark Larson this month was named one of the nation’s top 12 “Local Talk All Stars” by Radio & Records. He is the only San Diego talk show host to receive the honor two years in a row. Mark will host the debut of his new show on Monday, March 26th, in front of a live studio audience in the KOGO Performance Studio.

In addition to the new expanded afternoon drive time schedule on KOGO, the local talk show websites go interactive Monday. The Roger Hedgecock Show will be available as a live stream, download and podcast. Listeners will also be able to chat, comment online, access show resources and conduct searches while listening to the live broadcast of his show every weekday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The Mark Larson Show also will feature an interactive on-line home including the Mark Larson News Blog where his listeners can post comments and interact as they listen to his show. The interactive features of KOGO’s local talk shows are available on the station web site at KOGO.com

AM 600 KOGO also is the home of San Diego’s First News with Dave Mason and Ladona Harvey from 5 to 9 a.m., featuring expanded local news coverage. The nation’s top-rated syndicated talk show, The Rush Limbaugh Show is on from 9 a.m. to Noon and Coast to Coast with George Noory which will now be starting at 8 p.m. weeknights.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007 by SDRadio.

The Federal Communications Commission has approved rules for digital audio broadcast on the FM and AM bands. (Photo: San Diego Union-Tribune)

The IBOC (In Band, On Channel) has been used with special permission since October 2002. Once finalized, FM stations will not need approval to launch multicast stations. AM stations will be permitted to broadcast HDRadio after sunset. Currently, the rules do not permit IBOC transmission after local sunset. (This could end long distance listening to some stations, commonly called “DXing”.)

From the FCC release: “Radio stations broadcasting in a digital format using in-band on-channel (“IBOC”) technology are able to offer listeners enhanced sound quality, improved reception, and new multicasting and datacasting services.

In today’s Order, the Commission:

• Refrains from imposing a mandatory conversion schedule for radio stations to commence digital broadcast operations;
• Allows FM radio stations to operate in the extended hybrid digital mode;
• Requires that each local radio station broadcasting in digital mode to simulcast a digital signal of at least comparable audio quality to its analog signal;
• Adopts a flexible bandwidth policy permitting a radio station to transmit high quality audio, multiple program streams, and data casting services at its discretion;
• Allows radio stations to time broker unused digital bandwidth to third parties, subject to certain regulatory requirements;
• Applies existing programming and operational statutory and regulatory requirements to all free DAB programming streams;
• Authorizes AM nighttime operations;
• Dismisses several pending Petitions for Reconsideration and Petitions for Rulemaking that asked, inter alia, the Commission to reconsider the adoption of iBiquity’s in-band, on-channel (IBOC) system as the technology chosen for DAB transmission;
• Seeks further comment on appropriate limits to the amount of subscription services that may be offered by radio stations; and
• Seeks comment on whether the Commission should adopt any new public interest requirements for digital audio broadcasters.

The standard was approved 5-0 in the vote.

HDRadio in San Diego as of March 2007

Slated to start this year: KyXy and Free FM (CBS Radio); FM 94/9 and KiFM (Lincoln Financial Media). AM stations, under the IBOC standard, cannot use multicasting services. This table courtesy of Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 36. Stay digitally tuned.

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