I don’t like to get involved in talking about which corporate radio company just bought which existing station, but there’s a message in this one. Bonneville just bought a Los Angeles FM station. The buzz about this purchase surrounds what format the radio company might choose to program on their new station. You can read all about it in Tom Taylor’s Radio-Info newsletter. Go here to register — they don’t put the thing on their Website; go figure. It’s free, though. Tom’s speculation on which format Bonneville will choose includes this:

The world seems to buy the FM news/talk hypothesis and I’ll just continue to be a contrarian and suggest that’s a smokescreen. But the yawning possibilities have the L.A. board at Radio-Info.com going ga-ga suggesting subsequent chess moves like Clear Channel moving KFI (640) to FM, and then Emmis picking up the discarded Clear Channel format (Hot 92.3?) for its troubled 93.9, or maybe Emmis rocking out on 93.9 because of the People Meter’s supposed preference for male-leaning formats.

Translation: When Bonneville does something, whatever, with its new station, another owner, Emmis, might change its station’s format to something for men, because the new Arbitron ratings system seems to rate such stations higher. There you go. You choose a format based on what the ratings system wants, not what listeners at large might want…and certainly nothing fresh and new. I know, I’m a daft dreamer. Just humor me.

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