FAT to BFL

88.1 KFCF petered out fast while driving south. I was really surprised how much area 103.3 KZPO-LP covered with it's 800 watt signal. HAAT is everything. it's audible from the city limits of Fresno south all the way past Delano. "Kings Radio" runs a wide mix of oldies, nostalgia and 1970s schlock. They even play Herb Alpert. But it appears to be 100% automation. I heard no live airstaff at all.

In Visalia I caught 94.1 KFSC-LP which purports to play oldies but seemed to be off air. 101.5 KVLP-LP is supposed to be an oldies station but was running easy listening. In Tulare I managed to catch a little 98.1 KNFS-LP which was running an odd talk program about water usage. The station is owned by the Lorax Society and is the picture of the community station. I wish I caught more.

In Tulare I got off the highway to visit the infamous Tagus Ranch Theatre. In the 1920s this was a ranch that paid workers in "chits" rather than dollars.They forced workers to shop at the company store, and live in company housing. It was a step removed from indentured servitude, and two steps from slavery. Steinbeck set his book, Grapes of Wrath here.

In WWII there was a POW on the ranch grounds. The Theatre was a big country music tour stop in the 1960s and 7os. George Jones, Merle Haggard and other big names all played here. It's abandoned now and is partly collapsed and fully grafittied.

In Bakersfield 88.7 KBLV rocks AAA, and 89.1 KPRX carries Valley Public Radio but the city lacks either a proper community station or a college station. The big heritage station here is 550 KUZZ-AM also on 107.9 FM. They've been playing country music in one form or another since 1958. 1560 KPMC-AM and 1490 KSMR-AM went on air in earlier in 1933 and1928, respectively. But while significantly earlier, both have changed forms, brands and formats repeatedly. KUZZ has remained a steadfast.

Moving down the dial.

It was only last year that Nassau made the change. WPST then residing on 97.5 in Philly and WTHK then residing on 94.5 in Trenton switched places. http://www.wpst.com/
http://www.975thehawk.com/

But really what happens when a station moves? The transmitter, the studio, the staff... they don't move anywhere. It's really just the brand that moves. [see prior post mocking brands 6/22]
What happens (in no particular order) is Nassau files a little paper work with the FCC to trade the calls. Because they own both stations this is not a problem. Sometimes, when the calls are not connected to the brand, they dont even bother to do this.

Since both stations are in the same cluster, both studios are usually in the same building. in these cases it's only a matter of reconfiguring some hardware to send the feed of each station to a different transmitter. I am not trying to understate the technical difficulty in this process. I am not exactly a member of the SBE.
But a brand is just intellectual property who's idea was it to move aroud these intangible things like checkers? Well it all started in January of 1977. KUZZ and KZIN-FM officially split on-air at midnight exactly. Prior to that they were running a simulcast. It was the first step in Buck Owens brilliant scheme.

KUZZ 800 AM was now 24-hours, full-time Country music, KZIN 107.9 FM was running rock. http://www.kuzz.com/

AM stereo was brand new a reality for radio. By 1984 he increased KUZZ’s transmitting power to 5,000 watts and had purchased KAFY 550AM. Then like baseball cards he just traded them. At the time this was an unprecedented move in american broadcasting.

There were many prior cases wherein one station had purchased another’s dial position, but none that had ever exchanged brands outright. proving the concept worked, the KUZZ listening audience moved down the dial to 550 AM right along with the station. Ironicly, by 1988 the slow fade of the FM audience led Buck to change 107.9 back into the simulcast.