New FM sports station trying to make waves in the Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO — "Oh, hello, Mr. The Chimp, how can we help you?"

So begins a recent promotional spot on 95.7 The Game, the Bay Area's new FM sports station. The promo, mimicking a crisis hotline, continues: "You don't know what to do with your 9-to-noon show? You've changed hosts three times in four weeks? The minor leaguer you brought up can't stick to your Giants Happy Talk rule, so you sent him back to the minors? And now you're bringing back a guy you already fired once?"

The spot ends with the caller emitting a series of intensifying monkey screeches.

The references probably remained obscure to most of 95.7's listeners. But for those of you keeping score at home, or in your car during drive time, The Chimp is meant to be KNBR program director Lee Hammer. The "minor leaguer" would be KNBR sports-talk host Damon Bruce. And the "guy you already fired" would be Larry Krueger, who recently returned to the KNBR fold to team with Gary Radnich on the station's popular weekday morning show.

It's clear that as 95.7 (known formally as KGMZ) vies for attention, its approach will not be bashful, or restrained, or even civil. Other promos have painted the AM dial as old-fashioned and stuffy, and harshly critiqued a KNBR interview with 49ers legend Joe Montana.

The challenger would like nothing more than to drag the champion — The Sports Leader, as 680 AM bills itself — into a war of the airwaves.

The hurdles facing 95.7 are significant, starting with the prospect of elbowing its way into the fourth largest radio market in the country. The station became the Oakland A's flagship at the beginning of the season, but didn't officially launch its all-sports programming until Aug. 1. The lineup is still a work in progress.

One challenge for The Game is the FM spectrum itself. It hasn't traditionally been associated with sports, though Dwight Walker, vice president and market manager for 95.7's parent company, Entercom, thinks that is changing.

"FM sports has done exceedingly well across the country," Walker said. "And it's largely, I think, because there were AM monopolies, if you will, longstanding sports stations who had no competition, didn't have to get better, didn't really think about relating well to their audiences, and became stale."

But there are technical issues with FM, too.

"The hills in the Bay Area are difficult for FM waves to get over and through," said Robert Unmacht, an editor at radio-info.com who has a long background as a radio consultant and a familiarity with this market. "AM's airwaves go farther where the ground conductivity is good - and it's very good in the Bay Area. So your area is great for AM, not so great for FM."

A deliveryman making his rounds from Petaluma to Walnut Creek to Santa Clara will almost certainly be able to maintain a strong connection to KNBR as he navigates the local freeway system. The same can't be said of The Game.

Program director Jason Barrett remains undaunted.

"When I was first coming out here, I heard, &‘What are you doing taking on KNBR? That's the station that broadcasts from Mexico to Canada,'" Barrett said. "When I start caring about ratings in Mexico and Canada, that's when I'll worry. Sure, you might have trouble listening to us in Sacramento. Fortunately, that's not our mission."

Granted, the clarity is much better on FM when you can pick it up, and it brings a largely untapped market of music listeners, most importantly men between the ages of 25 and 40.

Listening to The Game, it's easy to discern that the station is aiming for a slightly younger demographic. The banter tends to be louder, the intros and exits accompanied by explosions and upper-fret electric-guitar riffs. The image even projects to the Entercom offices on the 12th floor of a building south of Market, where a Wii Rock Band kit is set up in one corner of the reception area.

In the end, though, Entercom (which also owns KFOX and KOIT in the Bay Area) knows it is the quality of its programming that will determine life or death. KNBR carries Giants and 49ers games. If the A's were fighting for the American League West pennant, that would have been an equalizer for 95.7. Alas, they remain Bay Area outliers, not very good and not particularly compelling at the moment. The broadcast contract with the team runs through 2014, but The Game probably will have to rely on its weekday shows for survival.

Love 95.7 or hate it, you have to acknowledge Entercom's aggressive efforts at landing talent. Barrett brought in guys like Brandon Tierney from New York City and John Lund from Portland, Ore. — hires he considered important, though they were probably unfamiliar to most Bay Area sportniks.

Maybe more important, the station was able to lure some well-respected local names, like Greg Papa, the long-time play-by-play man best known as the voice of the Raiders; Mark Kreidler, who used to write for the Sacramento Bee and currently contributes to ESPN; and Dan Dibley, the producer/sidekick poached directly from KNBR. The Game also has adopted several Comcast SportsNet "insiders" as its own - including Mychael Urban (Giants) and former Press Democrat reporters Matt Steinmetz (Warriors) and Matt Maiocco (49ers).

Will any of it be enough to unseat The Sports Leader, or at least make significant inroads into KNBR's dominance? That's an uphill battle. The bigger station has history, listener loyalty and 50,000 watts at its disposal.

The most recent Arbitron ratings, from Aug. 11, show KNBR with a 4.3 share and an estimated 903,400 listeners across all categories. KGMZ had a 0.8 share and 173,000 listeners. KTCT, KNBR's sister station at 1050 AM — both are owned by Cumulus Media — showed a bigger audience (201,800) but a smaller share (0.4), meaning the average listener didn't tune in as long.

Keep in mind that The Game had been programming for less than two weeks when Arbitron took the sampling.

"The competitive guy in me, I want to be No. 1 now," Barrett said. "But realistically, I always tell my staff, this is a long race. Selfishly, I'll always look at ratings and go, &‘We've got to be better.' Even when I was (at 101 ESPN) in St. Louis and we were No. 1, my first concern was, &‘Can we do this again next month?' ... Yeah, within 18 months, 24 months, we'd like to be in a much stronger spot."

How much stronger will be the key. Barrett is asking for a little patience, but he knows his industry is just as impatient as the sports teams it covers.

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.