Bill Virgin's Radio Beat August 28, 2008

Includes archive of Bill Virgin's columns fromJ une 2006 - March 2009

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat August 28, 2008

Postby radiofan » Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:39 pm

Mercer Island school station gets new home

By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER


After years of wrangling and legal maneuvering, KMIH-FM moves to its new home on the dial this Sunday.

The Mercer Island School District station had been operating at 104.5 until a commercial station in The Dalles, Ore., also on 104.5, won permission from the Federal Communications Commission to change its city of license to Covington in southeast King County. With a higher class of license, KMCQ-FM's move would have effectively knocked KMIH off the air, because of the possibility of interference.

KMIH fought back, with a petition drive and enlisting the support of Sen. Maria Cantwell.

Eventually KMIH and KMCQ's owners worked out a compromise. KMIH would move down the dial to 88.9 -- in a part of the FM spectrum generally reserved for non-commercial stations. (A third station -- the Bellevue School District's KASB-FM -- also agreed to relocate from 89.3 to 89.9 to accommodate KMIH.)

KMIH also hopes to launch a translator in Seattle on 94.5 in late September.

"Nobody is more happy than me to get rid of this animal," said Nick De Vogel, KMIH's general manager, referring to the uncertainty that has been hanging over the station since 2002. "We can go back and focus on what we want," including working with students (about 45 at Mercer Island High School participate at any one time) and developing more community programming.

"I can't say enough about all the people who helped us out" in keeping KMIH on the air and finding it a new home on the dial, he added.

KMIH's format is rhythmic contemporary hits; it markets itself as Hot Jamz Radio.

KMCQ-FM, meanwhile, will make its debut in the Seattle market by the first or second week of September, said Hal Rose, executive vice president of Broadcast management and Technology LLC, the Dallas-based parent of the station. "We still need to test our signal."

Listeners who tune in to the testing may hear "some different things we use to test," Rose said, but when it begins operating for real the format will be oldies. It had been an adult-contemporary station when it operated in The Dalles.

Rose defines oldies as "the best of the '60s and '70s, a little bit of '80s." It's a format that recently lost a station in this market when Bonneville International flipped KBSG-FM/97.3 to a simulcast of news and talk on KIRO-AM/710.

"We viewed that as an opportunity to fill that format hole," Rose said. However, KMCQ will still find the format plenty crowded with such competitors as KJR-FM/95.7, KJAQ-FM/96.5, KZOK-FM/102.5 and KFMY-FM/97.7.

As for who the announcers or hosts will be on KMCQ, Rose will only say that those announcements are "coming soon to a station near you."

In other radio notes:


Local TV legends J.P. Patches and Gertrude (Chris Wedes and Bob Newman) are the guests on "Weekday" at 10 a.m. Thursday on KUOW-FM/94.9.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.

Bill Virgin's Radio Beat, Thursdays in the Seattle P-I
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
User avatar
radiofan
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 13719
Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2006 2:24 pm
Location: Keremeos, BC

Postby Dan Sys » Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:33 pm

Interesting thread on the Seattle radio board about the new KMCQ and the fact that they have decided to go Oldies to fill the hole left by KBSG:
http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php ... 977.0.html
Good reading on a dreary dull Vancouver day.
User avatar
Dan Sys
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 1887
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:05 pm
Location: Aldergroove, B.C.

Postby douglasm » Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:25 pm

This begs the question:

How would you program an oldies station so it doesn't sound stale?

Me, I'd use short, snappy Drake style jingles, make sure the jocks know how to hit their posts (keeping the talk to a minimum), have a song rotation that doesn't play "It's My Party" every hour and a half, and make sure the local and regional hits are part of the mix.

A loud dragstrip commercial with plenty of echo every so often wouldn't hurt, either......
douglasm
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 53
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:34 pm
Location: North Central Washington

Postby skyvalleyradio » Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:44 pm

all of the above plus a HUGE library - after all they're only hard drives! It's amazing just how much material from the 50's 50's and 70's is out there and I'm talking obscure stuff and tracks that fit in below the Top 300.

In rotation, I'd have an hourly feature: (a) lost forgotten 45 (b) both sides of a double sided hit (ie: Beatles - All You Need Is Love/Baby You're A Rich Man) (c) longer, album version of charted hit (d) well-known album cut

During AM & PM drivetime, 20/20 news at :20 & :40

Hire as many jocks as the budget would allow: first up local icon Dave McCormick for an airshift and a "Discumentary" type long feature. Add more of our local broadcast icons such as Red, Doc, Jolly John for an all-album show, Bob Saye, Tom Jeffries and the one & only 'Mole of Soul' Bill Reiter for a weekly soul/R&B oldies show. I'm sure there are others whom I've forgotten...
User avatar
skyvalleyradio
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 1109
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:16 pm
Location: The Goofy Islands

Postby jon » Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:09 pm

douglasm wrote:How would you program an oldies station so it doesn't sound stale?

On which side of the 49th parallel?

30% CanCon is a real issue for Oldies stations in Canada. The repeat factor is my #1 staleness concern.

Gord Robson is the only Music Director who ever figured it completely. In the last 6 months or so of Cool 8-80 Edmonton, even before "The Boss" debuted, you really could listen to the station for 10-16 hours per day, day after day, and not find the CanCon too annoying. And when you did find it annoying, it was really because you had not yet got over the repeat factor you'd heard in the past.

Shannon Cooke did fairly well in the year before he left 66-CFR Calgary, especially considering that Gord was working with about 8 extra years of Canadian music than Shannon, though arguably Shannon played some '50s CanCon that Gord wouldn't touch, e.g. - The Four Lads.

Musically, living with 30% Cancon, I'd program an Oldies station with CanCon up to 1990, but non-CanCon restricted to the pre-Disco years. As well as the "true" Rock & Roll of the '50s, I'd add some Roots of Rock music from earlier in the '50s. And some R&B (no matter when it was released) that never really did well on the Rock stations of the day, but was successfully covered as a Rock hit later on. No, that wouldn't include the 1934 Ben Selvin version of the Flamingos' "I Only Had Eyes for You".

With the possible exception of a pair of songs back to back, the first ending cold, and the second starting cold, I'd want a live DJ there between every song. Yes, lots of jingles, but up to 25% of the time, I'd be OK with two songs back to back, with the DJ in there, if practical (i.e. - not cold end to cold start).

At least twice an hour: a less well known Oldie, with a little more discussion of the song by the DJ than normal.

If management presented me with the results of some focus group saying that we should be playing a particular CCR song every three hours, I'd counter by saying "I'll do one better -- CCR every two hours, but let's rotate through their 13 Top Ten hits, and add a few of their others, too, on longer rotation."

Dump all the AM and PM Drive conversation about Paris Hilton, current movies, or gender preferences in the use of public washrooms. Talk about: the music being played; local appearances of musicians whose work the station plays; updates on those musicians' current activities, especially recording and touring info; and today in history events that relate to the music or the muscians played on the station. And why not talk about some of the great Top 40 DJs and radio stations, especially today in history-related?

All of which requires DJs that know and love the music.

A big subject. I've only scratched the surface.
User avatar
jon
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 9256
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:15 am
Location: Edmonton

Postby douglasm » Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:45 pm

Still think you need a couple of these.....

http://www.keener13.com/spots/Spots%20D ... y%2064.mp3
douglasm
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 53
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:34 pm
Location: North Central Washington


Return to Seattle / Washington State Radio News

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 96 guests