Bill Virgin's On Radio January 22, 2009

[radiofan]

On Radio: Stations face turbulent year
Three local news items are linked
By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER

There were three separate news items about radio this week, each important to the local market, each intertwined with the other two and each illustrating what a turbulent year it already has been and will continue to be.

First up: Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s announcement that it is cutting 1,850 jobs, or 9 percent of its work force, because of what the company called "an unprecedented time of distress in the general economy," and the effects of that distress on its largest customers.

The company won't say how many of those cuts came in its Seattle-Tacoma cluster of four FM and two AM stations (soon to be five FM stations once KBKS-FM/ 106.1 is traded by CBS), or how the cuts are distributed among its radio and outdoor-advertising businesses. Clear Channel moved into the Seattle-Tacoma market in 2002 by buying Ackerley Group, which had both broadcast and billboard operations.

But at least two Clear Channel stations were making news of their own, as sports-talk outlets KJR-AM/950 and KHHO-AM/ 850 announced a plan to share programming and add new syndicated programs.

KJR-AM, the long-running Seattle sports talk station, will add Fox Sports programming overnight, holidays and weekends. For overnights, KJR will now carry "Fox Game Time React" with JT "The Brick" 11 p.m.-3 a.m., followed by "The Third Shift" with Ben Maller until 3 p.m. and "The First Team" with Steve Czaban till 6 a.m., when KJR's local hosts take over.

Some of those KJR hosts will start showing up on Tacoma-based KHHO as well. KHHO has added KJR morning host Mitch Levy 6-9 a.m., Dave Grosby and Mike Gastineau 3-5 p.m. and Gastineau 5-7 p.m. Sandwiched around those will be nationally syndicated Jim Rome 9 a.m.-noon, Dan Patrick noon-3 p.m. and Tony Bruno 7-10 p.m. KHHO, which will be marketed as South Sound Sports 850, also will continue to be affiliated with Washington State sports and the Tacoma Rainiers.

The moves are partly prompted by a new competitor in Seattle sports talk -- KIRO-AM/ 710, which plans to drop its news-talk format this spring. KIRO is picking up ESPN programs and adding the ESPN name to its brand in addition to its broadcasts of Mariners and Seahawks games (so far the only local host it has announced is Kevin Calabro), so KJR is ditching the ESPN affiliation now.

But there's also the attraction of getting more mileage out of existing programming by airing it on more stations and spreading out production costs. Levy's morning show on KJR-AM is already carried on a Spokane sports station.

Speaking of KIRO-AM and its FM simulcast partner at 97.3, the stations placed first in the overall fall-quarter ratings among subscribing commercial stations, as compiled by Arbitron. Finishing second was KRWM-FM/106.9, enjoying its traditional surge on the strength of all-Christmas programming, tied with KUBE-FM/ 93.3. Fourth went to KISW-FM/ 99.9, followed by two at fifth, KCMS-FM/105.3 (also with all-Christmas format for the holidays) and KTTH-AM/770. Political-talk stations, bolstered by the election, did well in the fall ratings.

When the AM side of KIRO goes to sports, the news and talk hosts including Dave Ross and Dori Monson, who had been mainstays of the AM station, will remain on FM (which was converted from a music format). A big question in the coming months is whether listeners will move with them, or if the assertion that FM is where the younger listeners are will prove to be beneficial to a talk format.

And there's a question of how all formats will fare once Arbitron rolls out a new technology for compiling listener data and ratings in the Seattle-Tacoma market later this year.

In other radio notes:


Bonneville Seattle said it has signed a multiyear deal to carry Seattle Sounders games on KIRO-FM. The soccer team's season begins in April. Meanwhile, it also named Shannon Drayer as Mariners beat reporter for KIRO-AM. She held a similar position at KOMO-AM/1000 when that station had the Mariners contract.

KPTK-AM/1090 said it plans to add two hours to Ron Reagan's talk show, produced in Seattle but distributed nationally by Air America, starting Feb. 2. The show will air 3-6 p.m. weekdays.

KUOW-FM/94.9 plans to replace "Weekend America," whose last show airs Jan. 31, with "KUOW Presents Weekend," a compilation of features from its local productions during the week. The first edition of the show airs at noon Feb. 7. To replace "Day to Day," another syndicated show that is going out of production, KUOW plans to switch "The Conversation" to noon weekdays, probably by Feb. 23. A replacement for the 1 p.m. slot hasn't been chosen.

The Metropolitan Opera performs Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" at 10 a.m. Saturday on KING-FM. The station says the production is a revival of a 2007 version conceived and directed by Seattle native Mark Morris; Bellingham native Heidi Grant Murphy performs the role of Cupid.

Readers have asked what happened to Rainier Radio, the Web archive of recordings from Northwest stations, which has been unavailable in recent weeks. John Sharify of Rainier Radio says the hang-up is "sorting out all the legalities with streaming copyrighted songs."

"Bluegrass Ramble" at 1 p.m. Sunday on KBCS-FM/91.3 features co-director Steve Ruffo previewing the upcoming Wintergrass Festival in Tacoma.

The Sunday edition of Jim French's "Imagination Theatre," heard at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KIXI-AM/880, includes a new Sherlock Holmes adventure.

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

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