Idaho Radio News Etc.

Longtime Boise radio vet Steve Shannon is headed back to Citadel for country afternoons on KIZN-FM Kissin’ 92.3.

Shannon is currently at Boise Traffic doing traffic drops for the Citadel cluster.

Steve came to Boise in the early 90’s for mornings at KZMG (point one-less… as Magic 93 at the tiem). He was paired with a number of partners over the years (Suz, Deb, Melissa, Steph, Melissa again) at both KZMG and KCIX-FM. A new operations manger at Clear Channel meant some changes (Steve and Ken Bass were both let go).

I saw this on the Utah Radio forum:

What would you do if you had $5 million dollars in start up costs for a radio station, and you had to make the station profitable within five years. You are a local owner with big dreams – what would you do. Use the comment link below.

Argh. Do you ever hear a song you’re tired of on one station, so you hit the dial and hear that exact same song on another station? OK, so it’s common in the Top 40 world of teensy playlists.

Have ya’ noticed though that when the two stations are KZMG & KSAS the songs sound a bit… different?

KZMG speeds the songs they play up just enough (presumably to cram more in, especially on the a side of the a/b clock, when they go 10 in a row). You hardly even notice, except when the same song plays on KSAS at a much slower speed.

Andale, andale…

XRock.com is online. The website for 100.3 KQXR-FM looks and feels a lot like River Interactive.

Rant: The website is pretty pointless. Lot’s of copy that is trying oh so hard to be funny, but isn’t really (kind of like this weblog). Nothing useful, nothing interesting. Some e-mail links, big deal. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot there – it is just 100% pointless.

The site’s designer clearly couldn’t get an actual copy of the X’s logo – because the site just tries to mimic the real logo, kinda.

OK, rant over.

OK, I complained for what seemed like weeks… but the end result is very nice.
Lite108.com has become LiteOnline.com - with a nice, polished look with the new logo and color scheme. This website really is one of the biggest in Boise radio, with just a ton of information, and it’s always regularly updated.

The Music Monster is throwing back to their first incarnation yet again.

The old jingles (a female medley of “Today’s Best Music … … K! T! P! Z! Muuuuuuuuuuusic Monnnnnnnster) are back, with one small change.

The middle used to be filled with just plain old ninety-nine…; now it’s been redubbed with 99-point-1! Otherwise, the jingle is exactly as it was when it disappeared several years ago.

Our anonymous tipster of the day tells me that long time Boise fixture Don Jarrett is leaving KIZN Kissin’ 92.3 in Boise.

He is heading to SLC for afternoons at KEGA 101.5 The Eagle (the newest country freq. in the bee hive state).

KIZN has begun a search for his replacement.

KUPI A/F has been sold to the Frandsen family of Logan, Utah.

KUPI-F is currently running country, and KUPI-A is running adult standards.

You might remember the Frandsen name – they purchased KOSZ & KADQ in late ‘01. ‘ADQ out of Rexburg just made the switch from AC to Alternative in August.

KOSZ is currently a classic hits format – and is has been re-called KQEO. The station is moving it’s city of license to Iona – a suburb south of IF, and wants to punch their signal in to Poky.

KUPI A/F were the last “locally owned” stations in the area (must’ve been nice to live in a market with stations with local owners).

The fate of the stations is unknown, but the Frandsen family clearly likes to make changes when they grab stations.

Thanks to a tipster for the info…

Carlo from Boise writes…

Oh… wait, sorry — Thought I was Delilah for a sec. Woo, so glad that little trip is over.

Anyway – someone wanted to know where Kip Guth is these days.

He’s still in the Boise area — out of the radio market of course.

Oh, and in case you are wondering who exacly Kip is – he launched KCIX as K-106 (with 106 days of commercial free music, remember?).

KTVB did a story about radio that included Kip about a year ago – that’s all that I’ve really heard of him in quite some time.

This also from AllAccess – WNKS Charlotte’s “Big Boy” Evan is headed for the Magic Morning show for co-host duties. Right now Evan does the overnight gig, so it appears he would fill the “intern” role formerly taken by Bambi.

Magic had announced this hire at the same time as the Carlos re-hire – so it does appear they are still looking for one more person.

Wow, waaaay to much speculation around here the last few days!

Kelly, our official Eastern Idaho bureau, says Simmons Media’s LIVE 105 has gone all Christmas, all the time.

Many soft AC stations take the plunge right around Thanksgiving (a fairly recent trend), and see the numbers go up — I’m a little shocked the flip came so early for Live.

Yikes… For the moment, Carlos is listed as “firmly staying in Florida, thank you,” according to AllAccess.

So now the big question: Is Magic still looking for someone, and for what shift would it be?

Carlos is currently on WAOA in Florida. He was recruitted there by Beau Richards, formerly the PD at Magic, and currently the PD at that station.

His website is quite interesting. He’s doing something called the Hot 9 at 9 on the station. Cool new idea.

You’ll notice I don’t comment on TV here — but KTVB has launched a new channel, the 24/7 NewsChannel on CableOne channel 28. Weekdays are mostly repeats of newscasts, but weekends have some very cool stuff – including a new Best of John Miller show, the KING-produced Northwest Backroads and more.

Check it out.

KUTV-TV in Utah just got a major face lift. They moved their studios from a dumpy warehouse out of the core of SLC to a beautfiul new street level studio on Main Street, SLC.

I was born and raised here – but have a close friend who works at KUTV. She gave me the nickel tour of the old studios recently, and I was not impressed. Even KBCI’s grocery store come TV station felt nicer.

Anyway, you’ll love this — maybe Boise will someday get something similar. Story | Photos

The other night, KISS-FM night voice-tracker Lackey decided he would talk about the big CC contest… then tag out by saying “real winners here in the Treasure Valley.” OK, yeah – it’s possible that someone in the Valley has won one of the national contests. However, the contest isn’t local – and odds are against a local winner.

Food for thought.

The show is still going – and is pretty decent. It’s not giving Katie & Matt or Bob Barker a run for their money by any stretch – but it’s good.

The show does seem to shine when some wacko calls in — Walton & PJ can’t make faces or hand signals – which makes the delicate ballet of getting rid of the caller all that much better.

KRVB started playing every song it plays — in alphabetical order on November 2. I sort of wished I was listening from the beginning. Cool cool COOL idea.

I don’t know how long the trick is going to take — but I would imagine it would be twice as long with the old KF95 playlist.

I heard KISS FM and Magic 93 were going to do the same thing. Then they realized it would only take 90 minutes. :)

It’s up to 27 bucks. Woo! (See earlier item if you are lost)

I’m a big Mad-ro fan. Their music is solid, and they are LOCAL! The band has been quiet since the release of their album a while back.

The Statesman’s little off-spring Thrive has a great update on the band.

With the Monster back – you’d think we would have two stations playing the new Mad-ro LP — right now it has no airplay. Maybe KSAS will play it. OK, maybe not.

OK, it took me 3 weeks to post this (and I appologize), but our friend Kelly wants to know:

Just wanted to get people’s thoughts about the Localism hearing the FCC had this past week. Even though it was held in North Carolina, there were alot of comments that apply to Idaho radio and radio in general. I think the best thing that could happen is to let the big Class C stations battle it out and let Low Power FM stations be commercial. People want to hear their local high school teams play by play, local call in shows, some local news; all the things the “consultants” say not to do. If nothing else, this will be a wake up call for stations to get the Local Issues file in the Public Inspection File fixed when it comes time for license renewal.

Here’s a nice little website content idea…

KZMG is posting pictures taken on Sprint camera phones (with a sponsor attached, natch). It’s a cool, fairly easy way to show how often a station hits the streets. This isn’t something I’ve seen on any radio site anywhere — it’s a great idea worth copying.

Check it here

Our friends at Idahoradio.us are reporting that Carlos (the Idaho baked potato… remember?) is returning to KZMG. Bambi (the for-now night guy) confirms the big rumor.

Carlos ran in two slots at Magic – mornings (with Mike, Kate and Jody Stewart) – then in the evening after Scooter B checked out.

Will Carlos, a) return to nights, with Bambi returning to mornings to give the show 3 peeps; or b) slide in to mornings with Jayar and Erica?

The safe bet is probably evenings… but I might make the vote for mornings. I think Bambi is the stronger jock — I might leave him in the PM.

We’ll see…

OK – the real job as been eating up a ton of time. Plus, there hasn’t been a ton of stuff to report (can you believe I’m able to say that in the book?)

OK – here we go.