Idaho Radio News Etc.

Friday’s cover story in USA Today features the Boise State Broncos, begining with a narrative threaded from Dr. Robert Kustra taking calls on KBOI/News Talk 670 recently.

Read it here.

Gemma Gaudette is joining Journal Broadcast Group’s KIVI as anchor of its new 6:30pm newscast — according to the rumor filled threads at TVSpy.com.

What does this do to her gig on KIDO?

Update: This is not nailed down – and only time will tell if the chattering class is on the money…

KBOI/News Talk 670 is helping raise cash for the Make a Wish Foundation. For each $5000 raised, a star will light up in the windows of the US Bank building in downtown Boise. Make a Wish helps grant wishes to ill children year-around. The station will feature one child’s story each Wednesday morning at 8am.

ALSO: KBOI is collecting holiday foodstuffs December 14th at the Albertsons in Eagle — to benefit the Idaho Food Bank

KKGL/96.9 The Eagle is helping its audience fulfill specific wishes for those involved in Idaho Youth Ranch programs. The station has put together a list of Christmas wishes from IYR residents and posted them online. You can pick out a child, add them to your own holiday list and do your karma some good!

The stations of the Journal Broadcast Group are again working with the US Marine Corps and Albertsons to help put smiles on the faces of children in need this year. KQXR, KRVB, KCID, KGEM, KJOT and KTHI, as well as KIVI-TV are telling folks to donate a toy at any Albertsons location this season.

It’s become cliché – but the choice between heat and toys is real for many families. This program helps make Christmas as bright as it should be.

Toys for Tots is also supported this year by the KTVB News Group, as well as KBCI-TV. There are more than 140 drop off locations valley-wide. I’ve put together an interactive map and list of all of them – find it here

One of Boise radio’s longest-running charitable promotions is back this year. KXLT/107.9 Lite FM has teamed with Home Federal and Jacksons to grant wishes to deserving families across the valley. The sponsors began granting a variety of wishes on November 24th, and will continue through this month.

The program began at KCIX/K-106 (several mergers ago) with Home Federal and Steve & Tracy Eddy Chevron. The sponsors have stayed remarkably stable – swapping KXLT for KCIX in the past few years, and Jacksons taking over the Eddy Chevron role after buying out the local gas station chain.

KRVB/94.9 The River spent the past few weeks asking for ideas on what organization should benefit from its holiday “Concert for Cause.” Now the voting is focused down to four groups – The Women’s & Children’s Alliance, CASA family advocate program, Terry Reily Health Service and the Idaho Youth Ranch.

You can vote for a cause here – through Friday. The winner, announced Monday, will benefit from a December 19th Curtis Stigers concert at the Big Easy.

All four finalists will get some value out of the promotion. Each is being featured on KRVB, informing the audience about the services they provide.

Last month, I noted that Mix 106 and a local pair of realtors were giving away a house.

This information was incorrect. The station spent the month of November giving away “a chance to win a house.” What’s the difference? All the qualifiers were actually just getting a shot to play a separate game of chance to win.

Don’t confuse this with the common “key game” that many stations play — where a set number of people are given a key to a car, and one person is guaranteed to win. This instead appears to be an insured game — with the party or parties involved taking out insurance against someone actually winning.

The game’s official rules are posted on the website of realtors Andi Yamamoto and Tracy Kasper (here) – however the document is missing an “appendix,” an apparently key part of the rules:

A Grand Prize may or may not be awarded in this Contest, see Appendix A for details.

The same rules sheet — sans the appendix — is available on Mix106radio.com — (here)

At the event, the station did not give away the house I’m told — but did award a number of other prizes – including a Simmons jewelry package, Tamarack pass and an “intelliBED.”

A comment left in an earlier post (which had to be removed for a rules violation) said this: “What nobody knew was the contestants had to enter the 4 digit code to the garage door opener to win.” By my math, that would put each individual’s chances of winning at one in 10,000 (assuming that 0000 was a playable code).

It’s of note that the two PDF files posted to the two separate websites are actually different files – indicating they were encoded and uploaded independently of each other. The one on the KCIX site has a tag reading “PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory trial version http://www.pdffactory.com,” while the other does not. The file size of the documents is also different.

Jeff Abrams – director of Boise Community Radio Project dropped a line in comments to respond to our September 18th item on the project’s slow progress.

Hello. I’m glad we’re still on everyone’s radar screen. After almost 18 months of webcasting from downtown, we are more of a broadcast service than ever, streaming content that originates here, in Boise (except our independently produced syndicated content).

As far as your header “still not on the air” – unless someone has figured out a way to bypass the FCC non-com freeze – I’m wondering why any “sources”, engineers or technical types are surprised we are not operating terrestrially. Our website is updated as news/events warrant, including announcements of upcoming fundraisers, etc such as our recent Amy Goodman benefit. We remain confident that our engineering strategy for obtaining a license is sound and we’re eagerly anticipating the day that the FCC opens the non-com window (potentially this spring) for new applications!

Regards,

Jeff Abrams
Executive Director
Boise Community Radio

(Thanks to Dave Arthur for the YouTube gold)

KAYN/Canyon Country 100.7 has moved to 106.7 in the Twin Falls area (Magic and Wood River Valleys).

100.7 is now broadcasting all-holiday all-the-time as “Christmas 100.7.” No word on the post holiday plan for the frequency.

Canyon Country is no longer available in the Boise area.

KGEM…

KCID…

I’ve agreed to help friend and colleague Cory Bergman at Lost Remote manage his new project: The Circuit.

These discussion group/e-mail lists give people an opportunity to share ideas and build a better web product. Three lists are offered: Revenue, Developers and Producers. While this will be primarily aimed at TV-side folks, there will likely be great ideas applicable for radio sites.

The groups will be moderated (meaning either Cory or I will approve any message going out) – so you shouldn’t be flooded with promotional spam or useless junk. Sign up here. The groups will use Google Groups – and you can opt out at any time.

Also: I’ve made several changes to the site based on suggestions. The gray and blue colors are darker, and the old “e-mail” link is back – above the search box. You’ll also find a new “about” page. I’ve also reworked the logo fobs… for the most part each station’s logo is no longer cropped (with a few exceptions). I’m also displaying eight recent comments, instead of five.

Odd… KTHI/107.1 K-Hits’ website is missing a logo or any identifying marks.

Update: It’s been fixed…

Byl & Doug at the Rolling Stones concert…

KXLT/107.9 Lite FM went all-Christmas all-the-time at the stroke of midnight.

KCIX/Mix 106 is already salting in holiday tunes – the first cut showed up before 1am.

The Boise Hawks have a new owner. The team was formerly owned by Base Capital — the parent company of Horizon Broadcast Group. HBG dumped their Boise/Twin Falls market stations – then later got gobbled up by Base Capital.

Red Wolf Broadcasting filed a challenge with the FCC over the license of KZMG/Magic 93.1, R&R reports. The complaint centers over the station’s airing of “Airbound.”

The program, produced by Citadel and hosted by company exec Tony Bristol aired on scores of company-owned pop/CHR/urban stations nationwide – including Magic.

The filing alleges Citadel accepted cash from top record labels, in exchange for song placement and the airing of a scripted donut promoting the song. An earlier Payola investigation by New York attorney general Elliot Spitzer found that labels purchased positions in a number of national programs – including Open House Party, Airbound, and Entercom’s CD Preview.

The complaint calls Airbound “a series of 12 or so commercials masquerading as a bona fide radio program.”

Red Wolf is zeroing in on the alleged failure of Citadel to identify the paid placement.

To my memory, the host generally read a vague acknowledgement of the labels involved at the end of the show. However, to my ear, it was not worded in such a manner that the average listener would think money exchanged hands

The show is no longer on the air — but nearly 30 Citadel stations join KZMG on the receiving end of the challenge filing.

Red Wolf owns a pair of stations in New London, Connecticut.

So why now? Magic’s license isn’t up until 2013. The battle centers in on the merger of Citadel and Walt Disney’s ABC Radio division. Since the deal is structured to move all licenses from both companies to a newly formed unit – Red Wolf is using the Airbound nugget in an attempt to block the ABCR/Disney merger.

This isn’t Red Wolf’s only attempt – it originally filed against 9 stations on this same issue in March. It even alleged that WXLM-FM went without tower lights at night, and had no fence around its transmitter site.

It’s not just Clear Channel shareholders or top execs that will make out like bandits if the proposed merger deal goes through — just about every investment bank on Wall Street gets a cut, so says MarketWatch. Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, RBS and Wachovia all either take an ownership stake, are providing advice or are helping to finance the deal. The banks stand to gain $130 million from the sale.

Then there’s this (again from MarketWatch):

The Clear Channel deal is also certain to draw scrutiny from regulators concerned that many private equity firms, including those tied to investment banks, are colluding on deals. At least five private equity firms have received inquires by the Justice Department, according to published reports.

The folks over at the Idaho Business Review have launched a new site. I noticed it yesterday – and John Foster dropped a comment on the new site below.

Check it out: idahobusiness.net

IdahoRadioNews.com is sporting a new look. Still trying to work out some bugs… but it’s nice to clean things up. It’s been almost two years since the last revamp… so it’s time. Drop me a comment if you see anything weird.

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, it’s my (nearly) monthly plea for your indulgence as I plug something.

My dad has a new calendar on the streets – featuring some very cool shots from around Boise. They’re fifteen bucks — and pretty damn cool (not that I’m biased). You can get yours Saturday mornings at Dawson Taylor downtown, or Trader Joes in Lake Harbor off State. More details (and all the images here).

Here are a few of the images:

KGEM/1140 AM is no longer playing original hits.

KCID/1490 AM is no longer playing oldies.

Instead — the formats have swapped frequencies (but not brands). KGEM is now “The Oldies Station” – while KCID is playing “America’s Favorites.” The oldies format picks up a 10,000 watt home backed by a major station owner, while the original hits format moves to the wimpy, Caldwell based 1,000 watt 1490 AM.

This sets up an AM showdown between KGEM and independent KDJQ. DJ Radio has Big Jack in its corner, but KGEM has money behind it.

KKGL/96.9 The Eagle’s Byl and Doug appeared on KTVB’s Morning News this morning to promote their “get well” card for injured Bronco RB Ian Johnson. The Eagle crew is working to get thousands of signatures on a large card for Ian.

Byl also invited folks to sign his dog. Poor pooch. Byl also “fell off a ladder” at his home. Sounds like he needs a get well card as well.

Happy Thanksgiving…