Idaho Radio News Etc.

KRVB/Idaho’s 94.9 The River morning co-host Ken Bass is also a new papa! Autumn Teresa Bass was born on the 16th to Ken and wife Michelle.

Again I say, Congratulations!

If you’ve been getting the “Sorry, you can only post a new comment once every 15 seconds” error when you try and post a comment, I’ve fixed the issue. This was making it so multiple people inside the same orginization couldn’t comment more than once per day (for instance, only one Journal employee could leave their $0.02 per day).

Pete Stauffer of KJOT/J-105’s Pete & Joe show is now a proud dad. Wife Amy gave birth to Lilly last week. The image below is a screencap from the story KIVI ran last night.

Congratulations!

Did Paul J. Schneider just wrap up his final regular season BSU football game? The radio contract is up this year – and several bidders will likely be circling around the rights, making it much harder for KBOI/Citadel to hang on. If Citadel loses the contract, Paul J.’s last football game would be whaterver bowl the team ends up in this year. Last summer I broke down the potential players in the radio rights race.

A commenter noted hearing former KQXR morning co-host and KKGL afternoon co-host Byl Carrico Saturday on KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM. I also heard him for a bit this morning with Hooker and Chad during the morning drive.

More talent changes at Peak Broadcasting Boise – as Brian “the Bird” exits KAWO/Wow Country 104.3. Brian started with KAWO as evening host before sliding into the AM show producer job. (He also did weekends on KTMY before the station was rebranded under the Wow Country name).

This is the third on-air staff cut at Peak in the past week.

A memo obtained by Idaho Radio News written by Peak Boise SVP Kevin Godwin says the decision to let go Melissa Dawn and Greg Williamson the day before Thanksgiving was made after “months of thought and consideration.” Godwin’s note says Dawn and Williamson are “both terrific people and this was a very difficult decision.” He also said that if “given the opportunity, would hope to have them back at Peak Broadcasting.”

KXLT’s morning show will remain in place, but the station will focus on “more music at work.” Wether this means voice trackers or no jocks at all is unknown.

Also: Along with the move to morning traffic anchor, Tobin Jeffries will no longer hold the title of program director for KXLT/107.9 Lite FM. Current KCIX/Mix 106 program director Brent Carey will take over that role, with Jeffries acting as assistant program director for Lite, as well as network operations manager for the traffic group.

Peak Broadcasting let two members of its on-air staff go Wednesday, according to reliable sources. Greg Williamson and Melissa Dawn Liebenthal were both let go by Peak from their jobs as utility players (both held down shifts on KXLT/107.9 Lite FM). Melissa has been with the company since way back since the Jacor days, while Williamson was on his second tour of duty with the cluster. Williamson also anchored morning traffic updates for the cluster – a job Tobin Jeffries will now step into. It is unclear how the rest of the KXLT broadcast day will shake out. The station went “all Christmas” on Friday as it does each year.

Brundage Mountain Air is out of the radio business after selling KMCL-AM. The buyer is is Holly Larsen, operating as “Mountain Air.” Larsen lives here in Boise – due to the holiday I haven’t tried to make contact. The new company will not only run the low-power AM via a time brokerage agreement, it will run KMCL-FM as well.

You’ll remember that KMCL-FM has been purchased by FM Idaho – and will be moved to Parma on 101.1 FM with 100 Kw of power – giving it a decent Boise-area signal pattern. Tester Broadcasting operates FM Idaho’s Boise-area properties. It appears Larsen’s company will operate KMCL via a time brokerage agreement with FM Idaho until the station is moved to Parma

Oldtimer, our resident FCC expert notes that Larsen may not have a tough time replacing KMCL in the McCall area if she chooses to. OT notes that there are four FM frequencies allocated to the area awaiting auction.

KMVX/Mix 103 in the Magic Valley’s “60 Hours to Fight Hunger Radiothon” was a huge success. The event brought in 1,432 turkeys that will grace the tables of homes around the area. The Mix 103 folks were joined in the effort by a local car dealer and KMVT-TV.

The Boise Community Radio Project has submitted its FCC application as previously noted, to broadcast on 89.9 FM. The city of license for the Boise project would be… Caldwell. Ahh the FCC.

BCRP was the only NCE application made in the Boise valley – though scores of applications were filed statewide (more on that later).

The 89.9 location would be very close to KTSY (89.5 FM) and KBSU (90.3 FM).

BCRP’s supporting documents (view here – PDF) say that current radio programming “fails to reflect the educational needs of our community,” and says there isn’t a whole lot on the air that can “assist citizens in discussing the implications of demographic transition.” Also, BCRP feels Boise’s radio programming “generally fails to examine issues affecting souther Idahoans.”

Currently, the Boise area offers a whopping 150.5 hours of locally produced public affairs, talk or music programming – that is an average of 21.5 hours per day. (See chart below).

Currently, BCRP’s online stream features 6.93 hours of local talk (of which more than half is repeats, boiling down to less than three hours of content), and about 61 hours of locally produced music shows (including about 50% repeated content, most shows do not feature local artists). This averages out to about nine hours per day. The amount of original content is about 30 hours – or 4 hours per day. It stands to reason that if BCRP were granted a license it would increase local content – if the group can find funding.

BCRP takes a stance that BSU Radio provides very little local content:

Community radio is not the same as National Public Radio (NPR). As an NPR affiliate, Boise State University offers syndicated national news, talk and classical music programs. Less than 5% of their [sic] schedule is locally programmed.

BSU Radio produces 47.5 hours of local programming per week (NOT including news), or 6.7 hours per day across its three Boise stations. Almost none of this is repeated. This totals 9.5% of total programming.

Edit: The list below shows the total number of hours per week that a local station airs (not including news updates, remotes or normal music-driven shifts).

KIDO: 33 (mornings, Monday sports show, weekend shows)
KFXD: 20 (mornings)
KBOI: 27 (mornings, Saturday morning shows)
KBSX: 2.5 (City Club, Dialogue, New Horizons [X2])
KBSU-FM: 15 (Laz Spectrum, Private Idaho, Jazz Straight Ahead, Arthur Balinger programming)
KBSU-AM: 30 (Saturday Spanish-language programs, Sunday University Pulse)
KRVB-FM: 1 (The Other Studio)
KQXR-FM: 1 (Xclusive)
KTMB-FM: 5 (Dzuback sports show)
KTIK: 15 (Caves & Prater)
KAYN: 1 (Divas for a Difference)

KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM’s 1033kissfm.com has a tease on its home page for Halloween pics from Hannah’s a few weeks ago. It says “coming soon.” Post ‘em already! There’s one I want to see…

The station’s Treasure Valley Tour has been surprisingly good radio, and if nothing else it is giving the station a lot of buzz and direct contact with listeners during the book. We’ll see how the ratings picture pans out – but KSAS has a strong team in place right now.

Remind me, won’t you… to tell you a good story in a few months. K?

Former KFXD program director Greg Roberts posted a comment on our 18-month-old KFXD wall thread. I’m still looking for pictures of the KFXD “wall” in the old days before it was painted over. If you’ve got them send them my way so we can share!

The History of Idaho Broadcasting Foundation will bring its next meeting to the Citadel palace at 15th & Bannock in Downtown Boise on November 29th at 7pm. An aircheck of KBOI’s transition to 50,000 watts in 1968 will be featured. Full details after the jump
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I’m bending (OK, breaking) my TV rule. A story this week on KIVI has ignited a debate on TVSpy (a website for TV news folks across the country). I’m going to disable comments here (since, as I’ve stated before – I can’t be a fair arbiter), but you can read the TVSpy thread and comment over there if you like.

Story video
TVSpy discussion

Peak Boise SVP Kevin Godwin was part of that panel I teased several times on how PR people and news folks can better work together. I didn’t take notes and this was 24 hours ago, but Godwin hit on how his young company is working hard to recruit new talent – and noted that the group has hired somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 people since launching in April. He expressed frustration that radio has a hard time keeping people (on the content side) in a market the size of Boise.

Godwin also talked about how KFXD/All Talk 63 is working to make Jon & Chris a place where people can come on and talk about a wide variety of issues that may not get full coverage in the media, and emphasized the free-wheeling nature of the show.

Also, KBOI/AM 670 came up during the discussion for a brief moment. Last week, a man shot and killed himself in the St. Alphonsus bathroom. That same day, the media learned of an escaped inmate from the Ada County Jail – who had been publicly identified by the Ada County Prosecutor. During the afternoon, officials, as well as the media figured out that the escaped inmate killed himself. As officials were working to notify the family of the death, KBOI uncorked the news and went on the air with it… hours before any other media — potentially letting the family hear about their loved one’s suicide on the radio. During the forum, KBOI was not identified by name, but when the incident came up, Godwin quickly noted (and rightfully so) that it “wasn’t our station.”

Former KTSY/89.5 FM program director/operations manager Ty McFarland is coming back to Idaho after about 18-months at WGTS in Washington, DC. McFarland will head up KTFY in Twin Falls. Right now the station is an exact simulcast of KTSY, but will spin off from its big brother and go forth as a separate station sometime after the first of the year.

Also, KTSY launched a new website – and it is very well done. Give it a look at 895ktsy.org. KTSY’s Jerry Woods tells me it is about 90% complete.

And one more note on the KTSY beat – Woods and KTSY chaplain Brian Yeager just wrapped up a 323 mile ride through SW Idaho, raising $14,000 along the way for Project Patch. Brr

Bustos Media and their Boise area stations are helping raise money for victims of recent flooding in the Tabasco region of Mexico. All donations will go to the Mexican Red Cross. Details after the jump
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Come down and hear Kevin Godwin (among others) talk about how news & PR people can work together TONIGHT. Details here

The Words & Deeds blog posted the lineup for last week’s Other Studio on 94.9 The River. Good mix, ya’ think?

1. Maktub, “Know Your Name”
2. Eagles, “Last Good Time in Town”
3. Britney Spears, “Piece of Me”
4. Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, “Your Long Journey”
5. Patti Griffin, “No Bad News”
6. Puscifer, “Queen B”
7. The Whigs, “Right Hand on My Heart”
8. Maktub, “Open Mind”

It used to be the Citadel Broadcasting Boise websites were the best in the market. Now? Fat chance. Peak Broadcasting hired Stationality to put together a suite of sweet websites, and the Journal Broadcast Group got with the program as well. But the Citadel sties sites have pretty much stood still and now seem increasingly cluttered and stale. Both KBOI and KQFC have put together new logos (appearing on billboards around town), but the websites don’t have them. KZMG.com still has pics of its outsted morning team online. KKGL’s site has its own 3+ year-old logo in spots as well. KIZN.com is up-to-date and packed with content… but its hard to find anything.

Just checked on the status of Citadel Broadcasting v. Peak Broadcasting et al. A month ago I noted a filing that indicated a possible settlement between the two radio groups – but as of this writing, nothing’s happened.

Boise State Radio raised a total of $285,000 during its recent fall fundraiser – a record according to the station.

Also: The station has added an interesting new bit of local programming. This from the latest edition of the station’s e-newsletter:

Speaking of local programming, I hope that you have been taking advantage of the local broadcasts of the Boise Philharmonic replaying on KBSU-FM. We’re very excited to be bringing you this broadcast as well as our on-going partnership with the Boise Philharmonic. You can find out more details on these shows at our website, radio.boisestate.edu

The broadcasts started October 15th and continue through May.

KIDO/NewsRadio 580 has launched a new weekly program focused on local sports. Monday Night Sports airs each week on Monday from 6:00-7:00pm. AM Idaho hosts Brian Holmes and Dave Burnett are joined by Cliff Marks for the live program, which displaces the first hour of Mark Levin.

Marks formerly hosted “Tee Time on the Ticket” with Brett Reckamp on KTIK/ESPN Radio 1350 KTIK, and served as a Citadel AE.

The new show joins a variety of other KIDO local weekly hours, including Saturday features Home Fix, D&B Gardening Show, Money Matters and Radio Cafe – and Idaho Insights and Treasure Valley Real Estate Today on Sunday.

The Idaho Daily Statesman now has a blog page. It features the latest entries from the paper’s in-house bloggers… and links to 17 other local blogs. Guess what one of those blogs is? Umm. Yeah. I don’t get why they’d do that either. But thanks. (Oh, and I just checked the stats… not one click has come from IdahoStatesman.com… ever).