Idaho Radio News Etc.

Those big changes at Boise’s Impact Radio Group we broke earlier this week are set to start. Here come the bullet points…

• KQLZ/Idaho’s True Oldies Channel moves from 100.7 to 99.1 starting tomorrow. Impact will stick it to “The Man” and end the format
• 99.1 and 100.7 will simulcast until August 31.
• On September 1, 100.7 FM will start up a new regional Mexican format, anchored by syndicated personality Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo in morning drive.
• Mikey Fuentes is joining the cluster as director of programming. Impact VP cited the company’s hope to compete with the “big three” in the hiring of Fuentes: “To compete with top notch companies like Citadel, Peak, and Journal, we needed an experienced programmer to lead our team and Mikey fits the bill. His format experience is diverse in both English and Spanish. Mikey will not only be launching 100.7 for us, he will also be helping the continuing building process of ‘Bob’ and ‘True Oldies’”
• The group is starting to prepare for the move-in of the former KMCL (now KMXM) at 101.1 FM, and says Fuentes will help shape the new station.

The Idaho State Broadcasters’ Association honored the best of the best in radio and TV recently. The awards are open to entrants statewide, but only Treasure Valley stations took home awards at the annual Sun Valley ceremony.

NEWS

• Best Public Affairs – KBOI “Return of the Salmon,” Ken Weaver
• Best Agricultural Program – KIDO “Coyotes,” Sean Chaney
• Best Local Newscast – KIDO “KIDO News Team”
• Best News Story – KBOI “Democrats Caucus,” Melissa Dawn, Ken Weaver
• Best Sports Program – KTIK “Sports Talk with Caves and Prater”
• Best Sports Play-by-play – KBOI “3OT WAC Championship,” Paul J. Schneider & Todd Miles
• Best Investigative Report – KBOI “Shopping Quest Scam,” Brett Reckamp
• Best Spot News – KBOI “Super Tuesday,” Melissa Dawn, Jay Howell
• Best Feature News Story – KIDO “Pearl Harbor 66 Years Later”

COMMERCIALS

• Best Commercial Single – KSAS, “Ideal Image Code 7 Yetti,” Jodi Sali, Chris Adams, Robin Scott
• Best Commercial Series – KCIX “Escape the Crate Doggie Daycare,” Jodi Sali
• Best Commercial Copy – KXLT “Ideal Image You’re Right,” Jodi Sali
• Best Public Service of Public Affairs Announcement – KJOT “Idaho Transportation Department DUI Awarness,” Dave Sparks

ENTERTAINMENT

• Best Personality – KIZN Steve Shannon
• Best Morning Show – KJOT “Pete & Joe Show,” Pete Stauffer, Joe Weber

PROMOTION

• Best Audience Promotion, TV Using Radio – KIZN “Steve Shannon CMT,” Steve Shannon
• Best Audience Promotion, Radio Using Radio – KIZN “Kissin’ Gave ‘Em Away,” Rich Summers
• Special Projects – KSAS “Live for 175″

A public radio show is looking to do a show from (or near) Sun Valley on Friday August 15th. Anyone know of an ISDN-capable studio?

Let me know and I’ll pass word along.

Blogs blogs everywhere. Check out all the (mostly active) blogs from local radio folks:

• KRVB’s Morning blog
• KJOT’s Aftershow blog
• KCIX’s Mike & Kate blog
• Casey Acevedo’s “Master Cleanse” blog at DanTooker.com… proceed with caution.
• Brenda Mee’s Mrs. Idaho International blog
• KTHI’s Road to Recovery blog by Margo Vaughn on her fight against breast cancer
• Jerry & Michelle Radio Show blog from KTSY
• KAWO’s Tarzan Dan blog

Deeds declares “I Kissed a Girl” the song of the summer. Deeds declares his disdain. Can’t wait until Mike’s infant child hits pre-teenhood!

KZMG’s Miggy and KSAS’s KeKe are featured over here

Michael Savage – who has picked on just about everyone – may finally have picked the wrong target: autistic kids.

Savage called the kids “idiots” and “morons” (clip at right).  Now pressure is mounting for Savage to step down or be fired.  Aflac and Home Depot pulled out, and a few affils have dunked the program as well.

KBOI airs the program evenings following Nate Shelman.

KKGL/96.9 The Eagle is running a liner that bills itself as “Boise’s only classic rock station.”

While the station does play classic rock, and covers Boise – so does KJOT/J-105. Heck, both are even licensed to the City of Trees.  When I heard the liner, I thought perhaps KKGL is basing the claim on not playing currents.  Turns out, KKGL played six currents in the past week (including a KT Tunstall song… ?) according to MediaBase.  KJOT also played a couple currents – and by “a couple” I mean exactly two.

The History of Idaho Broadcasting Foundation’s next meeting is set for this Thursday at 11:30am. Full details after the jump. The meeting will focus on KIDO’s 80th anniversary this fall – and includes news about a possible book about the station’s history.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Man experiment is about to end. A well-connected tipster says the year-long tryout of KTMB/99.1 The Man will end soon – with KQLZ/Idaho’s True Oldies Channel moving to the superior 99.1 slot (from 100.7). The big question mark is the fate of the 100.7 frequency. Also, would KTIK try to find a spot for Dan Patrick, which is currently on The Man – and not part of the station’s ESPN package?

Look for the Oldies switch as July turns to August.

We’ve been following the potential move of a rash of Idahos stations for several years now – and the deal is done, and stations have been ordered by the FCC to starting movin’.

The rundown:

- KQFC/97.9 FM will move to 102.7 FM
- KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM will move up just one tick to 103.5 FM.
- KTPZ/Music Monster 94.3 will move yet again – this time to 97.7 (it used to be at 99.1 )
- KSKI/103.7 FM will slide down the FM slope to 94.5 FM
- KMVX/Mix 103 will move from 102.9 FM to 103.1 FM
- KSRA/92.7 FM moves to 92.9 and gets a signal upgrade to 100kw
- KEZQ/92.9 The Big EZ flips to 92.7 FM and will change from a West Yellowstone, MT station to an Iona, ID station, further pulling it into the Idaho Falls market

More fallout:
- Construction Permit KPHD changes its city of license from Elko, NV to a full class C in Melba. The new station will slot in at 97.7 FM
- A vacant channel allotted to McCall is reassigned to 103.1 but remains a class C3 so as to not interfere with KMVX at Jerome. No auction date has been set for this channel.
- KXML, a construction permit licensed to Salmon UPGRADES to 100kw at 99.9

Previously, three other stations were ordered to move – including KZDX, KAOX, and KQEO – details here.

All this fun was triggered by College Creek Media. College Creek will pay reasonable costs for all these moves, and the affected stations have until October to file for construction permits for the changes.

ALSO: Some of these stations are going to have a tough time on the web. 1035kissfm.com is Clear Channel’s Chicago station… KissFMBoise.com, KissFMIdaho.com, KissBoise.com and KissIdaho.com haven’t been registered… yet…

KXLT/107.9 Lite FM parted ways with AM co-host Kevin Murphy. Murphy has been with KXLT since before the Peak handoff. That leaves Claire Day as the lone personality local personality on the station.

What’s next for Lite?

Maria E. Juarez, et al have proposed to move KDIL-AM, a construction permit licensed to Dillon, MT to the Twin Falls Market on 940 AM, according to FCC filings. Here’s the link (PDF).

Pacific Empire is unloading KATW/Cat 101.5, KCLK/Sports Fan 1430, KVAB/Rock 102.9 and KCLX/Cool 94.1 in the Lewiston/Clarkston market to Bolland Enterprises for a cool $3 million.

Pacific Empire still owns stations in E. Idaho and in Oregon.

KTIK sports guru J Bates is taking up the reigns of KBCI’s sports operation:

I have a new job. Starting August 4th I will be the new Sports Director at KBCI Ch 2 here in Boise… I will continue here at KTIK/KBOI only with a few less hours. I’m still ironing out details, but things are going to be good at Ch 2 again, and I’m one step closer to my goal as King of all Boise Sports Media.

Related: Behler was Peak’s third choice

© 2008 Idaho Radio News

The battle for the rights to broadcast Boise State University Athletics on a local radio station has been unusually contentious – and public.

Idaho Radio News obtained nearly 200 pages of documents related to Peak Broadcasting’s acquisition of the radio rights to Boise State University sports. The documents were obtained under Idaho’s open records law, and were so voluminous that the university had to spend staff time to cull and redact the records (don’t worry taxpayers, I paid the $47 bill). IRN also reviewed an audiotape of a June meeting of the Idaho State Board of Education where Citadel tried to push for a rebid of the contract, and Boise State was put in the position of defending its choice of Peak Broadcasting.

We’ve also looked at several versions of the contract and e-mails between Peak executives and Boise State officials.

The records help paint a better picture of not only how Peak was awarded the contract, but how and why it landed on Bob Behler and Jadon Dailey as its broadcast team for this fall’s football games.

Citadel’s last stand

Peak Broadcasting and KIDO were officially awarded the contract in April – with the new deal set to start as soon as the 35-year relationship with Citadel and KBOI ended in June.

Just before KBOI’s clock ran out, Kelly A. Cameron, an attorney for Boise firm Perkins-Coie made a short presentation on behalf of Citadel to the State Board.

“I’m not here to today to convince, but to raise our concerns,” Cameron said.

Cameron helped lay out Citadel’s case for why it wasn’t considered fairly. The bottom line, in Citadel’s estimation: cash. Citadel claimed it put forth more money toward the deal, and other factors like “enthusiasm” shouldn’t be considered.

“The financials of Citadel’s proposal was [sic] just superior,” he said. “Our suggested remedy for this would be to rebid.”

Later that day, the Board took up the matter, and Kevin Satterlee, attorney for Boise State said that while Peak’s bid was technically worth more, the incentives put forth by Peak far outweighed the cash.

Satterlee also emphasized that Peak’s bid included incentives for post-season play, which if the football team reached a bowl game or men’s basketball team made it to the NCAA or NIT tournament in one of the two years, Peak’s bid would actually pay out more money.

It’s the network

One of the key factors in awarding the bid to Peak was the creation of a region-wide network of affiliated stations. Peak’s proposal provided for stations across Idaho and throughout the region. Once the deal was signed, Peak SVP Kevin Godwin lined up affiliates in Ontario, McCall, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Pocatello and into Oregon and Washington. Citadel’s proposal provided for two markets: KBOI and a Spokane affiliate.

“KBOI has a very strong signal that reaches out across some parts of Idaho,” BSU President Dr. Robert Kustra said. “As strong as that signal is, it misses quite a bit of Idaho, and it misses our surrounding states. KIDO in their proposal offered to extend coverage of Boise State University athletics beyond the KBOI contract by signing up affiliates throughout the state and beyond the state.”

Satterlee estimated the value of that network at between $700,000 and $1 million – if Boise State were to go out and purchase airtime for its games to air on those stations.

But Cameron said that was unfair – since Citadel’s network, such as it is, also has value.

“I’ve not seen any basis for $1 million,” he said. “Peak didn’t put that number in (the bid). Citadel had also proposed a network, not the same as the network Peak proposed, but certainly not at a value of zero.”

The $700,000-$1 million figure determined by the school appears to have come from an estimate given by Godwin. In a spreadsheet outlining the value of promotions and airtime on the eleven stations in the Bronco Sports Network, Godwin came up with a figure of $496,642 per year – or $993,284 over the life of the contract. The value of just the airtime alone is estimated at $729,284.

Citadel valued its network at $350,000.

Broncos En Espanol

Another key factor cited was the creation of a Spanish-language affiliate. But Peak tried to finesse that part of the deal to a degree that Boise State felt compelled to remind Peak of how important the Spanish-language portion of the broadcasts were to the winning bid.

Godwin wanted to remove the Spanish-language portion of the deal from the final contract.

“(E)verything looks fine except for the commitment you are asking of us for Spanish broadcasts,” Godwin wrote. “I would prefer to leave that out of this contract and work with [sic] to secure a subcontractor agreement outside of the contract.”

Godwin said he “put the brakes” on the Spanish portion of the deal (with KWEI) because of liability concerns.

“We will work diligently to get a local Spanish broadcasting partner and secure the subcontractor agreement. But as for this BSU/Peak contract…there are two many variables & uncertainties at this point for us to commit to that network addition in our agreement.”

On June 12th, BSU General Counsel Satterlee said in no uncertain terms that this line of thinking wouldn’t fly. The “ground breaking” addition of the Spanish-language affiliate was key to the award.

“I… appreciate that we need to make sure that Peak and the University are covered as far as the liability of a third party station being involved,” Satterlee wrote to Godwin. “However, it is the fact of that new ground breaking that was the basis of the award of the contract to Peak. It was Peak’s proposal that included a Spanish language broadcast as part of the radio network and it was the creation of the network that was a pre-requisite to the contract award.”

“We need to find a way to make this work,” Satterlee wrote.

The formation of the Bronco Sports Network – and the Spanish portion of it in particular were noted at the June 19th State Board of Education meeting.

“Peak has committed to running our games on a Spanish station in the Treasure Valley, and that’s never been done before,” Satterlee told the board.

No value in the value

Another key point by the BSU team was that some of what Citadel proposed to do – and put value toward – actually didn’t have any value to the school.

The top item was the creation of an hour-long Saturday morning radio program. Satterlee said they tried this one time before and it “failed because it was too much of a burden to the University.”

Peak also proposed a weekly hourlong show – but the actual time-slot gave it more value in Boise State’s estimation. Peak’s show is slated to air on Wednesday evening, instead of the hectic Saturday morning period.

“Saturday morning is not a good time to have our athletics staff try and make a radio show when there is [sic] football games all through the fall and basketball games all through the winter,” Satterlee said. “While there’s quote-unquote value in the Citadel bid, there wasn’t any value to the University.”

Citadel also put $200,000 of value toward a NCAA Final Four tournament contest.

“While it does promote listenership to that station, it doesn’t promote value to the University,” he said.

The ‘inappropriate overture’

After Satterlee had a chance to defend the University’s choice of Peak Broadcasting, Dr. Kustra addressed the board one more time.

He said that his group went out of its way to be fair and equitable to all sides – and he was as surprised as anyone about the choice of Peak Broadcasting.

“I never in a million years thought the contract would be awarded to KIDO,” he said. “KBOI had a long history with Boise State, and if anybody had asked me to make the call, I would have assumed – and I did assume – that the contract would have stayed where it was for a number of years.”

Kustra said he doesn’t know Kevin Godwin – and said he doesn’t think he’s ever met him.

He mentioned several “overtures” on behalf of groups that wanted “this contract very badly.” He told the board that no back-channel requests ever came from Peak. But clearly someone at Citadel did something that Kustra thought to be improper.

“It’s particularly distressing that we bent over backwards to be fair, to be objective and to ignore some overtures that I think that were improper,” he said. “And in the end, the contract went to someone I didn’t even know.”

Godwin expressed gratitude to officials in the Athletic Department.

“Guys, I didn’t attend the SBOE meeting, but I know Kevin and Dr. Kustra put a lot of effort in defending your decision regarding the rights and I wanted to tell you how much we appreciated that.”

In the end, the State Board of Education approved the deal, and just a few days later, KIDO relaunched with a new BSU-themed logo and slogan. Over at Citadel, general manager Sandy Gamblin was fired from his post just two weeks after the decision.

Peak Broadcasting conducted an extensive search to find the new “Voice of the Broncos” after it attained the right to broadcast football and basketball games earlier this spring. Peak hired Bob Behler, formerly the play-by-play announcer for University of Massachusetts.

But before Behler got the nod, Peak approached two other men about the job. The list of applicants started at nearly 200, and Peak Broadcasting SVP Kevin Godwin “knocked down” the list to 56 – then 16.

Godwin told the media that he hoped to name the new “Voice” on Friday June 20th. The actual announcement didn’t come until ten days later – on June 30th. Now we know why. It turns out, Bob Behler hadn’t even been in Boise yet. He arrived for the first time on June 26th – a full week after Godwin indicated the new hire would be made public.

But Peak’s first choice wasn’t Bob Behler. In fact, he received the third offer from the company. The first offer went out to Chris Blair who is the play-by-play announcer for Georgia Southern University. In a note from Godwin to two top BSU sports officials on Monday June 23rd, he broke the news that Blair turned the job down – and Peak’s short two year contract was a major reason. “the two year deal and moving this far away became issues once we started to discuss the process,” Godwin wrote. “I’m not concerned and I’m glad we found this out now. Dave Koehn and I talked Friday night and he is extremely excited about it. I have a letter of intent with compensation details in front of him now and have a contract being drawn up for him…but I’m obviously hesitant to announce anything until the contract is signed (I hope by tomorrow).”

As we reported last month, Dave Koehn decided not to sign that letter – instead opting for a play-by-play gig with the University of Virginia.

Godwin seemed to get more cautious as the process went on. The day before Behler arrived in Boise, Godwin e-mailed BSU sports officials with his backup plan.

“Just in case, please review the list of candidates I emailed to you yesterday, and the demos/resumes, I want to continue to be prepared to move forward with others if need be.”

In an e-mail sent just an hour after the “just in case” note, Godwin dug in and put on the full court press with Behler. (As an aside, Boise State redacted Behler’s name from this note – but the “TO:” line wasn’t removed… it reads “Bob Behler.”)

“(Redacted), I really enjoyed our conversation last evening, and I can’t wait to meet you tomorrow… after I pick you up at the airport… we will head to a great little steakhouse for dinner with a couple of guys from Peak.” Godwin noted that he would take Behler to Peak, then go to Boise State. “If you are still excited or more so about this position….maybe head to lunch and discuss details/dates. How does that plan sound?”

Behler clearly enjoyed the trip – and he signed his name on the dotted line, Peak finally announced the hire on June 30th.

More than three years ago, Citadel employees lost their right to look at this site at work. They were told how vile it is – and told not to participate.

I thought that was dumb. This takes the cake though. Citadel employees also can’t check their personal e-mail at work. No kidding. Gmail, etc. is cut off on Citadel terminals.

No wonder Citadel folks are so loyal!

Eastlan has pushed out its E. Idaho ratings.  The book is based on Bonneville, Bingham and Bannock Counties.  Here are the 25-54 AQH share numbers

• KLCE (AC) – 15.2
• KFTZ (CHR) – 8.3
• KMGI (Classic Rock) – 8.0
• KCVI (Active Rock) – 7.8
• KPKY (Classic Rock) – 6.9
• KUPI (Country) – 5.3
• KQEO (Classic Hits) – 4.6
• KTHK (Country) – 4.3
• KWIK (News/Talk) – 3.6
• KID-AM (News/Talk) – 3.2

By group:

• Riverbend – 4FM & 1AM – 37.6
• 2.GAP West – 4 FM & 2AM – 19.5
• Sand Hill – 4 FM – 12.6
• 4Pacific Empire – 3 FM & 1AM – 11.6
• Idaho Wireless – 2FM – 3.5

Former Tester Broadcasting CEO Dave Tester and current Impact Radio Group sales guy Wayne Dzuback have teamed up to broadcast the Snake River Stampede rodeo this week. The Idaho Press Tribune reports the pair are doing the call on KTMB/99.1 The Man – and a couple of AM stations.

“I secretly want to be a rodeo announcer,” Tester said, “I want to be (Stampede announcer) Bob Tallman, so I have to think up ways to do it.”

The Southwest chapter of the Idaho Press Club has an interesting forum coming up. Here’s the description:

By now, the hand-wringing over the Internet’s impact on print media is a familiar story. But what
about the way the Internet is transforming local television news? Some Idaho stations are jumping
wholeheartedly onto the Web, while others are taking more cautious steps. Could the Internet
provide a level playing field for television and print mediums?

The panel’s interesting…

Mark Danielson, GM of KIFI Idaho Falls
Don Day, KTVB & Idaho Radio News
Vickie Holbrook, Idaho Press Tribune
Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman

Should be lively, since I can safely say that Kevin & I are both loyal to the what our respective employers are doing in the market. Plus, Mark used to be my boss and Vickie Holbrook gives newspapers a good name.

It’s at Beside Bardenay at 5:30pm on August 14. Join us!

Last shameless plug on this topic (for now): We’re up and running with DayPower Media. Aletia Powers and I are offering a full range of Internet solutions – including design, coordination, social networking, blogs, e-commerce, search engine optimization and marketing and more.

Learn about us at daypowermedia.com, plus find samples and more!

Dan Popkey’s switching stations. That’ll hold ‘em!

For five years, I’ve talked about the news and taken calls on KIDO radio. It’s been great to interact with listeners and hosts. But next week, I’ll be moving to 670 KBOI and Nate Shelman’s drive-time show. I’ll appear for 30 minutes, starting at 4:30 p.m. Mondays. If you have a moment, please listen in, and call if you’re so moved.

Whatcha got? idahoradio@gmail.com

PD/Morning Air Talent Needed Now

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Q102-KCHQ
Attention-Ted Austin
1152 Bond Avenue, Suite 102
Rexburg, ID 83440

or email to:
ted@q102fm.net