Idaho Radio News Etc.

KZMG/Magic 93.1 is on the skids. As I’ve noted the past year, it has been incredibly inconsistent, has a mis-matched morning show, unfocused imaging, sloppy playlist and has been without a consistent night jock for quite some time.

That may be just my opinion – but the station’s audience is leaving in droves. The station plunged 35% from spring 2007, and 12% from the fall. Its 2.9 number is the worst in a decade since spring 1998. I don’t have historic date before that time, but I think it is safe to say this is KZMG’s worst book ever. Only KRVB/Idaho’s 94.9 The River has a lower number amongst FM stations from the big three.

Chart time: (blue is KSAS, red is KZMG):

The strange saga at Impact Radio Group continues.

As I totally didn’t report last week – the group hired Darrell Calton as its new GM. Calton previously held the Director of Sales position for Citadel Boise. The group also elevated another Citadel alum – Darla Sturtevant to Director of Sales… though there could be another chapter in this part of the story.

Speaking of chapters – this one’s a doozy. Former GM of the group Dave Tester is back… this time as station manager of KSRV in Ontario. Really.

“Dave brings with him a wealth of knowledge, experience and sales know how,” Calton told the Impact staff.

Dale Jeffries will continue to handle operations duties for the Ontario-based station.

Stay tuned next time for another edition of “As the Impact Turns”

Several stations did not register in the publicly released Arbitron numbers: KFXD, KTMB and KQTA.

All Talk 63 has a popular morning duo in place, so its absence is puzzling. KTMB and KQTA don’t have much to brag about – not to mention that KTMB/99.1 The Man… doesn’t even exit anymore.

KAWO/Wow Country 104.3 is one of Boise’s top five radio stations – and beat long-time heritage station KQFC to take the silver medal in the country race. Despite all the good news, the station is still behind KIZN/Kissin’ 92.3 The station jumped 170% year-to-year – nearly tripling its audience from the final book as My Country 104.3.

The 5.4 number is also better than KLTB/Kool Oldies 104.3’s best number since 2003. There’s a funny paradox here: this validates Clear Channel’s decision to switch out oldies for country – but the formula the company and its manager came up with didn’t work… but Peak’s attempt certainly is.

The usual “Up in the fall, down in the spring” trend continues to hold true for KBOI, with a 4.7, on par with the last several spring books.

KIDO also generally sees a stronger fall book, but the swings aren’t as great – and the station almost always beats KBOI in the spring, with KBOI taking the fall race. But this next book could be key. Though the station will still produce pre and post game shows for Boise State University football with Paul J. Schneider, it is losing the actual game telecasts and the prestige that goes along with them.

Journal Broadcast Group’s stations had a tough book. The group has one station in the top 10 – perennial winner 107.1 K-Hits with a strong 6.7.

The rest of the stations are in the doldrums.

- KJOT/J-105 down 12% from last year to 3.3
- KQXR/100.3 The X lost a third of its audience for a 3.1
- KRVB/Idaho’s 94.9 The River went up slightly from spring ‘07, but only notched at 2.6

And as a commenter noted, Impact’s automated, unstaffed KSRV/96.1 Bob FM outranked those three stations – despite management upheaval and a fairly weak overall presentation.

We polled the IRN audience just after the start of the book – and again toward the end, and in both cases, voters picked KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM to make the biggest gains.

The biggest winner depends on if you are looking at year over year gains or book-to-book improvement.

KDBI takes the book to book crown, up 77%, but the station actually LOST ground y2y – down 58%.

Citadel classic rocker KKGL/96.9 The Eagle didn’t need a photo finish to determine its first place victory. KKGL not only topped the 12+ numbers with a 7.4, but jumped 64% from last fall and 54% from spring 2007.

KSRV/96.9 Bob FM saw strong improvement in the year-to-year category – up 140% to land at a 3.6. The station was up 20% from fall.

KSAS saw strong improvement in both categories – but didn’t win the race.

KKGL-FM 7.4
KTHI-FM 6.7
KIZN-FM 6.2
KAWO-FM 5.4
KIDO-AM 5.4
KQFC-FM 5.0
KSAS-FM 5.0
KXLT-FM 4.8
KBOI-AM 4.7
KCIX-FM 4.5
KSRV-FM 3.6
KJOT-FM 3.3
KQXR-FM 3.1
KZMG-FM 2.9
KRVB-FM 2.6
KDBI-FM 1.6
KQLZ-FM 1.6
KTIK-AM 1.4
KCID-AM 1.2
KGEM-AM 0.9
KWEI-FM 0.9
KBXL-FM/KDZY-FM 0.7
KBGN-AM 0.5
KNJY-AM 0.5

Blogging will resume this weekend – sorry folks, just more going on than I can handle at the moment. If you scan the comments you’ll read about changes at Impact Broadcasting and more.

If you fell inclined, join us tomorrow for our Idaho Press Club panel at 5:30pm at Beside Bardenay… we’ll talk about the future of local media, and I’m not going to pull any punches! :)

KZMG/Magic 93.1 is doing an all-request day – with proceeds going to Project Play’s campaign to put special needs playground at Nampa’s Lakeview Park.

Folks can call in, plop down $20 and hear any song they want. $40 ensure it is played next… and a donation of $50 gets the crew to stop playing the current (often awful) song.

Plus, one young listener got to interview the Jonas Brothers – thanks to a donation from their parents.

So far we’ve heard an hour of Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Eddie Rabbit, Sir Mix-a-Lot (a few times), a little Queen and more.

Here’s that KF95 logo I was hoping someone would send. If you have an old Idaho station logo floating around – send it to me! I’ll post it here, and share it with Art Gregory and the History of Idaho Broadcasting Foundation guys for their archives.

Sources confirm that Imapct Radio CEO Randy Hyatt and operations manager Kris Edwards have been relieved of their positions with the company.

Hyatt was let go first, just hours after he dismissed Mitch Pruitte I’m told. Several days later, Edwards was terminated. It sounds like Locally Owned/FM Idaho/Impact SVP Elliot Klein will be calling the shots in the short-term at least, with new OM Mikey Fuentes very much in the mix as well.

This is the sixth high-profile staffing change in the market since July 9th. It also follows the transition after Dave Tester’s leaving by just more than six months – leading to a tumultuous time at Impact.

This poll has been rotting on KZMG.com since it relaunched. Plus… there may not be an “i” in team, but there’s only one in skis.

I won’t beat this point into the ground, but “Rick” left this comment that I felt should be elevated:

While I agree with Don that Rocky and Roxx are awesome, I think the thing that sets Journal Broadcast Group apart is that it is a strong TEAM. It’s not just Rocky spending hours on a phone line or Rochelle’s Myspace work and all of the live in-studio mixes she does. Today for example, we have a big remote with J105 and Jason, a remote tech is not only setting up everything, including two inflate-ables, running the PA and Marti, etc. But he has taken it upon himself to be the “J-Bird” and run around being the mascot. No one asked him to do it. It’s close to triple digits out there! Or, Rocky going to the Knitting Factory to make certain a live “Sound Check” on the X goes off smoothly. And Shannon, the Journal Receptionist. I don’t have to tell any of you who have been in the business for a while what a thankless job that is. But she always is cheerful, answers the callers questions, appeases them, etc. And Kristine Simoni, Promotions Director-Goddess(she also came to Journal from KF95) Not only does she handle promotions for all the Radio and now, doing the same for KIVI TV, she also is the Mid-morning voice of J105! Or Jeff Hoffert, The Lead KIVI TV Engineer, who will go up and work on an FM Transmitter and thinks it’s cool that he is getting to learn about radio and goes over and above the call almost on a daily basis. Lastly, the guy that holds the whole thing together and frankly, I don’t know how he does it. Well, yes I do. He trusts the rest of us to do our jobs…

Thanks, Bob. It’s been a great ride!

While I’ve run Google’s AdSense product for a long time, I’ve never done a real “overt” ad position. I’ve changed that – only to plug my new DayPower Media venture. We’ve had a great first month, with nearly a dozen clients in various stages of production.

If you need any type of Internet service – from consulting to design to online software solutions, we can help. Check out www.daypowermedia.com – or feel free to drop me a line at the usual idahoradio@gmail.com. The new venture is going to help subsidize the time and money put towards IdahoRadioNews.com – so in a roundabout way, you’re helping support this site (which will always remain free).

Interesting results so far on our Impact Radio polls from last week. It’s a 50/50 tie on wether KTMB/99.1 The Man should have been given more time to find his sea legs. But folks aren’t so split on the idea of another Spanish-language station, with 65% saying it won’t work.

Right now, the Treasure Valley is loaded with Spanish stations: Bustos Media has two and KWEI has two. While Hispanics are clearly a growing force – will five stations (four FM) be too much for a population base that is still relatively small?

If Spanish isn’t the right direction (for 100.7 FM), what would you do?

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It’s amazing how KZMG/Magic 93.1 morning hosts Kate McGwire and Mike Kasper have been able to stay together on-air for seven years. My the consistency.

Welll…. except the pair aren’t on Magic anymore – since they took their act away from the Citadel Palace in favor of a gig with KCIX/Mix 106. The duo weren’t together on Magic long (and were followed by a long parade of failed shows), but have found a perfect home at Mix 106. They’re going to celebrate twice on Wednesday – once with an AM party outside the Peak studios, and again that night at the Bull’s Head Pub.

Congrats!

Journal Communications acquired all sorts of stuff when it bought KFXJ nearly a decade ago. Equipment, a transmitter, the frequency and a small handful of employees.

Two of those folks – Rochelle Smith and Rockwell Smith (no relation) are still with the company, and each has proved themselves to be among the best things to come along with the purchase of KF-95. While The River bears little resemblance to the old KF-95, both Rochelle and Rocky continue to keep that independent, listener-focused spirit alive.

I was reminded of why Journal is so lucky by Rocky’s comment on the KGEM audio problem. He explains all the things he and Journal do for customers that are unhappy with hearing original hits (or more recently – oldies). As is noted with the recent KIGO example – the station could easily say “it is Qwest’s problem” and clam up, but instead they jump through hoops to make people happy.

As for the “other” R. Smith – Rochelle is often hailed for her extra work. Much of the station’s online effort, including the MySpace page with all the audio goodies is her doing.

You can buy a frequency, dump everything and try to rebuild it from the ground – but finding good people and hanging on to them (no matter if you hire them from the Internet or get them in a multi-million dollar acquisition) is what makes a radio company unique.

(PS: I wanted to put an old KF95 logo on this entry [the one with the music staff and the quarter notes], but I can’t find one. If you can send me a digital version of the logo, I’d appreciate it!)

Don Morin has been named general manager of Citadel Broadcasting’s Boise properties, Idaho Radio News has learned. Morin is a familiar face to some of the Citadel die-hards – he previously served with the Boise group as LSM. He’s bounced around the NW with stops at New Northwest in the Tri-Cities and Citadel in Spokane.

Morin replaces Sandy Gamblin who was let go last month.

Peak Broadcasting and KWEI will work together to broadcast all the BSU Football home games this year in Spanish. A full team is in place: Steve Ramirez and Marcos Magallon on play-by-play, color commentary by former defensive lineman Alex Guerrero and Edgar Uriostegui on the sideline. Guerrero will also contribute to KIDO’s pre-game.

News release after the jump (UPDATE: the Fight Fight BSU blog broke this yesterday!)

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The Salt & Light Radio folks are looking for a contract engineer for the station when it returns to the airwaves as KXSL. The job posting has an interesting bit of news… the sale of the station has been delayed. Deja Vu?

Posting after the jump

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Residents in Eastern Idaho are upset that KIGO-AM/Radio Fiesta 1490 is bleeding into their landline phones. The AP reports the 32,000 watt transmitter is coming into their phones and baby monitors. Station owner Albino Ortega says it isn’t his issue – that it’s Qwest’s fault. Qwest says they are looking into it.

Mitch Pruitte is no longer with Impact Radio Group – he was let go earlier this week.

KIDO/580 AM parted ways with morning host Michelle Mahoney. Her last day was yesterday. Brian Holmes and Dave Burnett are holding down the fort for now.

Mahoney joined KIDO last August.

TVBarn.com dug up a cool page filled with old-style ads created for current things like the Wii, TiVo, Nokia phones, the Segway and even… Girls Gone Wild.