Idaho Radio News Etc.

As hinted this weekend, today is indeed d-day at the Idaho Statesman, according to a memo to employees.

The paper will cut ten percent of its workforce (25 positions), and also cut pay for those workers not eliminated.

Some of the job cuts will not be voluntary:

Where positions are being eliminated, affected employees will be notified over the next two days. Some reductions will be involuntary. Others will provide an opportunity for employees to volunteer to take a severance package where reductions are occurring in work groups of two or more employees. If enough employees do not take the voluntary option, then the positions with the least tenure will be eliminated.

Here’s how the pay cuts break down:

• People making $25,000 to $50,000 will be docked three percent
• Employees making $50,000 to $100,000 will lose six percent of their pay
• Folks making more than $100,000 will be making ten percent less.

Mi-Ai Parrish also tells staff that furloughs may be possible (short term layoffs, usually of a day or two without pay). All annual bonuses have been eliminated:

Other savings include everything from better ink contracts to lighter newsprint, from savings from our press project to our redesign, from cutting daily redelivery of newspapers to dropping dues for industry organizations, from reducing the number of free Scene copies to eliminating low-selling single copy racks. These large and smaller expense cuts saved the equivalent of 99 jobs.

McClatchy Watch has the full memo.

Read (or watch) Doug Petcash’s excellent story on the challenges facing the Statesman, Press-Tribune and the Idaho Falls Post-Register.

A couple quick notes on The Idaho Statesman:

- KTVB’s Doug Petcash has put together a two part series on the future of newspapers – specifically looking at the Boise area and its two daily papers (Statesman and Press-Tribune). It runs Sunday and Monday on News at Ten (I haven’t seen it and wasn’t involved in any way).

- There’s buzz that announcements are coming from the Statesman building on Monday. What that may be isn’t known – though there are lots of rumors swirling of course. Keep you posted…

I’m leaving lots of comments unapproved lately with people bagging on other people. Comments that libel or demean others will not be approved. Please! You can go after ideas or stations or groups… but saying “John Smith is an idiot” or “Jane Doe sucks at her job” isn’t cool – and it’s not fair.

This happened earlier this year and I didn’t hit “Publish” on the post:

KQLZ/99.1 Idaho’s True Oldies Channel is doubling down with its local talent. Morning hosts Big Jack and Bryan are splitting up — but they’ll continue to live together in the same house. Jack will helm afternoons on the station while Bryan keeps the morning beat.

Jack saw great success in the afternoon timeslot in his old gig on KLTB/Kool Oldies 104.3 (now KAWO).

KRVB/94.9 The River just wrapped up three nights of U2 live shows. The special broadcasts aired Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights live across the country– and featured performances, interviews and more. I listened earlier tonight and one person asked Bono what song by someone else he wished he’d written. The answer was Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen — which he then proceeded to hum a few bars of.

Pretty cool.

Citadel Communications joins some big national brands like Arby’s and Krispy Kreme on a new list provided by credit rating agency Moody’s.

Unfortunately, it’s a list no one wants to be on. Moddy’s says Citadel is on the “bottom rung” — a list of about 280 companies most likely to default on their debt in the coming year.

Moody’s thinks about 45% of the companies on the list could default within a year.

On the stock watch – Citadel (CTDB.PK) is hanging at four cents.

Fuentes said the station received more than 60,000 text messages from listeners requesting songs in January alone.

That’s a snippet from the Statesman’s February story on KWYD/Wild 101. The station says it go a whopping 60,000 song requests by text in January. I’ll go out on a limb and say that was the total number of texts — and it was largely driven by contests that told people that “whoever sends the most texts wins.”

Now KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM is running a contest that will give the person who sends in the 1-millionth text Taylor Swift tickets.

It’s a cool use of technology — but has the potential to raise the ire of parents — especially if their kids are NOT on an unlimited text message plan. At $0.10 a pop, those extra text messages can add up quickly…

UPDATE: Part of my hunch is challenged – see comments.

Peak’s Jason Wilmot is now overseeing the AC stations as well – both KCIX/Mix 106 and KXLT/107.9 Lite FM. This is in addition to his duties over KIDO/580 AM and KFXD/63 KIDO.

Former KIVI anchor and City of Boise PR flack Elizabeth Duncan is coming back to Boise – as the new news director of Boise State Radio.

Elizabeth is the former spokesperson for the City of Boise Office of the Mayor and Public Works. She has more than 12 years’ experience as a journalist in diverse news markets around the country, including experience with public television in Columbia, South Carolina, as a news anchor at KIVI in Nampa, and as news director for KVII in Amarillo, Texas. She began her career as a writer and researcher for CNN’s Larry King Live. She earned a bachelor of science in journalism at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas.

KZMG/Magic 93.1 is giving up on a live and local show for its morning drive slot.

Kidd Kraddick in the morning will join the station starting Monday, with current host MJ handling weather and traffic, etc.

Kraddick last aired in the market on KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM from 2004 to 2006.

It’s been a good month for the syndicated show — it is also picking up KTPZ/94.3 Music Monster.

Speaking of KTPZ – the station has turned into a giant jukebox — with the syndicated Kraddick in the morning, Ryan Seacrest in afternoon drive and the syndicated Party Playouse show at night. The station is jockless overnight.

Boise’s three talk stations host robust local lineups – including the newest station.

KFXD/63 KIDO beefed up its Saturday morning lineup with local programming – much of it from time brokerage agreements.

Piece of Mind with life coach Brenda Harper starts the morning at 8am. The show’s “goal is to offer our listeners life tools, presented in a fun, common sense way.”

Former Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez hosts The Patriot Radio Network (this week they discussed “B. Hussein Obama’s Socialist Stimulus Package.”) It airs from 9-10am.

Ralph Smith hosts NW Live! at 10am – with a second hour called “Counseling Connection” at 11am. You can hear the show on demand here.

Sunday the station hosts Idaho Insights at 8am.

KIDO/580 AM also has a variety of local weekend shows – including AM Idaho Saturday with Doug McConaughey, Home Fix with Joe Prin, D&B Gardening Show, and Money Matters with Dave Petso.

KBOI also has several weekend shows – including the Zamzow’s Garden Show, Dining Out Idaho, Property Line Today

Voiceover talent Brian James died last week at 48 of a heart attack. James did stations all over the United States and the UK — and several here in Idaho. He is the voice of KZDX/99.9 The Buzz, KIDO/580 and 63, the former voice of KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM and more.

“Of all the voiceover artists I’ve ever worked with, he was by far the greatest,” KZDX’s Broc Johnson said. “Incredible personality… great sense of humor… and truly irreplaceable. He’s been the voice of KZDX/99.9 The Buzz for well over a decade. He will, not only as a master of the microphone and the voice of hundreds of TV and radio stations, but also as an incredible person and friend, forever be missed. “

KCIX/Mix 106 had a comedian on Friday — and when Mike Kasper asked the guy if he’d been “here before” the guy said “yeah… is the Chadillac and Hooker show still on the air?” Mike responded with a quick “they’ve been fired… lit on fire then fired.”

KWYD/Wild 101 is running promos it calls a “Boise radio dial update.” The promos feature “station Tragic” followed by a 1997 Elton John song – then station “Miss” with Achey Breaky Heart.

Then station WILD comes up — playing an urban CHR hit.

Good thing Wild doesn’t rhyme with anything…

The Citadel stock watch continues – Friday’s close left the stock at $0.049 – less than five cents per share. You can’t buy a piece of candy for five cents anymore, but you can buy a share in one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies.

CTDB.PK, (the company’s new ticker symbol) has a market capitalization of $13 million…

The big question: if you had $1,000 to spare, do you think buying 200 20,000 shares in Citadel would be a wise investment?

On one hand the stock could double in value to a dime and your investment would double. On the other, the company could go bankrupt and you would have nothing.

Citadel Communications stock finished the day at $0.02, plunging almost 90% on the day.  The stock was dumped from the NYSE last Friday and is now traded over-the-counter.

That puts Citadel’s market capitalization at a puny $2.70 million… meaning if you could wrangle all the sellers – you could buy the company for less than $3 million

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• Big Daddy’s BBQ
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BOISE – Big changes are coming for the radio and TV broadcasts of Boise State sports – but the full impact won’t be known for a while.

Learfield Communications tells NewsChannel 7 it has been selected as the new broadcast and advertising rights partner for sports. You likely have never heard of the company, because it works behind the scenes. The group sells packages to advertisers that contain a mix of radio, television and in-stadium signs.

Learfield confirms it’s deal with Boise State also gives it the task of finding a sponsor to buy the naming rights to Bronco Stadium.

For now it is unclear where the games will wind up on your TV and radio dials. The KTVB News Group is in the final year of its television contract with the university. Peak Broadcasting and KIDO radio have one year remaining on its deal with the school for radio rights.

It also is not yet known where television games will appear this fall.

Learfield’s deal does not begin until after the upcoming 2009-2010 season ends. Learfield officials say they won’t have an announcement on what local radio and TV stations will air the games – or who will serve as announcers until this fall.

The contract is subject to approval by the Idaho State Board of Education.

The company handles similar packages for a variety of schools across the country – including University of Idaho, Oregon State, Alabama, Oklahoma and dozens of others.

The deal will not affect the Western Athletic Conference’s agreement to carry some games on ESPN.

Want to spend your summer nights at the ballpark and pick up some cash? The Hawks are looking for a PA announcer.  The pay isn’t great… just $50 per game — but in this economy… it’s not nothing! Details after the jump.
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Massive cuts in the Twin Falls market – hitting all three major groups.

KZDX/99.9 The Buzz – Liz leaves the AM shift

KYUN/106.7 The Canyon’s Ken Simmons leaves mornings

KTFI – News anchor Dale Metzger exits

KTPZ/Music Monster 99.1’s Howard Mayhem is out.

KLIX/Kool Superhits 96.5 – Doc Holiday, mornings is out – Brad from sister KEZJ is doing double-duty.

PS: Radio-Info’s column says these are all GAP stations – however  KZDX is a Lee Family station, KYUN, KTFI and KTPZ are Locally Owned stations and KLIX is GAP-owned.