Idaho Radio News Etc.

The Idaho Statesman will soon charge you 50% more to purchase a copy of the daily paper from a newsrack or store – and 33% more on Sunday.  This follows a series of home delivery increases – though the Statesman isn’t raising those rates right now.

This is the latest in a series of moves from Idaho’s largest daily this year: layoffs, wage freezes, a reduction in paper size, outsourcing of printing and expense reductions.

As Bloomberg notes, the Statesman is just following the crowd with is rate increase.

And in an odd twist, publisher Mi-Ai Parrish equated her newspaper to Crystal Light. The jokes write themselves.

Related: Maker of newspaper vending boxes feels plight of newspaper industry

UPDATE: The Boise Guardian’s Dave Frazier caught THIS in Sunday’s paper. (Read the first word of the headline realllly closely). Oh man.

KBOI/News-Talk 670 afternoon host Nate Shelman is huge these days.  Like, towering over Boise huge.  No, he hasn’t gained a ton of weight – in fact, it’s the opposite.  No, Nate has his likeness plastered on a billboard on the I-184 Connector as part of an ad for a weight loss program. I won’t turn this into an ad for that company (they’re already all over radio TV and outdoor media) – but check out Nate’s before and after shots:

Fellow Citadel citizen Steve Shannon has also lost a ton on the same program (or therabouts):

(Minor disclosure – my firm, DayPower Media did some freelance web work for Steve earlier this year)

Breast cancer survivor Margo Vaughn (and KTHI/107.1 K-Hits morning co-host) Margo Vaughn will team up with Intermountain Medical Imaging for a mammo-party.  On June 8th, IMI will do mammograms throughout the day, and help women set up their own breast cancer parties. Details on khits.fm.

PS: Kevoian is Bob from Bob & Tom’s last name. Kevorkian is the suicide doctor’s last name. I’ll forgive you for assuming that was a typo…

KZMG/Magic 93.1 is hosting its second Baby Idol contest – and voting is on now to determine the cutuest baby in the Treasure Valley. The winning baby gets a new high chair, stroller and more.

KIZN/Kissin’ 92 will bring the band to Boise for a show this Friday – and the trio cut a video spot for the station to promote the event:

(The station took the promo offline after the original post)

KTSY/89.5 is promoting the “Drive Thru Difference.”  The idea is when you go through the drive through at your favorite restaurant or coffee join, you pay for the order of the people in the car behind you — and leave this printed note with the clerk to hand to the other car.  Pretty neat.

-Idaho Statesman entertainment critic Michael Deeds to Tim Johnstone during Sunday’s The Other Studio after Johnstone explained that KRVB/94.9 The River likely won’t play the latest single from Rob Thomas because it “has those girly vocals that build into a big crescendo like that”

The History of Idaho Broadcasting Foundation has two upcoming events you should know about:

• The May meeting is set for 5/20 at 7pm.  The event will be held at Citadel Broadcasting in Boise and will mark the third birthday of the foundation, and the 62nd anniversary of KBOI-AM. Citadel will provide food from Qdoba Mexican Grill, and you’ll hear some airchecks from KBOI’s history.  A tour of the Citadel building will follow.
• In June, KTRV Fox 12 will play host on 6/17 from 11:30am-1:30pm.  GM Ricky Joseph will give a tour of the new Fox 12 set and the rest of the building.  The history of Idaho Independent TV will also be discussed. Art needs a head count for this meeting, so drop him an e-mail at pawzup@qwest.net

Brian Jennings will be in town this Thursday – with a live broadcast and forum at the Holiday Inn Boise Airport. Jennings is the author of Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio. I haven’t had a chance to review the book – but it centers around the fairness doctrine, an old government rule that required media outlets to give both sides of an issue equal time. It shriveled up long ago – but there has been fear in certain circles that a Democratic administration and congress could revive the idea. This would effectively kill conservative talk radio, or at least severely hamper it.

Find details about KBOI’s forum here.

If they can just hook one fish with an Arbitron book…

This isn’t usually the “so and so had a baby” or “so and so got married” place — but KWYD/Wild 101 morning host CK just welcomed a son into the world – Arlis Christopher Jace.  We’re making note of it here because the station posted some cute pics on its site.

Want to win Taylor Swift Tickets? OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK.

A couple of notes around the blogosphere…

- LostRemote.com has relaunched as a Tumblr blog.  The site will no longer feature a cast of writers – and returns to a format with founder Cory Bergman running the stream on his own. Check it out.  As such, some of the analysis I used to write for LR may end up here (hence that new “etc.” in the title).

- Have you seen Brand New?  This is one of my favorite blog finds of the past six months.  The author  digs into new logos and compares them with the old. Some favorite recent critiques: Avid Technology, Sci-Fi/SyFy, Jack in the Box, Blimpie and Pepsi

- I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned OregonMediaInsiders.com here – but if you’re interested in media (some radio but more TV) in the Portland area, this is a nice site to check. It’s really the only other straight media blog in the NW that I’m aware of.

- Another note about the weird, random, non-sensical list of blogs listed over at the Statesman.  They now list Chad Dryden’s excellent Laid Off Loser blog on its blogroll — but for some reason, they don’t include Jeanne Huff’s First the Good News site. Why is that strange? Both are former Statesman employees. While Chad’s blog is one of my daily reads, it is about 50/50 local/non-local.  Huff’s blog? Almost entirely local – and enterprising too. I’d suggest hey add it, but I’m just a hypocrite.

Dave Tester, once the general manager of Impact Radio (formerly Tester Broadcasting) is no longer with the group in any capacity.  After leaving the GM role for the group as a whole, he went to work at the group’s AM station serving the Ontario area — KSRV.  He was the station manager for KSRV-AM, but late last week he was dismissed.

Program director Dale Jeffries steps up as <interim station manageroperations manager – with Wayne Dzuback overseeing the BSU sports programming sales effort on the station (part of Peak’s Bronco Sports Network) and sales manager Mark Broz taking a more active role as well.

According to figures just released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Idaho Statesman saw daily circulation figures improve slightly.

Daily increased from 57,846 during the six months ended 9/30/08 to 58,243 for the six months ended 3/31/09.  That’s an increase of about 1%.

Red ink starts to creep in when you look at weekend numbers.  Sunday circulation slid a bit, from 76,765 copies to 75,380 – a decline of just about 2 percent.

Saturday numbers also declined – from 62,309 to 58,959 – a decrease of nearly six percent

The Idaho Statesman’s website figures also continued to slide – down to 6,468,953 pageviews in March.  That’s off from 7,045,567 in September 2008, a drop of nearly nine percent.

Well… sorta.  KTHI/107.1 K-Hits has unveiled it’s annual anniversary concert: Eddie Money.  He’ll perform this summer at the Taco Bell Arena — and the station will be giving away tons of tickets on the air.

And it seems like just yesterdy KZMG/Magic 93.1 was giving away tickets to see Eddie Money at River Festival. How times change…