Idaho Radio News Etc.

Peak Broadcasting is out with a Fiesta Bowl song – featuring Jodi Stewart’s vocals, a Kevin Miller show listener’s lyrics and the play-by-play calling of Bob Behler.

Hear it here.

(Photo taken today, 12/19/2009. Duane & Kelly were let go by Peak more than a year ago.)

Here’s a January, 2009 item (second story on page) from the NPR Ombudsman that involves KBYI, the university station for BYU-Idaho. It is, as you would imagine, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ for Later-Day Saints.

My question involves the amount of public funding, if any, for the public radio station in Rexburg Idaho run by BYU-Idaho. The reason is, it is the first public station I have heard that is at least 40% filled with religious items. In this case Mormon religious programming. Seems to me that if public funding is involved, then is that right? Thanks Lynn Houdyshell

As the NPR Ombudsman points out, KBYI is not an NPR member station (like Boise State Radio and many others), but does pay to air some NPR programming.

NPR sells its programming to KBYI, even though it is not a member station, because it was determined that KBYI’s overall programming is devoted to “programming of good quality for a general audience which serves demonstrated community needs,” according to NPR’s guidelines.

Public Radio stations can get government funding, of course – but they do so through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The relationship between NPR and CPB (or on the TV side, PBS and CPB) might seem symbiotic, but it’s not. Funding from CPB can be used to buy NPR programming, or for any of a variety of other things. In KBYI’s case, the station does not take government funding.

I’m digging through the files – and have found a few photo gems.  Someone sent me this a few months ago… now you get to Name That Personality! (We’re going to play this at least once more before closing time on the 31st…)

Your only hint: They are still heard on the airwaves today. (I’ll keep all comments in moderation on this post until Sunday afternoon to give everyone a fair shot.)

Bonus points if you can identify where this personality is standing…

The New York Times has a great story on the impact portable people meters are having on radio ratings.  Turns out, 10% fewer people listen to classical stations – 3% fewer to soft jazz, and 2.6% to talk radio.  Yep – when PPMs are in use, the actual listening patterns are different than what people write in diaries.

“Yes, I really listen to classical radio a lot! Yes, I listen to Rush EVERY DAY!”

No, you don’t. But thanks for playing.  What does better? Oldies, news and country.  Seems people don’t admit to listening to country — but do more often than they report.

KGEM/1140 AM Salt & Light Catholic Radio has launched a seprate website for its Spanish station – KCID/1490 AM. See it at salyluzradio.com

Today is KTSY Cares Day – and the station is helping raise donations for the Boise Rescue Mission and Salvation Army.  The station set up shop in Meridian, Nampa and Ontario to take donations.  The station is also sponsoring the Christmas Wish program.

The Impact stations did a joint event on November 24th  called “What Do You Need, What Can You Give.”  KWYD/Wild 101, KQLZ/99.1 The Virus, KPDA/La Poderosa 100.7 and KSRV/96.1 Bob FM brought in more than 75 turkeys, and filled a semi-truck FULL of food.  Check out pictures from the event here

KIZN/Kissin’ 92 is holding its annual Keep Kids Warm auction on-air this week. They are also selling $10 Kissin’ frogs to help the cause.  The program started with Rivers & Valley way back in 1996 when a kid called in trying to win a contest. That one call has led to more than $650,000 in donations over the years. See the auction items and get more details here.

KBOI/News Talk 670 is featuring a Make-a-Wish child each week throughout the month, and helping raise money to make those wishes come true. It’s a really neat, personal way to do it – and you can read the stories and see the pictures of the kids here.

KCIX/Mix 106 hosts Mike & Kate are selling a cookbook featuring listener and celebrity recipes. Each copy goes for $10, with proceeds benefiting the Idaho Foodbank. Buy one here.

KAWO/Wow Country 104.3 morning host Don Jarret has been parked out at the Wal-Mart on Fairview near Eagle since midnight Sunday – and plans to stay there until 8am 12/18 – 104 in a row (hours, not minutes).  They are taking donations as part of “Hope for the Holidays,” benefiting the Boise Rescue Mission.  Fiberpipe has the live webcam up here

KSAS/103.3 Kiss FM and its team are broadcasting live from Krispy Kreme for Hooker’s House for the Holidays.  They hope to raise enough cash to feed 1,033 people for the holidays. A meal costs $12.50, so the station is aiming for $12,912.50.  As of about 5pm this evening, they had made it more than a quarter of the way to their goal. Online donations here

KXLT/107.9 Lite FM has the latest edition of Christmas Wish up and going. The decades-old program started on sister station KCIX/then-K106 and is an annual tradition.  The station takes nominations, and grants a wide variety of wishes, including heating oil and other simple life needs.

The Journal stations are going all out this year for Toys for Tots – the annual program of the US Marine Corps.  The two television and four radio outlets are all helping get the word out and bring in toy donations.

Also:

KRVB/Idaho’s 94.9 The River is hosting the annual “Concert for Cause” concert at the Knitting Factory tonight. John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting is performing to benefit the Canyon County Community Clinic. A live & silent auction is also being held

KJOT/J-105 hosted a Hell’s Belles show on the 11th, and a portion of proceeds went to Boise Rock School

KTHI/107.1 K-Hits is auctioning off a Fiesta Bowl football to benefit Make-A-Wish.

The always excellent “Regret the Error” blog has its roundup of best/funniest/most interesting newspaper corrections of the year.  Most respectable newspapers explain the error they are correcting (our local paper just writes something generic about the error, making you go back to find out what was wrong in the first place).

There are several funny errors – but this one stands out (from the New York Times):

An article on Aug. 2 about older alumni who have been helped by university career counselors referred imprecisely to comments by a 1990 graduate of Lehigh University who lost his job in February when his company was downsized, and a correction in this space last Sunday misspelled his surname. As the article correctly noted, he is David Monson, not Munson, and he was speaking generally — not about himself — when he said that newly unemployed people sometimes mope around the house in sweatpants.

And there’s this famous set of corrections about a story on the death of CBS legend Walter Cronkite… a man known for his accuracy (also from the NY Times):

An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

Which was later followed by:

An appraisal on July 18 about Walter Cronkite’s career misstated the name of the ABC evening news broadcast. While the program was called “World News Tonight” when Charles Gibson became anchor in May 2006, it is now “World News With Charles Gibson,” not “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.”

Peak Broadcasting GM Kevin Godwin issued a statement today on the loss of the rights to Boise State sports to Citadel and KBOI/KKGL.  Godwin says – in a nutshell – that there was no way to make money, and that picking up the rights would have cost jobs and more. He also says current play-by-play man Bob Behler is under contract to Peak until July – and “any mention of his future employment outside of Peak Broadcasting is premature.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Have an old MP3 or photo laying around that showcases a funny or interesting moment in Idaho radio history? I want to share it here.  We’re shutting down on December 31st – so if you have a few spare moments, send me that file! idahoradio@gmail.com

I’m noticing a new trend: dropping the obiligatory “Boise” from the FCC-required hourly call-letter shout outs.  Both KZMG/93.1 Hit Music Now and KCIX/Mix 106 have shortened their legal IDs to “KZMG New Plymouth” and “KCIX Garden City” respectively — both dropping the long-heard Boise.

KQXR/100.3 The X will hit the road for the 2010 Fiesta Bowl, featuring undefeated teams TCU and Boise State.  Nic & Big J will set up shop a full week before the January 4th game.

“As Bronco Nation prepares to invade the Valley of The Sun, The Morning After will be Idaho’s Recon team,” the station said in a news release.  The team plans to have player and coach interviews, plus tips on where to go and what to do in Phoenix.

This isn’t Big J’s first Fiesta rodeo — he was part of the JBG crew the last time the Broncos hit Phoenix. I seem to remember something about a big hat with pink feathers on it.

Impact Radio Group GM Darrell Calton has been named one of Radio Ink magazine’s “Best Managers in Radio” for 2009.  The list managers from across the spectrum — and Calton shared a few of his big areas of focus in building the cluster. See the PDF here.

Chowder spotted this in comments – and after a quick listen and scan of the website, it appears KQLZ/99.1 The Virus is changing up its imaging.

Liners are now refering to the station as “The All New V-99.1 Alternative Music Now” – but the “Virus” name is still in at least equal rotation.

When the station launched earlier this year, some noted the similarity to the Opie & Anthony-helmed XM talk station “The Virus.”

The other “alternative” station in the market uses mono-letter name – KQXR/100.3 The X.

Here’s the story from WSJ:

The Wall Street Journal reports that radio giant Citadel Broadcasting Corp. is planning to file for bankruptcy.

A judge Thursday approved a settlement worth nearly $2 billion that marks the final stage in the transfer of more than 110,000 accounts out of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit following the investment bank’s collapse last year. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review story here.

Here’s the release on the story you read here first:

Read the rest of this entry »

EXCLUSIVE

A well-placed source tells Idaho Radio News that radio broadcasts of Boise State Broncos athletics will once again be heard on KBOI-AM. The games will be broadcast on the station as part of a deal with Learfield Sports, which has picked up the broadcast rights to all Boise State sports starting with the 2010-2011 season.

Currently, rival KIDO-AM airs the game, as part of a two-year contract with the University. KIDO snagged the rights after what turned out to be a contentious battle with KBOI – which previously carried the games for 35 years.

Who will be the “voice” of the Broncos? Current KBOI morning host Paul J. Schneider called games for the station for decades – but the source says Learfield/KBOI is expected to hire Bob Behler from Peak Broadcasting, where he currently handles play-by-play on KIDO.

E-mails to representatives at both Learfield and KBOI were not immediately returned. A news release is expected tomorrow.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE

• Boise State lines up rights bundling partner
• Behler named voice of the Broncos
• Citadel tries to fight Peak pick as Broncos station
• Peak announces radio network affils
• Peak gets Bronco Sports rights
• In-depth exclusive: How Peak got the radio rights to BSU
  

All -

I will no longer publish IdahoRadioNews.com after December 31st.  I am moving into a new role at KTVB, and on January 1 will become Internet Sales & Product Manager.  I’m very excited about the new challenge.

But it means that I will have to put aside this site.  This will not be my last post here — in fact, I’m hoping to empty the notebook over the next few weeks.  I’m out of town presently, but have a bunch of time off coming my way, and want to end things here right.

We’ll do our annual holiday goodwill post, we’ll look at our 2009 predictions polls, go through some fun history-type e-mails, etc.

Here’s where you come in: Got something you want to see here? An old photo, or juciy bit of news… or something your station is doing really well? I want to know.  I will miss this endeavour – and hopefully you’ll find me on Twitter (@donlday) where I’ll probably still talk about radio news and notes from time to time.

Why now? This job is a change in focus, and because I’m not just a rabel-rousing newsie anymore – I need to align things like this to that new role.  You might say: why not turn this site over to someone else? I wouldn’t say I’ve ruled that out, and if you or someone you know makes an extremely strong case for it – I’m all ears.  However this is a brand pretty closely tied to me – and I will probably hold onto the domain name, archive and “assets” such as they are.

I’ve covered Idaho Radio for nearly seven years – and the connections and personal satisufcation I’ve derived from this hobby will be something I will miss.  Thank you for reading and being part of the IRN community.

Now… about that notebook emptying (see above!)

KWEI/1260 AM is now full-time sports, with ESPN Deportes radio. The station already carries Spanish-language broadcasts of Boise State sports on 99.5 FM as part of a partnership agreement with Peak Broadcasting – and has expanded ESPN programming to all dayparts on its AM station. The FM signal continues to pump out its “La Ley” format of Mexican Regional music.

Edit: The missing person has been found. I’ve removed the story to keep it out of the Google machine for the eons forthcoming.

KZMG/Magic 93.1 has a new program director in place — but he doesn’t live here. Louie Diaz took over responsibility for the station – he also oversees KWIN in Stockton/Modesto, CA for Citadel. KWIN is also a pop format, but the stations seem to be quite a bit different in the way they are formatted and set up.

Also, KZMG hits you over the head with the “log on to 931hits.com and enter keyword blank” several times an hour. A funny little glitch in the Citadel server system lets us see how many times the keywords have been entered – and which ones are most popular. The quick answer… none of them are popular.

1. songs (71)
2. bills (52)
3. video (40)
4. vip (34)
5. streets (20)
6. facebook (14)
7. twitter (13)
8. movies (10)
9. moon (10)
10. WIN (9)

It isn’t clear what the timeframe is on that list – but look at KIZN.com’s list as a comparison…