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KZMO debuts in Springfield

I know Zimmer's bread and butter is country. I worked for them, after all. They went all-in on country by 1988 after B/EZ started getting too old. This, however, leaves me scratching my head. If the goal is to corner the entire country market, putting the current-based country format on 101.3 and the classic-oriented one on 93.7 would seem smarter to me.

Granted, I like the music mix on 101.3 Real Country and the radio audience is getting older, but a Class A signal on the KTOZ-FM 95.5 tower between Springfield and Strafford isn't likely to make much of a dent in KTTS. Plus, all the country stations together don't get as many listeners as KTTS alone got in the mid-90's.

The Zimmers may be a lot of things, but they're not stupid. This just doesn't make sense to me.
 
SnottyNose799 said:
I'll never forget when I went to Salem, MO and heard the FM translator 95.7 playing country music with AM audio quality in *2023*.

KSMO Media – KSMO Radio & Your World Today Live and Archived

radioksmo.com radioksmo.com

They had the AM station's audio processor hooked up to the translator through a low quality phone line STL by the sound of it. Hope they found some radio help for new equipment by now.
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I was just in Salem last week and 95.7 still sounded pretty bad.
 
TheRob said:
A five-way country battle is in progress.

radioinsight.com

Another Country Stage Is Set In Springfield MO

Zimmer Midwest Communications has launched Country "93.7 The Stage" KZMO Fair Grove/Springfield MO. The station, which had been operating on
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
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I had forgotten until now that KZMO were the original call letters for the AM/FM combo that Ray Rouse put on the air in California, Mo. in the early 1980s. The combo was separated long ago; Zimmer ended up with the FM which is now KATI.
 
Mark Roberts said:
I had forgotten until now that KZMO were the original call letters for the AM/FM combo that Ray Rouse put on the air in California, Mo. in the early 1980s. The combo was separated long ago; Zimmer ended up with the FM which is now KATI.
Click to expand...

Brill bought the FM shortly after duopoly became legal and switched it to KATI. I can't remember if Rouse or Brill upgraded it to a C2, put up the tower in Russellville, and moved Rolla off of 94.3 to 97.5, though.

Zimmer bought Brill's stations in Mid-MO a few years before his company filed bankruptcy. South Central got Brill's Evansville properties, and Regent got the rest of them.
 
Kent said:
Brill bought the FM shortly after duopoly became legal and switched it to KATI. I can't remember if Rouse or Brill upgraded it to a C2, put up the tower in Russellville, and moved Rolla off of 94.3 to 97.5, though.

Zimmer bought Brill's stations in Mid-MO a few years before his company filed bankruptcy. South Central got Brill's Evansville properties, and Regent got the rest of them.
Click to expand...
Going back through old M Street directories:
The AM was silent in 1995 and had been spun off by 1996
By 1997, Brill sold the FM to something called "MVP" which had an LMA with Zimmer
Looks like Rouse applied for the upgrade but the directories don't show whether he built it or Brill built it; the construction must have happened in the interval between directories. Possibly Rouse started the build and Brill completed it. The newspaper at Tipton (available via newspapers.com) wrote quite a bit about it; those stories indicate that Rouse sold the station even as the upgrade application was pending. A logical conclusion would then be that Brill actually built the upgrade.

It's a bit astonishing that the AM (at 1420) ever was built. If KFRU (at 1400 in Columbia) had wanted to, I'm pretty sure they could have stopped it. Having KWRT in Boonville at 1370 was bad enough for KFRU's coverage.

I guess no one picked up the KZMO calls once they became available in 1995.
 
SnottyNose799 said:
I'll never forget when I went to Salem, MO and heard the FM translator 95.7 playing country music with AM audio quality in *2023*.

KSMO Media – KSMO Radio & Your World Today Live and Archived

radioksmo.com radioksmo.com

They had the AM station's audio processor hooked up to the translator through a low quality phone line STL by the sound of it. Hope they found some radio help for new equipment by now.
Click to expand...
KBRC Mount Vernon, WA had a similar problem with their first FM translator. A few other translators for AM stations too. They all got straightened out. But why do they do that in the first place?
 
SnottyNose799 said:
Would the new KZMO interfere with KAIR-FM in Horton, KS?
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Not a chance. You can’t even hear KAIR-FM on a good car radio in most of metro KC. Springfield is about 3 hours away.

It KZMO causes problems for anyone, it will be KISR 93.7. Since it moved to the KFTA 24 tower, the KISR signal stretches into southern Missouri, or at least it does on a good car radio. The only way KZMO could even get licensed was the move to the KFTA tower required KISR to downgrade to a Class C1. It couldn’t exist under the old Class C parameters.
 


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