Dr. Akbar said:
johndavis said:
Jorgenson never bothered to change the call sign on 1230 until after the Smooth Jazz format had become established at 95.5 and they were concerned that some diary credit from the FM might have been attributed to the AM and vice versa.
When The Coyote debuted on 95~Five, our recollection is a vocal based format very unlike today's Smooooth Jazz.
It amazes Nurse Jeff and me that 12~Thirty still pulls 6+ numbers given its' dial position and limited coverage. And to think KRIZ did double digits back in the day 12~Thirty ran with 250 watts of music pow-pow-power at night!
A tip of the fez to Mr Davis for his detailed account
Oh, you mean the Rhythm & Rock format that Jorgy dreamed up while sitting at a Phoenix Suns game? If any AM diaries got credited with FM listening during that period, we were just damn happy to have something showing up for the FM. After 95.5 started being successful with the jazz format they started looking at it more critically.
Some insight into the world of Sundance: 101.5 was pretty much Jorgy's personal jukebox when he bought it. He got a screaming deal because EZ needed cash, and with the cashflow that WMIL in Milwaukee was generating, Jorgy could write a check for a little more than $3 million and had KZON & KISP debt free.
When he bought the KOY combo for something around $7 million, Jorgy had to take out a loan. (Still, think about it, he had 4 stations for about half of what Sandusky paid for KUPD & KUKQ. The guy was a hell of a businessman.) So the guy dreams up a format of only fast tempo rock & soul songs, calls in some very respected names in programming consulting to look it over (who probably don't want to admit to ever being involved in it today), and proceeds to micromanage the hell out of it. At one point, we even got our grubby hands on the KCBS "Arrow" library (All Rock and Roll Oldies, which had a decent run for a time in the 90's) but couldn't play half of it because the one rule you could never break was tempo.
Then the book came out. Y-95's last book was a 1.9. The Coyote's first? 0.9.
That's when Mike sat down and said to us "Well, I suppose I should stick to sales and get out of programming." He was still fairly hands on (the guy never slept) but after a week's deliberation, Smooth Jazz was chosen. [Except we could not utter the word Jazz at first... we called it Smooth Rhythyms.] A Jazz/NAC station had flipped format, so we bought their CD library and hired its old PD, Nick Francis. We worked out a system of portable DAT recorders & RE-20 mics and shipped them to Talaya Trigueros, Blake Lawrence, & Barbara Blake. Cliff Smith was on the loose from WJJZ in Philly and he came to town to do mornings. The jazz format was put together in 30 days.
After awhile, Broadcast Architecture was brought in for a music test, and at the end, the guy from BA decided to get Mike's attention. He first asked people in the room how to describe the music they had just heard. They called it Jazz, they called it Smooth Jazz, they called it everything but Smooth Rhythms. Then he picked up a KYOT bumper sticker and asked them if they could identify what was in the picture (best described as a futuristic looking coyote). Nobody knew what it was. Asked them what would be a better visual way to identify the station? A saxophone. Pretty much everything that Jorgy had mandated was shot down by the audience in that room that night - and to his credit, he listened, changed the slogan and the logo, and the station grew. (To me, this means he learned his lesson from the Rhythm & Rock mess.)
But with the pressure to pay that note on (and I think he wanted to pay it off early and go back to being debt free) KZON also stopped being his personal jukebox. This was no longer where you'd hear Hans Olson doing the ID's (or playing his music) and "12 in a row that you don't know."
I pretty much grew up working for those stations - I was a senior at Brophy when I started at 101.5 and I had graduated from ASU by the time I left. I learned a lot about life and radio from working for Jorgy, and I miss the guy.
By the way, Dr. Akbar, the secret to the dirty 1230 is that 5/8th wave tower on Buckeye Rd. It puts out a monster signal on a garbage frequency. If they ever try to move it somewhere else, you won't see the same coverage.
