> Listened to LP "Super CFL" yesterday & today and note they
> are no longer imaging as CFL but now "Radio KYA". Instead
> of using pirated jingles from Chicago sounds like pirated
> jingles from San Francisco. Format is 50's/early 60's
> oldies (full-time format which has been tried by CC in
> places like Portland and still onair in Chicago).
>
> Kacie? Dr. Sandi? Any insights to share?!! Always curious
> how it's working out for you.
>
> Also curious how the bills get paid if no advertising to
> speak of? Nice to do it all in community interest and
> spirit but at some point...don't ya wanna eat or pay a
> mortgage payment or two??!
>
It's good to find out somebody noticed our little change. I was wondering if anybody is still out there.
Super CFL is now Radio KYA, 94.5 in Seattle and 104.5 in Fall City. And I'll have you know that Chuck Blore himself gave his permission to use this package of jingles, which he created with a little help from Johnny Mann, Dick Reynolds and over a dozen members of the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.
Super CFL was getting killed out there. It's next to impossible to do radio with no promotion budget, but we had to give it a go. But we really chose a bad time to bring a late 70's and 80's format to Seattle. There's really no way to be noticed with so many other stations nibbling all the parts of the music format. Yeah, a promotion budget would be nice. But I think I left it in my good jeans.
The part of Super CFL that really was working was our announcers. They're out there just talking about anything they want, except the music. And they're still at it. Really, Radio KYA is Super CFL with older music. Specifically, KYA is Top 40 from 1954 to 1966, with an emphasis on the stuff that really rocks.
The team has one significant change, which actually happend a couple of months ago. Kacie Sommers has been going through major personal trauma including the recent death of her father. Since we're strictly volunteers, Kacie made a very good decision to spend more time helping her family through some other major troubles. These days, they would say she's taking the "Daughter Track." I admire her family loyalty. But we're missing her in the morning. Kacie always has something positive to say when everything in view has turned to crap.
However, our afternoon guy, Big Chico, has moved quite smoothly into the morning slot. And our evening guy, Scott Chicken took over the afternoons with nary a squawk. And Cosmic Dave is still doing evenings on the weekends.
Now, as for paying the bills, that's the reason for the format adjustment. It only costs about $1600 a month to operate the KYA empire, but so far, it hasn't started appearing magically in the checking account. You've gotta have listeners, no matter what you put on the air. We've got a tiny bit of underwriting coming in from Ocean Shores, and help with the Seattle tower rent from our friends at KGHO. But right now, we're making up about $700 a month from the ravaged pockets of my family.
The dream is that someday, enough people will be listening that we can actually pay all the bills from underwriting. You know underwriting, those spots that aren't actually bad enough to be commercials.
I'm hoping we can attract some of the Classic Car crowd and maybe even become the official station of some of the cruise-ins. But for now, we're still getting the format change nailed down.
This is pretty much the music we've been playing on our gang's other LPFM, 89.5 in Ocean Shores for a couple of years. Previously Ocean Shores was without announcers, but now we've added Chico, Scott and Dave to the air, and it's much better radio out there. The average audience is much older there than in Seattle, so it's a great place to try out this format.
There are still two different stations though. KYA Ocean Shores plays more of the softer stuff that you might also hear on KIXI, since there's no KIXI out there and KYA needs to appeal to a broader audience.
On the other hand, KYA Seattle has much less soft stuff, and cuts off at 1966 instead of 1967 just to clear more air between KYA, KIXI and KSBG/KJR. I don't think anybody but KYA is playing all of the charted hits of Little Richard and Bill Haley. Yeah, there's some unusual stuff on KYA. That's what makes me love it.
Right now, we've got about 1600 songs in rotation. 400 in heavy rotation, about 40% of the schedule, and the other 1200 filling out the rest of the hour. Plus we've still got those 400 comedy bits from CFL running.
We added more and longer national newscasts from FSN in morning and afternoon drive because I think news is vital to all of us. And there's far too little journalistic news on the air anymore, particularly from the commercial news networks. FSN ain't quite the BBC, but they're a damned good cadre of professional journalists who go beyond lead stories of kidnapped blond teens and silly guys who only kill one or two people at a time.
Will KYA make it this time? I dunno. But we're giving our best shot, and I think we have good ammo. Not that crappy birdshot Dick Cheney uses.
Go ahead and check us out. You've probably got to be Fifty and Better to get into it, but hey, it's real Hound Dog Rock 'n' Roll. If your own station isn't playing enough Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chubby Checker and Skinny Elvis, try Radio KYA... Seattle 94.5, Fall City/Snoqualmie Valley 104.5, Ocean Shores 89.5.
MP3Pro streams from our website at
[url]http://RadioKYA.com [/url]
By the way, we recently got FCC approval for a power increase on 104.5, so we've got a little stronger signal on the Sammamish Plateau and bits of Issaquah. Okay, 32 Watts, but better than the 8 Watts we had before. Unlike others I can name, the FCC know about our power increase.
Dr. Sandi Woodruff - GM and Janitorial Supervisor - Radio KYA<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">
Edited by RadioKYA on 02/18/06 08:09 AM.</FONT></P>
