Disney yanking the plug on KMUS 1380?

[billyg]

Read this on the Taylor on Radio-Info email:

Disney isn’t kidding about the small-market Radio Disney stations it’s selling – it’s taking them silent to save money.
So it’s close to a deal to sell Tulsa-market KMUS, Sperry (1380)? Fine, go ahead and turn off the lights, while the “small broadcaster who is still working out financing details” gets his money lined up. Disney hasn’t identified the buyer, but asks the FCC for permission to keep KMUS dark for as long as 180 days. Disney paid $1.5 million for it back in 2003.

If you haven't heard, Disney has been unloading several of their small market stations (for a lot less than what they paid for them). KQAM 1480 (which was the old KELO decades ago) in Wichita just sold to a local broadcaster, and they just went dark on their affiliate in Albuquerque. Any ideas on who could be buying KMUS?

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Good. Glad a "local" will maybe turn it back into something. Maybe they will do something smart like tie into the local commmunity it serves. Isn't irronic things are swinging back to local/regional and the stations that have a history of doing the locals right are the ones still finacially solvent?

 

[H Anthony Wayne]

...and yet all you guys talk about on this board are OKC stations that are owned by conglomerates and don't mention word one about all the professional local stations that permeate the state.

 

[Jay Walker]

Read this on the Taylor on Radio-Info email:

Disney isn’t kidding about the small-market Radio Disney stations it’s selling – it’s taking them silent to save money.
So it’s close to a deal to sell Tulsa-market KMUS, Sperry (1380)? Fine, go ahead and turn off the lights, while the “small broadcaster who is still working out financing details” gets his money lined up. Disney hasn’t identified the buyer, but asks the FCC for permission to keep KMUS dark for as long as 180 days. Disney paid $1.5 million for it back in 2003.

If you haven't heard, Disney has been unloading several of their small market stations (for a lot less than what they paid for them). KQAM 1480 (which was the old KELO decades ago) in Wichita just sold to a local broadcaster, and they just went dark on their affiliate in Albuquerque. Any ideas on who could be buying KMUS?

Hi billy, one small correction KQAM 1480's old call was KLEO. I worked at both 1410 KQAM (ex-KWBB ex-KEYN-AM) and 1480 KLEO back in the day...ok many days ago LOL

 

[billyg]

Hi billy, one small correction KQAM 1480's old call was KLEO. I worked at both 1410 KQAM (ex-KWBB ex-KEYN-AM) and 1480 KLEO back in the day...ok many days ago LOL

Sorry about that. Both were great radio stations in the 70's and I had a freind board-op for KQAM 1410 when it was running satellite oldies in 1988. Both were sister stations when they were owned by Entercom, now they are sister stations again under Steckline communications.

 

[Jay Walker]

I was at 1410 the first time in 1972-73 when it was KWBB owned by Jimmy Stewart the actor.
KLEO in 1974-75 for Swanco.
1410 again as KEYN-AM with American Media and finally left Kansas and KQAM/KEYN-FM for good in 1982.
Passed through OKC at KOFM on my way via Denver KPKE to WLS/WYTZ Chicago and ended up in Dallas for the last 20 plus years...

Ain't radio grand LOL. As I'm fond of saying "One of these days I'll grow up, cut my hair and get a real job"

Sorry for the hi-jack
Best
Jay

 

[billyg]

I was at 1410 the first time in 1972-73 when it was KWBB owned by Jimmy Stewart the actor.
KLEO in 1974-75 for Swanco.
1410 again as KEYN-AM with American Media and finally left Kansas and KQAM/KEYN-FM for good in 1982.
Passed through OKC at KOFM on my way via Denver KPKE to WLS/WYTZ Chicago and ended up in Dallas for the last 20 plus years...

Ain't radio grand LOL. As I'm fond of saying "One of these days I'll grow up, cut my hair and get a real job"

Sorry for the hi-jack
Best
Jay

Nice! I probably heard you on KEYN or KOFM back when I was a teenager in the the late 70's in Bartlesville Ok. I had a Realistic STA-90 receiver with a good tuner and under the right atmospheric conditions both stations could skip nicely into "Green Country". I wish I had made tapes then.. well I did but I cut the DJ talk off of them :'(

BTW Was KTBB located in the same building off Seneca that later housed KEYN-KQAM? When I visited there in 1986-7 I remember seeing the Rockwell "power rock" transmitter in the hall. And I part timed at KSGL 900 in 1987-8 on Central, which I heard was the original KEYN studios. (PS: sorry for the Wichita radio talk)

 

[Jay Walker]

KWBB was located at 29th and Salina. When it was sold to American Media KEYN-FM moved from the "bakery" on west Central west of the old 900khz site of now KSGL to the 29th and Salina location. I helped install the Power Rock you mentioned that was right outside the door of the FM control room in transmitter hall. We were the loudest FM and AM in town. I built the processing chain from odds and ends including CRL for the AM and modified DAP310 and a hot-rodded Optimod 8000 with the first composite clipper in the market on the FM. It drove the competition nuts. Oh and I was the 6p-10p air talent on the FM. Worked every on-air shift before I left "to further my major market career" LOL
Check 440.com and you will find that Todd Wallace was one of the KWBB alumni.

Sadly the place burned to the ground some years back. It was at one time "The" top 40 station in Wichita before getting clobbered by KLEO and later KEYN-FM.
Thanks for tolerating the off market musings.
Best regards
Jay Walker

 

[Media Mogul]

When you reference American Media... Was that Gene Bicknell's American Media Investments that has Pittsburg and Joplin, or a totally different company?

 

[Kent]

I'm not sure, but it sounds like it was the American Media that owned stations in Cincinnati and Sacramento and eventually got absorbed into Chancellor/AMFM and, later, Clear Channel.

 

[Jay Walker]

No, the American Media Incorporated I'm referring to was owned by Bob Freeman and Pat Carney of Pizza hunt fame. The company started as Mr. D's Broadcasting when AM 900 was aquired. Then the Carney investment was added and the company changed to AMI. But remember this is from 30 plus year old memory....
AMI was a local company in Wichita that owned KEYN-FM, KQAM and one time owned stations in Pueblo CO KKDJ (not the LA version) if my memory is correct. 30 plus years is a long time. They were sold to Long-Pride Broadcasting.
Jim Long of jingle fame and country singer Charlie Pride. Bob Freeman then bought KOAM AM/FM Pittsburg KS and changed the calls to KKOW. Freeman was a great owner/operator and had a good sense of marketing and sales. He was also smart enough to in general leave programming alone as long as programming gave him a salable product.

Jay

 

[billyg]

KWBB was located at 29th and Salina. When it was sold to American Media KEYN-FM moved from the "bakery" on west Central west of the old 900khz site of now KSGL to the 29th and Salina location. I helped install the Power Rock you mentioned that was right outside the door of the FM control room in transmitter hall. We were the loudest FM and AM in town. I built the processing chain from odds and ends including CRL for the AM and modified DAP310 and a hot-rodded Optimod 8000 with the first composite clipper in the market on the FM. It drove the competition nuts. Oh and I was the 6p-10p air talent on the FM. Worked every on-air shift before I left "to further my major market career" LOL
Check 440.com and you will find that Todd Wallace was one of the KWBB alumni.

Sadly the place burned to the ground some years back. It was at one time "The" top 40 station in Wichita before getting clobbered by KLEO and later KEYN-FM.
Thanks for tolerating the off market musings.
Best regards
Jay Walker

It was a shame to hear to about the KWBB/KEYN fire, I never found out what caused the fire.

When I was listening to KEYN-FM back in the 70's and early 80's, it was a HUGE sounding station compared to the wimpier sounding Tulsa stations. And there are still FM stations here in East Texas running 20+ year old Optimod 8000's.

Getting back to the original topic, who might be buying KMUS and what would they do with it?

 

[Les Stock]

No, the American Media Incorporated I'm referring to was owned by Bob Freeman and Pat Carney of Pizza hunt fame. The company started as Mr. D's Broadcasting when AM 900 was aquired. Then the Carney investment was added and the company changed to AMI. But remember this is from 30 plus year old memory....
AMI was a local company in Wichita that owned KEYN-FM, KQAM and one time owned stations in Pueblo CO KKDJ (not the LA version) if my memory is correct. 30 plus years is a long time. They were sold to Long-Pride Broadcasting.
Jim Long of jingle fame and country singer Charlie Pride. Bob Freeman then bought KOAM AM/FM Pittsburg KS and changed the calls to KKOW. Freeman was a great owner/operator and had a good sense of marketing and sales. He was also smart enough to in general leave programming alone as long as programming gave him a salable product.

Jay

IIRC, Bob Freeman, Pat Carney, and Gene Bicknell were the original principals of KKOW-AM ownership, also known as American Media Investments as well. They didn't acquire the FM until around 1987, and Bicknell bought out his partners in 1989. AMI recently expanded its empire with five more stations in the Joplin-Pittsburg area, as well as some Texarkana area stations.

 

[G Thompson]

I worked for KKOW in Pittsburg as production director years ago. I replaced Dennis McAtee who is now at Journal as Creative Services guy.

Bicknell walked into the studio one day. I had no idea who he was. Just some old guy in a golf shirt, from my view-point. I'm thinking to myself: "Did I have a client record that I forgot about?"

I said: "Can I help you, Sir?"

He said "No...I own this place."

I chuckled at first and half-way through my chuckle, I realized that I was laughing at the guy who paid my salary.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

"...and yet all you guys talk about on this board are OKC stations that are owned by conglomerates and don't mention word one about all the professional local stations that permeate the state."

Sadly, there aren't that many until you get a ways away from OKC. There are four groups basically in OKC itself. Even the "local" doesn't do much more than chase CC on the big station, take a sat feed on two, and pay-before-you-pray on the daytime AM. At one time I hopes they'd do something compelling. Several years ago they decided they'd go chase the dollars that CC had. So far, no dice. The Mexi station probably is they most compelling thing over there, although I'm not a good judge of that do to the language barrier. Around here it's pretty much a big 'ol yawn. Same old crap, different day.

So, to answer you, the market I live in and can pretty much hear isn't where the majority of where the stations that are trying to really tie into the markets they serve. OKC itself gets a d- in my book.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The interesting thing is metros keep loosing steam yet those pros in small markets that do all the local stuff are holding up just fine. Guess they had the right idea after all.

 

[Jay Walker]

[/quote]
When I was listening to KEYN-FM back in the 70's and early 80's, it was a HUGE sounding station compared to the wimpier sounding Tulsa stations. And there are still FM stations here in East Texas running 20+ year old Optimod 8000's.
[/quote]

Thanks for the complement, I worked hard on the audio processing for both KQAM and KEYN-FM during that period of time. Since I was on the air as well as being the Chief Engineer it was in my best interests to have the audio bigger than life. It made for great airchecks LOL.
We were the first in market to use simple things like microphone processing (Valley People Gain Brains) and I constantly experimented with various pieces in the air chain to give both stations a "Sonic Signature". KQAM ran DAP 310 and a Urei BL-40 with heavy positive peak modulation, later on it was on to one of the first CRL stacks. The FM ran Urei LA-3/4 to Orban 8000, then later a DAP 310 to the 8000, and when I left we were running a set of modified DAP 310 and an 8100XT. Since multipath was not an issue I used a lot of composite clipping as well. It used to really freak out our competitors.
The funny thing, all it took in general was super clean source material and the rest was easy. We used a Technic SP-10 turntable to master onto cart (ITC-99) the phono pre-amp was a Macintosh and the phono cartridge was either Ortophon (sp) or Stanton 680E. Mics were 421-U. The console was an Audio Rock by Collins. Now all this stuff is in one box and available as a preset LOL..
Time marches on....

To close here's hoping you all get a local owner who has a Love for the biz and a head to make money...

 

[H Anthony Wayne]

Re: Disney yanking the plug on KMUS 1380?
« Reply #15 on: February 02, 2010, 02:51:17 PM »
Reply with quoteQuote
The interesting thing is metros keep loosing steam yet those pros in small markets that do all the local stuff are holding up just fine. Guess they had the right idea after all.
My point. Where are the posters that will comment on the stations NOT in OKC? What a weird state that thinks all things begin and end in OKC and Tulsa.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Isn't that typical though? Like it or not (I don't like it by the way), the state capitol generally controls the state, especially if it's the largest and in the center. I've been a few statewide organizations that I have litterly moved the meetings OUT of OKC for that very reason. One of them was a coordination group for ham radio that we permently moved the meetings to Stillwater so that it wasn't OKC and it's power brokers that had control, yet it was still close to being central to the state. There are a ton of unsung heros out in small market radio that do a HELL of a lot more than we ever thought about doing here in the cities. Even though they have their stuff together and continue to turn nice profits in many cases, most of us notice on the big boys. Strange but true...