FCC approves WKKD AM Move to Silvis IL.

[Link]

in 1/14/08 fcc daily digest

 

[dave73]

in 1/14/08 fcc daily digest

I expected that one to be approved, since there are already 2 other stations licensed to Aurora. Just like last month, Feder reported that WCGO has been approved to move to Jennison Michigan. After those 2 stations finally move to their new COL's, I wonder what kind of power increase WONX will get, and how far the signal would cover the market. I do know it wouldn't expect the signal to go any further north, due to WMCW being denied a change in COL.

 

[greenboy]

Kovas also owns WMCW and they already said if they don't get their way they will just shut it down and surrender the license.
I think this deal stinks, we lose three community stations so we can get one big brokered foreign language station. I do not
think media companies should be able to buy radio stations just to shut them down.

 

[b344077]

Please remember that de-regulation was not for the listerner. It was for the industry. In this case, both CGO and KKD were always afterthoughts in the market. I wonder if either ever made a profit. Permitting ONX to extend its reach should prove beneficial. It might even permit the owners to seek a wider audience.

 

[Link]

IMO nobody will build the station in silvis. It is not worth the cost to build it the way it is. However KKD's going silent no matter what.

 

[Countrykev]

In this case, both CGO and KKD were always afterthoughts in the market.

Ummm...

Back in the day AM/FM combos were common. Even more popular were AM/FM combos that served even the smallest of communities. In fact, AM stations were quite the rage, and made way more money than the FM's. So to state that those stations were ALWAYS "afterthoughts" is not really a true statement. They only became that way in the last 10 years or so.

 

[b344077]

To give you a sense of perspective as to how old I am, my first job in broadcasting was at WTAQ. My first industry "mentors" were Stan Dale and Clint Youle. So you can see that I'm rather long in tooth.

I can remember WNMP (now WONX) playing classical music and asking for funds to stay on the air. It was a 1000 daytimer. I remember hearing WCGO initial Xmitter tests from Chicago Heights. I worked in and/or for the Broadcast Industry for many years.

I have found that dial presence of a station on AM was a key factor in determing success back when. It is still the case. Oh yes, I worked for a couple of daytimers (I consider both KKD and CGO to be functionally daytimers) where we made a profit. KSPI in Stillwater, Okla as a case in point. Even so to do it we had to compete against stations in OKC and Tulsa. We had some telephone coicidentals done to see how well we were doing and found that even the rock oriented OSU campus carrier current station was pulling a better share! Oh yes, KSPI was doing an AM/FM combo at the time.

I even worked for an AM/FM combo in Oklahoma City and it was the biggest dog I ever worked for. While I had a sales management slot, I pulled a weekend shift to keep costs down. I hired a salesman in part on whether he could pull a shift. Only after I went to KOMA (50,000 DA-N) did I start to make the bucks.

The other daytimer that made money was 1000 watter on a clear channel. We decided to broker the station with religious programming 100%. It was 100% cash and carry. (No ticket, no wash) We were able to bring to the world the likes of BJ Hargis, Garner Ted Armstrong and Jimmy Swiggert. (Just keep on mailing those tapes with cash strapped to the back.)

Smaller stations can make money but only if it can find a niche and it can defend it. Cause if you're successful, an "also ran" with a better presence is gonna go after you. Yes, the religious station concept was defendable in the three markets where we ran a station.

Again, this is a business. The only concern I have is that as we consolidate the industry and eliminate smaller stations or staffs, where will the talent of tomorrow be able to develop?

 

[Link]

The talent for tommorow comes from podcasting. Time to hit the record button.

 

[EnbyCee]

Please remember that de-regulation was not for the listerner. It was for the industry. In this case, both CGO and KKD were always afterthoughts in the market. I wonder if either ever made a profit. Permitting ONX to extend its reach should prove beneficial. It might even permit the owners to seek a wider audience.

WCGO was a decent Chicago Heights community station at one time, growing up in the area in the 80's and 90's it was the station we were told to tune to for school closings. But for about 10 years it's been 99% ABC bird oldies junk.

Still, I have one hilarious memory of the station: In September of 1994, Homewood-Flossmoor played Marian Catholic in one of the biggest high school football games ever in the south suburbs, broadcast live on WCGO (for those reading this outside of the Chicago area, it is fairly rare for high school football games to be broadcast on the radio there by commercial stations). Anyway, sometime during the 2nd quarter or thereabouts, a couple of guys somehow hacked into WCGO's broadcast feed and shouted profanity over their airwaves, including accusing the refs of being paid off. Eventually WCGO had to cut off its feed entirely and cover the game via someone's phone.

 

[cyberdad]

Kovas also owns WMCW and they already said if they don't get their way they will just shut it down and surrender the license.
I think this deal stinks, we lose three community stations so we can get one big brokered foreign language station.

I agree about WMCW. Depending on one's point of view, WCGO and WKKD may have been afterthoughts. WMCW was local radio serving a little area not quite served/cared about by bigger broadcasters in four different directions.

Ironic that the original owner...Esther Blodgett...always signed off with a hymn. "Let the Lower Lights Keep Burning".

So much for that!

 

[greenboy]

cyberdad, are they still running that health talk network on WMCW? How long has it been since they dropped their music format?
Any history you could give me about the station would be appreciated, it is one of the few community stations I don't know too
much about. Thanks,gb

 

[cyberdad]

Greenboy....

I'm a native and resident of McHenry county, but I can't say that I've tuned in very often. I know they were running the health network stuff for a while, but I'm unclear if that's what its supposed to be now. Its such a mish-mash that I honestly can't figure out what the hell it is.

When I was a teenager in the 60s, WMCW was typical small town local radio. A little something for everybody. They even had a top-40 show on Saturdays and distributed a little printed survey. The primary signal had a range of about fifteen miles....meaning it was competitive in Woodstock, Belvedere, Marengo, and a few other places in Illinois. Walworth and Darien, and Delavan in Wisconsin.

I know about the hymn from catching it at sign-off. Later, nighttime was added, but range was essentially limited to just the COL, Harvard.

The owner, Esther Blodget, sold it and passed on (perhaps it was her estate that sold it). If I recall correctly, the next owners...whom I believe took over in the mid or late 70s...made a game effort to maintain their local flavor. The format gravitated toward what I would call "middle of the road/oldies". Eventually Kovas wound up with it and basically turned it into its current status as a non-entity.

I may be off on some of the facts or missing something, but I think that's essentially the story and the best I can do.

 

[greenboy]

Greenboy....

I'm a native and resident of McHenry county, but I can't say that I've tuned in very often. I know they were running the health network stuff for a while, but I'm unclear if that's what its supposed to be now. Its such a mish-mash that I honestly can't figure out what the hell it is.

When I was a teenager in the 60s, WMCW was typical small town local radio. A little something for everybody. They even had a top-40 show on Saturdays and distributed a little printed survey. The primary signal had a range of about fifteen miles....meaning it was competitive in Woodstock, Belvedere, Marengo, and a few other places in Illinois. Walworth and Darien, and Delavan in Wisconsin.

I know about the hymn from catching it at sign-off. Later, nighttime was added, but range was essentially limited to just the COL, Harvard.

The owner, Esther Blodget, sold it and passed on (perhaps it was her estate that sold it). If I recall correctly, the next owners...whom I believe took over in the mid or late 70s...made a game effort to maintain their local flavor. The format gravitated toward what I would call "middle of the road/oldies". Eventually Kovas wound up with it and basically turned it into its current status as a non-entity.

I may be off on some of the facts or missing something, but I think that's essentially the story and the best I can do.

Thank You, Cyberdad, I appreciate the information. I wish that I would have been around for the glory days of AM radio,
when you had the small stations such as WMCW and WAIT and stations like "THE BIG 89" and "SUPER CFL". It just seems
like radio was so much better back then.

 

[cyberdad]

Radio much better then? It was and it wasn't.

From the standpoint of local ownership, full staffing, and programming by people rather than computers/satellite deliverd services it was MUCH better.

On the other hand, big market "professionalism" (or what passes for it) is available on even the smallest stations.

 

[knoxbob]

I don't frequent the Chicago board much but I saw this post and wanted to chime in. Where I'm at there are still a few small town AM's trying to serve thier communities. A local furniture store owner bought the AM in that town just to keep it local so it wouldn't get moved out of town. Most are either computer automated or on the bird most of the time. One local group bought up several AM's a few years back and they are simulcasting the same boring talk on all of them. The ones that are still trying to make a go of it with localism are doing OK but they probably aren't cash cows.

 

[MichaelLinder]

Esther Blodgett gave me my first radio job in '64. I was fresh out of high school and worked at W-Milk-Center-of-the-World ("Top of the Dial and Top of the State") for three summers and holidays while in college. It was an amazing experience.

The gear consisted of an old Ampex tape deck, no cart machines, two ET turntables and three mics tied together with an RCA board with Bakelite knobs while Holstein cattle peered in the farmhouse studio window. Each show (many were 15 minutes -- marches, Guy Lombardo and such) had its own theme song on old 45s whose labels had been worn to the disk. Didn't matter, we knew each disk by heart, each was an old friend.

I played Top 40 in the station's extended daylight hours every summer and broadcast occasional live sock hops from Harvard's municipal pool. We typed station logs on UPI wire copy paper rolls to save money while spots truly were a dollar-a-holler and the 4pm newscast consisted of Tri-County birth and death notices.

Esther, toothless at that point, still dominated the airways with her daily "Tri-County News" every weekday morning and lived in a converted space in the nearby barn with her invalid sister whom no one had seen in years. A for-real "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" story that's still a mystery. The old farmhouse/studio had been reduced to two working rooms and the transmitter/teletype shed. The rest had become filled over the years with old-lady piles of newspapers and the overpowering stench of cat poop.

Esther had worked at Janesville's WCLO (where I later migrated) before winning a license for WMCW running the last 50's-vintage radio format, an experience I wouldn't have swapped for anything. WMCW was truly community radio. We reported what kids were having for lunch at school, played polkas for German and Swedish farmers during morning milking time, sold tractors and combines (all spots were live except for Ferris Bros. Buick and Chevrolet) and warned of tornadoes coming over the hill. We were "Prairie Home Companion" before there was such a thing.

But no matter how corporate, how glossy, how syndicated the radio biz has become, Esther's heartfelt notion of what was in the public interest, convenience and necessity still stands, and has influenced everything I've done since.

God bless Esther Blodgett, and God bless WMCW, whatever its fate.

 

[Charlie Gee]

To give you a sense of perspective as to how old I am, my first job in broadcasting was at WTAQ. My first industry "mentors" were Stan Dale and Clint Youle. So you can see that I'm rather long in tooth.

Balance deleted for brevity:
One of my first jobs was also at WTAQ doing the sign on Sunday mornings. It was in the then "log cabin studios" across from the entrance to the quarry and 500 watts daytime only. They then moved to a new location which was in a cement block building with an entrance off of US-66/Joliet Road and put up the 4 tower directional night. Russ Salter was still doing the "Old Tyme Jamboree" polka program every morning (M-F). Russ and Charles Sebastian were the original owners. Russ also owned WBEL in Beloit, WI which he moved to South Beloit, IL (so he could get credit for first time local service so WBEL could add nighttime. Russ was also the person who put WKKD on the air originally.

That was an interesting era in radio. I left to be a transmitter engineer at the old WCFL (now WMVP) in 1959. BTW, Charles Sebastian originally put WBEE in Harvey on the air. If you want to discuss the old WTAQ days, PM me here.

 

[cyberdad]

Esther Blodgett used to sign off the station with a hymn. "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning"

.....so much for that.