How's KKDV doing?

[Joey Riggs]

Hampton will be around as long as the Coast Radio stations are still on the air...under the ownership of the Levitts. If they were to sell the place, I don't know if the new owners would keep him around. So maybe I'll revise my "never" statement to, "Hampton will never be fired as long as the Levitts are in charge."

Why? Who does Hampton have photos of?

 

[davideduardo]

Why? Who does Hampton have photos of?

Sombody's pet goat?

 

[VelvetMcIntyre]

Hampton will be around as long as the Coast Radio stations are still on the air...under the ownership of the Levitts. If they were to sell the place, I don't know if the new owners would keep him around. So maybe I'll revise my "never" statement to, "Hampton will never be fired as long as the Levitts are in charge."

Why? Who does Hampton have photos of?

Kind of a running joke around the station, actually.

 

[Tom_KYA1260]

The situation at the Pleasanton office is already pretty bad. I heard that they've moved desks into the KKIQ air studio - so when the jocks come in for show prep, they're in the studio while someone's on-air. And the sales office isn't very big, so EVERYONE will be cramped up in that place. All weekend airstaff has been fired, and full timers will be voicetracking weekend shifts now. Hampton will never be fired.

Holy crap, when did that happen? Are they just being cheap or are they in trouble?

 

[Tom_KYA1260]

Hampton will be around as long as the Coast Radio stations are still on the air...under the ownership of the Levitts. If they were to sell the place, I don't know if the new owners would keep him around. So maybe I'll revise my "never" statement to, "Hampton will never be fired as long as the Levitts are in charge."

He managed to survive previous ownership changes. Some people just fall through the cracks no matter what.

 

[VelvetMcIntyre]

S#!t floats.

 

[Joey Riggs]

From what I know now, I will be shocked if the station survives the tax year. No one from KKDV's staff is left and the station has become a running joke among the KKIQ staff. I hear they left the on-air staff pretty clueless about what was happening at first, but now the majority of them are sending resumes out.

I have also heard that about six months ago, Coast Radio hired an outside consultant to "find out" why they weren't getting higher ratings. Despite the fact every listener already knows why: because they play shitty songs over and over. But anywho, they hired this outside expert to find out what was broken at KKDV and to fix it and he determined that they needed to stop focusing on the local aspect, because people in the "Far East Bay" didn't care. Jim Hampton's response? Change the name from "KKDV" to "Diablo Valley 92.1"

??? ??? ??? ???

How the hell does that make sense?! If your boss just paid thousands of dollars to hire a consultant, the consultant told you "people don't care about the local aspect in the Diablo Valley, so change something," why the hell would your reaction be to change the name of the station..... to the name of the local area!?!? : I mean, really, I have read some of you people call Hampton an idiot before, but that decision honestly baffles me. Is he senile? Retarded?

Oh and Velvet, I think I now understand your reference to my comment about "who does Hampton have photos of?"

 

[VelvetMcIntyre]

I'll see if I can do some more digging, but I, too, would be surprised if the station (either of them) lasts much longer. They seem to be on a mission to run it into the ground.

 

[Tom_KYA1260]

You're joking, right?

They actually had to hire a consultant for a local station based in *WALNUT CREEK*?!

Who the hell is their PD and why does he or she still have a job?

Because, even at small stations, tweaking a station's programming can make the difference between being profitable and being a money sink hole. Remember that 92.1 has had to struggle much of its existence. Those smaller Class A stations have a tough go of it in markets where there are 75 signals.

As to automating after 7pm instead of having a live DJ, at most stations, the audience drops off a cliff at 7pm. A typical station can have 1/10th the listeners at 7pm as they do at 7am. Seriously. Today nearly all stations are automated after 7pm.

Not if they had Tom Richard on the air.

 

[RadioStarOne]

Why don't the owners just sell the station to Results Radio and put on a similcast of 92.1 KCCL-FM Placerville CA. By the way 92.1 in Placerville is now doing Radiotradeio on Saturday mornings.

 

[DavidKaye]

I'll see if I can do some more digging, but I, too, would be surprised if the station (either of them) lasts much longer. They seem to be on a mission to run it into the ground.

Well, as of today, April 21, KKDV still seems to be in business and they still seem to have local DJs different from either KKIQ or KUIC. So much for going under, eh?

 

[djtalker]

92.1 was a perfect spot for KABL plus internet exposure. With Jim Lange, Carter B. & Clark Reid it was the most professional radio station in the Bay Area, if not the country. Broadcasters are in a sorry way these days. They have no understanding of the needs of listeners nor do they care. They leave too many decisions in the hands of national consultants who are also led by the dollar and ignore the needs. There are ways to address that situation and I'm not going to divulge the answer on this site.

 

[DavidKaye]

They leave too many decisions in the hands of national consultants who are also led by the dollar and ignore the needs.

If consultants weren't successful the field of radio consulting wouldn't be a lucrative one. I remind people that KFRC, KHJ, WHBQ, CKLW, KYNO, WRKO, WOR-FM, and others were all consulted by a national consultant during what people remember as their heydays.

As time went on, KFRC and KHJ sounded different because the consultants tweaked them to their local audiences, but that's the nature of consulting anyway. The consultants start with an overlay, a format that has worked in other markets, then once they establish the station they tweak it for local tastes.

And as for the dollar being important, DUH -- it's all about the dollar and always has been, going back to the very founding of radio broadcasting. Remember that Charles Herrold founded the very first broadcasting station, San Jose Calling (now KCBS), as a way to lure students to his electronics school. It's always about the money.