Is Craig West from KXOJ Headed to Cox?

[jd]

A quick note to say that I stand corrected about the call letters for 103.7. It happened during the time they were off the air, but they actually did change from KOCD-FM to KYLK.

 

[ionosphere]

A quick note to say that I stand corrected about the call letters for 103.7. It happened during the time they were off the air, but they actually did change from KOCD-FM to KYLK.

Good. I thought KOCD was an odd set of calls anyway. Of course, now I want to take to calling them "K-Yolk"!

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The KOCD calls where for Oklahoma Compact Disc, as in when they were Smooth Jazz. The original station was in Wilburton indeed when it was part of the big Mac cluster, programmed by the college. That all ended when it was moved to it's current tower site co-located on the 95.1 KQCV-FM Bott tower "The station was owned by Senator LeBlance out of Harshorne, tranny and stick were in Okemah and they were studioing out of, can't remeber the name of the town, but it was on I-40 just east of OKC."
Seminole is the town you're looking for. Yes. The jocks, from the beginning under BA's Smooth Jazz via the bird to the radio-in-a-box "Oklahoma's CD 103.7" days all came from elsewhere via the internet. The "Oklahoma's 103.7" version was programmed by Phil Hall of former ABC Radio Network fame.
"I think most of the airstaff was voicetracking from home studios."
Correct.
"Wasn't KOCD originally licensed to Wilburton or somewhere? And then moved to rim-shot OKC and Tulsa? After moving, they were Smooth Jazz and then moved to a more straight-ahead AC catering to Tulsa (maybe in an attempt to get KBEZ's listeners after they became "Bob FM"). The music wasn't bad, but the talent was not so good. Mainly because everyone sounded horribly voicetracked." The automation performed less that stellar in the beginning which contributed to some the lack of polish at first, which I', sure didn't help the cause any. "They were also Tulsa's home to Broken Arrow football (oddly enough) and were on the Radio Oklahoma Network using KOTV updates (even though they are geographically much closer to OKC)." Yes. I'm guessing towards the end that BA football was a highlight on any ratings the station had. BA did a great job for the year they were on the station. There is a ridge that is around the Shawnee area that prevents the 103.7 signal from really reaching OKC. Appearently the engineering consultant either missed this or choose to not really make it too appearent to the owner. The station was turned on with the idea it would serve OKC but it was fairly quickly determined that topography said otherwise. More of Tulsa is served by a listenable signal by the station. I don't have really good Longly-Rice predictors, but what I can project from the free CRC site pretty much shows that doubling the height of the tower would help a lot. The costs would be very high and it still would, however, be a wanna-be signal compared to the other FMs in-town. What I wonder at this point is if EMF will someday improve their installation of the antenna to where it will favor Tulsa even more since they already have 88.9 in OKC doing a great job for that area. Since placement of the antenna was hung with the intent that it would serve OKC, I question if there's more push that could be given to the Tulsa market with simply re-hanging the antenna, maybe on a pole at a certain distance from the tower, etc. There's a lot that can be done with "Omni" antenna systems that still is legal.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Hopefully it will be a good asset to EMF. After the move to the new tower, the only time the poor thing ever approached the black was when it was still playing Smooth Jazz and one of the owners was working sales himself. The beginning of the end is when they put talk in the morning and left music the rest of the day. Then the music was tweaked to more of a AC slant under BA for a while. Then they broke away from the talk in the morning and relaunched under the "Oklahoma's 103.7" format, but I feel the damage was already done at that point. FM talk might have worked, but it really had to be an all day thing.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

BA = http://www.broadcastarchitecture.com/

 

[jd]

I thought KOCD was an odd set of calls anyway.

Same here. All I could think of was "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

 

[G Thompson]

EMF Baffles me.

There are some great people there. I've got a handful of very close friends who work for EMF. But I don't understand their stated intent when it comes to proliferation of their signals.

They say they won't go into any market that already has "quality christian radio."

Then they go into markets with hugely successful heritage stations.

The implication there being that the hugely successful heritage stations aren't "quality stations?"

???

 

[shaneradio]

They are all in it for the money. They see opportunity.

 

[ionosphere]

They are all in it for the money. They see opportunity.

Bingo. I'm sure the original intent was to stay out of the way of "quality heritage Christian stations", but clearly that's not the goal now. Tulsa already has KXOJ, co-owned KCXR, Air1 and KFMY. Now a K-Love rimshot (and that isn't including the Oasis Network, a couple of gospel stations and Christian Talk on KCFO-AM.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Like many big corporates, they start out with some ideals and by the time they get huge most of those ideals go right out the window. I see EMF as a God-channel version of CC. Like CC, there's good and bad to be a mamoth organization. There's a lot of common resources to use, but bad things come from being that big too. Most big ones adopt the "well, we'll just run over them" attitude at some point in their growth process.

 

[Kent]

The KOCD calls where for Oklahoma Compact Disc, as in when they were Smooth Jazz.

The KOCD calls were also in Joplin for about 8 years after country station KSSC became classic rock "CD-98," later CD-105.3 and Rock 105.3 KOCD. Marri Michaels, heard on KTHK, KQLL and later KJSR, came to Tulsa from there.

The original station was in Wilburton indeed when it was part of the big Mac cluster, programmed by the college.

It was KESC when it was out of Wilburton. I always remember that station airing a satellite AC format. I believe the Stipes owned it.

Seminole is the town you're looking for. Yes. The jocks, from the beginning under BA's Smooth Jazz via the bird to the radio-in-a-box "Oklahoma's CD 103.7" days all came from elsewhere via the internet.

Don't know if they were still local or not, but Jon Hart worked at KRAV in the late 80's/early 90's, and Tim Howard worked at KMYZ as "Hollywood" in the late-80's and later at KQLL and KWEN. I believe he left K 95 FM shortly after Cooper. He and Joanne Downs did mornings until Jeff and Kelly from KIHT St. Louis came aboard in March or April '99. I believe he went to one of the record labels in Nashville after K 95 FM, though someone told me he also briefly worked at the former KGMY-FM in Springfield, MO.

The "Oklahoma's 103.7" version was programmed by Phil Hall of former ABC Radio Network fame.

I believe Phil Hall got his start at KRMG and was PD of KRAV in the late 70's/early 80's. He also was at KRTH for a brief time but got hired away to program the ill-fated KODZ in Dallas in '91. It lasted just over a year. Phil also owned KLPQ 102.5 in Little Rock and was the one who got Charlie Derek of KRAV fame to leave KQQL in Minneapolis to be a partner in KLPQ. On a side note, I always liked Little Rock's Q-102.5, though I knew it would never work because its signal wasn't good enough for the terrain of metro Little Rock.

Yes. I'm guessing towards the end that BA football was a highlight on any ratings the station had. BA did a great job for the year they were on the station.

I believe they also had a makeshift studio in Broken Arrow during that time.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Actually BA games came via the Radio Okla. Network studios in OKC. It was then pumped over the RON secondary channel back to Seminole and put on the air from there via automation.

 

[shaneradio]

I am very impressed with your knowledge Kent. Good information. Was Phil Hall ever PD of KRMG?

 

[Kent]

Actually BA games came via the Radio Okla. Network studios in OKC. It was then pumped over the RON secondary channel back to Seminole and put on the air from there via automation.

Thanks for the info! Sounds like a roundabout way of doing things, but I suppose it worked, for a little while anyway! I remember mapping that Broken Arrow address they had out on Google maps about a year ago, and it actually came up to a residential area. The street view didn't indicate any sign of an STL, and, at the time, I figured it was because Google sent its truck through the neighborhood before they got there. However, it now sounds like it was because the studio itself was actually in Seminole. I also figured it was kind of weird to be located in Broken Arrow with a tower that far out of town. I figured that would take at least two, if not three, STL hops!

 

[Kent]

I am very impressed with your knowledge Kent. Good information. Was Phil Hall ever PD of KRMG?

Thanks for the good words, Shane. To the best of my knowledge, he was never PD of KRMG. I believe he went from KRMG to KTOW before going to KRAV. That leads me to think he was probably a part-timer or overnighter at KRMG and left for KTOW to go full-time and/or to a better daypart before moving to KRAV for the PD position.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Yeah BA wouldn't fly for a the main studio rule. They could have something remote there, but not the main studio.

 

[JohnDurkee]

Phil was never the PD at KRMG. He did work in the KRMG Newsroom and anchored the then 15-minute version of Mid-Day Oklahoma. After KRMG, he went to KTOW as PD.

 

[TTowner]

Just to clarify...KXOJ didn't knock Spirit 102.3 out of anything. Spirit was even with, or whipping, KXOJ in the ratings demos and had they persisted they'd be the clear format winner. Cox decided there was less expense and more money in simulcasting KRMG, whose night signal is atrocious.

 

[shaneradio]

KXOJ should count their blessings that Cox needed 102.3 for KRMG. If they had stayed in the Christian format, KXOJ would not be in the top-10 25-54. The switch accomplished several things; no need to ever listen to AM radio in Tulsa, KXOJ has a reason to live, Cox didn't want to hurt their own AC station and it made financial sense. My guess is that 75% of the KRMG cume listens to the FM signal.

Somebody could easily put Christian on a good signal in the market and hurt KXOJ. If KLOVE had a good signal, that would be a problem for KXOJ. Craig West sounds great on the station with Michael. I find myself listening to KLOVE more now that they have a better morning show.