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Jaan McCoy gone from KAAM

Yes, from this morning's Taylor on Radio-Info newsletter:

Northeast of Dallas in Hunt County, three veterans start an LMA-to-buy for KGVL (1400) and KIKT (93.5). These outlying Cumulus Media Partners stations need some TLC and local management, and Hue Beavers, Jaan Kalmes and Betty Nichols Spraggins are up for it. Re-capping from the July 2 TRI Newsletter – Mike Horne had been running the combo, hoping to buy it for $600,000 (with $450,000 in seller paper). But an accusation of “warehousing” due to a long-unbuilt upgrade led the FCC to permit Liberman’s first-adjacent KNOR, Krum (93.7) to finally do its own upgrade. The FCC said any interference to KIKT would be tough luck, and Mike Horne resigned and literally left town (Greenville, TX). Now we’ve got Hunt County Radio. That’s Hue Beavers, Kalmes (once known as Jaan McCoy on Dallas-market KAAM) and Ms. Spraggins (onetime owner of the local “Honey Pot" restaurant in Farmersville). They begin LMAing classic country KGVL and country KIKT today. The paperwork to do an outright purchase is in the works, so Cumulus will have a problem off its hands. It inherited the stations when it acquired Susquehanna in 2006. KIKT is finally close to getting its new facility on the air, improving from a Class A licensed to Greenville to a C3 licensed to Cooper. Good luck to the local folks.
 
Cary Richards, here.

Is this on the Level?

This is really the truth: My life has taken an entirely different turn (I've gone back to school to get my Music Education Degree), so I am merely a casual observer any more when it comes to radio in DFW and I haven't listened to 770 much since I was fired and not at all since they started running infomericals in the midday a few months ago.

Is Jaan no longer doing the morning show/with KAAM? If so, was his departure rancorous or did Don give him his blessings? Is Don now going to change the format? Or was that decision already made and that's why Jaan left? Will Jaan, Hue & Co. retian the country format or will they go to some type of modified standards format?

I just have one thing to say... "MERCY!"
 
Checked out the KAAM website this morning and indeed Jaan is no longer on KAAM. Dave Tanner(?) is now their morning person. Based on the personalities involved, here's what I think happened (if anyone cares, that is):

KAAM (as DFW knows it) ceased to exist a long time ago. I heard a week ago from another refugee from the station that they're last ratings puts them at .03. (Could it go any lower?)

Bad programming decisions, mostly emanating from Crawford Jr. (from the Andrews Alert to midday infomercials) but this has to include the "updating" of the format by Jaan. How many of these bonehead decisions were Jaan's or how many did he implement at Crawford's behest is a mystery. When it came to that kind of thing, I stopped being a friend and confidant of Jaan's a long time ago.

Regardless, the effect is the same - 770 is a sinking ship with very little freight to throw overboard. Jaan put it up with it for a lot longer than he should have for three reasons:

(1) Health insurance
(2) Taking trips and cruises - Jaan loves to travel
(3) Morning host of the Breakfast Club and Program Director

I suspect he's not taking the trips he used to and perhaps there's a wrinkle in the health insurance, who knows?

In any case, Jaan is a pragmatist who always looks out for "Number 1" (even when he doesn't need to). In this case, he needed to and has.

I also believe that Jaan didn't burn any bridges with Crawford (that's MY specialty!) - He got everything in place with Hue and Betty - which means likely this has been months in the works - and then he told Crawford he was moving on as soon as everything was set. Knowing Jaan, he probably phrased it in such a way that it would be better for KAAM if he did go and got Crawford to believe him!

Likely as not, this will be the death-knell for KAAM. Jaan has left the building... and so has Elvis.
 
It is an interesting spectator sport. Am I the only one who notices that reports about KAAM and also WRR - two stations whose formats are supposedly pretty far off the radar - get a lot of views in these forums?

It must be because we are all radio geeks at heart.
 
crbigband said:
Checked out the KAAM website this morning and indeed Jaan is no longer on KAAM. Dave Tanner(?) is now their morning person.

I also believe that Jaan didn't burn any bridges with Crawford (that's MY specialty!) - He got everything in place with Hue and Betty - which means likely this has been months in the works

A Dave Tanner was an ongoing guest for a regular trivia show during the K. McCarthy / D. Gold era at 570 KLIF. (With I think David Gold, maybe? Might have been Kevin. Heck, it could have been as far back as Ed Busch on 570 WFAA!) He is also a musician. Could be the same DT. I have not listened.

Months? Two - two and a half at most! Mike Horne walked on the LMA in Greenville on June 30th. Most of this was orchestrated by Hue who still does engineering work for Cumulus at Maple Ave and has had the inside track to the folks in Atlanta.
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No wonder Jaan sh!t a brick a few months back when I erroneously reported that Mary Rose said on her Facebook page that he was gone from KAAM. This departure was apparently a well-planned secret all along, meant to fly under the radar.

93.3 already robbed the 93.5 signal of any desirability (that's why Cumulus even owns the thing, because Susquehanna needed KIKT to power down for 93.3 to power up,) and now K-Snore/93.7 has shredded any last hope for it. I've been to Campbell myself, and all 46 people might very well enjoy the new station. Sounds to me like even Greenville will have problems hearing it.

Hue Beavers is always to go-to technical/engineering guy, and seems to work graciously for trade-outs and future broken promises. He was part of the consortium that put KAAM on 620, then back for more abuse putting KAAM-770 on the air. Bless his heart, I do understand about "love of the art" sacrifices, while everyone else is pocketing the "profits."

But Jaan quitting his gig at this stage of the game? So just when does all the money from the new Campbell Cash Cow Combo start flowing in? I'm betting this was a "conflict of interest" accusation from Little Crawford, and Jaan knew that, once ownership was imminent, Don wasn't going to let Jaan stay at KAAM. (And what was Jaan going to do? Court the 80-somethings over to HIS new stations? "Hey seniors! Next time you're on the bus to the Shreveport casinos, get the driver to head north on Hwy 34 towards Greenville and get your transistor radios ready! You'll hear Big Band when it was still Little! You'll hear Tony Bennett before he even had a heart to leave anywhere!")
 
MikeShannon914 said:
No wonder Jaan sh!t a brick a few months back when I erroneously reported that Mary Rose said on her Facebook page that he was gone from KAAM. This departure was apparently a well-planned secret all along, meant to fly under the radar.


Mike, read the previous post again. A "few months back" ('few' being 3 or more) this scenario wasn't even possible. It has all happened in less than the last 80 days after the man who held an LMA walked away from it on June 30th. Hue can continue his engineering work at other places while Jaan handles the on air/station operations. This arrangement gives Jaan a place to escape KAAM. A "working retirement" if you will. He will never have to work for anyone else again unless or until he tires of the drive to Greenville every day. While I'm sure they are partners (I don't know this for a fact but they have been partners in the past) Hue is driving the bus and made all this happen. Jaan is along for the ride.
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http://www.radio-info.com/site/markets/grid/dallas-ft-worth

Cary is right. According to this ∧ KAAM went from a .6 to a .3 in two months! Not surprised. It looks like Horace and Myrtle just like I, reacquainted themselves with the tuning knob (or the on-off switch) along about the time that KAAM added all that exciting, value added programming in the afternoons.

As I have demonstrated in the past, all I know about radio is how to turn it on and then pitch a fit when the station doesn't do to suit me. Would anyone care to speculate on what the objective of Jaan and Company might be?

Does 1400 put anything resembling a listenable signal into Dallas? Ft Worth?
 
MikeShannon914 said:
Hue Beavers is always to go-to technical/engineering guy, and seems to work graciously for trade-outs and future broken promises. He was part of the consortium that put KAAM on 620, then back for more abuse putting KAAM-770 on the air. Bless his heart, I do understand about "love of the art" sacrifices, while everyone else is pocketing the "profits."
Click to expand...
The way I heard that story is Hue was one of the driving forces of putting the consortium together- and cleaned up when they sold to DISNEY. Again, this is just the way I heard it, but they bought 620, with Hue and another engineering expert (Jack Selmeyer?) knowing they could move it in. Wait, thanks to Mike's website, I have an answer-
http://www.knus99.com/amlist.html
They bought 620 for 700K and sold it to Disney for 12 million. So within 3 years, they took 700K and turned it into 12 million. Think you can do that with your 401K? Looks liek Hue pocketed plenty of "profits"...
But Jaan quitting his gig at this stage of the game? So just when does all the money from the new Campbell Cash Cow Combo start flowing in?
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How old is Mccoy now? I'm thinking he's approaching 60. At this stage of the game, he might just be looking for something to fill a few years until he can start collecting social security.
 
Totally unrelated, but someone brought up his name in this thread: Whatever happened to Ed Busch?

I remember him from "America Overnight", which was carried in the 1980s, I believe, at one of our local talk stations in NE Ohio. Well, I remember the show's opening jingle more than I remember Ed, but that's another matter...
 
And more on "America Overnight", from a NY Times article of the day (1982):

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/02/arts/radio-s-latest-boom-late-night-talk-shows.html

The RKO Radio Network has a six-hour call-in show heard nationwide - though not yet in New York City - called ''America Overnight,'' with Ed Busch broadcasting three hours from Dallas and Bob Dearborn on the air for three hours from Los Angeles. The programs feature interviews with celebrities and with authors of financial-advice books.
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I was there at the demise of 620 and I can confirm that McCoy, Sellmeyer, Beavers and the rest of the investors did VERY WELL financially when they sold it to Disney. I do know numbers, but at that time Jaan and I were friends, I promised to keep his confidence then and it would be inappropriate of me to divulge details now, regardless of our current relationship, especially in this kind of forum.

Suffice to say all investors made out quite well with the lion's share of profits going to Sellmeyer, McCoy and Beavers. They probably never had to work again after that sale - unless they so chose - which of course, they did.

McCoy's departure from 770 was amicable (as I said, Jaan would never burn a bridge). As I've had more time to think about it, whatever misgivings Crawford may have had of McCoy's departure were like ameliorated by no longer having to pay McCoy's hefty salary and insurance costs. I can guarantee you this Tanner guy isn't getting anywhere near what Jaan was getting - he probably isn't even full time!

What "Hans" reports here is also probably true - that this particular deal all happened in the last 90 days or so.

But likely as not, Hue has been "sniffing around" for months or more in his engineering capacity to find just exactly the right kind of deal in which to interest Jaan to partner up with him again. As I said, the KAAM franchise has ceased to exist from what it was a long time ago.

What Jaan will likely do with 1400 in my view will be to make it an oldies station. He was never a big band guy to begin with and he certainly wouldn't do anything that would compete with his old boss. I remember he used to talk all the time of setting up a studio in the barn on his property and broadcasting from there - just walk from the big house to the barn to do his show. It would not surprise me that he doesn't do that now. And Hue certainly has the engineering "chops" to make that happen.

The real question now is: How long will it take for KAAM to die? 24/7 infomericals (and the lucrative revenue they bring in) will be too much for Crawford to resist and now, with McCoy gone, not even the morning show will be safe.

Wouldn't this now leave a real opening for an Adult Standard station in DFW?
 
Sgt. Hans G. Schultz said:
Mike, read the previous post again. A "few months back" ('few' being 3 or more) this scenario wasn't even possible. [/i][/size]
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OK, some of my assumptions didn't pan out. Sorry. They were just assumptions based on the limited knowledge I have of these people. But it's fun to speculate! And I'm glad to see that guys like Beavers and Sellmeyer were taken care of. Engineers usually end up being the "drummer" equivalent when it comes to dividing up the glory (and profit.)

My biggest concern at this point is, what happened to Sgt. Schultz's accent? :eek:
 
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