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Joe Riddle Moving To Old KAKC Frequency, Expanding To 3 Hrs

G

GeneSavage

Heard Joe Riddle announce that tonight was his last night to do his Old Time Radio Theater on Big Country 99.5... and THEN he announced he would be back next week, but for THREE hours instead of two, and on AM 970, KCFO.

He listed his program as having been around since... the early 80s, I think? First on AM 740 KRMG, then AM 1050 KGTO, then back to KRMG, then AM 1170 KFAQ (formerly KVOO), and then to Big Country 99.5 (KXBL, Henryetta)... now, next week, 6pm - 9pm on KCFO.

He also mentioned it would be the "Petty's Fine Foods Radio Theater," so it sounds like he has a new sponsor.

It may be a step down in coverage area, but 99.5 doesn't stream; KCFO does. (1170 was hosting his shows, recorded, as podcasts, but KCFO's stream is live.)

He had high praise for Journal tonight, saying they had treated him better than anybody else who had carried the show.

At last check, he wasn't yet up on KCFO's schedule on their website:
http://kcfo.com

I'm interested what he sounds like on the Rockin' 97 next Sunday night!
 
Did 970 ever upgrade their coverage since the KAKC days? You had trouble picking it up at night at the studios at the Trade Winds west back in the day. I believe that's why they simulcast with the FM in the mid 1970s.

Too bad Carl Mark didn't have the guts to move the AM format to FM instead of putting a 'beautiful music' format on FM and selling the station.
 
They have higher power now than in the old KAKC days, but it's directional... so in some areas it's worse rather than better. I once heard a long-time employee lament the "upgrade," but it looked more appealing at the time on paper to ministries who were buying their time slots.

They're 2.5kw day / 1kw night.

It feels like their signal has gotten slightly stronger over the Tulsa area over the past 5 years or so, but that could be a different radio or driving in different areas. They moved to new studios on Skelly a few years ago, and I think they've had a new engineer come in within the last few years... so the improvement could be real.
 
The problem with 970's 2.5 day signal is that most of it's directed north, which is fine if you're listening in Bartlesville or Pawhuska, but not so great in south/southwest Tulsa where it nulls out.

The 1K night signal is better in south Tulsa, too bad they didn't have this signal in their Top 40 days.
 
It was so bad at the Tradewinds, that after power change in the winter, you would hear 970/WAVE in Louisville, during afternoon drive, louder in your headphones than KAKC. I could not begin to enumerate the number of times I had to switch from air-monitor to the program bus to hear the station.

KCFO will be a good place for Joe. He really has a passion for old time radio. Happy for him!
 
I'd love to see graphs of the original KAKC signals.

I remember driving around in South Tulsa in 1979 (or 1980) and listening to KAKC when was running an Adult Contemporary format just a few months before the KCFO buyout. And it kept fading in and out while KELi was booming in strong. Amazing that KAKC ruled Tulsa in the 60's-70's with that hit and miss signal.
 
billyg said:
I'd love to see graphs of the original KAKC signals.

I remember driving around in South Tulsa in 1979 (or 1980) and listening to KAKC when was running an Adult Contemporary format just a few months before the KCFO buyout. And it kept fading in and out while KELi was booming in strong. Amazing that KAKC ruled Tulsa in the 60's-70's with that hit and miss signal.
Click to expand...

I used to live about a mile or so south of KCFO's transmitters. Late in the day, especially in the hour or so before they switch to the night pattern, the signal would fade a little for me. It's kind of funny to listen to it fade in and out while starring at the towers.
 
billyg said:
I remember driving around in South Tulsa in 1979 (or 1980) and listening to KAKC when was running an Adult Contemporary format just a few months before the KCFO buyout. And it kept fading in and out while KELi was booming in strong. Amazing that KAKC ruled Tulsa in the 60's-70's with that hit and miss signal.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that, during much of KAKC's heyday, the Fairgrounds was the eastern part of the city limits, and the southern part of the city limits didn't go much past 51st.

Although my mother was from Tulsa and my father moved there in elementary school, my family was away from town until I was about three years old. We got there about 18 months before KAKC flipped to AC/standards, and, as you might expect, I don't really remember much about the Tulsa of that era. I'm sure there were a lot more people in south Tulsa in the 70's than in the 50's and 60's, but I can remember even as recently as '88 that you could tell you'd left Tulsa before you got to Broken Arrow, even though they were still close.

My mother, by the way, was always more partial to KELI because she used to live on the corner of 51st Pl N and Frankfort and could walk to the KELI transmitter on 56th St N. She and her friends would go there when the overnight jock was on because they still had to have an operator and the transmitter site at the time, and that was the overnight jock for awhile anyway.

When we moved to Tulsa, it was obvious her old neighborhood had seen its better days, but it still wasn't overly dangerous. I can remember playing in my grandparents' yard and going over there all-the-time. However, we stopped visiting after my sister was born in '83. I suspect everyone who could get out of that neighborhood started heading to south Tulsa in the early 80's if not a little earlier. Suburban growth and flight is, in a way, what killed AM. Because stations like KAKC had patterns designed to cover cities the way they were decades earlier, they just couldn't reach their listeners anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of Mark's logic in divesting KAKC to Salem.
 
Good analysis, Kent. I grew up in Tulsa during the 1960s and the population movement to the southeast was going on during that time. The 2010 KAKC documentary on KWGS discussed what many on the KAKC staff knew - by the mid 1970s it was time to move the AM programming to FM. Sadly, for all the visionary things he did with his stations over the years, Mr. Mark didn't do this, but killed off the FM by putting a godawful 'beautiful music' format on it and killing off the heritage AM by playing music for a similar demographic before its conversion to a Christian format.

By the way, on my way to work in Texas in the summer of 1976, I was able to listen to KAKC FM down to about highway 75 and I-40 quite well. The AM station was never that fortunate.
 
stan said:
Good analysis, Kent. I grew up in Tulsa during the 1960s and the population movement to the southeast was going on during that time. The 2010 KAKC documentary on KWGS discussed what many on the KAKC staff knew - by the mid 1970s it was time to move the AM programming to FM. Sadly, for all the visionary things he did with his stations over the years, Mr. Mark didn't do this, but killed off the FM by putting a godawful 'beautiful music' format on it and killing off the heritage AM by playing music for a similar demographic before its conversion to a Christian format.

By the way, on my way to work in Texas in the summer of 1976, I was able to listen to KAKC FM down to about highway 75 and I-40 quite well. The AM station was never that fortunate.
Click to expand...

KAKC-FM had an excellent signal in Bartlesville at night in the seventies. I remember they'd play "The Good The Bad & the Ugly" as a bumper song so they could join the AM simulcast at 6 pm to 10 pm. But KELi was more popular in my Jr. High and High School than KAKC, just because they had a great signal day and night. And I also remember they did some promotions in town. I remember getting my "Rock of Tulsa" sticker and countdown at Bookland in downtown B'ville.

A lot of station owners made the same mistakes as Mark did. They just could not envision AM radio fading out as fast as it did. But Beautiful Music was such a (ugly) cash cow back in the mid seventies that made a lot of money and didn't require much of an on-air staff.

Even KELi changed to AC with some oldies by late 80-81, and they went downhill fast when the "kids" and younger adults moved to KMOD and "KWEN Rock 95" (for a short time) and later "KAY-107".

BTW I have even picked up KCFO faintly in the early morning down here in East Texas, probably still on the night pattern.
 
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