• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

KAAY presently off air

W

wpiv926

Noticed on radio locator and on the air that KAAY is off the air and has filed with the FCC to be off the air for a period. Anyone know what is up with that??
 
Got it. Hopefully, this will lead to a complete renovation of the Wrightsville transmitter site. What with the theft of most of the copper, this will force the owner to redo the radials and transmission line, along with a new transmitter it sounds like. This will obviously cost several hundred thousand dollars, so we shall see. It looks as though they do plan on doing something. If all this work is accomplished, the KAAY signal could once again be what it was years ago. Both of the big AMs in Shreveport, KEEL-710 (6 towers) and KWKH-1130 (3 towers) have been completely renovated with new radials and lines in the last 10 years, and they both have killer signals now.
 
I can hear KWKH on the ham rig (and 75m dipole) 24/7 up here just south of Pine Bluff AR. Now if KAAY had a decent format, even dreadful conservative talk would be an improvement over the gospel-huxters that hang out on 1090 these days. But one would think with the low overhead and selling of airtime that previous owner Citadel would have maintained the KAAY transmitter site better.

Also in recent months before going dark, KAAY on the nightime aux power has been getting killed by nighttime IBOC from KRLD 1080 Dallas and WTAM 1100 Cleveland (OH). Hope the FCC would outlaw nightime IBOC.
 
Considering that they have played the sham of claiming to be a "Christian" station whose god was the almighty dollar for years, it's fitting that Bud S. at the KAAY blog said this:

"Too bad, that business ethics no longer apply, that the dollar is their god and jobs don't matter."

If they do nothing but go back to dollar a holler what's the point of trying to save it? It's too bad the same thing couldn't happen to WMQM in Memphis. ::)
 
I think Bud was referring to previous KAAY owner Citadel Communications which was bought by Cumulus (which isn't any better BTW). Don't get me wrong, I *despise* the format of KAAY Radio since April 1985 and think that the callsign should have been changed to reflect the change in programming. But KAAY is the still the only 24/7 50KW AM Broadcaster in Arkansas and while that doesn't mean much to people of my generation and younger there are many such stations still on the air and viable: WWL, KRLD, WTAM, WCCO, WSM just to name a few. Many of them are broadcasting conservative talk radio though (an issue I won't address in this thread).

2013 marks 60 years since the year 1953, perhaps one of the more important in the history of Arkansas broadcasting. In March of that year, what is now KAAY (then KTHS) went on the air from the Wrightsville transmitter site and became a CBS Radio affiliate in the final years of "Old Time Radio". 1953 also ushered in terrestrial TV (KRTV channel 17, and later KATV channel 7 -- analog of course ;) ) finally arriving in Central Arkansas. 1953 was also the year that KVSA 1220 "The Voice Of Southeast Arkansas" McGehee AR also first signed on.
 
When KAAY got religion in 1985, the revenues started running 85k to 100k per month with 20k in expenses and it was a *very* good successful business. Woody Sudbrink had actually purchased it and the class "C" from Multimedia for 3.5M and then sold the FM for 3.5M to Phil Johnson. It was a cash cow until about three years later he sold it to Beasley for about 3.5M. Made lots of money, went to the bank... If that hadn't happened, KAAY would have ceased to exist long time ago. One can say all you want about how bad that was but last I checked, these are businesses and if revenue doesn't exceed expenses consistently, there is no business. The successive owners obviously don't know how to manage these kinds of formats.... Hearing of its demise knowing its legacy is sad....

All the best,

wh
 
You have nailed it on the money trail.. Anyone, with any doctrine can buy time and claim Hay-Zus is a Cow or an Alien form from Pluto, and they'd sell the time.. WLAC had huxters like that for years at night.. Sell the skywave and watch the 80% profit over cost hit the roof... Those huxters are fooled, as well.... They can hit as many looking for the next 'hip' religion on line... Really made us in the ethical side of it, cringe..... :p
 
skippertthomas said:
You have nailed it on the money trail.. Anyone, with any doctrine can buy time and claim Hay-Zus is a Cow or an Alien form from Pluto, and they'd sell the time.. WLAC had huxters like that for years at night.. Sell the skywave and watch the 80% profit over cost hit the roof... Those huxters are fooled, as well.... They can hit as many looking for the next 'hip' religion on line... Really made us in the ethical side of it, cringe..... :p
Click to expand...

AMEN Skip!!!
 
Heard the KAAY 5KW ND signal last night trying to overcome IBOC interference from KRLD and WTAM down here in Southeastern AR 60mi from the transmitter. Without a viable format, I expect KAAY to limp along for the long term.
 
Love ya' Watt.. Best in this biz!
;D

False Doctrine is just that.. Within the wider basics, it is easy to see, Watt.. I judge not in eternity, but I am warned in Revelation of those who add to and take away..... We have let it creep into our basic beliefs... To each, study to find yourself, approved... We are on the journey.. Each chooses.. But, my view, and I love all equally... Does not mean I buy all, equally.... Just my two cents.. Nothin' more...
 
I said this in the other KAAY thread, but it bears repeating here: Having an all preaching format isn't the problem as much as when the station management allows any crackpot on that flashes enough money in their faces regardless of how bad their theology is, and the almighty dollar is more important than ministry, which us where KAAY was. Moody and Bott are examples of how to do a Christian talk format right. I may not totally agree with everyone they carry, but you won't hear anyone claiming they're the "last true prophet of God" and that anyone who disagrees with them is on their way to Hell.
 
I YAM DA' GRIT WA-TUR BUFF-AYE-LOW! Her-Mi-Low! :eek:
 
Little known fact: Right before the sale to Beasley, I tried to convince the owners of KZOU / KOKY (being the CE at the time) NOT to build out the 1250 transmitter upgrade over off Frazier Pike, but to instead invest that money plus a little into buying KAAY, possibly for a urban oldies format or to swap the KOKY format. I wonder what would have happened had I been successful.
 
radiosaur said:
Little known fact: Right before the sale to Beasley, I tried to convince the owners of KZOU / KOKY (being the CE at the time) NOT to build out the 1250 transmitter upgrade over off Frazier Pike, but to instead invest that money plus a little into buying KAAY, possibly for a urban oldies format or to swap the KOKY format. I wonder what would have happened had I been successful.
Click to expand...

Was this prior to Power 92's debut in December 1987?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom