KBEC's 50th anniversary

[BrainDeadPrez]

Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead, serves their city of license proudly (just as the FCC intended!) Talk about a case where radio is done in the old-school, true spirit of radio we all lament the passing of. Still privately owned and locally owned, and mostly staffed by folks with 20+ years at the station. It's been a launching pad over the years for people with their sights set on graduating into the DFW market (of course, what smaller-town station around here hasn't?) KBEC's where we got Johnny Borders (KLIF as Johnny Dark, then later owned Sunburst Media and KDGE) and the late Bill Ward (KBOX and later prez of Gene Autry's Goldenwest Broadcasting.) And even stranger, they actually APPRECIATE and HONOR their history...look up their site at kbec.com. Hats off to their persistence on staying local, and to a successful 50 years of broadcasting!

 

[Slambang]

> Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old
> today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that
> doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead, serves
> their city of license proudly (just as the FCC intended!)
> Talk about a case where radio is done in the old-school,
> true spirit of radio we all lament the passing of. Still
> privately owned and locally owned, and mostly staffed by
> folks with 20+ years at the station. It's been a launching
> pad over the years for people with their sights set on
> graduating into the DFW market (of course, what smaller-town
> station around here hasn't?) KBEC's where we got Johnny
> Borders (KLIF as Johnny Dark, then later owned Sunburst
> Media and KDGE) and the late Bill Ward (KBOX and later prez
> of Gene Autry's Goldenwest Broadcasting.) And even
> stranger, they actually APPRECIATE and HONOR their
> history...look up their site at kbec.com. Hats off to their
> persistence on staying local, and to a successful 50 years
> of broadcasting!
>
Hats off to KBEC 1390, Stations such as this are a dying breed in the country. I worked at a similar small town station (KYCX, Mexia) in the late 90's. I think stations such as these still fullfil their community need. I wish them a happy 50th and another 50 more years.

 

[Slambang]

> > Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old
> > today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that
> > doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead, serves
> > their city of license proudly (just as the FCC intended!)
>
> > Talk about a case where radio is done in the old-school,
> > true spirit of radio we all lament the passing of. Still
> > privately owned and locally owned, and mostly staffed by
> > folks with 20+ years at the station. It's been a
> launching
> > pad over the years for people with their sights set on
> > graduating into the DFW market (of course, what
> smaller-town
> > station around here hasn't?) KBEC's where we got Johnny
> > Borders (KLIF as Johnny Dark, then later owned Sunburst
> > Media and KDGE) and the late Bill Ward (KBOX and later
> prez
> > of Gene Autry's Goldenwest Broadcasting.) And even
> > stranger, they actually APPRECIATE and HONOR their
> > history...look up their site at kbec.com. Hats off to
> their
> > persistence on staying local, and to a successful 50 years
>
> > of broadcasting!
> >
Hats off to KBEC 1390, Stations such as this are a rare
breed in todays big business radio game. I worked at a similar small town
station (KYCX, Mexia) in the late 90's, where we broadcast the local HS football and basketball games as well as the midmorning "want ads" show. I think small town radio still has a place in America, that can never be filled by big city corporate entities like CC or Infinity. I wish KBEC a happy 50th and I wish them at least 50 more

 

[arnoldevns]

Localism question...

> > > Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old
> > > today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that
> > > doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead, serves
>
> > > their city of license proudly (just as the FCC
> intended!)

This begs a good question: could someone start up or buy a "rimshot" station and do this successfully today?

Would people in say Plano, McKinney, Denton, or any of the other fair sized cities around here listen to a station that focuses just on their locality without trying to be a full-sized DFW station?

 

[edwardrmurrow]

Re: Localism question...

> > > > Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old
>
> > > > today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that
> > > > doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead,
> serves
> >
> > > > their city of license proudly (just as the FCC
> > intended!)
>
> This begs a good question: could someone start up or buy a
> "rimshot" station and do this successfully today?
>
> Would people in say Plano, McKinney, Denton, or any of the
> other fair sized cities around here listen to a station that
> focuses just on their locality without trying to be a
> full-sized DFW station?
>
Good question. I think so. If you ever get in a conversation with a non-broadcaster and they talk about the media, one of the things they often mention is a local newspaper and a desire to hear a station report the news etc. in their community. Could someone start off one and be successful? Yes, provided they know what it will take in regards to budget,hiring a staff that will focus on it's city and surrounding area of license and lots of patience to do it right.

 

[Tom_Desmond]

Re: Localism question...

> Would people in say Plano, McKinney, Denton, or any of the
> other fair sized cities around here listen to a station that
> focuses just on their locality without trying to be a
> full-sized DFW station?

An interesting question, to which the answer is probably "it depends"...

Those who lived in the north suburbs in the mid to late eighties may still remember 95.3 KWPL, which gave its ID as "McKinney/Plano" and did indeed seek to serve Collin County with a music mix that would now be considered "Hot AC" along with lots of local news. I did listen to them regularly, but I know that they never really got top ratings in the area. My understanding is that they were marginally profitable in this format before they were sold to one of the Dallas Spanish broadcasters and became a Dallas rimshot.

With the growth in Collin County since then, I would suspect that such a station, properly ran, could be profitable. But it certainly wouldn't be much like KBEC or other small town radio stations -- simply because places like Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and Allen are no longer small towns. In other words, no missing pet reports and birthday announcements, because folks flat out wouldn't be interested. But even back in the 1980s, KWPL didn't try to run that sort of radio up here -- but they did give us high school sports, news of the what the various city councils and school boards were up to, and that kind of thing.

What really kills the chance to do a good suburban station is opportunity cost. Let's say that a good Collin County station could generate positive cash flow of $200,000 per year (a guess, but a reasonable one). Alternatively, the station can be sold to some company that will run it as a Dallas/Fort Worth rimshot -- and they'll pay $10 million to buy the station. How many operators will resist the temptation to take $10 million?

 

[bluescreen]

> Yep, Waxahachie's KBEC-1390 is officially 50 years old
> today. They're perhaps the last rimshot station that
> doesn't try to be a rimshot station, but instead, serves
> their city of license proudly (just as the FCC intended!)
> Talk about a case where radio is done in the old-school,
> true spirit of radio we all lament the passing of. Still
> privately owned and locally owned, and mostly staffed by
> folks with 20+ years at the station. It's been a launching
> pad over the years for people with their sights set on
> graduating into the DFW market (of course, what smaller-town
> station around here hasn't?) KBEC's where we got Johnny
> Borders (KLIF as Johnny Dark, then later owned Sunburst
> Media and KDGE) and the late Bill Ward (KBOX and later prez
> of Gene Autry's Goldenwest Broadcasting.) And even
> stranger, they actually APPRECIATE and HONOR their
> history...look up their site at kbec.com. Hats off to their
> persistence on staying local, and to a successful 50 years
> of broadcasting!
>
More recently Jeremy Robinson is an alum of KBEC as well.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

Re: Localism question...

> This begs a good question: could someone start up or buy a
> "rimshot" station and do this successfully today?
>
> Would people in say Plano, McKinney, Denton, or any of the
> other fair sized cities around here listen to a station that
> focuses just on their locality without trying to be a
> full-sized DFW station?

Perhaps cultural and societal factors play more of a role than
the medium. The cited suburbs have a lot of young and transient
population that are not ``invested'' in local concerns (perhaps
aside from local sports). As Tom Desmond points out in another
post, KWPL was a pretty well run community-focused station for
Collin County. I was working in D/FW broadcasting (Group W)
during their time on the air and had access to the
county-by-county Arbitron figures back in the 80's. They were
a non-contender in their segment of the market.

Since much of Collin county is high growth and recent growth,
roots simply don't run deep here. A good percentage of
residents don't have parents or grandparents here. Consequently,
strong ties have not yet formed to the community and the media
reflect that. IMHO.

In contrast regions that have a stable, older-skewing population
will generally embrace locally-oriented broadcast media.
My former market of Pittsburgh falls into that category both
demographically and pyschographically. Although I no longer
have access to hard data, back in the 80's locally-slanted
stations in nearby suburban markets such as Beaver Falls,
Uniontown and Butler had respectable showings in the county
breakouts. In fact, in our in-house research, respondents
would name the city of license when attributing the station,
``I listen to that Ambridge station...or that radio station
in little Washington...''

I have some experience with another well-settled, older region:
Des Moines, Iowa. There are localized stations targeted to nearby
communities such as Ames, Oskaloosa, Marshalltown, Knoxville and
such that have no aspirations of rimshotting the nearby metro
since they do well in their at-home community.

Anyway...congratulations to ``...that Waxahatchie station''
on their 50th year of service.

 

[C414]

Re: Localism question...

> Good question. I think so. If you ever get in a conversation
> with a non-broadcaster and they talk about the media, one of
> the things they often mention is a local newspaper and a
> desire to hear a station report the news etc. in their
> community. Could someone start off one and be successful?


Yes...and it's called LPFM. Unfortunately, in this age of corporate takeovers and impersonalization of big signals, I'm convinced that LPFM will be the only way "Hometown Radio" will survive.