> I hope not. KCOH is the last of a basic free-form formats.
> Don Sam in the weekday afternoons puts on a great highly
> produced show. He does it, his way. Wash Allen has a good
> time with his "Confessions" show during the midday. I tune
> him in, when I'm tired of hearing the rest of the yappers.
>
> KCOH is the last of the locally owned radio stations, as
> well. There is not much that can be done with that night
> signal. Whoever gets it would face the same problems.
> Concerning Radio One, you might check out some posts about
> them on the dallas Board. Snoman can tell you more about the
> opeartion as he has personal experience with them.
>
> If it was mine, I would leave it alone with some minor
> on-air tune-ups.
>
It would be unfortunate if KCOH is sold, unless it is another local African-American company that does not own any other stations and will continue to operate KCOH as it now. KCOH has some special history.
KCOH 1430 is the oldest black radio station Texas as well as the southern portion of the US. KCOH began broadcasting in 1953 from downtown Houston in the M&M building. In 1963 a new studio was built at the corner or Wichita and Alameda, where KCOH still operates to this day. KCOH has been the first in the field to include talk show programming, gospel and many other types of shows for the urban listener.
KCOH has an all night show that you never know what the format will be that night until you listen for a while. I have never heard a program I didn't like on the all night show.
Unfortunately at night even though KCOH operates with 1000 watts, they have a deep null to the north to protect KTBZ Tulsa, a station that can cause some serious interference to KCOH since KTBZ sends close to 14,000 watts at Houston at night. KEES in Gladewater, between Tyler and Longview sends about 1500 watts towards Houston at night to add to the interference and KLTG Panama City, FL sends a whopping 30000 watts towards Houston at night which gives KCOH some stiff competition. The current antenna for KCOH is inside the East 610 Loop between the Baytown-East Frwy and Buffalo Bayou. The only thing that KCOH could do is move their antenna north of the city, but they would have to run high power to overcome the interference at night, which would be an expensive proposition. That something that a stand-a-lone station like KCOH most likely could not afford.
It would be a shame to lose another station with special history to a corporation that would not care about the stations past. KLVL was another station that has a special place in the history of Houston radio as it was the first Mexican-American owned and operated station in Houston when it signed on Cinco de Mayo 1950 by Felix and Angelena Morales. Unfortunately the station was sold in 1994 and has changed hands several times since then. Siga Broadcasting is the current owner, but is a small company that also owns KGBC 1540 Galveston and KTMR 1130 Edna with an application from the Major Modification Window to move to just north of San Antonio and slip into a slot between San Antonio's 1100 and 1160. The only other AM station I could find that is a stand-a-lone station is KYND 1520 Cypress owned by Matthew Provanzino, all the other stations are owned by companies with other stations. The majority are fairly large up to Clear Channel owning three AM stations.
Mike O
