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KEOM's Dr. Griffin

B

busyradioguy

Guest
A friend of mine told me he heard them saying on KEOM that Dr. Griffin was retiring soon. Anyone else catch this? If it's true, who's replacing him? Does this mean a format change could be around the corner? Inquiring minds want to know.
 
Old news...Former board post'er Mr. Bass told us of this several months back, and, yes, far as I know, they are planning to go all 80s once July gets here. Griffin has been the 'stick in the mud' for a very long time about changing the format...despite cries of 'aging the format with the listener' (in this case, parents of school-age children.) Me, I'll always be a '70s kid,' but enough's enough. Hopefully Mr. Bass will forego the Whitney Houston and Michael Bolton to make a listenable, somewhat energetic and fun 80s format.

Griffin's retirement, as I understand it, is imminent...like early June once school's out and everything's sewn up for the school year.
 
Interesting, but why all 80's? Seems like they could do well with maybe 70s & 80s. Like maybe 1973 to 1983, or something.
 
busyradioguy said:
Interesting, but why all 80's? Seems like they could do well with maybe 70s & 80s. Like maybe 1973 to 1983, or something.
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I thought the main reason they didn't change is that they are on a tight budget, the paid a lot for the 70's library, and it sort of locks them in.

I'd like to see them loosen up and let the kids program it - doing an eclectic format like KTCU. It would certainly be more interesting listening. Sure, some kid might get out of control - but wasn't that what led to the rise of Album rock FM when top-40 was heavily censored?
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
I thought the main reason they didn't change is that they are on a tight budget, the paid a lot for the 70's library, and it sort of locks them in.
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Somehow I doubt that's the case. There are 70s music collections from Rhino, Billboard Music and Time Life that are very inexpensive to stations like KEOM. I'm sure there are similar collections for the 80s.
 
For all the good KEOM does, Dr. Griffin has held it back as his personal Ipod. I hope the jocks will talk more so they can develop their presentation,and quit the intro to someone doing trafficand hearing a "thank you so and so" It sounds stilted.
 
I would not expect major shifts in music right away. If anything they might start to add some 80s music on a gradual basis. The use of the student djs probably wont change at all.
 
Lots of speculation going on here.

Just as most us probably do, I think that Dr. Griffin or whomever is in charge has to answer to a higher authority. He doesn't own the station. The schools do, and we all have our superiors.

I like to listen in on the kiddos at 88.5 more at the beginning of a new school year and more towards the end. The end of this year, there seems to be a good number of them that sound more relaxed and a little less unrehearsed. This could be the begnning of a transition.

I heard that their demographics include the children and that every classroom has a tv with a dedicated KEOM channel. If that's the case, a public school district may disagree with letting students have a free reign where 4 and 5 year olds could be listening.
 
Yeah, but it's almost a disservice to not give those 'kiddos' practical experience they can take to a station. Then again, maybe they are...no commercial station seems to appreciate personality or creativity, opting for pro liner readers instead who'll work for peanuts.

But that's the way KEOM's ALWAYS been run, with the jocks being to the point and not sounding like they're having much fun, and reading liners that were obviously written (or rewritten) by faculty...and the common thread there, since the station's earliest days back in 1984, has been Dr Griffin.

I had a teacher in high school who was the faculty adviser for the school newspaper. No matter what any of us wrote, she RE-wrote everything, putting it in her style and with her spin. (This wasn't an exercise in grammatical errors...it was a total re-write in most cases.) She apparently thought the paper was a reflection of and on HER, and was not to be used as a true learning laboratory. I've always thought of KEOM being run the same way.
 
Anna M said:
I heard that their demographics include the children and that every classroom has a tv with a dedicated KEOM channel. If that's the case, a public school district may disagree with letting students have a free reign where 4 and 5 year olds could be listening.
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It's my understanding that KEOM's demographic is the adult audience, i.e. the parents of the students along with other adults within their coverage. I don't think the 4 or 5 year olds are in that demo. What difference does it make to someone that age, anyway? Their life-long musical tastes won't fully develop until they reach their teens.
 
MikeShannon914 said:
I had a teacher in high school who was the faculty adviser for the school newspaper. No matter what any of us wrote, she RE-wrote everything, putting it in her style and with her spin. (This wasn't an exercise in grammatical errors...it was a total re-write in most cases.) She apparently thought the paper was a reflection of and on HER, and was not to be used as a true learning laboratory. I've always thought of KEOM being run the same way.
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What a dumb teacher. I wonder if she ever stopped to consider how her rewriting of the students' articles reflected on the students? I'll bet she probably didn't. I'd agree that the students didn't learn anything from that class, except for maybe learning the teacher was a control freak. We don't need control freaks in a respective institution of learning.
 
busy radio guy...perhaps that journalism adviser/teacher was working for a control freak principal. They are out there! And congrats to Dr. Griffin on his retirement. (I assume at his retirement party someone will give him an Ipod loaded with a Jones-TM 70's library set to shuffle!)
 
I worked at a high-school radio station during my youth. We had no programming whatsoever, we could play what we wanted, up to a point. We had to play songs and they were color coded. So as long as you matched the color code chart, you had your choice of what songs got played.

KOHM in Lubbock.
 
317C50KW said:
busy radio guy...perhaps that journalism adviser/teacher was working for a control freak principal.
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Yeah that's another possibility. Like I said, we don't need control freaks in education.
 
I'm not saying that Dr. Griffin is/was a control freak, because I don't know him, nor do I know the policies of KEOM/Mesquite ISD.

I'm only talking about my experiences working in a University-run radio station several years ago.

I worked for a public radio station that changed format from NPR/APR to oldies. The station was essentially self-sufficient, and generated enough donations to pay salaries, buy equipment, etc. After the switch to oldies, the donations completely dried up, the 'advertising' revenue went away, along with the federal grant monies. The switch was made by the head of the communications department. He never gave his reasons, other than it 'was time for a switch'.

We always thought it was his personal ipod (although there weren't IPods back then). One thing that I learned about public radio.... most administrators don't even know that it is there. I'll bet that most of the Mesquite ISD school board members don't give KEOM a second thought. Odds are most in the Admin building don't even know it exists, or care it exists.

It serves a purpose. It has a format that is unique in the market, and they have some good people working for them. Would I run it a bit different? Sure. Everyone has their own ideas of what to do.

Just my $0.02

J
 
I've called the station before. From what I understand, the administrators above Dr. Griffin do have a say in the programming. If I understood correctly, everything relates back to how the curriculum is guided at the state education board.
 
Anna M said:
I've called the station before. From what I understand, the administrators above Dr. Griffin do have a say in the programming. If I understood correctly, everything relates back to how the curriculum is guided at the state education board.
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For the non-music, educational and instructional aspects, sure. But the music? I highly doubt the state gives a darn.
 
JayDavis said:
KOHM in Lubbock.
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Its been a long time since I heard of that thing. 5 watts, but Lubbock was so compact it actually covered a lot of the city. I may be one of the few people that heard it from Midland, TX, during a strong tropo one day.

It has since been swallowed up by Texas Tech who wanted an additional frequency so they could program classical.
 
busyradioguy said:
317C50KW said:
busy radio guy...perhaps that journalism adviser/teacher was working for a control freak principal.
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Yeah that's another possibility. Like I said, we don't need control freaks in education.
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You all nailed it...the teacher was a control freak. She knew how to "work" the system, and would nix any news articles that might cast any member of the administration in a bad light...and made sure there were plenty of positive faculty and administrator "mentions" inserted wherever possible. The principal was too folksy to play such a game.

Speaking of, when we had a high school radio station there (handled by that same teacher,) if she would see the principal walking down the hall, we were to take off whatever record we were playing, and put on some country atrocity called, "Rainbow Stew." That was the principal's favorite song, and the station was piped through the hallways. She was trying to buy favor there as well!! :p
 
Rainbow Stew"-Merle Haggard. It was okay for classic country folks but for kids in the 80's.. i don't think so. As for the state education board and KEOM.The only thing they have a say in how funds are distributed,(spent) on materials that goes to the education curriculum over all. If speech, grammar,music is applied to KEOM then that is all they care about,format doesnt matter. As far as the TV goes,well yes I am sure the local access cable has it for their local educational channels from MISD, and not a standard for the classroom itself. I can see a 5 year old kindergartner
standing on his desk dancing and singing to Exile's "I'm Gonna Kiss you all over: or Alice Cooper's "Only women bleed"..don't think so.
 
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