KJET

[jensenbay]

crosscut.com has an article about KJET AM.

 

[Bongwater]

AWESOME!!!!

Amazing how so many people love and remember this influential little AM rock station 21 years after it left the air. And to be honest, it was probably the ONLY format that EVER worked on that frequency........

 

[SeattleObserver]

Popping into a tribute page for "1600 K-J-E-T" I observed something - don't many of KPLU's 'imaging' drops have the same feel? That's part of why I like KPLU, they never seem to take themselves too seriously, unlike KUOW.

Anyone else agree?

Does someone that worked for KJET work in production for KPLU?

 

[Bongwater]

Popping into a tribute page for "1600 K-J-E-T" I observed something - don't many of KPLU's 'imaging' drops have the same feel? That's part of why I like KPLU, they never seem to take themselves too seriously, unlike KUOW.

Anyone else agree?

Does someone that worked for KJET work in production for KPLU?

I know what you're saying. But I've also heard that same kind of imaging drops done before on other stations before, including KMTT at one time. And it's not just in Seattle.......

I'm a KPLU listener too....

 

[TVradioguru]

AWESOME!!!!

Amazing how so many people love and remember this influential little AM rock station 21 years after it left the air. And to be honest, it was probably the ONLY format that EVER worked on that frequency........

Really! Okay I'll bite.. How successful was it exactly? Do you have ratings information from back in the day? And being so successful, then why didn't it last very long?

 

[Bongwater]

AWESOME!!!!

Amazing how so many people love and remember this influential little AM rock station 21 years after it left the air. And to be honest, it was probably the ONLY format that EVER worked on that frequency........

Really! Okay I'll bite.. How successful was it exactly? Do you have ratings information from back in the day? And being so successful, then why didn't it last very long?

Successful enough to be REMEMBERED FONDLY by people outside of this biz for over 20 years.........

 

[TVradioguru]

So let's see if I have this right... The most unsuccessful radio stations or formats were the most popular, at least in your world?
Then given that example, your favorite automobile of all time must have been what, an AMC Pacer?

 

[Bongwater]

So let's see if I have this right... The most unsuccessful radio stations or formats were the most popular, at least in your world?
Then given that example, your favorite automobile of all time must have been what, an AMC Pacer?

Nope.....keep trying.

My point here (and nice attempt at twisting it) is it isn't the radio people who have the final say on what station is successful and what station isn't, but the listeners (and not necessarily those furnished with diaries or PPM.) If you can count all the people who have made these KJET tribute sites/articles, and add up their commenters, Arbitron diary numbers aside, let's just say KJET had a small, but passionately LOYAL audience. And for an AM station (especially considering the great success story that is NOW on 1590 kHz), that's not too shabby.

Maybe this is a question you should be asking the people who run all these KJET tribute sites, who wrote these articles about KJET, who LISTENED to KJET. Perhaps they might give you this insight you're looking for (they run the tribute sites and write the articles, I don't) and maybe they can reason with you whereas I can't, no matter how hard I try..

And although I wasn't THAT crazy about it, at one time I did drive an AMC Pacer......

 

[neumann sennheiser]

your favorite automobile of all time must have been what, an AMC Pacer?

Known to car dealers at the time as "the glass coffin".

 

[bossbill]

Ya gotta love those small but passionate audiences. Unfortunately, advertisers don't.

 

[Bongwater]

Ya gotta love those small but passionate audiences. Unfortunately, advertisers don't.

Well, as I said before, compared to what is NOW on 1590 kHz, KJET didn't do so bad. At least it actually had advertisers.......

 

[dialtwister]

http://crosscut.com/2009/09/23/broadcasting/19239/

 

[mimo]

Sorry to dig up an old thread. I've been away from the site for a couple of months and I'm catching up on what I missed.

I read somewhere that KJET had some respectable numbers during their run. I don't remember if they were in the 3 range or not. The only reason KJET didn't last longer was because they got sold.

 

[fremont]

I enjoyed KJET but it wasn't no KZAM 1540 (Rock of the 80's; Modern Mono).

 

[HowardMBurgers]

I read somewhere that KJET had some respectable numbers during their run. I don't remember if they were in the 3 range or not. The only reason KJET didn't last longer was because they got sold.

It depends what you mean by respectable. From what I remember, KJET was lucky to pull a .8 share 12+. Even in their target demographic, I don't think KJET ever broke a 2 share cume. And that was back in the day when Seattle-Tacoma only had 36 stations.

 

[Bongwater]

I think their highest numbers was 3.7 in 1987. Pretty average numbers today, not-so-good numbers in 1987.

But this was also before PPM. And we saw what a change that brought. So with hindsight, you might want to cut a little slack for EVERY station that was considered a failure in the old books. Who knows what the radio dial would look like today had PPM been around in the late '80s?

I don't think KJET would have survived for long after the arrival of KNDD. But I kinda think we'd still have KXRX.....