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KOST Studio Tour 1989

davideduardo

davideduardo

Moderator/Administrator
Staff member
Nice. That's a long time I see this video. It's from an old website from KOST. A lot has changed in the meantime with KOST.
 
I've only heard the station by proxy, It sounded like it was a true legend in SOCAL from my outside perspective. It was THE perfect synergy of all elements working together to create radio magic...
 
The first PD office I've ever seen with a grandfather clock. Normally, the time piece you see in the PD office is some promo piece from the record company. The cart labels have no time cues, interesting.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
The cart labels have no time cues, interesting.
Click to expand...

I wondered the same thing, and thought maybe they did simplified labels for the video (note that the ones they show are high numbers, as in "we play 2,000 songs) or the info is on the music log.
 
All our labels had time cues. That was either a mistake or just for the video, but having dubbed music there I can assure you, we were meticulous about that.
 
Bryan Simmons said:
All our labels had time cues. That was either a mistake or just for the video, but having dubbed music there I can assure you, we were meticulous about that.
Click to expand...

I liked your break on the video. It shows, in just a few seconds, much of what is missing from most stations today.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
The first PD office I've ever seen with a grandfather clock. Normally, the time piece you see in the PD office is some promo piece from the record company. The cart labels have no time cues, interesting.
Click to expand...

The grandfather clock was left over from Biggie Nevins, who was sister station KFI's PD from 1973 until John Rook's arrival in 1976, when Biggie became Cox national PD and kept his office at KFI. Biggie died shortly after being let go from Cox in 1983. Apparently the clock stayed.

Not sure where Jhani got my Pioneer reciever and Sony cassette deck, though... ???

Anybody know whose AM towers are seen at 4:25?
 
Absolutely right. It was Biggie's clock. Sorry, I should've addressed that above. Biggie was axed just after John Rook was fired. He was replaced by Tom Bigby. And yes, the clock stayed. That all happened after Jim Wesley was named company president and departed for Cox HQ in Atlanta. You know, I was in the hospital when the station moved to Glendale, I wonder whatever happened to that clock?

And thank you Mr. Eduardo. I truly appreciate your comment.

Bryan
 
This was actually a video that was put on VHS tape and stocked at The Wherehouse as a "free rental". You could check it out and take it home and watch it.

Earlier this year I dubbed it to DVD because the tape was really starting to deteriorate. I happened to mention the "Inside KOST 103.5" VHS tape to Mark Wallengren when I saw him in May, shooting some video of the Mark & Kristin morning show. One interesting comment he made was that the section that has Kim Amidon up on Mt. Wilson by the stick needed the audio to be redubbed later because all of the FM sticks were screwing up the audio of Kim.
 
Whoever thought of this video is a genius. (Guess that's Jhani, eh?). Listeners always want to know more about what goes on on the inside. The magic of radio is that so much is left to the imagination, but that doesn't mean people still don't want to know. This video lets you in while at the same time gets you to watch a 17 minute commercial for the station (and please copy using your VHS dubbing machine at home and share with your friends!).

As someone who is not in the business, but has always appreciated it from both a programming/operations and business point of view, I know that the easier a broadcast looks, the harder it actually is. The jocks there were all pros which made it look so easy and seamless.

Here is a fun exercise if you are up for it - try to determine how many times they get the word KOST in. Not just in the video but even in their regular reads and listener interactions. I'm not up to it, but here are some of the many different variations I can think of just off of the top of my head:

It's "KOST 103" "KOST 103.5" "Along... the KOST" "on California's KOST" "KOST 103 News" "KOST 103 Traffic" "KOST 103 Sports", "Lovesongs on the KOST" (usually used in the phrase "It's Lovesongs on the KOST on KOST 103.5") No way diary users gonna mistake this station for another similar one just up the dial.

I think they also used the phrase "LA and Orange County's KOST" too. But no Inland Empire's KOST, even though the signal is still quite good into SB and Riverside - I sense discrimination against the 909. Also notice that in the video they have an LA number, valley number, and OC number, but again no IE.) IE is the Rodney Dangerfield of radio audiences, particularly the far west end of it which isn't measured for either the LA or IE metros.
 
TomKat cart machines! They sounded great...but the heads wore out the carts quickly...
and there had to be a huge container of denatured alcohol nearby...and a ton of swabs to
ckean the heads. Again.
 
romer979fm said:
TomKat cart machines! They sounded great...but the heads wore out the carts quickly...
and there had to be a huge container of denatured alcohol nearby...and a ton of swabs to
clean the heads. Again.
Click to expand...

Yes, and that head cleaning job was assigned to me. Others cleaned them sporadically, but it was one of my assigned duties to make sure they were cleaned every day. The did sound good, and they were built like most PR&E equipment, like tanks!
 
ChannelFlipper said:
I think they also used the phrase "LA and Orange County's KOST" too. But no Inland Empire's KOST, even though the signal is still quite good into SB and Riverside - I sense discrimination against the 909. Also notice that in the video they have an LA number, valley number, and OC number, but again no IE.) IE is the Rodney Dangerfield of radio audiences, particularly the far west end of it which isn't measured for either the LA or IE metros.
Click to expand...

The IE is not in the LA Metropolitan Survey Area (MSA). It is also not bought, as a rule, as part of LA buys.

As to the "no-man's territory" there is rather solid reasoning. The LA station don't want that piece of territory added to their survey geography, as the IE stations have enough penetration so as to dilute the shares of the LA station. And the IE station know that this area is well penetrated by the LA stations... so much so that the IE stations might suffer considerable loss of rank position by adding the zone to the IE survey.
 
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