KWJC Classical KC cutting 4 people and 2 open jobs & going to syndicated programming

[radiofan2023]

I kind of think he would have gotten further faster without battling the FCC, but he may have also been trying to get his name out there beyond Minneapolis.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I kind of think he would have gotten further faster without battling the FCC, but he may have also been trying to get his name out there beyond Minneapolis.

I think, at the time, he didn’t know better, but he learned quickly. Broadcast regulation can seem opaque and impenetrable until you have some experience with it. There is a logic to it, but it can seem counterintuitive to the uninformed listener.

 

[Kent]

An LPFM at Tarleton State University in Texas has the calls now.

With permission, somebody could get KXTR-FM at minimum. I tend to think another educational institution wouldn’t have trouble with that, though I suppose you never know.

So there may have been some knowledge of KXTR in Columbia, but I'm not sure it would've meant that much by the time Stephens finally gave up KWWC.

There's a decent sized KC contingent here, too. Granted, the younger people coming in would have no concept of KXTR as the incoming freshman were almost totally born long after KXTR left FM and would've been in kindergarten or first grade when it signed off altogether. That’s not the target for classical anyway, though.

(Aside: If my memory serves me, it looks like the building that the KWWC antenna was on has been demolished.)

I believe that is correct. Seems like that was part of the logic in Stephens letting KWWC go. Sad part is, the 80’s format on KWWC in the evenings was quite good. The jocks needed a little help, but the music mix was really good. Some of us on the commercial side used to coach the talent on KWWC at Shattered on Saturday nights about 20 years ago. One of our sales reps and production staff managed KWWC. So, there was that connection.

The current "MU Classical" call letters, KMUC, bring to mind mucus, which may be great for the School of Medicine, but....

I told the GM that it sounded like “The Muck.” He said he'd heard that before, but it was only going to be used once an hour.

 

[Mark Roberts]

There's a decent sized KC contingent here, too. Granted, the younger people coming in would have no concept of KXTR as the incoming freshman were almost totally born long after KXTR left FM and would've been in kindergarten or first grade when it signed off altogether. That’s not the target for classical anyway, though.

In that community, the target audience may largely be composed of music professors. KMUC is using the MPR Classical network, which is just as well. In the days when KBIA (the original University of Missouri FM station that now does news and talk) tried to satisfy various university constituencies, a major challenge was getting the student announcers to pronounce the names of composers correctly. Ted Eldredge was the station manager then; quite a few students didn't like him but we got along pretty well, which was good, because even on the news side, we had to periodically see him so that he could review our announcing. He later went to Philadelphia and then Miami; an online search finds that he passed away last December.

I believe that is correct. Seems like that was part of the logic in Stephens letting KWWC go. Sad part is, the 80’s format on KWWC in the evenings was quite good. The jocks needed a little help, but the music mix was really good. Some of us on the commercial side used to coach the talent on KWWC at Shattered on Saturday nights about 20 years ago. One of our sales reps and production staff managed KWWC. So, there was that connection.

Stephens women at Shattered...I'm shocked!

To be serious, though, Stephens College has had financial constraints for a long time. I don't know why they kept the station as long as they did.

I told the GM that it sounded like “The Muck.” He said he'd heard that before, but it was only going to be used once an hour.

Even so, I don't think KXTR would have resonated that much. Moreover, there's a tiny possibility of confusion with Springfield's KTXR.

It's too bad the university didn't succeed in getting the 98.3 license once the FCC opened it up after the KFMZ revocation. They could have made good use of it.

 

[Kent]

In that community, the target audience may largely be composed of music professors.

I've been told virtually none of the classical listeners in town are under 50, but they make frequent large donations to keep the format on-air. I've also been told I would be surprised at how many people put KBIA in their wills.

KMUC is using the MPR Classical network, which is just as well. In the days when KBIA (the original University of Missouri FM station that now does news and talk) tried to satisfy various university constituencies, a major challenge was getting the student announcers to pronounce the names of composers correctly.

It's one of the satellite services. Not sure how many students work at KBIA now, but I don’t think it's very many. NPR has minimum staffing requirements that tend to push students out. KCOU is still around, though it goes through periodic panics over funding, and that's the students' playground. I always thought it was funny that KCOU told me I sucked only for me to get hired by one of the commercial broadcasters almost immediately afterward. I ended up getting paid to do radio while all the people who were supposedly better than me were full-time volunteers.

Ted Eldredge was the station manager then; quite a few students didn't like him but we got along pretty well, which was good, because even on the news side, we had to periodically see him so that he could review our announcing. He later went to Philadelphia and then Miami; an online search finds that he passed away last December.

Seems like Mike Dunn had told me he was going to be retiring soon, but I can’t remember when that date was. I'm not at Flat Branch every week like I was for years on end, and I don’t think he is either now that he's married to someone different. I could always reach out to him and see what he's up to, I suppose.

Stephens women at Shattered...I'm shocked!

LOL! I'm surprised Shattered has been gone as long as it has. I was always told it never made much money, but it was around for a long time. Its original location is now Hexagon Alley, and its last location has been Billiards on Broadway for at least the last 15 years. After the Blue Note canceled Club 107, Q106.1 brought out the Friday Night Dance Party at Shattered. The first night, it brought out so many people the fire marshall had to start limiting access. The handful of times I went there with the station, it always had quite the crowd, but it could get rough. Shattered had the second most 911 calls downtown for a long stretch.

To be serious, though, Stephens College has had financial constraints for a long time. I don't know why they kept the station as long as they did.

It never had much underwriting either. It probably didn’t cost much to run.

Even so, I don't think KXTR would have resonated that much. Moreover, there's a tiny possibility of confusion with Springfield's KTXR.

I doubt it would’ve had much confusion with KTXR, though you’re probably right that KXTR would’ve mostly appealed to radiogeeks, who wouldn’t be 90.5’s listeners. Then again, I always liked Al Germond's philosophy of wanting to know where the call letters originated and what their story was. At KPLA, we had a poster on the wall for the original KPLA in Pasadena, CA for awhile. Most of the audience neither knows nor cares where KPLA was first used, but, for us, that was fun.

It's too bad the university didn't succeed in getting the 98.3 license once the FCC opened it up after the KFMZ revocation. They could have made good use of it.

98.3 was going to be the new home of classical music had the University gotten it. The University, though, wasn’t going to pay for it. That was what held up the auction for so long. It was the last of Rice's stations to go up for bid and went on-air almost a full 10 years after the first ones came back online.

 

[Murfradiojim]

I went digging through my files: it was 1987; the buyer apparently couldn't come up with the money for the stations. Ingram wanted to sell but, ultimately, couldn't find a buyer. His wife was chair of the Lyric Opera; that, he said, was the reason he couldn't switch KXTR from classical.

Did you hear the last day of KBEA on Halloween 1994? (Gosh, it's almost been 30 years!!) Much of the day was a live broadcast from the New York Deli on Troost, and sounded like it was being done through a pay phone. I actually recorded that, as the impending changeover to children's programming was telegraphed well in advance. There were some listeners who showed up to the deli; I guess every station has at least a few listeners.

I was in Manhattan at the time so I didn't hear it. I knew it was coming though. I thought it was odd that Radio Ahhs actually owned KCNW but put the programming on KBEA.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I've been told virtually none of the classical listeners in town are under 50, but they make frequent large donations to keep the format on-air. I've also been told I would be surprised at how many people put KBIA in their wills.

It wouldn't surprise me at all. The university has a formidable "development" operation, something I can attest to from personal experience; KBIA on its own has been no slouch in this area, either.

They may have learned from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. In east-central Missouri newspapers, it was quite common to see obituaries, particularly for German-Americans, where memorial donations were requested for KFUO, likely indicating that KFUO got bequests from those estates, too. This led to my joke that "KFUO was founded on the bodies of Lutherans".

Not sure how many students work at KBIA now, but I don’t think it's very many. NPR has minimum staffing requirements that tend to push students out. KCOU is still around, though it goes through periodic panics over funding, and that's the students' playground.

KCOU sounds like it's largely automated, and the audio quality is fairly awful. Whenever I've walked by the studios near the food court that swallowed up Brady Commons, I've seen no one there. There doesn't seem to be a lot of conscious thought going into it. I wonder how many students actually listen to it.

I always thought it was funny that KCOU told me I sucked only for me to get hired by one of the commercial broadcasters almost immediately afterward. I ended up getting paid to do radio while all the people who were supposedly better than me were full-time volunteers.

KCOU's strength...and its weakness...is that it was a fairly safe place to make mistakes, get them out of the way, and then improve. In my day, there was a little bit of mentoring but you really had to go to either the J-school or the speech department in Arts and Science to get that on a more organized basis. There was a fairly consistent pipeline from KCOU to KBIA, but that was in the days with more student involvement.

Also not widely known was that you could volunteer at KBIA, even in the newsroom. I did that, which helped me get a leg up for a student assistantship my senior year.

LOL! I'm surprised Shattered has been gone as long as it has. I was always told it never made much money, but it was around for a long time. Its original location is now Hexagon Alley, and its last location has been Billiards on Broadway for at least the last 15 years. After the Blue Note canceled Club 107, Q106.1 brought out the Friday Night Dance Party at Shattered. The first night, it brought out so many people the fire marshall had to start limiting access. The handful of times I went there with the station, it always had quite the crowd, but it could get rough. Shattered had the second most 911 calls downtown for a long stretch.

It had a reputation. Downtown Columbia now seems pretty sedate even with plenty of activity. In the late 1980s, it was struggling; the Columbia Mall radically reshaped the local retail market. That affected KFRU badly, too; aside from KFRU's mismanagement at that time, the legacy downtown businesses that advertised there (because they always had) started shutting down and the mall retailers mostly didn't take their place. Eventually, the lender to KFRU's then-owners called the loan and asked Premiere to take over.

It never had much underwriting either. It probably didn’t cost much to run.

I don't think much attention was paid to KWWC. Stephens at least did decide to upgrade it from class D status when that became necessary; that came a few years after KCOU and KOPN did so, with KOPN getting a rather big upgrade thanks to equipment from the old KDNA in St. Louis.

98.3 was going to be the new home of classical music had the University gotten it. The University, though, wasn’t going to pay for it. That was what held up the auction for so long. It was the last of Rice's stations to go up for bid and went on-air almost a full 10 years after the first ones came back online.

The university's long history with media properties is one of not wanting to put money into them. A lot of that is due to the state legislature, which is dominated by Farm Bureau-allied cheapskates who don't want to do nothin' for them college people unless it's in Springfield. That attitude affected KOMU-TV, channel 8. The reason it's commercial is because the university didn't think it could get adequate funding for the station. Ed Lambert, the station's founder, proposed to the FCC having the station be educational half-time and commercial half-time. The FCC said, either one or the other but not both. So the station was set up as an "auxiliary business enterprise" and a commercial station. But the cheapness continued. Though an NBC affiliate, channel 8 didn't carry much of the morning schedule, including the Today show, until around 1960 or 1961. KOMU didn't go full local color until 1973. The KBIA FM CP was unbuilt for several years after it was granted. I have to give Dave Dugan credit; when he came to Mizzou as chair of the broadcast department, he leveraged his CBS contacts to get equipment for the TV station and kicked some butt to finally get KBIA on the air. KCOU was originally put on the air by the residence halls' student government with minimal university support other than real estate and legal assistance. The fight between the university and KOPN over RF interference to the physics laboratories took years to resolve, and finally was concluded when the university coughed up some land outside Columbia where KOPN could relocate its tower away from its original location near campus.

Someone unfamiliar with this landscape might wonder why all this detail is necessary. There's even more to the story than this, so I'll just summarize by saying, for better or worse, the University of Missouri was the big local media influence in central Missouri through the 1980s and even a little bit into the 1990s, and shaped what it's like, even today, in many ways.

 

[Steel Nerves]

Ted Eldredge was the station manager then; quite a few students didn't like him but we got along pretty well, which was good, because even on the news side, we had to periodically see him so that he could review our announcing.

Oddly, Ted Eldredge was the only station manager in my brief but fun radio career who did NOT tell me my announcing sucked. Of course, that may be because I was a student volunteer willing to work Saturday nights during the summer just to get some time in running the board.