I was not a fan of Millie's show, but I'm not in the demo, anyway. Her longevity at the station speaks volumes, and my hat is off to her. I guess we'll hear "Millie Don't Come Around Here No More" on KKDA next. :-[
I think we should scrutinize the KKDA-AM/FM operation more often on here. Surely Hyman Childs is choking on the (comparatively) poor numbers K-104 is showing lately...and KKDA-AM remains in the dumper. I don't see a format change for either on the horizon--Childs does know how to sell spots on both stations, and has made a handsome living at it for years. BUT when you're getting up in years, the fun's over, etc, and think about retiring and bailing out of the biz, it becomes painfully obvious that, in this case, he should have sold out 8 years ago. There were some wild offers out there then for Hyman's modest empire, and he probably could have walked off with $90 million for both...but he turned down all offers over the years. Now the value of all stations is down, and the attraction of K-104 has finally been compromised after a top-10 run that lasted over 30 years (save for one book in 1994.) There's not much of a choice here but to curb costs. I wouldn't be surprised to see KRNB go up for sale. KKDA-AM could still sell for some good money, but not because of the format...there are too many foreign interests/investors with money out there who are tired of wasting cash on LMA's for signally-challenged stations across our local AM dial.
What I'm after here from KKDA-A/F is, are other cuts being made, is there more syndie programming popping up, are the spots turning into ad farm garbage instead of national sponsors, etc. This is a great case study of perhaps the last private owner of a full stick in a major market, and how he goes about shifting into survival mode to save his investment.
