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Reminiscing about KEWS All News 94.9 FM

H

HurricaneRun

Guest
I was thinking about KEWS earlier and what a great resource it was - and how we will probably never get another all-news station again.

It seems like a long time ago, but perhaps that is just because I was young (and not in the radio business at the time). I remember hearing about several major stories first on KEWS including the ValueJet crash in Florida.

I have a couple of questions to anyone who may know.

-What was the birth and death dates?
-Who did their imaging?

Are there any surviving airchecks? Any other information would be interesting too.

HR
 
I don't remember a whole lot about KEWS but Iam pretty sure they launched the news format sometime in 1996. I don't know when the format ended because I moved to Denver co. before the format ended.


As far as airchecks and imaging I don't know who did the imaging or if there are any airchecks.

And yes the valuejet crash I just now remembered hearing about that as well on KEWS.


hope my info helps:)
 
The all-news format began on 2/27/1996. The KEWS call letters were established on 3/29/1996. The format ended on 10/27/1996 after sister station KYNG temporarily moved to 94.9 FM following the tragic collapse of their tower.

Source: Mike Shannon's Salute to Dallas/Fort Worth Radio and TV (a link to his site is available on the left-hand side of the Dallas board).

R
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by RobertBass on 01/06/06 05:41 AM.</FONT></P>
 
> I was thinking about KEWS earlier and what a great resource
> it was - and how we will probably never get another all-news
> station again.
>
> It seems like a long time ago, but perhaps that is just
> because I was young (and not in the radio business at the
> time). I remember hearing about several major stories first
> on KEWS including the ValueJet crash in Florida.
>
> I have a couple of questions to anyone who may know.
>
> -What was the birth and death dates?
> -Who did their imaging?
>
> Are there any surviving airchecks? Any other information
> would be interesting too.
>
> HR
>

KEWS started on February 28, 1996 (If I recall correctly)
The station did fairly well in it's first two books, getting a 1 share or higher in each book. It was slowly catching up to KRLD in some dayparts and advertising sales were strong. The owner (Infinity) spent millions on new studios that were due to be completed in early October.

During the course of the year, Infinity merged with CBS - meaning that they had one too many FM stations in the market. Infinity tried repeatedly to unload the weak 107.5 frequency, but couldn't. They finally resorted to taking bids on ALL of their FM stations, including KVIL and Young Country. The only deal that made sense was one from Salem for KEWS in exchange for $30 million and 1190am.

On September 27th (Just one week away from moving in to their new studios) the staff of KEWS was notified the station had been sold and the format would leave the air on October 25th. Before that, KEWS would slowly begin to cut back it's operation as people found other jobs. The plan dictated that on October 12, the station would start running CNN Headline News on the weekends and overnights while still producing local news from 5am to Midnight on weekdays.

Little did anyone know that October 12th would signal the last day of KEWS.
Three workers died when the tower that held Young Country's primary and backup transmitters fell. Since KEWS was due to die in a few weeks, Young Country took over KEWS' 94.9 frequency at 6pm that night.

The staff of KEWS was paid through October 25th and given a severence package of a few months pay. Several stayed on to do part-time work at the satellite talk station that Infinity put on the air on October 25th. It started on 94.9 then moved to 1190 when the Salem transaction was completed. Within a year or so, 1190 was taken over by KLUV and reprogrammed with an automated oldies format.
 
> The all-news format began on 2/27/1996. The KEWS call
> letters were established on 3/29/1996. The format ended on
> 10/27/1996 after sister station KYNG temporarily moved to
> 94.9 FM following the tragic collapse of their tower.
>
> Source: Mike Shannon's Salute to Dallas/Fort Worth Radio and
> TV (a link to his site is available on the left-hand side of
> the Dallas board).
>
> R
>


The Feb 27 date might be right, but I know the 10/27 date is wrong. The tower fell on October 12th and KEWS died that day.
 
> KEWS started on February 28, 1996 (If I recall correctly)
> The station did fairly well in it's first two books, getting
> a 1 share or higher in each book. It was slowly catching up
> to KRLD in some dayparts and advertising sales were strong.
> The owner (Infinity) spent millions on new studios that were
> due to be completed in early October.

I, too, remember the old KEWS "All News 94.9." Although I moved away before the signoff happened, I still got the Sunday Dallas Morning News and remember the tower collapse that signed a premature death warrant for KEWS. I wouldn't say KEWS did fairly well in its first two books as a 1 share is pretty poor in Dallas, even today when number one is below a 6. However, it was showing growth and had a pretty good chance of working if given time. Probably the biggest obstacle facing the station was that a long-term strategy for most businesses is the quarter after next. In other words, it didn't have the time it needed to make everything work. It also had a major problem when it came to making money in that it had a rather large staff. It also was plagued with technical glitches and bloopers from day one. My favorite was, "Hot one today with a high in the mid-100's!" I do, however, believe Infinity would have liked to have been able to commit to the station and its format. You don't go to the levels they went to if you're not committed to what you're doing. It was a rather sad situation as a lot of good people ended up getting railroaded, a situation where consolidation opponents can truly hang their hats. They left good jobs for jobs that didn't even last a year thanks to multiple mergers.

> During the course of the year, Infinity merged with CBS -
> meaning that they had one too many FM stations in the
> market. Infinity tried repeatedly to unload the weak 107.5
> frequency, but couldn't. They finally resorted to taking
> bids on ALL of their FM stations, including KVIL and Young
> Country. The only deal that made sense was one from Salem
> for KEWS in exchange for $30 million and 1190am.

I had heard Infinity was trying to unload 107.5 as well. However, my understanding was that KOAI would have moved to 94.9 if that had happened. I also heard there was a pretty good bid out there for KLUV, but Infinity concluded it would do better by selling 94.9 to someone who was virtually guaranteed not to compete with their existing stations, though they might regret that now with 94.9 KLTY being the biggest thorn in KVIL's side, and would give them another AM, thus giving them a full compliment of AM's in DFW.
 
I was there for the whole thing. It was a solid bunch of people and KEWS would probably be a staple by now if it hadn't been Karmazin'd. Sure we had some problems at first, but I attribute that to trying a format that had no real models except for CNN. Around July of 96 the station was humming along really fine and just getting better. The really cool thing was that you could go out and cover stories in the middle of the night and have it live.
 
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