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Rock in Salina
- Thread starter K-Billy
- Start date
Since Salina is a small market I'd suppose the stations would lean HOT A/C and Country.
Years ago the closest to rock was KLZR in Lawrence. On the pop side was good old "99 KSKG"
It's not an artform it's a business so stations will go for the largest common audience to make the most money they can...
Jay Walker
Years ago the closest to rock was KLZR in Lawrence. On the pop side was good old "99 KSKG"
It's not an artform it's a business so stations will go for the largest common audience to make the most money they can...
Jay Walker
K-Billy said:
It's not like it hasn't been tried before there. KQNS 95.5 did rock for a few years starting out as a nighttime only show and eventually taking over the station full-time around 10 years ago. 92.7 did classic rock when it first signed on, though it was all over the place and switched to sports after a few years. I understand it's doing top-40 now. 104.9 may not be straight ahead rock, but it sounds a lot like 92.7 did when it signed on with classic rock.
So, to put it simply, no one likely saw any money in rock given its failings in the past and that 104.9 has much of that audience already locked up. Plus, if you live in Salina and want rock, good radios have no problem getting KMKF from Manhattan and KICT. I realize that's not an all purpose solution, but it does at least provide an outlet for at least 1/3 of your radio listening.
Kent said:
I go WAY BACK listening on FM in Kansas as a kid.
Back in the late 60's and early 70's I used to be a real big DX listener in order to get "rock" radio. From north of Wichita using stacked FM yagis on a rotor at 50ft, I'd listen to "Fresh Air" KOFM in OKC, a little station in Lyons called KLOQ which ran "free form album rock" after 6p. KFH-FM "Channel 97" was also a frequent stop. Then "99KG" launched and in general leaned rock/pop along the lines of the early KEYN in the 70's pre "Rock of Wichita".
In Kansas, until the addition of Burkhardt's/Abrams "Super Star" format on KICT T-95 in Wichita, ROCK was a under served format for sure. Since the highest common denominator of the demographics in Kansas was SO HIGH "a.k.a. Old" radio tended to stick with AC/MOR and Country to make the maximum amount of income which was sometimes not enough even then.... These formats were/are done to get the maximum amount of "ears"..
TheRob said:
That's about the way I remember it. The ex and I split time between KC and Salina in '98 when I worked for Sprint, and most of the Manhattan/Junction City and full-power Wichita stations were no problem on the car and home stereos. However, the desktop radios and walkmen couldn't get very many of them.
104.9 was religious at the time. So, we never listened to it. The alarm was usually set to KYEZ (then known as "KY-94"), which was her favorite station. On lesser radios, I'd usually flip between KILS 92.7, which had flipped to classic rock either right before or during our time there, and KSAJ-FM 98.5. After KYEZ, she preferred KSKU, KQNS, KBLS and KJCK-FM, though your mileage could vary with some of those stations depending on your radio.
As I recall, for quite awhile, KICT was simulcast on AM 550 Salina. I cannot recall the exact years, or the full story behind why that occurred. Maybe someone else could chime in on that. 8)
KICT 95.1 was co-owned with 550 for at least a few years in the 80's. I wasn't into radio at the time. So, I don't remember it, nor do I know the story behind it. When I first found 550 in '88 or '89, it ran an oldies format. It sounded like that era's flame throwing CHR, but it just happened to play a different format. It flipped to country about a year later.
Kent said:
For years 550 KFRM "Broadcasting from Cloud County Kansas, A Mack Sanders Station" was a full service station featuring country music with Ranch/Farm programming.
KFRM and KICT for many years under the ownership of Mack Sanders broadcast from the facility on far West Kellogg in Wichita. KFRM had a really high operating overhead as they employed a full staff of agribusiness reporters and statewide news reporters.
Although a daytimer KFRM was programmed LIVE 7 days a week. KICT FM first hit the air in the early 1970's under Sander's ownership and was programmed traditional country as "Proud Country KICT" until one of the many ownership changes, the first round occurring in the early 1980's.
During one of the bouts of consolidation as a cost cutting move, KFRM call letters were changed to KICT-AM and the simulcast began. The high plains ranchers and farmers were really PO'd with the change by the way...
Here's the story around 1986 from the wiki entry which is close to correct:
"The station was assigned the call letters KNNN beginning on 1986-01-06. On 1986-11-04, the station changed its call sign to KICT and on 1987-10-19 returned to the current KFRM, the call letters the station had used for years when it was a major regional country music station."
Simple answer to that: Not enough younger demos that the format usually targets. Sure, you have the kids like myself, but it isn't enough to sustain a station. Most stations in Kansas target older audiences. Plus, country is the natural format of Kansas. Anything unique is really hard to find, save for the lone Rhythmic in Wichita and the Urban in KC.
Before I moved to Hutch for college, I used to live north of Lehigh on a hill (way out in the boonies). I know I would get A TON of frequencies, both locally (Hutch, Mac, Salina, Wichita, and Junction City, but nothing from Emporia, Topeka, Manhattan, Great Bend/Hays or KC depending on good DXing conditions), and from far away (I've pulled in Lincoln, OKC, Joplin, Tulsa, and Denver stations). Whenever I went to Salina to shop or visit people, I would hardly get any Wichita or Manhattan signals. 97.9 was the lone exception, but even that was fuzzy. 97.5 from JC was probably the strongest out of town signal in town.
Jay, I have a couple of questions to ask you. I have lived in Central Kansas since '99, when I moved from Pleasanton. 95.5 has always had a varied history, as I know I've tuned in from time to time before I settled on KJCK-FM. What was the format history on that frequency? I know the "Star 95", "Lite Rock 95.5," "OZ 95.5" and the Bob and Jack eras, but not much else. Also, didn't KYEZ run Beautiful Music on 93.7?
Before I moved to Hutch for college, I used to live north of Lehigh on a hill (way out in the boonies). I know I would get A TON of frequencies, both locally (Hutch, Mac, Salina, Wichita, and Junction City, but nothing from Emporia, Topeka, Manhattan, Great Bend/Hays or KC depending on good DXing conditions), and from far away (I've pulled in Lincoln, OKC, Joplin, Tulsa, and Denver stations). Whenever I went to Salina to shop or visit people, I would hardly get any Wichita or Manhattan signals. 97.9 was the lone exception, but even that was fuzzy. 97.5 from JC was probably the strongest out of town signal in town.
Jay, I have a couple of questions to ask you. I have lived in Central Kansas since '99, when I moved from Pleasanton. 95.5 has always had a varied history, as I know I've tuned in from time to time before I settled on KJCK-FM. What was the format history on that frequency? I know the "Star 95", "Lite Rock 95.5," "OZ 95.5" and the Bob and Jack eras, but not much else. Also, didn't KYEZ run Beautiful Music on 93.7?
"Channel 97"? When was this? Also, do you remember the launch of "99KG"? Also, Lyons had a station?Jay Walker said:
ksradiogeek said:
Before "Star 95" it was "95-5 The Rock" with a broad based rock format. It mixed classic rock with new rock, much like V100. It seemed like a popular station at the time, I would hear it played at a lot of work sights around town. I remember when they changed formats it upset a lot of people. There was an editorial in the Salina Journal criticizing the change. I think the main reason for the format change was not so much the format failing, but the owners thinking they could get a larger audience picking up the top 40 format dumped by KSKG.
KFH-FM came on the air the first time in 1948 on around 100 mhz before the frequency shuffle to 97.9. In 1968 - 1972 aprox, they were 31kw mono free-form rock, Some of the air talents names were "Sam Stone" "Ian Mitchell" "Angus Bowman" etc. They also ran "Scoope News" from KSAN San Francisco... I've seen an aircheck on youtube for "Channel 97". They used the two-fingered peace symbol as a logo...
After 1972 they became beautiful music "KRBA".
KLOQ was a little station in Lyons/Sterling located in an old public school building outside of Lyons. This was all around 1972 or so...
KSKG changed from religion to top 40 when KEYN's Dave Biondi came from Wichita to Salina to handle the launch around 1973 or so... This is from memory so there is lots of room for error...
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