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Roger Gray checking in

A suggestion from the balcony

Roger, are you aware of the new station that's trying to get a foothold here in Houston, KILE 1560? I've heard that it 's a 50kw AM, which I really question, because you don't see many stations with that much power on the upper end of the AM band.

ANYWHO, it's one of those "brokered time" stations. They sell you as much time as you can afford to buy and YOU sell your own advertising to pay the bills and, it is hoped, make some money. Here's what they say about themselves on their website:

"KILE AM 1560 Radio is licensed to the City of Bellaire Texas by the Federal Communications Commission. Our transmitter is located just south of the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, and our signal covers most of the greater Houston-Galveston metropolitan area.

KILE is a brokered time (sometimes referred to as a block time) commercial AM radio station. This means that we provide a broadcast platform for a fee to
independent programmers who plan and produce their own programs. Our family of independent programmers are very dedicated and talented individuals and organizations that provide excellent multi-cultural programming for our community.

KILE is one of the few 'big city' radio stations that is independently owned, operated, and totally committed to community service."

I haven't bothered to listen to KILE yet, so I have no idea what they're doing or how they sound. I'm sure you'll agree that it's probably going to sound like a radio supermarket, and the quality of the programs depends on the talents and abilities of the person who bought the time slot.

If none of the other Houston stations will take a chance on the kind of middle-of-the-road talk radio you're so good at, this might be a way to get your foot back in the door of the Houston market. KILE doesn't care what side of the road you're on. Buy the time, sell your own ads, and have a great time.
 
Why does this station continue to be refered as new? It is NOT new! Orginially licensed to Port Lavaca as KGUL, it was moved to Bellaire, several years ago. It does have new owners. Perhaps that is what you mean.
 
I don't know what the coverage is in Houston, but for 50,000 watts I would think it would reach Beaumont, but it doesn't even do that.
 
Stan, Beaumont is in the path of sharp null in their pattern. Most of their signal is aimed right over Houston from a site that's south-southwest of town. They had to tuck the pattern in because of KGBC 1540 Galveston, along with a number of other co-channel or adjacent channel stations in Texas and Louisiana. It took a long time to get it approved and to get the pattern right: www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=KILE&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

Or go here and scroll down the page for the "theoretical" pattern:
http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProEngine...SearchType=Appl&sAppIDNumber=1091641&sHours=D
So with a pattern concentrated along a bearing of 15 degrees off due north and Beaumont being east-northeast of the towers, it's no wonder the signal doesn't make it there.
 
KILE ain't new

Sorry Chuck. I don't keep up with local radio as much you do, so I just wasn't aware that it has been here as long as you say. It seemed "new" to me. I stand corrected.

I wonder if this "brokered time" gimmick will work for them. I've heard of small market stations doing it with some success to help pay the bills, and some major market stations have done it with non-prime time at night and on weekends, but I don't think I've heard of a station renting out all day-parts that way.

Hmm.
 
Actually, brokered time does very well. In addition to Newstalk 1070 KNTH and KKHT 100.7 The Word, Salem Communications owns 1110AM KTEK, which most of it's time is brokered to international language formats. During the week, KTEK is Christian talk unril 2 PM, the rest of the broadcast day is brokered to "Voice of Viet Nam." On the weekends you'll find programs such as "Song of India" with Meena Dat and "Music Masala," another Asian program which is popular with their listeners and has been for many years.

It's very easy to operate. The ENCO On-Air computer plays most of the programs. At the designated time for the international broadcasts, the ENCO automatically switches to the 11th floor studio where the international broadcasts originates. Hardly any overhead, as KTEK signs on and off automatically and engages the ENCO at the correct time.
 
So you guys have Meena now. If you recall, we carried her stuff on the weekends at KKTL. Interesting about KGUL. Those were the original call letters for KHOU-TV, so I presume there was a relationship back then.
 
I've often wondered if there was a realtionship between the two. It was my understanding that those call letters came into being after KGUL became KHOU. However, I may be wrong about this, as my memory is very vague about it. Meena Dat came to 1070 KENR during the tiem that KKTL was still KRTK. The Desi Masala progrogram with DJ Rayhon was on Saturday nights from 10PM-midnight. I remember getting $50 an hour to produce his show. It was a short time, but it was easy money. A few years ago, he approached me about producing again, however, he kept trying to change the rate, so blocked his phone number.
 
A "brokered time" story

Back in the late 70s, when I got tired of doing night call-in at KTRH, because I hardly ever saw my wife who worked days, I left and went over to KEYH AM. (a very very bad mistake, as I learned later).

When I got there in the late fall of 1978, KEYH was still all-news, and hadn't yet switched to Spanish language programming, and it was limping along with a boiler room of people calling businesses all over town selling Public Service type commercials for pennies.

I knew my new job was in trouble when the guy who hired me -- David Fowler -- quit before I showed up for my first day, and the station owner had no idea who I was. He kept me anyway because they needed daytime anchors.

A group of local Spanish businessmen had bought all the Saturday and Sunday day-parts on a brokered basis, and were providing something like 16 or 20 hours of Spanish programming. KEYH was making more money from those two days than it did on all five weekdays, and one day they finally connected the dots and saw how much money they could make if they did Spanish 7 days a week. That's when the owner decided to switch to full time Spanish programming, and Radio KEYH (said with a Spanish accent) was born.

My experience at KEYH was so bad and so short I've never included it on my resume.
 
You guys keep triggering memories here. David Fowler, who I believe died just a couple of years ago, was five feet of solid, walking ego. He had one of those three gonad voices like we all wished for, and when I was at KLYX in the early 70's, actually called to ask me to tell the PD, Don Armstrong, that he was quitting. I told Dave he really ought to handle that kind of thing for himself, which he reluctantly did. It was a wonderfully amateurish, wild period in Houston radio. We were all kids; didn't need much money as long as we could be on the radio and impress women. Of course they only stayed impressed for as long as it took to find out how little money we made.
 
rogergray said:
I'm a little surprised Imus wasn't picked up, too. He has lost a step or two over the years. MSNBC makes the mistake of running some stuff that's 10 or so years old sometimes when he's off and the difference in the energy level is pretty stark. It's still better than half the stuff out there, though. Thanks for all the kind words, but there are days I confess I wonder how even-handed most talk listeners want their radio to be. Are you an Olbermann guy or an O'Reilly guy would seem to sum it up and never the twain shall meet. It's a shame, really because I learn stuff from both. Good to hear from Chuck, one of the best on-air producers around. What's really happening with KTRH and KPRC these days? I know Dan has continued to make KSEV even more of a niche player with a lot of semi-amateur on-air folks. But looking at the overall numbers on Radio & Records, it seems like CC really have let these two stations slide tremendously. Why can WBAP kick ass in Dallas consistantly and KTRH slides to top-20 status? What's the talent like? Are they all just Hannity clones or is there anything vaguely clever going on?
Click to expand...

Dear Mr. Gray, I was very glad to hear that you are still on the air. You were one of the best and Houston sorely misses you.

If you have time, tune into KPRC on-line sometime. It is shocking how far we have receeded as a market for talent if this is any indication.
 
Roger, your reminiscences of David Fowler above made me think of the period when I knew him. It was 1967. I was doing the evening news-on-the-hour (and, later, spinning records into the wee hours) on KQUE. Fowler was doing the morning drive news on Paul Berlin's show on KNUZ. We worked out of the same newsroom for a few months. I don't know how long Fowler had been at KNUZ/KQUE when I showed up in June of '67. I don't know if he lasted even a month or two into 1968. He was notorious for coming to work drunk at around 5:00 AM after staying up all night partying. And when he disappeared for good a few months later, I was told it was because he didn't show up at all for several days, while on an extended drunk. (By that time, I'd moved into afternoon drive on KQUE and didn't cross paths with him as often as I had before.)

David was married to a gal named Casey Fowler. She wrote for the Chronicle, as I recall.

You say he recently died. How old was he? What were the circumstances?

He had a large talent as well as a large ego. Did he stay in radio?

JR
 
Don Armstrong mentioned it to me awhile back when we were at an auto event. I can't recall the cause, perhaps heart, but ultimately it was obviously tied to the bottle, as many who worked with him have observed. By the way, Jeff, is the attorney Lee Ware who was involved in the Anna Nicole/millionaire case the same Junior Ware who was your debate partner way back when? My old high school partner Steve Jarrard and I met you guys at the summer debate clinic at UH around 1966 or '67, I think it was. Bill English was the best, and I think you might have been the first to mention to me that radio was a great way to pay some college bills. English asked us to come to UH and join the team, but when I saw how hard you guys worked, it was fairly intimidating. If I recall, UH kicked butt for years during that era. Where are you now?
 
The attorney Lee Ware who was involved in the Anna Nicole case was in fact the same Junior Ware you remember. He died in October of 2005, six months after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He was 59 years old. I think our meeting (yours and mine) at U of H was in '66. By that time, Ware and I no longer debated together. We were colleagues in high school but debated with others at U of H.

I'm back here in Houston again, after 33 years in California, where I worked all news radio and classical radio in the L.A. and San Francisco markets. My mother is 86 now, and needs a little help with this and that. My aunt, who lives with my mother, and is 87, needs even more help. So my wife and I came back to Texas to be helpful.

JR
 
This is feeling like a reunion

Hail hail the gang's all here. Roger Gray, Chuck Tiller, Jeff Riggenbach and all the other usual suspects. I think it's possible that just about every person who worked in Houston radio between the 60s and 90s has at least one David Fowler story to tell. He definitely was one of a kind, and for that we can all be grateful.

It's good to know Jeff Riggenbach is still around. Jeff, as most of you know, moved to the West Coast where he made all of Texas proud for more than 30 years.

Are you back in Pasadena Jeff?
 
Re: This is feeling like a reunion

FilioScotia said:
Hail hail the gang's all here. Roger Gray, Chuck Tiller, Jeff Riggenbach and all the other usual suspects. I think it's possible that just about every person who worked in Houston radio between the 60s and 90s has at least one David Fowler story to tell. He definitely was one of a kind, and for that we can all be grateful.

It's good to know Jeff Riggenbach is still around. Jeff, as most of you know, moved to the West Coast where he made all of Texas proud for more than 30 years.

Are you back in Pasadena Jeff?
Click to expand...

I don't work in radio so I am not as enlightened as you guys....

Steve Gilmartin?
Sheila Rushlow (sp?)?
Jerry Trupiano?
Russ Small?
John O'Reiley (sp?)?

Any updates on these folks. With the exception of Russ Small, they were some of the ones I'd listen to while growing up.
 
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