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WCMT-AM has FM translator now?

I believe Paul went back to the KYTN moniker when he bought the stations from Rodney a few years ago. Smart move...KYTN is a great brand name and easy to remember.

The Duck needs work...a lot of it. Is anything local on that station besides high school sports?

You get what you pay for in local radio. If you pay a decent living salary, then you'll have some good talent. But, if you pay just above minimum wage, you'll get kids in college or fresh out of school. It is a great place for them to start, but they have to learn their way and that's difficult to listen to some days. ;)

I have nothing against Paul...but it's like a job interview process. When you ask folks about him, you don't get a lot of positive feedback. They say he's a nice person, but a terrible person to work for. Again, that's just been my experience. He's very active in the community and does a lot of great things for the people of Tennessee and Kentucky.

PeDrO
 
AMERICA said:
The Duck station and kytn were moved when the new building went up because they lost the lease and the studios are very nice..better than most stations you'll find in a small market around here. I saw there was an opening for an assistant manager.. it's on the TAB website. The only way for small stations to pay more is to charge more money for spots. But some of the Jackson stations are still giving away their time. Anyone who has been in radio can appreciate working in a small station for minimum wage..because it gives you a start in radio...and we all have to start some where.
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I checked that out. No way I would want to answer to Paul, or be on call 24/7! :eek: I like having a life outside of radio!

They were in those studios on First Street for about 25 years! Ever since they moved into those studios after their previous studios (out on Fulton Highway (KenTenn Road now)) burned down in the summer of '82. That fire is still suspicious! The First Street studios were a convenience store prior to WALR (their call letters at the time) moving there in 1982.
 
PedroOrange said:
I believe Paul went back to the KYTN moniker when he bought the stations from Rodney a few years ago. Smart move...KYTN is a great brand name and easy to remember.
The Duck needs work...a lot of it. Is anything local on that station besides high school sports?
You get what you pay for in local radio. If you pay a decent living salary, then you'll have some good talent. But, if you pay just above minimum wage, you'll get kids in college or fresh out of school. It is a great place for them to start, but they have to learn their way and that's difficult to listen to some days. ;)
I have nothing against Paul...but it's like a job interview process. When you ask folks about him, you don't get a lot of positive feedback. They say he's a nice person, but a terrible person to work for. Again, that's just been my experience. He's very active in the community and does a lot of great things for the people of Tennessee and Kentucky.

PeDrO
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Not just in radio, but in any small-town employment. It became clear to me that I would never be able to earn a living wage in northwest Tennessee (especially since radio was all I had a decent amount of experience doing, other than blue-collar work, which I did NOT want to return to), so I moved here to Nashville. There have been some bumps and stumbles along the way, but I am now where I feel like I belong.

I agree the KYTN name is a good slogan, despite some initial confusion way back when that it was not their real call letters! I wonder if they will bring back some of their old KYTN logos? ;D And maybe some of their old announcers! (I remember when I first saw the KYTN name (in print), I thought they were going to phonetically pronounce it on the air, like "Ky-Tenn radio" or something like that! ;D They really are too close to the Mississippi River to flirt with call letters beginning with "K" like they do! ;D)

Whatever happened to Rodney and Don (and for that matter, Robin) anyway? Rodney sold to Paul, and it appears that it is Don's position that AMERICA saw advertised on the TAB website, http://www.tabtn.org if you want to check it out.

I see on WCMT's website that they are having an open house on June 1st. Is anyone from here going? ;D

Your assessment of Paul is correct. He is tough to work for, very perfectionist.
 
Much of what I hear is second hand, so take it for what it's worth.

Don is working in Paducah.

Robin is working with Parks and Recreation in Union City.

If anyone answers that ad on the TAB website they are insane. All that work that is listed and the pay is probably less than $30,000. I could be wrong, but that's not worth it. I guess if you want to get your feet wet and use it as a spring board...maybe.

PeDrO
 
I'm a little surprised to find out that Don is in Paducah now. Still in radio? Which station? I kinda figured he would have run for Phillip Pinion's seat in the state legislature. Of course, I also know that Rodney and Terry also have political backgrounds (mayors of South Fulton and U.C., respectively) but I couldn't see Hailey getting away from his stations long enough to go to Nashville four months out of every year.
 
I believe Don is out of radio...that's what I heard a few months back. He was Paul's man in Union City, but I guess that didn't pan out.

I think Hailey wants to slow down a little bit...it seems like if you own or are a general manager of a small town station, you are constantly on the run. After about 25-30 of that, I'd want to take it easy too.

PeDrO
 
They way I understand what happened in Union C with Don Wilson is he just walked off the job one day, left his job, his life and his wife. I heard he was in Illinois..not Paducah or some place working at some apartment complex. Then Stu Buyers replaced him but came down with cancer. I figure that's where the opening is coming from.
 
It doesn't surprise me that Stu would return to Union City. I think he lives there anyway, and he was at KYTN before he ever went to WCMT.

Sorry to hear that about Don. I suppose his son is no longer at that station, either?

Interesting about Robin working at the Parks and Rec. Dept. I worked there for a couple of summers back in the '80s myself, before I ever got into radio. I was on the cemetery mowing crew. We got our pics in the paper uprighting tombstones following vandalism at the older cemetery. But the city did not learn their lesson about clearing brush away from that cemetery (and thus increasing visibility there!), and they had another incident of vandalism there a couple of years later, but I was no longer working for them by then.

I thought you had to live in or near (within five miles of) Union City to be a city employee, but maybe that has changed since I was there. I thought Robin lived in Kenton. Is his wife from there? Maybe he has moved back to U.C.?

I really believe Hailey is spreading himself thin with that U.C./Paris operation. Didn't he send Ryan to Paris to oversee the Paris half of that operation? I haven't seen or heard from Ryan in years, so I suppose he, too, is no longer there, or even in radio, anymore.
 
I hear Ryan is in Memphis working with hospitals..who knows amd cares why he left ..jocks change jobs a lot and some move on. The benefits have gotten better in the past years...and there is job security in the small markets if you are dedicated but if radio is not in your blood for life you might as well get out and find a job that you love. most radio guys I know love radio..and some will change jobs just to say they worked some where..but those are the jocks who finally settle down and get with one station..the pay is always better in sales and if you can sell you can usually move to management but it helps to have a jock back ground. I wouldn't want to work for a manager who had not sat behind a board running a ballgame would you? ::)
 
This is an interesting thread and brings back memories. I have worked for and with nearly all of these individuals. Worked for Paul TWICE, the last being about 18 years ago. We once fired each other on a Sunday afternoon! Actually he fired me and I quit at the same time... I saw him at a KBA function last year and we are on pleasant speaking terms.

Spent four years with Terry and still speak to him regularly. When they were independently programmed (they used the same music logs but separate studios) I used to run to and fro between Union City and Paris. I did enough board op'ing for sports, news and engineering that it remained a full time position for me.

Worked for KYTN when it was still stand alone and was still there when Rodney bought it. I think Stew, Stephanie B and I were the only ones that survived the transition.

Even spent some time at WKZT (Now WFUL-Again). I think that qualifies as the Obion, Weakley and Fulton County Hat Trick!
 
I was fortunate to work in two-thirds of the Union City/Fulton/Martin triangle. Never worked in U.C., but as some of you said, Hailey runs a tight operation there, so I probably never would have fit in there, anyhow. If I had stayed in that area, who knows, I might have eventually gone to work for him.

I was glad to see that WKZT returned to its old WFUL call letters a few years back. They were WKZT while I was there, but I remember listening to them as WFUL when I was a teenager. All the local AMs, WENK, WFUL, and WCMT, were top 40 back in those days. So if one of them played a song I didn't like, I tuned to another! ;D I remember listening to David Robey on 'FUL after school almost every day! And I still hear him every once in a while on WENK/WTPR! And he's been at WENK since at least the early '80s! :eek:

KZT was the initials of a former owner, Kenneth Z. Turner, but I believe WFUL are better call letters for them, since they are in FULton! ;D (But it's still too easy to drop an "A" in front of that, and make it "awful"! ;D) Of course, I remember they had been off the air for a couple of years when they signed back on as WKZT, so maybe the new call letters were an attempt at reinventing themselves. Anyone know what kind of format WFUL is running these days?
 
firepoint525 said:
Never worked in U.C., but as some of you said, Hailey runs a tight operation there, so I probably never would have fit in there, anyhow. If I had stayed in that area, who knows, I might have eventually gone to work for him.
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He runs a tight operation, but as long as you are dedicated to your work and know what is expected, you are good-to-go.

PeDrO
 
I remember listening to David Robey on 'FUL after school almost every day! And I still hear him every once in a while on WENK/WTPR! And he's been at WENK since at least the early '80s!
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As I remember my area history, 99.3 was originally WFUL-FM. Terry bought it around '82 to give WENK an FM. Apparently the FCC rules at the time prevented an AM and FM licensed to different cities from sharing calls, so the FM became WWKF ("WENK-FM"). It's still licensed to Fulton. Terry once remarked that the only assets that came with the FM were a Marti and David Robey!

Speaking of WFUL.... When I was passing through a few weeks back I noticed a Super Walmart had sprouted up across the street from the old studios. The old building was gone but the tower is still there. Where did the studios move to?
 
Duncan Park said:
I remember listening to David Robey on 'FUL after school almost every day! And I still hear him every once in a while on WENK/WTPR! And he's been at WENK since at least the early '80s!
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As I remember my area history, 99.3 was originally WFUL-FM. Terry bought it around '82 to give WENK an FM. Apparently the FCC rules at the time prevented an AM and FM licensed to different cities from sharing calls, so the FM became WWKF ("WENK-FM"). It's still licensed to Fulton. Terry once remarked that the only assets that came with the FM were a Marti and David Robey!

Speaking of WFUL.... When I was passing through a few weeks back I noticed a Super Walmart had sprouted up across the street from the old studios. The old building was gone but the tower is still there. Where did the studios move to?
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Yes, 1982 is about right. I wonder if the KF did anything special to celebrate their 25th anniversary of being on the air! ;D Of course, most of their listeners are under 25, so an anniversary like that would mean nothing to them! ::)

As for the call letters, they really needed different call letters anyway to distinguish themselves from WENK. I always assumed WWKF represented, "west Kentucky, Fulton," or something like that. I do remember that, for their first year or so on the air, they ran a legal ID that said something along the lines of "WENK-FM of Union City, Inc., presents WWKF, Fulton...KF-99," with all the usual sounders you would expect to hear on such an ID. Of course, the "WWKF, Fulton" was the legal ID, but I thought the "WENK-FM of Union City, Inc.," was kinda confusing! ??? The AM was nicknamed "K radio" for many years, so that may be why they originally came up with "K-F" for the FM station.

I know Hailey was intending to put an FM station on the air in Lake County back around 1994-95. What ever happened with that? He even had the "101.3" numbers on the outside of the WENK studios there for a while. (Kind of ironic since that is a WCMT frequency now!) It looks like someone would at the very least put an FM translator on the air in Lake County. And I remember Hailey was planning to put a local TV station on the air, too. Apparently, WOBT took care of that for him.

A super Wal-Mart is on Middle Road now? Wow, things have changed since I was there! That area was very rural back then. As you may or may not know, the Purchase Parkway (51/45 bypass, whatever) will eventually become part of interstate 69. That may be the reasoning behind Wal-Mart locating at "exit 0" on the Purchase Parkway. (I don't know if you ever went in the old Fulton Wal-Mart, but it was old, kinda small, and dumpy! I'm guessing a Big Lots or yet another flea market went in there! ::)) As for WFUL, I thought they were once again co-owned with another FM station, in Clinton, KY, I think? Maybe they moved their studios there.
 
Yep...that Super-Walmart is smack dab at exit 0.

I think Hailey put most of his energy into the Paris stations now that he simulcasts. There's a lot of history at WENK...a lot of talented folks have put on headphones there.

PeDrO
 
I know Hailey was intending to put an FM station on the air in Lake County back around 1994-95. What ever happened with that? He even had the "101.3" numbers on the outside of the WENK studios there for a while. (Kind of ironic since that is a WCMT frequency now!)
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As I remember, Mr Tinkle took issue with 101.3 - Apparently it was too close to 101.7 for his taste. I think there may have also been an attempt to move it closer to UC, Maybe Samburg or Troy. Now Paul has the 101.3 for WCMT-FM which also opened the door for WTPR-FM to move up to 101.7 from 101.5 and increase power.
 
Duncan Park said:
I know Hailey was intending to put an FM station on the air in Lake County back around 1994-95. What ever happened with that? He even had the "101.3" numbers on the outside of the WENK studios there for a while. (Kind of ironic since that is a WCMT frequency now!)
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As I remember, Mr Tinkle took issue with 101.3 - Apparently it was too close to 101.7 for his taste. I think there may have also been an attempt to move it closer to UC, Maybe Samburg or Troy. Now Paul has the 101.3 for WCMT-FM which also opened the door for WTPR-FM to move up to 101.7 from 101.5 and increase power.
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Isn't there also a 101.5 FM in Jackson? Did they not have anything to say about any of this??
 
Isn't there also a 101.5 FM in Jackson? Did they not have anything to say about any of this??
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I don't remember anything being said. I'm just a casual observer. Jackson is about 50 miles south. When WCMT-FM went to 101.3 the tower was moved north and it's now licensed to South Fulton. WTPR-FM is licensed to McKinnon and is East of Kentucky Lake on a big hill somewhere in the woods. I should think all of this shuffling worked to the WNWS favor by leaving them alone on 101.5.
 
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