What KDWN should have been today

[JoeyK]

With its tremendous signal and dial position KDWN should have been in the class of renowned heritage stations that have been broadcasting since the 1920s examples. WABC,KFI,KGO,KMOX. This would have been real status for KDWN and truly the Talk of West. But due to dictators in charge of business and programing this ain"t going to happen. Think about what station could be like today. As the saying goes News on the hour and half hour and when it breaks,a 24 hour newsroom in a 24 hour city. Info mercials and Sports book and Sports Touts only on weekends. A weekday lineup 5-9A Las Vegas Morning News with Hart Kirch and female co host. Ken Stahl on news. 9a-12n Rush [they once had him] 12n-3p Truman Hawkins {uninteruped for 3 hours} 3-6p Savage nation all 3 hours live. 6-10p Mark Edwards controversal of course. 10-2a Coast to Coast . {Remember when Art bell was local} and 2-5a Jim Dalles live overnight covering 40% of country. Won"t happen but it could have.

 

[Jay F]

I certainly agree with the spirit of your post. KDWN was meant to be so much bigger and better than the station it became. I thought they were a decent talk station in the 80s and early 90s. I not only remember Art Bell's local show, I was listening the first night he replaced Ken Stahl on "West Coast AM" in 1986. I could tell from the first night how big his show would become (although I had no idea he would go national at the time). Back in that era, KDWN had interesting talk shows all day and night with little or no infomercials. They limited their paid programming to shows with substance/entertainment value such as Roy Masters and the Stardust Line. There were no snakeoil salesmen or air conditioning repair shows at all.KDWN really started to decay around a decade ago after KXNT stole Rush Limbaugh. That's when they went downhill, started airing any infomercial at any time, and stopped having any concern for the quality of their programming. So when does Beasley takeover KDWN / start making changes/ flip to sports, etc?

 

[smedge2006]

I'd be careful about what was "meant" to be. Despite its huge signal, KDWN was fairly typical of first-generation talk stations that came into the format before 1985.

There were a lot of stations in many markets in the pre-Rush era that had mostly local talk lineups, yet struggled to get a 2-4 share range. Back then the biggest AM stations in most cities still played music. In the late 80s many of the big 50 kW stations around the country changed from full-service to news/talk and the existing stations had the choice of getting bigger or getting out. Some stations survived by getting Rush, others failed. (Miami is littered with the corpses of former talk stations.)

For KDWN to become a heritage talker by 2006, it would have had to start growing bigger in the late 80s when it acquired Rush, and that would have meant a new owner. It also would have had to bring in some younger talent to appeal to the baby boomers as they hit 35 in the 80s and 90s and became talk radio converts. KDWN's decision to stick with an aging talent base (that probably had no place else to go) meant that its conservative slant sounded ever crankier over the years, as opposed to the "hipper" brand pushed by Rush and his clones. KDWN's politics also moved closer to the "shortwave fringe" ambience that Rush has worked so hard to avoid. KDWN didn't "go down" so much as it never changed its approach to be more in tune with the times, the competition, and what was available. Prime example: that
1970s shotgun jingle with the timpani drum that never went away. ("Boing... 7-20 KAY-DAWN!")

 

[JoeyK]

KDWN can be cricitizied for a lot of issues, But unlike most corporate giants in this business they have been very loyal to and get that same loyalty back from talent and probably some people not on air. Take for example Ken Stahl who has been there almost from the start no youngster anymore yet he is on the air at 5am five days a week and works an overnight shift saturday/sunday. Truman Hawkins who I believe has been there since KDWN signed on. Age does not seem to matter as much as it once did. Paul Harvey still on the air at age 87. Larry King is now 72. Dan Rather anchorman till he was in early 70s and his exit as we all know was not related to an age factor.

 

[drtylawndre]

Re: KDWN database by Pete moss

kdawn senior babysiter pete moss is asking listeners to send a letter or post card to win a used radio and some other worthless junk....I suspect he is building a mailing list to contact people in case he ends up somewhere else ...buying time o n klaz? spinning oldies on kjul....like Ted Bare who left for Idaho..I doubt that kdwn people will find much more than voice work anywhere else