All-Elvis Radio Shakes Up Portland (1988)

September 15, 1988 – The Oregonian/Peter Farrell

Talk — or sing — about rock ‘n’ roll being here to stay, here are the top stories from the world of Portland radio:

*What has been KVIX (1290 AM) will, at noon Thursday, become KLVS. The station will play only Elvis Presley music. Nobody else’s. Just Elvis, all day and all night.

*Don Wright, a long-ago “KISN good guy,” will become the morning man at solid gold KSGO (1520 AM), giving up talk radio to return to playing the rock music he played a generation ago.

Wright’s new job — he starts on the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. shift Monday — is great news, but an all-Elvis station right in Portland is earth-shaking news. At least I’m all shook up.

Since Aug. 1 WCVG in Cincinnati, a small 500-watt AM station, has been playing continuous — or constant, or interminable, depending on your view — Elvis. Although there are indications the station was not doing well before that, WCVG has said its ad income jumped 321 percent by the end of the first week.

The news about a station playing only Elvis was in just about every paper in the country. But it was the paragraph about the big sales increase that caught the eye of David M. Jack, who has regained ownership of KVIX from a group of investors led by Victor Ives, who were not able to make it financially with an old-time radio format.

Jack is no fool. He wants to sell the station again, but he says it will take some time to put it in saleable condition. In the meantime, he has to keep it on the air with something. Old-time radio, as much as some people loved hearing “Fibber McGee,” did not work. Jack thinks Elvis could take the station from rags to riches.

“It might be a big hit,” he said. On the other hand, he could have bought a lottery ticket.

Jack is not making a major financial commitment to Elvis. Well, when he ordered 60 Elvis records and tapes from Tower Records in New York, he did have them sent Federal Express. (So they won’t be marked “Return to Sender.”) But otherwise, he is going to see what happens.

A whole new staff will operate KLVS. They are instructors and students from the National Broadcasting School in Portland — “Dial 24 Be-A-DJ,” it says in the phone book.

An entire radio station run by student interns?

Don’t be cruel.

Jack has set strict standards for the school: “I told them I didn’t want any jerks.”

The morning and evening drive times — the periods that really count in radio — will be handled by supervisory people from the broadcast school, and Jack said National Broadcasting students work at other radio stations in town, including those that play music by more than one artist.

“This will give the students more of an opportunity to learn,” said Jack.

There are, by the way, 652 Elvis songs available, many of them hits. That should be enough, since Jack hopes to have a buyer for the station lined up in a couple of months, when its signal is improved. So Elvis is mostly an interim step.

But, hey it could work. Still, Jack doesn’t mind a joke or two about his new format. You can say anything you want, but lay off of his . . .

POSITIVE ALARM: Don Wright promises to “wake people up with a positive attitude” in his new job at KSGO. He figures most of the high school students who listened to him years ago are now going through the same experiences in life he is, including raising a family.

“After doing the hard news on the talk show, I’m going to be light in the morning,” said Wright, whose weekday tour as host of “Northwest at Night” on KEX (1190) has been cut down to weekends only.

What was good news for Wright was, of course, bad news for someone else. General manager Dan Hern pretty much cleaned house at KSGO, which is apparently feeling the pressure from KKSN (97.1 FM, 910 AM) and its oldies format. Eric Worden, program director and morning personality, is out, as is Jeff Davis of the midday shift.

“We wanted somebody who had a name that people 35 to 44 years old — that’s our target audience — would have a remembrance of,” Hern said. “This could be a lot of fun with Don, and we know Don understands the music.”