December 1994- Chuck Taylor/Seattle Times (excerpts)
Sheilah Hardwick (widow of Robert E. Lee Hardwick), their son and Hardwick’s estate vs. Classic Radio Inc. and KING-AM (1090), owned by the philanthropic Bullitt sisters; in King County Superior Court. Issue: Alleged wrongful termination for age and wrongful death. The legendary Seattle radio personality killed himself after he was fired in 1992. Status: December 1995 trial date.
Year in a flash!
KING-TV fired anchor Barry Judge. . . . Longtime KIRO-TV anchor Gary Justice retired from television. . . . Veteran reporter John Larson left KOMO-TV (Channel 4) for “Dateline NBC.” . . . Youthful reporter Diana Olick left KIRO-TV for CBS.
KIRO-TV weekend anchor Nerissa Williams got her own daily morning talk show. . . . Former “Today” newsreader Margaret Larson joined KIRO-TV. . . . Former Minneapolis anchor-reporter Inga Hammond signed on at KSTW-TV (Channel 11).
Morning personality Ichabod Caine left country KMPS-FM-AM (94.1, 1300) for country KRPM-FM (106.1). . . . Jim French ended his daily talk show on news-talk KIRO-AM (710).
Pat Cashman, let go in the KING-AM massacre when it went all-news, landed at news-talk KIRO-FM (100.7) . . . Norm Gregory left variety KOMO-AM (1000) for upstart ’70s-hits KJR-FM (95.7).
Nearly everyone at album-rock KXRX-FM (96.5) was out of work when it switched formats. Robin Erickson and John Maynard ended up at classic-rock KZOK-FM (102.5). Gary Crow and Mike West have resurfaced at adult-alternative KMTT-FM-AM (103.7, 850).
Under recently relaxed rules that allow ownership of up to two stations each on AM and FM, three new “duopolies” developed in Seattle: KIRO-AM, KIRO-FM and KING-AM, under Bonneville International’s KIRO Inc.; KOMO-AM, news-talk KVI-AM (570) and adult-contemporary KPLZ-FM (101.5), owned by Fisher Broadcasting; and Top 40 KUBE-FM (93.3), KJR-FM and sports-talk KJR-AM (950) owned by New Century Radio Partners.
Also, Fisher bought 12 radio stations in Montana and Eastern Washington for $6.7 million.
KVI-AM surpassed monolithic KIRO-AM in the ratings, making the news-talk format a heated debate for the first time in 20 years.
KXRX-FM was purchased by Alliance Broadcasting from Shamrock Broadcasting and was changed to “Young Country” KYCW-FM, making the country format, with three FM stations, a real stock-car race.
And in the deal of the year, EZ Communications bought KZOK-FM from a Chrysler Corp. holding company for a Seattle-record $20 million.
**
Last spring, News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting bought a stake in a chain of TV stations, which promptly announced it would drop whatever affiliations the stations had and carry Fox programming.
The Fox move set off a chain reaction of affiliation changes in dozens of markets.
Seattle was unaffected at first. But as fall approached, CBS was still without an affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth. There, Gaylord Entertainment owns an independent station. CBS said great, we’ll take it.
Gaylord said not so fast. If you want our Dallas station, you have to take our station in Seattle-Tacoma, too. So CBS in March will drop Channel 7 and move to Channel 11, Gaylord’s now-independent KSTW-TV.
