Bankson & Hofmann @ KTNT Tacoma

January 1980 – Helen Rogers – Tacoma News Tribune

Listeners from the Nisqually “Dip” to Bellevue are discovering there are program jewels set in ear-pleasing gold by twirling their radio dials to 1400. They are sitting up and taking notice of KTNT-AM, a 24-hour station.

Craftsmen are everywhere, on-air and behind the scenes, at the Tribune Publishing Company’s long-time broadcast headquarters at South 11th and Grant. “We have good people and good equipment,” emphasized Jack Bankson, general manager of Tribune Broadcasting, a division of Tribune Publishing Company, since Oct. 15.

“Our goal is to be Tacoma’s radio station,” said Don Hofmann, operations manager of KTNT-AM and KNBQ-AM since Nov. 2. KNBQ-FM is aiming at an audience of an age level of 25 and over. He said, “My actual function is programming for KTNT.” Gary Bryan is program director for KNBQ-FM (97.3 on the dial). A former program director at Golden West Broadcasters’ KVI in Seattle, Hofmann was hired by Bankson, a former president, GWB vice president and ex-general manager of KVI and her San Francisco sister station, KSFO.

Hofmann said that KTNT was almost totally automated until Dec. 3 when it went live with Mike Moran’s show. Prior to that the station had just a few live shows. Moran, KTNT’s former morning man, left the station a year ago to become administrative director of the Ron Bailie School of Broadcasting in Seattle. He previously worked at Seattle’s KIRO and KUUU.

Moran’s show (5:30-10 a.m.) offers a treasure box of news and information-oriented features. Featured are telephone interviews with local figures; a solid hour of news, starting at 7 a.m.; music; and comprehensive coverage of local issues in such segments as “Around Tacoma Digest” and “Tacoma Digest.”

Hofmann stressed that the best traffic coverage in the area is broadcast not only during Moran’s show for morning commuters, but also during the afternoon heavy commute period between 3 and 6. The traffic coverage is done by the Pierce County Radio Watch, an active group of citizens band radio operators who have done traffic observation for the past four years. Hofmann said that during the recent snowstorm the CB group gave 50 traffic reports in one day. He added, “They work with law enforcement in calling in.”

Also giving sparkle to the Monday-through-Friday daytime sound is Dave Dawson. A graduate of Cal State University in the San Fernando Valley, Dawson worked in Tacoma radio in the 1960s and has been a successful talk show host in Toledo, Fresno, and, most recently, Cleveland. Now Dawson has what Hofmann termed “the only strictly two-way talk talk show in the Tacoma area.” It is solid telephone talk from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. with a half-hour break for solid news at noon. Hofmann said, “It is a controversial talk show — local to international issues. It is a free-for-all talk show. Dawson is not bland.”

Bob Cochran, who came to KTNT a year ago from Bellingham’s KPUG, has the 2-7 p.m. weekday record show with news and information heavily featured from 4:30 to 6.

The weeknight lineup has Golden Age of Radio, 7:05 to 8 o’clock, started during the holidays and comprised of oldtime radio comedy, drama, western and mystery shows in the public domain; 8 p.m., including Saturdays, Rick Van Cise with music until midnight (Van Cise’s show alternates with broadcasts of every Pacific Lutheran University basketball game and Steve Thomas’ coverage of selected high school basketball games three nights a week); and midnight-5:30 a.m. Monday-through-Saturday, 21-year-old Tacoman Kelly Rogers with her show.

Hofmann said that the music broadcast on KTNT is basically adult-styled, contemporary, popular songs — not heavy rock — such as offered by Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand. “And we have Tacoma’s largest radio news department.”

Bankson, 56, was with Gene Autry’s Golden West Broadcasters for 19 years and then retired. Prior to that, he was a newsman and on-air disc jockey for McClatchy Newspapers in California. After leaving GWB, he was with KSFO, Sterling Recreation Organization Co. as broadcast supervisor.
Hofmann was program director at KVI from 1972 to 1977 and left KVI to go to San Francisco’s KSFO with Bankson. He said they both left KSFO about a year ago. Before coming to Tacoma, Hofmann was a freelance broadcast consultant in Portland, Maine.