February 13, 1991 — Andee Beck/The News Tribune
KTAC-AM, one of the last full-service radio stations in Pierce County, laid off eight employees and axed its adult contemporary music format Wednesday to simulcast its sister station, KBRD-FM. The change meant the elimination of two on-air personalities and the long-running “P.M. Tacoma” talk show hosted by Art Popham. It further created an uncertain future for radio broadcasts of Tacoma Stars soccer and University of Puget Sound football and basketball games. “Despite the tireless efforts of some very talented people, a full-service, personality-oriented music station with a large commitment to local sports was simply no longer financially viable,” said G. Michael Donovan, KTAC-KBRD general manager.
At noon, KTAC (AM 850) began airing the contemporary easy listening music of KBRD (FM 103.7). Both stations are owned by Philadelphia-based Entercom Inc., which owns nine other stations in San Francisco, Houston, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Tampa and Gainesville, Fla. Donovan said KTAC would continue to air the Tacoma Stars soccer games and University of Puget Sound basketball meets through the end of their seasons. For those broadcasts only, KTAC will not be simulcast with the FM station. However, once the Stars and Loggers’ seasons conclude, Donovan said, “we will not bid for the broadcast rights (again) because it doesn’t make format sense to do that. Those arrangements just are not profit centers by any stretch of the imagination and just (do) not fit in a music format.” Earl Powell, who was named general manager for the Stars less than two weeks ago, was caught off guard by KTAC’s plans to drop the sports next season. “Obviously, we will be out looking for a new station to carry us,” he said, but he couldn’t identify which stations he would talk to.
Equally surprised was Richard Ulrich, UPS athletic director. Ulrich said he hadn’t been told of KTAC’s format switch, and that he would leave it to his broadcast producer, Brian Halquist, to find a station to carry UPS games. Art Popham, host of “P.M. Tacoma” on KTAC for the last five years, also is looking for another job. The news came nearly two years after KTAC first dropped his show because of inadequate advertising support. “P.M. Tacoma,” a nightly talk show focusing on Tacoma-Pierce County issues, was revived in February 1989 after community leaders conducted a campaign to raise funds for Popham to buy the air time from the radio station. This time around, “P.M. Tacoma” — along with the bulk of KTAC’s programming — are gone for good. “While it saddens me, it doesn’t really surprise me, because broadcasting is a money-making business, and KTAC hasn’t been making money for some time,” Popham said.
Donovan confirmed, “KTAC has not made money in a number of years,” although he refused to discuss the financial details of the two radio stations.The reason Donovan gave for KTAC’s money troubles is the same one the station’s previous general manager, Peg Dempsey (now at KEZX), gave for canceling “P.M. Tacoma” in 1989. It’s also the reason such stations as KBSG have moved their operations from Tacoma to Seattle in recent years.
In a word: advertising. Broadcasters contend there aren’t enough businesses in Tacoma and Pierce County that will support strictly local stations. “There are just many more advertising options to retailers and businessmen in Tacoma than there were in KTAC’s heyday, certainly in the ’70s, when it was rocking and rolling,” Donovan said. Bruce Cannon, KTAC’s veteran air personality and program director, said, “KTAC became Tacoma’s No. 1 station in October 1970, and we stayed there until probably 1978, with the rise of high-powered FM stations.” FM stations with similar formats, such as KNBQ (which became KBSG), proved better able to attract and keep listeners with stronger signals. KBRD has been able to do the same. “We can be heard all the way up to the Canadian border,” Donovan said. “So we were very successful selling commercial time to advertising agencies in Seattle and Tacoma and Everett and everywhere else.
”On the other hand, KTAC, which first took to the air in August 1942, is licensed to operate at 10,000 watts daytime and 1,000 watts nighttime. In a county where more than 50 signals can be heard, insiders say it’s hard for a radio station with such limited reach to compete. Only last June, the newly hired Donovan promised, “I can guarantee you this: KTAC’s focus will always remain on Tacoma. I don’t anticipate any changes at all” in programming or staff, he told The Morning News Tribune. But since then, Donovan said, the advertising economy softened, and he discovered “there are many other advertising opportunities for Tacoma-Pierce County merchants. We just couldn’t keep it going.”
Beginning today, the combined KTAC-KBRD lineup calls for Lou Robbins to host the morning show (substituting for KBRD air personality-program director Bill Conway, who was fired). Bob Cochran replaces Ed Dunaway (also fired) during middays. Cannon moves to afternoons, and stays on as program director. News Director Bill Ogden will continue delivering the news, and three Sunday morning public service programs will remain on the air, with local emphasis.
April 11, 1991 – Andee Beck/The News Tribune
KBRD swaps ‘soft vocal favorites’ for soft rock
KBRD-FM scrapped its “beautiful music” format at 2 p.m. Wednesday, swapping a lineup of what the station once described as “soft vocal favorites” for soft rock ’n’ roll. In the process, KBRD changed its call letters to KMTT, replaced program director Bruce Cannon with former KZAM programmer Chris Mays, and bid farewell to news director Bill Ogden. The station further dropped all commercials until Friday and pulled its disc jockeys off the air to introduce its new format.
“From this moment on, FM 104 is ‘The Mountain,’ mellow rock ’n’ roll for people who love music as much as we do,” General Manager G. Michael Donovan told listeners. Moments later, the station launched a playlist emphasizing adult contemporary hits from the 1970s and early ’80s. Robert Unmacht, publisher of the radio trade publication M Street Journal, classified the station’s new approach as “rock a-c,” or adult contemporary music leaning toward rock ’n’ roll.
KMTT joins 16 other stations among 57 in the Seattle-Tacoma market that plays some variation of adult contemporary music. Donovan said his particular blend was in response to research that showed audiences considered other adult contemporary stations as either too bland or too loud. Suggesting also that listeners prefer less chatter, Donovan hinted more changes were on the way. Although Ogden was the only staffer let go on Wednesday, the remaining air personalities will be required to re-apply for their positions once the Tacoma station opens its new Seattle studio around May 1. Program director Cannon, meanwhile, has been reassigned to an unspecified position within station operations.
April 12, 1991 Andee Beck/The News Tribune
When KVTI-FM boosts its juice to 51,000 watts in a week or two, station manager John Mangan boasts, “We’ll have a better signal in downtown Seattle than many of the Seattle stations have now. “Gosh,” he says on second thought, “that sounds like we’re going to become a Seattle station, doesn’t it?” Gosh, John, it does. But unlike KBSG, KRPM and KVI — Tacoma stations that have all made the move to Seattle — and unlike KMTT (KBRD), which follows suit May 1 — Mangan insists he doesn’t have to change locations to play in the big leagues.
“KVTI is a Tacoma station, and it’s going to stay that way.” That’s easy for him to say: A station that serves as a training facility for students of Clover Park Vocational Technical Institute, KVTI (or “I-91”) doesn’t face the same pressures as its commercial competitors. With the recent demise of KTAC (which in February began simulcasting KBRD) and the ongoing fight for survival by such Pierce County stations as KJUN, KKMO and the newly revived KLAY, Mangan is convinced, “The reality of the ratings is that no radio station will do well unless it has a significant audience in King County.” Of the four counties that are surveyed by Arbitron for radio listenership — King, Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish — the densely populated King has a disproportionate share of the audience.
“That’s part of why commercial stations are pushing that way — they don’t have a choice,” explains Mangan, a former operations manager for KBRD. “If they’re going to sell to national advertisers, they’re going to have to show up in the ratings book, and to do that, they’re going to have to do well in King County.” KVTI’s newly improved signal should do well technically all the way from the north end of Seattle to well south of Olympia, although Mangan says, “We won’t know until we turn it on and see.” KVTI will shut off at midnight Sunday so a crew can move the transmitter Monday from the KVTI site to Lakes High School in Lakewood. It’s a spot on a hill that juts into Puget Sound, offering the signal a clear shot at the hearts of Seattle and Olympia.
Just the same, Mangan vows to remain true to Tacoma and Pierce County once the station returns to the air some time the following week. Musically, the I-91 format of Top 40 tunes (Madonna) and alternative rock (Jesus Jones) will continue to be based on the station’s own research into what’s hot with the local 12-to-24-year-old set. By tracking the major Pierce County retail outlets and requests to the station, Mangan says the playlist consistently comes up with a stronger appeal for urban contemporary (or R&B) than KPLZ or KUBE, which are geared more to Seattle tastes.
“It’s very clear to me in looking at music research that if you isolate the music of King and Pierce counties, you don’t get the same answer,” Mangan says.In answering community interests, I-91 runs local high school football and basketball games, the call-in teen talk show, “Feedback” (6:30 p.m. Tuesdays), and “Victory Music Open Mike” (7-10 p.m. Tuesdays). Production of the “Crimestoppers” public service spots moved from KTAC to KVTI last month. “We want to do more community involvement kinds of events, and to the extent we have the ability to do it, we will, but we don’t have the kind of resources that other stations have,” sighs Mangan.“We don’t have a neat-looking van or a 30-foot recreational vehicle with our call letters on it that we can take to the Taste of Tacoma.”
No indeed. I-91 operates out of a warehouse that was converted into a studio on the VTI campus more than 30 years ago. Promotional vehicles are not in the budget, and although Mangan won’t specify just what his operating budget is, the word shoestring does come to mind. He does say the costs of running a radio station have swollen as “the traditional sources of school ‘funding’ have shrunk. And Mangan, who’s always taken pride in running a commercial-free station that doesn’t have to beg its audience for money the way KPLU and KUOW are driven to do, may have to go that route after all. “It does cost money to run a station of this size,” Mangan says. “We are going to have to look for other sources of income.” And they can chalk it up, in part, to the price of playing in the big leagues, in the 1990s.
