Review of WSEV-AM 930 ("Smoky Mountain Radio"), June 12, 2014

Now I have grauduated from using a VersaCorder, which held 4 hours on one side of a 2-hour tape, to a digital recorder which holds untold hours, probably continual days, on a 16GB SD card. I recorded 12 hours of the station on June 12. Sorry I didn't get around to doing this review until now, but I had other stuff to get out of the way until now, this has become the thing to get out of the way before I can do other stuff. So, here we go.

In one of the Zip Line commercials, Kent says "Happy Spring break" to us, which makes me suspect that the station wasn't in full "summertime" mode yet, so, I don't know if things are any different now than they were on this day.

The first thing I want to get out of the way right now is the thing I'm the most critical of at the moment, which is probably not towards the station itself, but the whizzes who thought up this new way of promoting Titanic. The latest Titanic commercial mentions "the spiritual journey that draws thousands of believers to Titanic each year." About the crash, the commercial says "Some view it in religious terms. As a metaphor for divine judgement for pushing boundaries, and defying God and nature, with steel-plated arrogance." >WHEW< As a Christian, some of this stuff is offensive to me. "Come experience the spiritual treasure..." It's just another modern Pigeon Forge "theater", which made no pretense of being anything else before, and now they're trying to make like it's another Christus Gardens?!? Puh-Leeze!

Now, about the station itself.
The legal ID is heard much more often now than it was, and now there are ID's that Kent does, mentioning either the fact that this is the first station Dolly Parton ever sang on, or that this is the first station to play a Dolly Parton record. The mention of Kent having seen a 95-year-old man on a zip line is now cut out of that commercial. Now the mysterious Mimi, who did the "live" interviews that are now not done, is heard on 2 commercials, for Smoky Mountain Jeep Rentals and for Wahoo Zip Lines. Milton Crabapple is still there, and he actually does a promo for the Smokies Official... They still have Duck Dynasty Trivia, and run Bob Eubanks' "Short Stories About Big People".

The promos for "your new best friend in the Smokies", the Smokies Official..., continue on. The only giveaway item specifically mentioned now is the Milton Crabapple CD. Besides that, there's free popcorn, soft drinks, and "other free stuff". There's no more mention of the map with "places only the locals know about"!

There is no more mention of the Sky Bridge.

Kent is still not over the habit of telling us we know what something means. First it happened at the beginning of Duck Dynasty Trivia, and now, when we hear this game-show dingdingding noise and the start of the "Price is Right" theme...
"You heard that music, you know what it means, that means it's time to play [they're now admitting this] the Smoky Mountain Super-Cheesy Radio Game Show."
The giveaway in question is "today's Smoky Mountain Super-Prize Free Pack", which is:
-Tanger coupon book with "thousands of dollars in savings"
-Half-off certificate for Wahoo Zip Lines
-Pass for wine-tastings
-50 free firecrackers
I have a feeling I know what some of that "other free stuff" just might be.
The 1st 10 callers (At one point he actually says "if you're a fast dialer") "win" these things. Mercifully, they don't do this as often as they did "text-to-win" or the "free stuff bell" previously. First it's Kent warning us that our chance to win is "coming up in just a few minutes", followed by Mimi's commercial for Smoky Mountain Jeep Rentals, then the "game" itself. He actually goes through this "suspenseful" to-do before finally giving us the number to call.

There are still the song clips sponsored by this-or-that theater, and now there's also just short clips of songs, period.

There's still the Chatting with the Stars segments. My pick of "Quote of the Segment" in the Grand Majestic Theater one is Kent saying:
"You know what, I will give up watching a guy riding an ostrich for the chance to use a knife, and a fork."

There's this promo for Tennessee Trivia where Kent says "Tennessee is a great state, and I'm proud to call it my home."

Oh yeah - They're still running the commercial for the "all-new Soul of Motown show"!

This morning, I actually texted "Great" to 545454 - which you may remember as what Kent told us to do last year to "text-to-win" - and a few seconds later, I got the following text:

You won! Get your
PRIZE at Smokies
Official Welcome
Center. Big Log cabin
on right 1 mile south
of exit 407 Address
3139 Winfield Dunn
Pkwy Kodak, TN
37764

So the old "text-to-win" system is still active, even though it's not talked-about.

I recorded Smoky Mountain Radio again on August 4th, just getting around to skimming through it starting yesterday, and what difference there is between the last time and this, I thought I'd mention them.

This time, I tried to record 24 hours (Yes, a glutton for punishment), starting at 8AM that morning. But my digital recorder only recorded (Only?!?) 23 hours, 37 minutes, and 28 seconds before it recorded another track automatically. Also, maybe it's a bug in the recorder if you keep it recording that long, but the on-off switch doesn't work now. So, I'll have to get another recorder, or go back to the VersaCorder for a while. I could've still noticed these changes within 4 hours of programming anyway.

The "Happy Spring break" commercial for the zip lines is still there, but with "Happy Spring break" cut out.

In the "Chatting with the Stars" segment for the Comedy Barn, there are these 2 differences:
1. The voice of, and all references to, Bob Nelson are cut out, leaving only Danny Devaney to chat with Kent, and
2. In the tradition of tearless onions, the talk about "tears in your eyes" is cut out.
With all the cuts, the Comedy Barn segment is now the shortest "Chatting with the Stars" segment, at 1 minute and 45 seconds.

There were no "You're having fun on Smoky Mountain Radio" promos for the Comedy Barn this go-round.

That's all the changes I noticed, but if I may, a few comments:
I'm glad all this skimming is over with now, because the "Woo-Hooooo!" in every zip line commercial was starting to drive me nuts. Not as much as the "free stuff bell" did a couple or so years ago. I think I'm still wringing that out of my ears.

The "Chatting with the Stars" segment for Smoky Mountain Jeep Rentals is hard to listen to, for all the times the poor guy wants to talk about the services available, and Kent keeping on butting in about "riding with the top down, on the strip". (Who in the world else, besides Kent Emmons, refers to Parkway in Pigeon Forge as "the strip"? Maybe somebody does, I don't know.)

And I'm just noticing something about Mimi. She always calls it "the Grrreat Smoky Mountains". Why didn't I notice that before?

And does anyone know if the Sky Bridge is still around or not? It still didn't get any mention.

No more Smoky Mountain Radio?

Was in the area today, and there was no more Smoky Mountain Radio on AM 930?