Lazer 105.9 Stunting With Gaga - Becomes 105.9 KISS FM at 3?

[TheRob]

I don't think they can air the game on 92.9 since it's not the contracted station. Listeners and advertising clients might not be happy either.

I don't know how the contract with KU works, but I worked for Premier Radio in Columbia when it had the contract to air Mizzou sports. When I started there, the MU games aired on KFRU and KOQL in Columbia and KLIK in Jefferson City. Because KOQL went from jammin' oldies to CHR in the middle of the football season, the MU games went to KBXR in Columbia and KLIK-FM in the Jeffro in addition to KFRU/KLIK on the AM after the conclusion of the 2001 football season.

Anyway, the occasional problem we'd have is that we would have late season and playoff Cardinal games that had to air on a Columbia licensed station per contract, and Mizzou took precedence over the Cardinals. We weren't allowed to join the Cardinals' games in progress. If we even missed the opening billboard, we had to forfeit the game. So, during important late season games, we moved the Cardinals from KFRU to KBXR, and the Mizzou games would air on KJMO 100.1 since the Cardinals contract didn't allow us to air the games on a Jefferson City licensed station while the Mizzou contract required an AM and an FM serving both Columbia and Jefferson City.

I won't say I knew enough about the contracts to know the fine print and if there was a special out for late season Cardinals' games to allow us to bump the Tigers to 100.1. However, it seems plausible that Great Plains could have a way out for airing KU basketball games somewhere other than 105.9.

Question to ask. What's the history of KOQL in Columbia? I know its CHR now. Or should this be for the Missouri board?

106.1 was the original home of KBXR.

 

[ksradiogeek]

Yeap pretty sad the Lazer died years ago but its obivous the change was needed to bring in revenue. People want Hot AC they got KZPT, KKJO and somewhat KMAJ. I stopped listening to KLZR when they flipped to Hot AC in 2003 but it served as Kansas City only Hot AC station for years. Years ago KQTP 102.9 was CHR and its signal would come in to Kansas City sometimes hardly any talk about that station. The new sound has the same image as a Clear Channel KIIS minus the big blah over Iheartradio.com. Let just pray Ryan Seacrast will stay away.

Keep in mind that Lazer has rarely, if ever, tried to be a Kansas City station, at least as a primary market. Almost 30 years ago, it moved its tower from Lawrence to Lecompton to get a better signal into Topeka. For all practical purposes, it hasn't worked. Its signal got worse in Kansas City, thus eliminating any chance it had at becoming much of a Kansas City station. Its signal is okay in most of JoCo, but you can pretty well forget getting much of a reliable signal out of it in Missouri, with the possible exceptions of the Waldo and Brookside areas.

In return, KLZR got a signal about as close to Topeka as WIBW-FM, its main competitor at the time, had, though WIBW's tower used to be west of Topeka rather than east as KLZR's was. Cementing itself into the Topeka market was a mistake as Topeka has always been a tough place to make money. WIBW AM/FM and KTPK were about the only stations to consistently make money, and WIBW-FM started dropping badly in billing after the CHR format started declining in '88 or '89. So, in '90, WIBW-FM dumped its top-40 format and became "97 Country," which eventually forced KTPK out of the top spot. Eventually, WIBW took over the operation of KTPK, which is how you have classic country there now. Anyway, going back to KLZR, the fact that it was a Lawrence station, too, helped keep it from being a total loser after the move to Lecompton. Really, the only other stations to try to make a move in Lawrence were KLZR's sister, KLWN, and KHUM/KZTO 95.7, now KCHZ, of course. I remember taking a trip to Lawrence in '01 right before I left Kansas City to have one last visit at Free State Brewing, and there was still a "96 Hum FM" label outside one of the buildings on Massachusetts St, roughly 10 years after KHUM left the air. The sign isn't there anymore, and I don't know when it finally came down.

As for Q-103, I remember it, too. Before being a top-40 station, it was "Oldies 102.9," which ran mostly satellite oldies while the top-40 format was on KWIC "Hot 99.3." Cumulus swapped formats on the two stations after buying them from Sunrise Broadcasting. I believe that happened in '98 as Cumulus bought KMAJ and KTOP/KDVV from Midland Broadcasters in '97. Ironically, KWIC, I believe, picked up ABC/SMN's hot AC format a few years after KLZR dropped it for modern rock. Cumulus decided to move the top-40 format to 102.9 and do it locally. KQTP and KWIC occasionally made it into Kansas City, but not very often. I had better luck getting both in Eudora, though KWIC was iffy there, too. Q-103 never really did very well in Topeka, which is part of why it didn't last very long. I'm thinking it went country even before Cumulus got KCHZ, which beat the pants off Q-103 in Topeka without even trying. By the way, driving along either I-70 or 470 in Topeka, there was a building with the old "Oldies 102.9" and "Hot 99.3" logos on the sign out front years after the swap and long after they vacated it.

I saw that sign too! Its along 470 on the Southeast side of Topeka, though, I only saw the "Oldies 102.9" sign from the highway.

 

[Kent]

Question to ask. What's the history of KOQL in Columbia? I know its CHR now. Or should this be for the Missouri board?

As Rob points out, it first signed on as KBXR "106.1 BXR" as a class C3 station licensed to Ashland. I don't remember exact when it signed on, but it was sometime in the mid-90's. Dave and Pat Taylor of Ashland owned it, and "BXR" was a tribute to "XRT" in Chicago.

I'm almost thinking their relationship with Premier Radio started as a rental of studio space, and Premier approached them with the idea of partnering up after the Telecommunications Act of '96 passed. I believe the second FM for Premier was KOQL 102.3, which was a new sign on a few years earlier. The sign on of "KOOL 102" caused longtime AC KARO to change its calls to KPLA because KARO was always known as "K-102." Tom Bradley, the OM at the time, suggested the call letter change because having K-102 and KOOL 102 would be too confusing.

KOQL was the first station in the country to have all of its music on hard drive. It had at least 5 disks cabled together and ran a DOS-based automation system. Anyway, BXR and KOOL 102 swapped frequencies in either late-97 or early-98 because they thought oldies was a more mass appeal format and would do better on the stronger stick since 102.3 was a class A that didn't get too far out of Columbia. The oldies format did well at first, and 106.1 increased its power, I believe, twice between the time the oldies moved there until the time I got there, when it was a class C1 operating from an antenna farm in Prairie Home.

Anyway, as the "Jammin' Oldies" craze started in the late-90's, KOOL 106.1 added a jammin' oldies block from 7 to midnight. The oldies began to tank, and it went to full-time jammin' oldies in either late 2000 or early '01. It had about two books and didn't fare too well. So, they decided to move top-40 Q-104 KJCQ to 106.1 and go full scale against then market leader KTXY "Y-107." In about a year, Y-107 was taken down and nearly changed formats. It probably would have switched other than Cumulus bought Premier, and Zimmer began to realize Y-107 could, once again, be competitive. They raided the Premier staff and have been successful ever since, though Q-106.1 is holding its own.