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KC 101 Radio Reunion Weekend in July 2009 for 30th anniversary?

Jack Garrett said:
Well, as part of the "people that came from State College", the idea that the entire air staff was fired is incorrect.

Rumors were flying at WAVZ/WKCI that Eastern was going to flip 101.3 to country because the company owned a country station (Z107/Hershey). Resumes were flying as happens during any takeover and some of the staff left (Curtis went to start WEBE for instance). Other staff remained on included Willie B. Goode, Peter Bush and others - although Curtis made the call to a large number of "his" staff to join him on the air in Westport. Dr. Chris and Hozay continued on at KC101 until Chris got a job WHYT (September '83 sounds about right). The mayor of Fogarea left with Chris, of course. In the meantime, Jay Stone and Tony Bonvini were hired to program the stations. Tony, who had worked at WAXY in Florida as a promotions guy didn't last long...Jay did well, but moved out West to again work with Jerry Clifton and add more stations on his multi-page resume. Somewhere in there was Loo Katz from WPGC as PD of KC101 for a short time (his idea of "four in a row" without talk didn't go over well as you could drive for 15-20 minutes and never hear the call letters mentioned). I took over as PD of WAVZ, Mike Scalzi as PD of KC101...and about that time Dr. Chris returned from the Motor City and worked a new deal as AM guy teamed up with Coach George DeMaio (a listener who won a contest to be on the air for a week and who ended up with a career). I hired Bill Beamish from out of WAVES' past as morning host on the AM and did afternoons myself.

(BTW, WAVZ was 1kw full-time, not a daytimer as someone mentioned before. Also, Kathie Foxx was the 7-10 jock, Fran Diamond did 10p-2a, Mike did overnights)

Under Eastern, the entire plant was redone from studios to towers by some of the best engineers in the business - Bill Elliott, Stan Briggs and Wynn Suitor. Three years after buying the combo for 6.5 million, they sold them for 30 million and bought stations in Rhode Island.

As to the turnover, as I explained to a former employee (and poster on this thread) yesterday, KC101 was like any medium market station - talented folk honing their skills and going for the next gig in the bigger market.

David Lawrence, far from dead, worked at ACN, simply owned the market when he was on the air in New Haven, had several coast-to-coast talk show on topics ranging from tech to whatever he felt like doing that evening and is now on Heroes as mentioned. He is doing a number of other roles (I just saw him as a Russian doctor on The Unit last week).

Jim Cutler (who came from WZOU in Boston) is now the voice guy on 1010 WINS, Fox Sports and a number of TV stations.

Ian Roberts runs a production house in CT.

Stefan (the PD who took KC101 to a 14.7 in 1989) was Billboard PD of the Year at least once and later programmed stations in Phoenix, Long Island (WBLI) and was a GM, a GSM and is a top sales guy today.


CJ

P.S. Getting back to the original topic, I was at the last reunion and *if* the station has not been reduced to a parking lot by July 2009 - would toss the headphones in the car to do it again.
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I remember it vividly as if it happened yesterday. Those stations were in a state of pell-mell from late fall of 1982 to early Spring 1984. Tony Bonvini hired me and then the revolving personnel turnstile from hell was at warp speed. I could have five fingered every Drake-Chenault Reel 2 Reel and no one would have noticed. ;D.
Very few people from the Eastern or Noble years were invited back for any reunion. The reason is the Kops crew has harbors personal animosity toward future company employees. Like they owned the call letter change. ::) ::) :D :D
 
What call letter change? WAVZ signed on in the late 40s (if I remember correctly) with an -FM at 95.1, but that was not 101.3 WKCI/Hamden. That station was originally WDEE and got sold to Daniel Kops for $50,000 in 1968 after the first owner decided that FM radio wasn't a money maker. The WKCI calls for what became a beautiful music station "Your Stereo Island" were for Kops Communications Inc.

The story goes that Curtis Hansen and Pete Salant, in their planning for moving the pop format over to FM in 1979, though about changing the call letters. The problem in 1979 is that it took weeks, if not months to get approval and they figured that the other stations would figure out what they were up to. Rather than tip their hand, they worked on keeping the calls (WKCI) and Curt actually is credited with coming up with the new moniker KC101. The actual calls were buried in the legal ID close to the top of the hour - borrowed by a number of radio stations since.

CJ
 
Jack-thanks for getting that out there. Also, I don't believe there is animosity towards all the Eastern Broadcasting people. I think there is animosity from some of each side towards some of the other side. I think that happens in any ownership and management change. When I was there, there were still some Kops people, Eastern people and then the Noble Broadcasting people. But no one said anything like, "those people" or "them." It was just about being there and winning. Trying to stay dominant. Of course, there were those with their own agendas, but that was not the overall attitude.
 
Jack Garrett said:
What call letter change? WAVZ signed on in the late 40s (if I remember correctly) with an -FM at 95.1, but that was not 101.3 WKCI/Hamden. That station was originally WDEE and got sold to Daniel Kops for $50,000 in 1968 after the first owner decided that FM radio wasn't a money maker. The WKCI calls for what became a beautiful music station "Your Stereo Island" were for Kops Communications Inc.
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No call letter changes for WAVZ or WKCI. WAVZ was orginally a daytimer at 1260, but moved to 1300 in the 50s after a Bridgeport station on that frequency went out of business.

Regarding 101.3 being sold to Kopps-monahan-Communications-Inc - actually it was just the license that was sold for $50,000. WDEE-FM never went on the air after a fire at the studio/transmitter in 1965, and its AM sister station became WCDQ (now WQUN).

WAVZ-FM was at 95.1 and WELI-FM at 92.1, according to this 1950 allocation table
http://jeff560.tripod.com/1950fm.html
 
SallysPizza said:
Jack-thanks for getting that out there. Also, I don't believe there is animosity towards all the Eastern Broadcasting people. I think there is animosity from some of each side towards some of the other side. I think that happens in any ownership and management change. When I was there, there were still some Kops people, Eastern people and then the Noble Broadcasting people. But no one said anything like, "those people" or "them." It was just about being there and winning. Trying to stay dominant. Of course, there were those with their own agendas, but that was not the overall attitude.
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If you are suggesting that it was a cumbiya party, I know some swampland off I-91 that's for sale. ::)
The fact is that the most popular and financially lucrative years for KC and AVZ were 1984-1989. About five years. Now AVZ doesn't even show up in the Arbs. Rightfully so, being that it's no more than a pc on the bird in broom closet. KC hasn't had a decent Arb book in ten years. Figure's don't lie but liars sure can fudge those figures. :D ;D
 
Video-It wasn't a "cumbiya" party as you put it, but everyone didn't walk around making the sale(s) changes their main focus. Everyone worries about their jobs when there is an ownership change and/or management change because everyone is somebody's boy/girl they brought with them or they hired, whatever. But everyone just wanted to get their job done and that was getting ratings and selling the ratings. Anyone that spent their time doing anything but that wouldn't have been able to do this. That's all. The only kind of "talking about others" was the same as any other radio station or any other job for that matter. Who is doing what or whom, who isn't pulling their weight, etc. There are always cliques wherever you work and yes, that sucks. People talk about each other and yes, that sucks too. I hate that whole thing. The only us against them was programming vs. sales and grunts vs. management. To me, that sounds like all other stations.
 
SallysPizza said:
Video-It wasn't a "cumbiya" party as you put it, but everyone didn't walk around making the sale(s) changes their main focus. Everyone worries about their jobs when there is an ownership change and/or management change because everyone is somebody's boy/girl they brought with them or they hired, whatever. But everyone just wanted to get their job done and that was getting ratings and selling the ratings. Anyone that spent their time doing anything but that wouldn't have been able to do this. That's all. The only kind of "talking about others" was the same as any other radio station or any other job for that matter. Who is doing what or whom, who isn't pulling their weight, etc. There are always cliques wherever you work and yes, that sucks. People talk about each other and yes, that sucks too. I hate that whole thing. The only us against them was programming vs. sales and grunts vs. management. To me, that sounds like all other stations.
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Very astute observations. I enjoyed my time at KC/AVZ. Ten years is nothing to sneeze at. But it was very easy to get caught up in the hoopla. I worked in radio twenty five years. New Haven, Bpt, Hartford, and Springfield.
KC was my best radio experience cause everyone knew we were a part of something special. It's great taking the elevator to the top it's a bytch heading down. Stef was a real motivator of people and believed in final results. I think every place has to have a leader. You would think it would be the GM or Ops Mgr. but in this case it was the PD.
I respected him for that. I guess a PD that is constantly quoting the late Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi is bound to be a little rough around the edges. I don't think there will ever be FM Top 40 station as all around successful as KC from 1985-1989. SR had an idea in the Summer of 1989 that KC was about to embark the best arb book ever. KC hit the ratings zenith in fall of 1989 with a 14.7 (12+ arb number in the fall of 1989. Along with several stations and a malcontent morning guy, he figured the only place this station can go now is down. And it's been taking the elevator ever since. In 1989, SR and TP told me in a closed door meeting what the secret is to getting high ratings. That is a secret I will take to the other side of the grass. ;D ;D ;D ;D Great times!
 
Man, you guys talk about ratings 20 years ago as if it is comparable to radio now...IN 2008. With all due respect, you guys sound old and totally out of touch with the challenges of radio today. Cool - let's put jingles on and do it like we used to - then we would have our huge 12+ ratings.... I am embarrassed.
 
BigMax-I'm embarrassed for you. No one is saying "do it like we used to do." Hopefully, you're not a jerk as your sentence and a half made you sound like. You obviously cannot see that we are commiserating the loss of a great radio station. We are NOT comparing it to radio today number for number. It's the quality of the numbers they lack that is sad. This is not just from us, but other PDs who know of the station and the market who are not impressed with it anymore. The station has an incredible signal and SOOOOOOO much potential, which is why its sad. There's no way, even in radio today, that this station shouldn't Top 5 12+ in New Haven, especially since it's a younger leaning Top 40. Back 10 years ago, they would have been expected to be Top 3 12+ as a Top 40, so I am cutting them some slack. It's the Clear Channel way of doing radio...hell, it's the "Wall Street" way of doing radio. Cheapen it up, don't give the stations marketing money, no research dollars, etc. Marketing money is a necessity now more than ever. They also are not paying money for programmers who understand how to manage and develop their air talent. Many PDs (not all and I am not saying KC101's current PD is either) are very young now and have not had a lot of people managing experience, but they take the jobs for less money than experienced people do. Radio can be a very delicate balance when it comes to managing staffs. Egos are far different than managing people in a non-media business. These are the things that are plaguing the industry and some of them are plaguing KC101.
 
bigmax said:
Man, you guys talk about ratings 20 years ago as if it is comparable to radio now...IN 2008. With all due respect, you guys sound old and totally out of touch with the challenges of radio today. Cool - let's put jingles on and do it like we used to - then we would have our huge 12+ ratings.... I am embarrassed.
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How about getting a decent market share in New Haven? It's not about jingles. How about more creative liners, not burying the jocks voice talking up intros. Jocks concentrating on content of talk-ups instead of shouting out some nonsensical jibberish just to hit a post in tune. etc, etc, etc. KC should be showing up no less than 3rd in any target demo. It is after all the ONLY CHR in New Haven.
 
I really don't hear the jox "screamin" up intros to hit posts.
Video" do you rellly even listen to the station?
The morning show is extremely tight as is afternoons and the jock on it the evening is one of the best night jocks I've heard in years.
What would you do better???? Please give specific examples instead of your random generic BS.
 
I find it odd that KC101's night jock Kory went to Kiss 108 in Boston, their midday jock Kerry went to PRO in Providence, their afternoon jock Jagger went to KTU in NYC (after doing part-time at Z100 while being on-air at KCI) and their current afternoon jock does weekends in NYC at Z100, and you Sally and Video are so critical of KC101. Name one other CT station that has turned out so many major market talents in the past few years. I find it hard to believe that Z100 would put a jock on the air if they didn't think they were worthy of the station and market, yet Z100 has a current KC101 jock as a weekend talent. KC101's jocks don't shout up intros, and btw Sally, last I heard they are an 'adult chr' - not young end. All of the opinions you spew off as 'fact' reveal how little you know about the station and how it is run. The ONLY CHR IN NEW HAVEN??? So there's an invisible wall around the 15 towns that make up the New Haven metro? New Haven has less than 28% in market exclusivity. To say they should be winning b/c they are the only CHR real shows how little you know about arbitron and the market in terms of competition.
 
bigmax said:
I find it odd that KC101's night jock Kory went to Kiss 108 in Boston, their midday jock Kerry went to PRO in Providence, their afternoon jock Jagger went to KTU in NYC (after doing part-time at Z100 while being on-air at KCI) and their current afternoon jock does weekends in NYC at Z100, and you Sally and Video are so critical of KC101. Name one other CT station that has turned out so many major market talents in the past few years. I find it hard to believe that Z100 would put a jock on the air if they didn't think they were worthy of the station and market, yet Z100 has a current KC101 jock as a weekend talent. KC101's jocks don't shout up intros, and btw Sally, last I heard they are an 'adult chr' - not young end. All of the opinions you spew off as 'fact' reveal how little you know about the station and how it is run. The ONLY CHR IN NEW HAVEN??? So there's an invisible wall around the 15 towns that make up the New Haven metro? New Haven has less than 28% in market exclusivity. To say they should be winning b/c they are the only CHR real shows how little you know about arbitron and the market in terms of competition.
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Not knocking the station. Just believe that KC a 50k (equivalent)should be in the top three in every targeted demo. I can't believe the corporate big wigs in San Antonio are happy with the current ranking?? Whether people want to believe it or not there is no listener loyalty anymore. The manic
button pusher won't hang around for their favorite tune to eventually be played. Too many options out there.
 
SallysPizza said:
BigMax-I'm embarrassed for you. No one is saying "do it like we used to do." Hopefully, you're not a jerk as your sentence and a half made you sound like. You obviously cannot see that we are commiserating the loss of a great radio station. We are NOT comparing it to radio today number for number. It's the quality of the numbers they lack that is sad. This is not just from us, but other PDs who know of the station and the market who are not impressed with it anymore. The station has an incredible signal and SOOOOOOO much potential, which is why its sad. There's no way, even in radio today, that this station shouldn't Top 5 12+ in New Haven, especially since it's a younger leaning Top 40.
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KC should get some ideas from a very successful Z100 in NYC. Z has been a top CHR for a long time.
 
Kc 101 makes more money than KISS and several other stations in CT
I think THATS what "corporate" looks at
 
Caliv-they are not am Adult CHR. An adult CHR would not play: Ne-Yo-Miss Independent, T.I.-Whatever you like, Miley Cyrus-See You Again, etc. I work at a MAJOR MARKET Adult CHR where we're #2 25-54 Women, our target demo, only beaten by the AC in town. I do believe I have a clue. KC101 may daypart heavily, but that doesn't mean they are an ADULT CHR. They are just a heavily dayparted CHR. Are you programming KC101? Is that why you're so ANGRY? They are the only CHR that is a NEW HAVEN CHR and should not be affected as heavily as they are by WKSS. WKSS is only strong BECAUSE of KC101's weaknesses. Check the history of the station. Are you from CT.? I am and have followed the history of both Hartford and New Haven intensely. My family still lives there and I hear what's up.
 
The only CHR in New Haven means nothing. Come on, Sally. If you are indeed the scholar of New Haven radio you say you are, then you would know that KC101 is sharing it's cume with CHRs from NYC, Hartford, Long Island, etc. Certainly someone of your major market caliber radio knowledge would understand the impact that has on a market, no?
 
I absolutely understand the signals into the market. I used to get calls from Long Island, Rhode Island and Massachusetts while I was on the air there. But the falling of KC101 in the market goes back to when Glen Beck was in mornings there, but it was only while he was the PD there. They started playing all these alternative records that had no crossover appeal while playing everything else in the Top 40, but there was a TON of alternative. It was completely unlistenable. It sounded like no one was editing the log...just hit F10 and print. This was before Star 104 changed to alternative. That started a ratings slide. They then brought in Kidd Kelly, who managed to control it a bit more, but Glen Beck still had too much control. Then he left and Tony Bristol came in and had more control over the station. He actually made the station more listenable. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but if my memory serves me correctly, the station went up. The reason I could tell that Tony had more control is that I was at the station one day, sitting in Tony's office when Glen came in and was asking Tony's permission for something he was showing him. Tony made adjustments to whatever was on the paper and Glen left. It was weird because Glen knows who I am and didn't acknowledge me sitting right there. (He and I had worked together in the past and he later interviewed me when he was PD at KC101...I turned it down.) Then Tony left and I can't remember who was PD there then...was it Kelly Nash? Kelly has a great personality and way with people. He did what he could to balance the programming and sales sides, but the sales side started winning. More and more of the sales promotions started getting on the air, as has happened at most stations in the country. Once Kelly left, it's changed. I don't think it's ever recovered from the alternative thing. That's really when KISS got a stronghold on the market. I will say that it's tough to ever win back ratings as huge as what KC101 had in a market that has so many crossover signals. It's hard to get back ratings of any kind if they have ever been allowed to slip such as that. I guess we all expect so much of KC101 and maybe we have too high of an expectation.
 
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