KJET has been doing that for months before the tower move. nothing filed with fcc to sell.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
The real KJET Moving in - 105.7
- Thread starter bossbill
- Start date
One does not makes such moves without a motive. Jodesha Broadcasting is not a non-profit organization. Wakey wakey, guys.
CBU-2 88.1 97,600 watts @ 605.8 meters HAAT
CBU 105.7 95,800 watts @ 610.1 meters HAAT
Both Class C and functionally the same amount of power. Same tower as well.
CBU 105.7 95,800 watts @ 610.1 meters HAAT
Both Class C and functionally the same amount of power. Same tower as well.
I can hear the 690 up here in Alaska some nights. I heard the CBC repeater in Victoria when i was in Wyoming 2 years ago
On top of all that, they were very well-programmed. I still miss that station today, in a way. It was the sound of an era. When I interned at KZOK for a couple months I was able to make a cassette tape of some of the hits KJET played, from their original sources. Years later I made a CD of it, which I still play from time to time. Wire Train, Visage, Captain Sensible, Pete Shelley, XTC, Juluka.
One 'problem' with KCMU (if you could actually call it that) was they would avoid such artists as being 'not alternative enough.' It was their thing, but sort of sucked. KCMU served their purpose as well, I guess. And they survived, whereas KJET didn't, so there's that.
But KCMU had the one-up of being a public station. Where format changes are rare and typically more complicated. With a pretty well established reputation in the local alternative press (The Rocket, The Stranger) which grew with KCMU's constant free mentions in their pages over time. After the 1986 power bump to 404 watts and move to 90.3, KCMU was having it's own internal clashes. DJs wanted more punk/hip-hop and metal, management wanted more world/roots music. The crisis came to a head in 1993 with the C.U.R.S.E. revolt. It did have some temporary effect. But by this time, it was patently clear things had irrevocably changed everywhere around them and KCMU was never going to be the same again.
In 2000, Paul Allen dropped a ton of cash on KCMU. And then things really began to change.
KZOK management on the other hand wasn't too happy about the riff-raff of their AM side (not quite whatever the yuppie programmers back then deemed as "Quality Rock"...Speaking of that, whatever happened to John Parr?) and they really wanted to get rid of it. But no one was in the market for a low rated AM rock station with a spotty daytime signal.
So knowing it wasn't going anywhere and it would be more expensive to change it than to leave it, they gave KJET a small operating budget and tolerated it like an underachieving, ne'er-do-well stepchild. The ad rates on KJET were low enough for local indie record shops/chains, nightclubs, local record labels, skateboard, stereo and head shops. And in that way, KJET helped, perhaps even instrumentally, in bringing Seattle rock to the forefront because it tied everything cohesively together as a community.
But the ad rates weren't high enough to pay for salaries, basic operations, promotions costs, a 24 hour 5,000 watt transmitter, Kitsap County property taxes, music licensing and the usual FCCing crap. And at a time when single major market FM radio stations were selling for unbelievable amounts (even in 1988 dollars), SRO was probably deciding it was time to cash it all in.
So what you're saying is: Even back in the day SRO wasn't allowing radio to be done just for fun? Imagine that.
Interesting take on KJET. Being merely a KJET listener, I wasn't yet aware of the financial side and corporate-politics side of what KJET was dealing with. But I was at KCMU when the changes happened, and have a bit more understanding of what went on there.
And it's true, that at KCMU lot of the DJs were more into the alternative and punk rock scene than some of the other musics, but most were into everything that was played at the station. They had open minds about music in general. Nearly all of them were into the local bands that became known as 'grunge'. That was one scene practically all of the KCMU staff shared in interest.
It's true that the management at the time was pushing the 'variety' side of the format. But the biggest change wasn't so much the push for World music and variety, as most of the DJs I knew there were fine with that. It was the cutting of the shifts. Suddenly the incentive was taken away for the KCMU volunteer, as well as some DJ-wannabe to put in some work in one of the less glamorous departments. This hurt some of those department directors, who had to try to keep volunteers happy -- people who were volunteering hours of their time a week in thankless tasks, with suddenly no DJ shifts available as a possible reward for their efforts -- a much lower chance to get on the radio.
To some of the staff, the cutting of number of airshifts (and some other changes) made it look as if the management of KCMU were trying to turn it into KUOW Junior, instead of letting it thrive as the alt-variety-punk-grunge station it was already. I think the actual management goal was somewhere in-between. They probably didn't communicate it well, or if they did, the message wasn't being heard clearly enough. But the reduction in airshifts didn't help the lines of communication any.
CURSE really didn't have much of an affect. But CURSE publicized the problem, especially to the local alt-rock community who were connected to KCMU, and there were a considerable number of them, as many of the airstaff were associated directly with local bands and other local music scene operations.
After I left in 1991 I didn't keep track of much of what was going on at KCMU. Too much else going on in life... But it was an interesting ride, that's for certain.
That's true. There was talk of UW trying to take it completely over and make it a side dish of something to KUOW. And the management/volunteers certainly did not communicate well. One alleged memo called the status quo KCMU music (grunge) "harsh and abrasive". Add that to the volunteer issue and the volunteer connection to bands and listeners, you've got a major PR problem.
As I said, CURSE*'s effect was only temporary. And modest because by the mid 1990s, the music KCMU was playing before CURSE; Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, et al, was now the backbone of KNDD and even KISW's format then. Even KUBE was playing Sonic Youth in 1994. And everything in Alternative and Indie had completely changed.
*In full disclosure, I knew some KCMU volunteers and bands around that time who were affected by the changes. From their perspective, KCMU was undergoing a flat-out, hostile take-over, which really blew up in 1993 when KCMU added The World Cafe to their 9-Noon weekday schedule. To them, it was confirmation of the worst; That it was all being replaced by outside public radio programming on top of being run by a suspiciously larger, paid staff. The most noticeable effect of CURSE was it did get The World Cafe bumped off.
Actually, in a sense, KCMU was KUOW Junior because the KCMU GM answered to the guy at KUOW. In a way, that was positive, as at least KCMU had a guaranteed revenue source, but in a way, it was bad, because KCMU's history of being a community radio station was being slowly pried away and replaced with a version of the NPR model. And the 'community' wasn't really happy about that. They felt that something they helped build was being wrecked.
As for grunge being considered 'abrasive', that must have been well after I left, because even with the alternative-variety format, much of the music played on KCMU -- Black Flag, Sugarcubes, Zoviet France, Accused, Blistering Moments, Skinny Puppy, etc. -- was quite popular among most of the staff, as well as listeners. The GM when I was there liked most of it, from what I could ascertain. Most of the staff I interacted with were cool with the world music and reggae being included.
Point taken on the whole change in the alternative and indie universe after Nirvana hit it big in September 1991. That undoubtedly changed everything. When 'alternative' is now hit music, what's really alternative to that?
And if they indeed replaced the 9-noon slot with an external program like 'World Cafe', it wouldn't surprise me. The last year I was at KCMU the number of airshifts was reduced by more than 50%. There was a chalkboard on one wall with the colorfully presented schedule of air shifts. When I first got on the staff, there were maybe 20-30 of them (? --going by memory here), with some repeats but not many. By the time I left, there were many all-week shifts -- in other words, the same morning person all week, the same afternoon person all week, the same midday person all week, where each weekday timeslot was reduced by four or five DJ's.
Some of the airstaff really cared about the station, and showed it. Many brought their own records in to play on their shifts, and I think some of them even donated some LPs to the station because they believed in the music and the station that much. They were really angry and hurt about proposed changes at a couple meetings, even when I was there.
What's weird is this this convo here is probably the most you can find about KCMU on the internet. It's really strange that the station that actually launched grunge -- that first played Nirvana -- isn't even granted much space on KEXP's website. Whatever is there about KCMU during its heyday is presented on the KEXP site as an afterthought. I remember playing Nirvana during my shift when it was on cart, taken from the 45 (probably dubbed from the ancient rumblemaster turntable in the newsroom) -- Love Buzz. Same thing with MLB's Mindshaker Meltdown (their first single). The staff were all rabid fans of Soundgarden when they were still a local band. Local bands like Coffin Break would come in and be interviewed on air. Most DJ's included a local band once or twice in their shift. In fact, playing music by local bands was encouraged. And callers would request local music, too.
Sad that it's all gone. I mean KEXP is still around, but it's not the same thing. Not the same vibe.
Disappointing to read all this about KCMU. I did time there while in the Comm program @ UW (it is really being VERY generous to refer to the broadcast classes as a 'program' -- their Comm program was really about "the Daily" and the advertising classes). But my attitude then AND now is that these stations (KASB, KMIH, KCMU, KAOS, Bates, etc.) are all there for TRAINING purposes, not to override the whole signal with a market-competition strategy. Sure, a station needs to pick a format; but overall the charter is to give students a place a develop confidence -- not ratings dominance. Seems like that mission is long-lost.
It's local and, in a sense, national radio history. I played the cart with Nirvana's local single. About a year and a half later, they were the biggest band in rock music. We all talk about the glory days of KJR, but KCMU also has its place, although that seems to not be as well know. Probably because it had a very small audience. After all, it was just a 400 watt community FM station.
Was just establishing that we're talking about something that was four decades ago. No knock about discussing history for sure, but a lot of posts on this board continue to compare the past with the present like whatever changes happened last month, not decades ago.
- Status