Radio AM to FM

Radio AM to FM: September 8, 2000

Reunion Planning

Former KROQ (106.7 FM) personality "The Insane" Darrell Wayne wants to hold a reunion for anyone and everyone who has ever worked at the Roq.

KROQ has a wild and sorted past, far different than the calm corporate property it has become under the ownership of Infinity Broadcasting. It has also featured more formats than most people remember, including top-40 (on the AM side), "free form" album rock, "new wave" and whatever it is called that they now play on the FM.

The station (stations, if you include the AM which is no longer co-owned) have gone through strange ownership changes, challenges and have even gone off the air during their relatively short history.

And along the way, many varied and talented personalities have working inside the studios, including Wayne, Charlie Tuna, Jimmy Rabbit, Flo and Eddie, Shadoe Stevens, Frazier Smith, and, according to Wayne, hundreds more.

Planned for February or March of next year, the event will feature a private reception for alumnus along with a public charity event with live bands and prizes. Wayne has a web site for alumnus or KROQ fans to get in touch: www.kroqreunion.com, or you can e-mail him at ddoubleu@aol.com.

Stock Scare

Some radio stocks were down last week as the industry sees ad revenue growth potential drop due to fewer dot-com firms buying time on radio and a market that has seen rates and ad time increase dramatically over the past few years ... it appears the market can no longer support station ad rate increases.

That's not good news for Clear Channel, which just completed its merger with AMFM and continues to gobble up stations where it isn't already at the legal ownership limit. Owning 900 stations makes you quite vulnerable to a radio market downturn.

News that web radio listening continues to increase isn't good news either, considering that web listening and the future subscription radio formats can have a dramatic effect on traditional radio station ratings.

Olympics

KABC (790 AM) will be the radio station of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Two weeks worth of pre-Olympics reports have already begun, and one-minute updates will run seven times a day from the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, beginning September 15th.

Burke Out

Billy Burke has left KBIG (104.3 FM) to pursue "other opportunities. His replacement, according to a KBIG spokesperson, is "Lance ... something ... he worked here before."

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