Airwaves: December 8, 2006
Parr for the Course
Country 540 and 1260 AM announced late last week that former KZLA jock Shawn
Parr will join the new country simulcast beginning January 8th.
The story was broken by Don Barrett's laradio.com, which sent a bulletin
to subscribers, including Parr. "I signed a contract at 4 o'clock on Friday," Parr
told Barrett over the weekend. "When I got home there was your email bulletin
and 40 other emails that said congratulations!"
Parr was most recently the midday jock on KZLA (now KMVN, 93.9 FM); prior
to that he worked worked mornings on the former country station. His local debut
came on the old KIKF (now KMXN, 94.3 FM) back in 1988. He is also a voiceover
talent for radio and television productions including, of course, the Academy
of Country Music Awards.
Parr will join a few other friends from KZLA when he gets to his new station: Whitney
Allen, Brian Douglas, Tonya Campos and Paul Freeman are already there. Gary
Owens, from the standards format formerly heard on 540 and 1260, will do
a weekend shift -- 3-6 PM Saturdays and Sundays.
Now again ... if they can just do something about that awful signal.
No Standards
The sad news is that there is no longer a standards format in town. And unlike
country music, which can be picked up in much of the South Bay on K-FROG (95.1
FM) out of San Bernardino, there is no alternative for standards.
Unless you have access to the internet. Then you have numerous choices. www.martiniinthemorning.com,
brought to you by former Fabulous 570/690 programmer Brad Chambers is
one of my favorites. Others include www.thefabulousstrip.com, www.kjul1047.com --
the netcast of KJUL/Las Vegas -- and many more that you can find by a
little searching. I expected to find a standards listing on iTunes, available
for PCs and Macs, but alas, there are no standards on iTunes radio. And don't
forget -- many cable and satellite television companies offer standards as part
of their digital audio service.
On the road you'll have to go it alone: tapes, CDs, iPods or satellite radio.
Would You Believe ...
The FCC released a report of the number of licensed broadcast stations in the
United States. Would you believe that there are over 14,000 radio stations?
14,539 to be exact, as of September 30th. That's 4,751 AM, 6,252 commercial FM,
2,790 noncommercial/educational FM, and 746 low-power FM stations.
All told, between radio and television transmitters, translators and boosters,
there are 27,654 broadcast stations in the US.
And still, there's nothing on ...
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Copyright © 2006 Richard Wagoner and The Copley Press.
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