March 1999

Eclectic Enterprises may get KAOD/106.7 (Babbitt) on the air before the permit for this new station expires on Saturday, April 3. Late last week KAOD's application to drop antenna height from 241m to 133m and increase power from 19.8kW to 33kW was approved. (3/31/99)

Classic Country is indeed the format of the new WVAL/800 (Sauk Rapids-St. Cloud). From what's been heard so far, it's personality oriented and not satellite fed. (3/29/99)

KDDS/1490 (Duluth) is either silent or broadcasting at extremely low power. KQDS/94.9 is still mentioning KDDS in its ID. (3/27/99)

WVAL/800 (Sauk Rapids-St. Cloud) is announcing that Monday will be the first day of their new format. They're already running some promos from the new station's personalities without saying what the format will actually be. Seems like "Mixtape Radio" has been playing a lot of Classic Country lately! (3/27/99)

It's official: Red River Broadcasting is buying two more stations in the Duluth market, WWAX/92.1 and KZIO/104.3. The stations are currently owned by Tom Lijewski and Cheryl Pfeiffer through Harbor Broadcasting and Eclectic Enterprises. Red River is just now taking over KQDS/1490, KQDS/94.9, and KQDS-TV/21, and Lijewski and Pfeiffer are already managing KQDS. Ranked by Fall 1998 Arbitron 12+ ratings, ownership of commercial stations in Duluth now stacks up as: Shockley 36.8% (6 stations), Brill 24.4 (3), Red River 16.2 (4), Befera 2.6 (1), WWJC Inc. 1.3 (1). FCC records do not yet say whether the sale will include CP's held by Harbor/Eclectic in Deer River, Grand Marais, and Babbitt. The Babbitt CP expires on April 3. (3/25/99)

All Access reports that Peter Johns has taked over the Program Director position at Zone 105. (3/25/99)

KNFX/970 (Austin) has dropped Sports and Talk for Westwood One's CNN Headline News format. It's called "NewsRadio 970" and targeted at Rochester. (3/22/99)

For a few less significant observations made on a trip across southern Minnesota, click here.

Recent items from the FCC:

• The sale of WJON/WWJO/KMXK to Regent Communications has been approved.
• KDDS/1490 (Duluth) will change back to KQDS, while sister TV station KNLD/21 will become KQDS-TV. 1490 changed to KDDS a few years ago, anticipating a format change, but never stopped rebroadcasting KQDS-FM/94.9.
• Midland Associates has received an experimental permit "to test an electronic safety system which permits an emergency vehible or train to override active radios in all passenger cars in the immediate area to warn the drivers" of the vehicle's approach. The testing will take place in Lakeville on 95.9, apparently in coordination with KQCL/95.9 (Faribault), with the call letters KJ2XBV. They've also applied to test on KQCL's AM sister, KDHL/920.
• Des Moines Earlham, Inc., has joined American Family Association and MN-IA Christian Broadcasters in the pool of applicants for 90.9 in Windom. AFA currently operates a translator on that frequency in Windom.
• Blooming Prairie Farm Radio has applied to transfer control of KOWZ/100.9 from Lynn Ketelsen to John Linder. (3/21/99)

KNOW/91.1, which normally does not broadcast in stereo, has been using stereo lately during "A Prairie Home Companion." (3/21/99)

All Access: Scotty Davis is the new evening DJ at KDWB/101.3, taking over for Tone E. Fly, who now does afternoons. He's coming from KZHT in Salt Lake City and starts on April 5. (3/21/99)

KKJR/106.9 (Dassell) is called "The Flame" under it's new Hot AC format and is positioned as "Today's Music." The legal ID includes Hutchinson. (3/20/99)

Chris Conangla did his last newscast at KSTP-TV/5 on Friday (3/19). He and KSTP couldn't come to an agreement on a new contract. Conangla was hired to replace Mark Suppelsa as lead male anchor in 1992, but was demoted to the 11 a.m., 5 p.m., and 6:30 p.m. newscasts last fall. (3/20/99)

Several changes have occured in Chancellor Media's Twin Cities management. Mick Anselmo, already General Manager of KEEY/KFAN/KFXN, adds KQQL to his duties...Andy Bloom leaves his Operations Manager position at KTCZ/WRQC...Scott Fransen, formerly KTCZ Sales Director, is now KTCZ Station Manager...Shelley Malecha-Wilkes, formerly WRQC General Sales Manager, is now WRQC Station Manager...Dan Seeman is named KQQL Station Manager. (3/17/99)

DX-midAMerica reports that KKJR (Hutchinson) has turned on its CP, which involved moving from 107.1 to 106.9, upgrading to 7kW (class C3), changing city of license to Dassel, and moving the transmitter to a location south of Litchfield. The new KKJR is reportedly running a satellite Hot AC format. It's signal should be strong in Hutchinson and Litchfield, and good in Willmar. (3/17/99)

Cargill Communications is donating its Twin Cities stations, KLBB/1400 and WLOL/1470, to Minnesota Public Radio. MPR will lease the stations to MNN, a sister commercial subsidiary, and KLBB/WLOL will continue to be operated commercially along with MPR/MNN's WMNN/1330. MPR says it does not have immediate plans to change the Nostalgia/Big Band/Swing format heard on KLBB and WLOL, but MNN will be free to make changes. (3/16/99)

WVAL/800 (Sauk Rapids-St. Cloud) is on the air, stunting as "Mixtape Radio AM 800" with Mutual News on the hour (bum-bum-bum!) Scott Bryant recorded WVAL's sign-on at Midnight Sunday night (3/14) and has made it available on his website at http://members.tripod.com/~bryans01/wval.html. (3/15/99)

Beat Radio won a small victory several weeks ago when a three-judge panel reversed an earlier decision by Judge Michael J. Davis that Washington, D.C., was the best place for Beat Radio to present its case for low-power broadcasting. The FCC had argued that the Washington Court of Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction for this case. This means the hearings will be held in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota. (3/15/99)

Mid-States Broadcasting has agreed to sell six Fargo stations and two Morris stations to James Ingstad, but the FCC is going to give extra scrutiny to the sale of the Fargo stations. That's because Ingstad would have some interest in all but one of the stations in the Fargo market after the sale. Currently, Ingstad owns three stations, James and Thomas Ingstad jointly own two stations, Mid-States owns six, and Forum Communications owns one. This is what the FCC said:

"Based on our initial analysis of this application and other publicly available information, including advertising revenue share data from the BIA database, the Commission intends to conduct additional analysis of the ownership concentration in the relevant market. This analysis is undertaken pursuant to the commission's obligation under section 310(d) of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. section 310(d), to grant an application to transfer or assign a broadcast license or permit only if so doing serves the public interest, convenience and necessity. We request that anyone interested in filing a response to this notice specifically address the issue of concentration and its effect on competition and diversity in the broadcast markets at issue." (3/13/99)

All Access: John Lassman isn't Zone 105's Program Director anymore. (3/13/99)

Turi Ryder is back at KSTP/1500 - temporarily. She's filling Tommy Mischke's 8-10 p.m. slot while he's out for an extended period. Ryder did afternoon drive and later early evenings at KSTP in the early `90s. (3/13/99)

KVSC's response to Governor Ventura's proposed cut in funding for public broadcasting can be found here.

Shelly Carr will leave Kool 101.7 (KLDJ Duluth) at the end of the week to move closer to her family. She's been doing middays at the Oldies station since last summer. (3/9/99)

At 5 p.m. Saturday (3/6), WWAX Hermantown-Duluth stopped calling itself "The New Kiss 92.1". Listeners have been complaining for some time that Kiss isn't "new" since they've been on the air since March 1997. The station's new slogan is now "92.1 Kiss FM." (3/6/99)

WWLC/104.9 (Balsam Lake) is back on the air with an Adult Contemporary format. "Star 104.9" has some live DJ's, and carries ABC's "StarStation" format at other times. They also run ABC news on the hour and read some regional news headlines during local programming. The choice of "Star" is perplexing, since WAQE-FM/97.7 (Rice Lake) has used the name "Star 97.7" for several years and Rice Lake in WWLC's primary coverage area. WWLC had signed on in 1997 with a Country format, but was sold to Casey Communications last August and went silent. (3/6/99)

KARE 11 has begun using a "Weather Window" during its Saturday morning news program (and possibly weekday mornings as well) to give two-day forecasts for locations across the state. It runs throughout the broadcast in the lower right corner of the screen and includes sky conditions and projected highs. Alexandria, Bemidji, Brainerd, Duluth, Fargo, Mankato, Marshall, Menomonie, "metro," Owatonna, Rice Lake, Rochester, Walker, and Willmar are included (Duluth and Fargo are out of KARE's coverage area and are probably provided for travelers). (3/6/99)

KBJR/6 (NBC in the Duluth market) is receiving some flak from other media for running a promo that may twist the facts about how their news operation works. The "9:06 a.m. promo," produced by H.T. Klatzky & Associates, shows a news meeting supposedly occuring at 9:06 a.m., with 10 p.m. anchors Mark Mallory and Michelle Lee present. Trouble is, 10 p.m. anchors aren't usually around at 9 a.m. (3/5/99)

All Access says that KDWB has filled its Music Director slot with Derek Moran, who is currently Program Director at KKLS/104.7 (Sioux Falls). (3/5/99)

Duluth's Rock stations are making changes in preparation for the Spring Arbitrons:

• KRBR/102.5 has dropped the "New" from its name and is now "Rock 102.5 - The Bear." The music doesn't appear to have changed, still consisting of Modern Rock and some Classic Rock, leaning towards the heavy side. KRBR unseated KQDS/94.9 last fall to become the number one Rock station in Duluth (12+).
• KQDS has cut back on the amount of Modern Rock it plays, and is now mostly Classic Rock.
• Z-Rock 107-7 (KUSZ) has added "true blues" to its Classic Rock format. Z-Rock is the number three Rock station in the market, while KUMD (which plays a lot of Blues) is the number one Public Radio station in the market. (3/1/99)