perzephone | Death of Radio

I know I have lived in this town for far too long. Four of my favorite radio stations are no more. First was the AM radio station, The Krusher. Hard rock all day & night with no commercials. Next to go was The Edge, 80's New Wave & Punk, plus modern alternative. It died shortly before we went to Louisiana. Their last night on the air I had a long & lively argument with the dj about whether or not Men Without Hats had done a song called Pop Goes the World. The only one most people know is Safety Dance (you can dance, you can dance, everybody look at your hands...), but I distinctly remember seeing the Pop Goes the World video on MTV. KUNV, UNLV's radio station, is still on the air, but they changed their format from a free-form vision of really great music & talk radio to all jazz, all the time about 5 years ago.

Over the past couple of days, 96.3, KKLZ ("where the LZ stands for Led Zeppelin") has changed from classic rock to oldies. I'm talking like, 50's & early to mid-60's stuff like Hang On, Sloopy and early, early pre-Motown R&B. Where am I going to get my Zeppelin fix now? They were one of the only radio stations left that understood that if they played Heartbreaker, it had to be followed immediately by Livin' Lovin' Maid. Who will put the rock in Rocktober now? Who will put the Led Zeppelin in Zeptember?

Gods, I feel so old!

Threaded | Flat

KKLZ had been dying a slow death for sometime and was doing little to recesitate itself.When Kahuna & Co. tried the Friday morning obscure rock format many people came up with dozens of bands with great music (Cactus,MC5,Savoy Brown,Wishbone Ash,It's A Beautiful Day,etc) that the station never played.I personally loaned them about 20 albums with artist like Baker Gurtvitz Army and early Atlanta Rythm Section.We begged them to expand their playlist instead of the same groups and songs over and over again.At one point KKLZ was playing Van Halen 10 times a day.Those of us with more sophisticated taste left for other alternatives like satellite and internet radio and the station finally collapsed in on itself.

Hi there. I am a manager in the sales department for KKLZ and wanted to participate in your dialogue. KKLZ had been doing some form of rock for 21 years. Unfortunately, the radio station was getting beat handily in the rock arena ratings by 1) KOMP, 2) KKJJ (Jack)and off/on by 3) The Point. Most advertisers are not buying more than 1 or 2 rock radio stations unless they are a gentlemen's club or an advertiser of that ilk, so at the end of the day, "no ticky no laundry". We've got payroll to make and bills to pay. I personally prefer the music we were playing as a Classic Rock format, but the songs are accessible on three other radio stations all day long. With this new format, KKLZ is playing exclusive music that is unavailable on terresteral radio. I'm not trying to sell you on the decision to change the format. However I thought you might want to know the method to the madness. If you know anyone who likes that kind of music (60s & 70s POP), please invite them to listen. I need the job.

Mark

Death of Radio

Death of KKLZ

Re: Death of KKLZ

KKLZ's change to "Classic Hits"

Re: KKLZ's change to "Classic Hits"