What makes a radio station important?
One of the disagreements I have with Wikipedia is that the Radio Project took the position that every radio station has “notability” because it has an FCC license. That’s just not true. While most radio stations have a few people who care about them, most radio stations have never done anything of interest to a national or global audience. Wikipedia is not a director or so their rules say. Wikipedia’s radio station listings are 95% generated by a script from existing databases and contain no research, and are now poorly maintained because the sheer volume of changes each day. “Everything is notable” is the same as saying “Nothing is notable”.
KOA-AM is definitely notable. It’s one of the original AM clear channel 50,000 radio stations located in Denver. The 3 letter call sign tells you it was one of the first radio stations in the country. Once the sun sets, it can be heard from the Rocky Mountains all the way across middle America and all the way to the East Coast if you’re a DXer.
KOA was built by General Electric during the dawn of the radio era and began broadcasting in 1924, 10 years before the FCC was created. KOA was one of the cornerstones of the early NBC Red and Blue networks. In 1952, the station was sold to a local company that was starting a TV station – KOA-TV – in 1968, the radio and TV stations were sold back to G.E. which they again owned until 1983.
Alan Berg worked for KOA. Long John Nebel’s program was carried on KOA giving it close to national reach just from the one station (Nebel was the guy who laid down the prototype for overnight radio on the Mutual radio network – he was followed by Larry King and then Coast to Coast). More recently, KOA was the flagship for Tom Martino (the Trouble Shooter) and Ken Hamblin (where is he now?).
KOA was acquired by Jacor in 1996 as part of the “Land Rush” following deregulation in 1996 and is now owned by Clear Channel. The station has stood out as one of the few in the country that was still doing a live overnight radio show and a lot of local programming.
Rick Barber has been doing overnights for 30 years – essentially since Larry King left radio after having his heart attack. Barber just did his last show on KOA – Jon Caldera who was on just before him is also gone. Now KOA is just one more of the 100s of stations carrying Coast to Coast every night – 7 hours of it.
KOA still does 14 hrs a day of local programming – Rush is the only of the Premiere shows they carry – but another thoughtful voice in radio has just faded into the background of the nonsense of overnight radio.
Art : I was just thinking the other day about our old radio station that was around since 1921 I believe. I think its still in operation to this day. A friend of mine, was an engineer at the station . and we used to go out to the station late at night and visit with the DJ that worked from 10pm to 5am as I recall. and I remembe the old wooden antennas that were painted red and white. I think the station has moved since then but I believe the old building is still there. KWG 1230 AM in Stockon Ca
Speaking of AM radio that has long since faded, does anyone else remember listening to a “Trivia Show” on KMOX (St Louis) in the 1970’s and 80’s? As best I can remember the show began around 11 pm or midnight eastern time. There were two (maybe 3?) hosts and they would take trivia questions of all sorts (i.e. ‘what actor played the sidekick of the Lone Ranger on the 1930’s radio show?’ OR ‘who was the third baseman for the 1927 Cardinals?”). The show was usually a fun, anything goes format and the hosts actually KNEW things (back in the pre-google age when such questions could not be answered with a few mouse clicks).
I cannot remember the exact name of the show nor the names of the hosts. Anyone here know?
Let me Google that!
I heard Bing used as a verb the first time the other day.
Caldara was on the O’Reilly TV show recently but wasn’t identified as a talk show host, as such folks usually are, so maybe this is the reason. Nonetheless, Caldara will get a weekend show on a sister station, and he and Barber will do fill-ins at KOA, according to the station’s web site.
(I know it’s a legendary call sign but I can’t help thinking ‘Kampgrounds of America’ every time I see those letters!)