Salt Lake City has long been a competitive Rock radio market, and things recently got a little more crowded with the addition of a new Active Rock station in town – KZZQ. To be clear, we should point out that KZZQ isn’t actually a new station. It is “The Blaze,” the station formerly known as KHTB, which now occupies a new frequency at 97.5 along with its new call letters. The Blaze is still programmed by PD Kayvon Motiee and APD/MD Roger Orton. The new kid on the block is actually Citadel’s KHTB, another Active Rocker which now occupies the 94.9 frequency. Confused? So were we. But thankfully, Roger and Kayvon were able to break it down for us.
eQB presents excerpts from the October FMQB magazine.
On why they were forced to flip call letters and frequencies…(Kayvon): As far as we can tell, we had a former owner who didn’t pay his bills. He lost the radio station, and others that he owned, to a group of investors. He didn’t own the intellectual property anymore, but he did still own the frequency and call letters. To get out from under the debt, he unloaded that frequency (94.9) and our old call letters (KHTB) to Citadel. We found out the first Wednesday of August that Citadel was taking our frequency and call letters and we couldn’t tell anybody about it. Normally when something like this goes down, you have a lot of lead time to tell the audience that you’re moving. But this deal specified that we could not say a word on air about anything.
On the marketing efforts to educate listeners about the switch… (Roger): We knew we couldn’t go on the air and tell anybody we were moving. So we had about a week, and we needed to make sure that when we moved, the only way people were going to know that we moved is if we could tell them after the fact. We were operating under the assumption that the second we moved, Citadel was going to put a radio station on our old frequency that sounds exactly like us. So we had to be able to contact as many people as possible once the move was made. We built up the Blaze Army [frequent listener club] as much as we could.
On what kind of adjustments they’re making now that there’s another active rocker in the market… (Kayvon): Zero. Our biggest thing is to maintain whatever success we had on the old frequency. We were starting to see people really respond to what we were doing. Because there’s another station in the market, I want to keep everything exactly the same and keep doing things that made us successful. I would rather not flinch in this situation and say, “We have to tighten the playlist because we’re on a new frequency.” People have come to expect a certain thing from The Blaze and I want to keep that going.
On how this changes the game of Salt Lake City Rock radio… (Kayvon): It’s always tough when you have this much competition. This market was tough to begin with, but now you throw in a direct competitor that’s playing the same music and imaging, and it’s not ideal. But I have a lot of faith in what we do, and when you lead, you win. And we’re going to continue to lead.
** QB Content by Mandy Feingold **
| Also in the October Issue: |
|
Bob And Tom Head To TV
Every morning since 1983, Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold have signed on to their flagship station,WFBQ/Indianapolis, and delivered the wildly popular Bob & Tom Show. The morning show became syndicated in 1995, and is now on in more than 150 markets in 40 states. The duo recently renewed their long-term contract with Premiere Radio Networks, and furthermore, they have added a nightly television show to their repertoire. The Bob & Tom Show – the television version – will begin airing onWGN America starting November 3. With this new deal in place, FMQB spoke to Bob & Tom about tackling a new frontier. |
