Sean Prince and his Sunny 107.9

I was going through the latest comments on my blog and I was intrigued to find a commercial pop radio station trying to spam me.

The spam reads like this:

"Being an ardent fan of Pop and Adult Contemporary music, Sunny 107.9 is always my first choice for non-stop entertainment. Whether in my car or at home I’m always tuned in and kept entertained by the stations great music....."

"Adult Contemporary music" Three words that strike instant terror into most active, fun loving people.

The person who sent this was someone by the name of Sean Prince. And from his copy (and it is copy....)

....this radio station was enough to completely change his, Sean Prince's very own life around. So much so, he has to tell every pop culture blog on Blogspot about it.

Forget sobriety, religion, marriage, kids or any other life changing things that happen to the rest of us. Forget the dizzying selection of entertainment options at our fingertips here in 2014. In his car or at home, for Sean Prince, it was an Adult Contemporary radio station that finally completed him.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for Sean Prince and we all wish him all the best for whatever makes him happy.

We just feel sorry for his girlfriend ("Honey, PLEASE turn off the radio....It's ruining The Moment.....") Or his boss ("Hey Sean....We notice you've been looking pale and unproductive lately. We also notice you've been coming in late out of your car during breaks. And we wish you wouldn't mess with the radio in the office and turning it off the thrash metal station we normally listen to here at work.....So if you'll kindly pee in this cup and give it to our lady from HR with the latex gloves ....")

But regardless, I'm a sport about these things. And if Sunny 107.9's better mix of Sara Bareilles/Katy Perry/Lorde hits is even better than that other radio station's crummy mix of Sara Bareilles/Katy Perry/Lorde hits, I'll take the challenge.

So I listened for a few hours.

Sunny 107.9 is pretty much your typical Adult Contemporary radio station of today, with a carefully researched playlist and programmed for your typical suburban soccer mom who grew up with '80s and '90s pop hits. But doesn't want to appear like some throwback to her kids or their friends (until she reminisces about Milli Vanilli. Or New Kids On The Block.)

There is an "'80s At 8" hour on weekday nights. Oh goodie! Every burnt-to-a- crisp '80s song millions of us already have on our iPods, in our CD collections or branded permanently into our brains being played back to us! Ahhh....Memories!

But this of course isn't your AVERAGE '80s music hour. What? No Metallica, Suicidal Tendencies, S.O.D. or Sigue Sigue Sputnik....WHAT kind of '80s hour is THIS? Even Seattle's Star 101.5 gave in and played the ULTIMATE '80s song, "Eighties" Killing Joke? Where's the Dead Kennedys?

And then it's back to Bruno Mars, Jewel, Faith Hill, Uncle Kracker, etc. on 107.9 MHz somewhere.

Sunny 107.9 is in my opinion, actually a good station. It tries it's best, as a independent, locally owned commercial FM radio station. But by playing the same songs and the format as all the corporate conglomerate Four C's stations do (Clear Channel/CBS/Cumulus stations), how does this station actually STAND OUT?

Please Sean, if you want to thrill us (and I know you're trying.) DO NOT DO IT WITH A FUCKING RADIO STATION CALLED "SUNNY (Insert FM Frequency Here)" Because THEY ALL SOUND THE SAME.

Thank you......  

Seattle's KJET AM 1600

On Memorial Day 1982, Seattle woke up to a pretty AWESOME new radio station.

At Midnight, May 30, 1982, KZOK-AM, a '70s pop station called "Solid Gold 16" dropped it's tired format and became KJET 1600. They signed on the air for the very first time with "I Love Rock N' Roll" Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

And yes, this was on the AM radio band. The one your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle gets off on these days.

Actually, the correct frequency of KJET was 1590 kHz on the AM band and not 1600, but this was back in the days when digital tuning radios were brand new, very rare and VERY expensive. So most radio stations at that time identified with the next closest number on the analog dial - preferably one that was actually visible on an analog tuning radio dial, such as 1600 in KJET's case. For example, a station on 106.9 MHz would call it's frequency "FM 107" or a station on 92.5, just  "92", "92 FM", etc

KJET specialized in a format that was defined as "New Wave" then, the precursor to Alternative. On that day (which I remember well, I was listening and became HOOKED on this station) you heard The Police, Missing Persons, The Go-Gos, The Clash, Thompson Twins, Joan Jett, Soft Cell, Roxy Music, Devo, Joe Jackson, Human League, The Motels, Jules & The Polar Bears and many other acts of the time on KJET in 1982.


They added more different and increasingly diverse acts to their format over time and plenty of local rock and even some of the earliest Seattle grunge. KJET also introduced Seattle to R.E.M., Kate Bush, Bauhaus, Camper Van Beethoven, 54-40, The Cocteau Twins, Lloyd Cole, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Nina Hagen, Robyn Hitchcock, Siouxsie & The Banshees and countless other alternative rock acts.

Photo: 10 Things 'Zine

KJET also aired nightly live concerts, album features, hard to find imports and local independent rock programming. KJET was also a frequent sponsor of many live concerts.

Inages: KJET Seattle Facebook

Airplay on KJET was just as important as L.A's  KROQ and KITS in San Fransisco for many alternative bands.

Yet sadly, KJET was treated like the bratty stepchild of FM Classic Rocker KZOK and KZOK's then-owners really never liked it from the beginning. But there was really nothing else they could do with it. No other broadcaster wanted to buy the station then because of 1590's spotty daytime signal and they knew it would cost more money to flip it in the long run than stay the course.

KJET, for all it's warts and underachieving ratings (the typical KJET listener wasn't in the demographic ballpark of Arbitron anyway) did have quite a number of dedicated listeners and it was very influential (members of Soundgarden. Mudhoney and Pearl Jam were listeners.)

Image: Pinterest

It's nighttime signal also could be picked up in Eastern Washington and as far north as Alaska, where there were no local alternative rock stations in those areas until the '90s, KJET was there in the '80s, if only via a ghosty, uneven skywave and only after dark. In those areas, KJET was a virtual lifeline for fans of alternative rock. One guy in Spokane once told me how he couldn't wait for night to come so he could listen to his favourite music on KJET. In the pre-internet era, you took what you could get.

Image: Crosscut

Surprisingly, KJET was also automated much of the time and DJs recorded their voice tracks on one tape and the music on another. Sometimes the automation would get out of synch and you heard jocks back announcing songs that didn't come up until later in the playlist!

Yes, it was AM, yes it was scrappy. But it was ours.

KJET wasn't Seattle's first alternative rock station. That distinction belongs to KZAM-AM 1540 (yes, AM again) out of Bellevue, which was "The Rock Of The '80s...Broadcasting In Modern Mono" and they lasted from 1979 to 1981 when it flipped to Smooth Jazz as KJZZ.

Image: KZAM MySpace page

But KJET was the only source of alternative rock for most of the '80s in spite of very worthy FM competition from KYYX-FM 96.5 from 1982 until 1984.

KJET outlived them. But not for long.

(Bob Powers epitomized the attitude and look of radio station managers in the late 1980s.)

KJET lasted 6 years and was suddenly dropped in preparation for a sale of KZOK/KJET in September 1988 in favor of a '50s-'60s oldies format called KQUL or "Kool Oldies" in the hopes of gaining bigger ratings and more AM friendly older listeners. It's last song was "We're Through Being Cool" Devo.

The oldies format was a disaster and in spite of the outcry of thousands of Seattle rock fans, KJET was officially dead and KJET's corporate owners were not bringing it back.

It was three cold years before a new alternative rock station called The End 107.7 signed on in 1991.

AM 1590 was later Seattle's affiliate of the hair metal Z-Rock radio network (as KZOK-AM again) in early 1990 after realizing almost NOBODY was listening to the oldies format and returned to breaking in many local (but grunge rock/thrash metal) acts in the daytime hours and regained some small ratings (1.6), though nowhere near as much as KJET had at it's peak (3.7).

Image: Radio Sticker of The Day

At night and on weekends they returned to the Z-Rock network until October 1993 when Z-Rock dropped all their AM affiliates to go FM only and KZOK decided to sell their AM station.

It simulcasted it's Classic Rock FM sister station KZOK-FM for a year until it was finally sold to a corporate religious broadcaster in 1994, where 1590 AM languishes today as KLFE, another amplitude modulating mouthpiece of the lunatic fringe (or the station your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle is listening to these days.)

Today, the KJET call letters reside at an FM pop station in Aberdeen, WA that has no connection with the original Seattle AM station.

But KJET still has a huge fanbase on the web, who have created tribute sites to this little imperfect, but EXTREMELY influential AM radio station.

Here are a few links to KJET's tribute sites:

KJET 1600 Black Box (Online tribute station with original KJET promos and sweepers)
KJET's Facebook Page
Crosscut article on KJET
10 Things 'Zine: KJET
KJET on Twitter

"Took The Last Train" David Gates (1978)

It happened sometimes on a lonely stretch of highway in Eastern Washington State.....Well, hell, Anywhere in the sticks of America back in the early 1980s. You'd grumble through how the then sparse FM radio dial tuning knob was back then and suddenly, somewhere, THIS song comes over some random soft rock FM frequency.....

And all you remember is you heard this song somewhere before. But you just can't remember WHO that what's-his-butt was who sang it was....

Yes, it's David Gates. The "If A Face Can Sink A Thousand Ships (Or as whatever we used to joke around it as)" David Gates. The same guy who we will always associate with the eternally sleepy sounding '70s pop group Bread. It was his first solo hit.

If you remember radio from back in the day, just play the whole song and see if the familiarity bug doesn't bite...

April 8, 1994

It was another ordinary Tuesday morning, not unlike this one in Seattle....

I had just woken up to my phone ringing. "Hello?"

"Looks like Kurt Cobain just found Nirvana" my sister giggled into the phone, paraphrasing a wisecrack Kevin Nealon made a few weeks earlier on the Weekend Update segment of a Saturday Night Live episode a few weeks earlier after his suicide by overdose attempt in Rome. ("...and finally, Kurt Cobain almost reached nirvana".....)

"What?"

"Haven't you heard? They said they found a body at his house and he's been trying to kill himself. Turn on the TV."

I turned it on and KING-5 had an image through a TV camera crew on a chopper flying over the Cobain property in the Leschi neighbourhood of Seattle. And my heart sank, as those of millions around the world. Even though his body had been in that loft above the carriage house on his property undiscovered for three days, it was 20 years ago today we heard the awful news.

For the next few days, it seemed like everyone was in a daze. It was in a way like deja vu. It reminded me a lot of how it looked after John Lennon was assassinated. Many were just speechless. And while some were quick to disregard Nirvana as just another dubiously talented garage rock band that somehow got lucky, they were often older people in their insular, status quo world of classic rock oldies who were oblivious to the fact that the whole world of rock had changed in just the past three years. Or who spearheaded that change. Something they should have been acknowledging with all due respect, rather than dismissing so abruptly.

Two days later, I attended the memorial for Kurt Cobain at Seattle Center. It was a very surreal event. Some fans crying inconsolably, others laughing and in a party mood. I was given a candle at the gate (one of those emergency candles, although I had a crystal tea light candle holder that resembled a mountain. I guess not only to metaphorically represent his struggle if not to overcome his personal demons. Then to be accepted, warts and all. But it was also the only candle and candle holder I had at the time.)

The event was MC'd by all three major Seattle rock radio stations KISW, KXRX and KNDD. All competing commercial rock radio stations under different owners, but uniting everyone in one moment. I had not seen an event like this since.

But one thing I will never forget, nor forgive, was Courtney Love's address that was broadcast unedited to those on the radio and on all three stations and the Seattle audience of his grieving fans at the memorial.

  
Yoko One never addressed John Lennon's fans this way after his assassination. Yes, Courtney had just lost her husband in the worst possible way imaginable and I can sympathize with her pain and most of all, her anger at the fact that he did it. But by no means did it excuse her from addressing his fans this way. A few might have shrugged it off, but most didn't. I'll never forget the guy just in front of me with a video camera. He was crying so hard when he heard "...some of this is for you and the rest is none of your fucking business" on the tape, he could barely keep his camera steady as he dried his eyes on his shirt.

I only hope she's learned by now, if there are some details you do not want to disclose, don't mention them in passing.

But the death of Kurt Cobain became the death of grunge rock. From that point on, grunge began losing out to electronic, the Nu-Rock rap-metal hybrid the brought us Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park and while the echoes of grunge still ring in any Muse ringtone out of some dude's cell phone today, you can never take away what Kurt Cobain brought to rock n' roll.

And that is how we should leave it.

We miss you Kurt....

The Day After

You know? One of the TV movies I REALLY wanted to watch was "The Day After".

For those too young to remember, in 1983, The United States and the then Soviet Union, now Russia today, were at more or less the peak of the Cold War in the 1980s. And both were nuclear powers. And both were unflinching.

And they were the biggest. Ever. "The Arms Race" as it was known guaranteed something known as M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction.)  

It seemed like at the slightest provocation, no matter how minute, could set either side off. Sending unholy nuclear holocaust in either direction.

But the public reality was both sides HATED what their respective governments were doing. That's the odd thing about governments. They claim to speak for their respective people in international affairs, but they haven't the foggiest idea of what the respective people under them actually WANT.

Most of us back in high school wondered why don't we just simply get together over a beer and talk about it (The reality was we really wanted them to get together over a BONG and talk about it. In those days, the very subject of marijuana here in the very Land Of The Free was unspeakable in public high schools.) The mellowing effects of weed we felt would have been far more beneficial in that regard. After the language barrier, the rest would come easy.

ABC-TV aired this program on November 20, 1983 with much hype and it was THE movie to watch on that particular night. EVERYONE was talking about it. Be There...or Be There. That kind of thing.)

I never saw it.

My mom was content with what I thought was her "fuddy old people" shows and we argued for HOURS over it. I hated her for that. And EVERYONE was talking about it the next day after it aired and here I was, the lone idiot who never watched it. Costed me unbelievable high school social points for the next few weeks!

FINALLY, last year, 30 YEARS LATER. I finally got to watch that whole movie....On YouTube!


I am now complete.

The History of UHF-TV

After television was launched to the public, there was a problem.

Everybody loved it. And they wanted in on it.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, radio stations began adding or moving to more spacious studio spaces in anticipation of the time they will be able to add the delicious letters "TV" to their station letterheads and business cards. They were assured that TV would eventually make radio obsolete. So they began planning for the jump to TV.

But there were only 13 original VHF channels originally assigned for television in the US.

And there WAS once a VHF TV Channel 1. The VHF dial didn't always start at Channel 2.

Here's what happened.

In the early 1940s, the FCC was in a pickle. They had to find spectrum space for FM radio, TV and early mobile phone/emergency radio use. They originally settled on 42-50 MHz for FM radio.

A 1940s radio with the original 42-50 MHz FM radio band.

But TV channel 1 used 44-50 MHz. So they moved the frequency range for Channel 1 around the lower VHF spectrum, causing confusion with viewers, broadcasters and manufacturers. Finally, they concluded there would be no Channel 1. And VHF TV channels would begin at Channel 2. The FM radio band was also moved to 88-106 MHz, then completed at 88-108 MHz.

But this now meant there would be one less channel for TV, leaving only a dozen channels. And the FCC was swamped in TV station license applications.

And more importantly, due to short spacing between stations on the same channels and unforeseen atmospheric conditions, there was interference. Lots of it. Especially in the Northeast. New TV spectrum had to be carved out to satisfy everyone.

Finally in 1952, the UHF TV band was created out of was once surplus radio spectrum for the military. UHF had 69 extra channels, boosting the overall TV channel selection to 82 channels (but later down to 81. In 1963, UHF TV Channel 37 was reserved for radio astronomy purposes and to this day, there are no UHF TV stations - or anything permitted to operate on Channel 37), but still enough for nearly every well financed radio station to have a TV station of their own. With room to spare for many others.

There was one little problem. People didn't know what UHF was then. And until 1964, TV set manufacturers weren't required to even include UHF TV on their sets.

So some enterprising electronics manufacturers invented the first "set-top" boxes, tuners for UHF TV

These were still made well into the '70s and even early '80s for older TV sets made before the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1964!

Most dealers offered them as loss leader freebies for your new TV set or as a low price upgrade for your existing set. You could set it up yourself (if you were more technically inclined.) Or have a serviceman from the dealer do it for you.

They were also sold by mail order.

This automatically created a new problem. Broadcasters began viewing UHF from the start as a lesser TV band. Most viewers still had VHF only TVs and didn't want too much fussing around with the adjustments (they weren't very stable in the early days of TV. As someone who's had to fix a wonky picture on an old 1950's black and white TV set, I can assure you they weren't much fun. There was a pretty good reason why parents rarely let their little kids near the TV in those days.)

And most were satisfied with that few choices they had. Adding a UHF converter meant more knobs and thus more things to go wrong.

And 20 years after the All Channel Receiver Act, some people STILL didn't know what UHF was!

Also, UHF signals by nature travel shorter distances than VHF channels. They also more easily blocked terrestrially by buildings, hills and even trees. To gain a similar broadcasting range as a typical VHF station, they needed 50x the power because of their higher frequencies.

For example, to get the same signal coverage as a VHF TV station on Channel 5 at 100,000 watts, a UHF TV station on Channel 22 needed 5,000,000 watts - that's right - FIVE MILLION WATTS.

That also appears the power bill of the station. Which means you had to sell more advertising and/or charge more for it than the VHF stations. And for a brand new TV station on a fairly unknown and problematic TV band and dubious programming with few, if any stars, the odds didn't look good.

So the many radio stations with ambitious TV plans that couldn't get a spot on the VHF-TV dial simply gave up on them. In fact, contrary to the predictions that radio would become obsolete after TV was introduced, radio simply moved into the era of the disc jockey and specialized music formats as the old-line network radio programming model moved off radio and onto television.

However, there were HUGE areas of the country that were too far from metropolitan areas with VHF stations. And adding stations to the already overcrowded VHF band would increase interference to the existing stations. Some areas, such as Yakima, WA, Peoria, IL and Huntsville, AL became UHF-only "islands", areas where all local broadcast TV is UHF. Public TV stations and upstart TV networks such as DuMont and the fledgling ABC network had no other option than UHF in most areas.

In the 1950s, some of the very first UHF TV stations often came on the air wealthy and often left the air broke - often within a year. These were often stations within the receiving area of VHF stations with established programming and network affiliations. Simply because no one was watching them outside of people who worked at the stations and their families. And even most of them were watching the other channels!

And that was another problem. When a major TV network initially affiliated with a UHF station in an area where a VHF station would later sign on or lose another network affiliation, the network would habitually create loopholes in their already lopsided affiliation contracts that allowed the network to end their affiliation with the UHF station with little notice to go onto the VHF station.

And this even happened with some higher number (Ch. 7-13) VHF stations in areas where VHF dominated. (NBC's original affiliate in Puget Sound was KMO-TV 13, and CBS was on KTNT-TV 11, both out of Tacoma, WA. And both lost to lower-number channels in Seattle.)

In fact to this day, lower number TV channels are preferred to higher ones with TV advertisers because most TV viewers tune from the lowest channel numbers up first. And more slowly and carefully than higher channel numbers, thus increasing the chances the viewer would see the advertising.

The great benefit of a network TV affiliation was the hardest part was already taken care of for you - programming. With the insertion of local TV advertising, a station can become instantly profitable with the big stars and professionalism of the major TV networks. Without a major TV network, you were scrambling for whatever you can get to put on the air. And there were only so many movies, kineoscopes and cartoons available back then. You had to quickly invent programming by the seat of your pants. And it became too much for the upstart UHFs.

So in most major cities, UHF stations were either non-existent or struggling public or even rarer, independents through the '50s, '60s and 1970s. In fact, Seattle only got it's first UHF TV station in 1985 (KTZZ-TV 22, now KZJO "Joe TV")

Most TVs weren't even equipped with UHF antennas (or new set owners didn't know what those little round wire things were in areas where UHF TV was largely unknown and threw them away), The simplest UHF antennas were small cheap loops you could affix to the back of your TV. They worked best in areas closer to the UHF station's transmitter and only fairly in outlying suburbs. I remember after Seattle's KTZZ-TV 22 went on the air installing one of these on my mom's console TV in Lynnwood, WA. But the picture was ghosty and variable and often fluctuated with things as simple as passing airplanes or even the movement of the metal wheels of my mom's wheelchair. That was the most apparent thing about over the air UHF-TV - nearly anything could interfere with the signal if you were beyond a point where you could visually see the station tower.    

UHF was coming to a slow painful death and it took an act of Congress to change that. It became known as the All Channel Receiver Act of 1964, which forced manufacturers to incorporate UHF tuners into their TV sets. This helped UHF TV on the consumer end, but programming, sales and merely staying alive without major network affiliations for the UHF stations were another. In fact, by 1971, there were only 170 full power UHF stations in the US. And over a 1,000 VHF stations. But UHF stations were still dying. Mostly because of the difficulty in getting major advertisers to take independent UHF TV stations seriously.

It was harder to get by on I Love Lucy and Honeymooners reruns and local used car dealership commercials than it looked.

There were attempts at starting a fourth major TV network. DuMont, ironically the very first American TV network, was struggling against better financed rivals NBC, CBS and the upstart ABC TV network and went off the air in 1956. Leaving only ABC, NBC and CBS as The Big Three (as the ABC, NBC and CBS TV networks came to be known for decades) commercial networks and by the '60s, NET (later known as PBS) for public TV.

That wasn't to say people were giving up on UHF TV. Cable TV was still in it's infancy and offered no exclusive programming. Just a clearer relay of TV stations already on the air. And most were required to carry the UHF stations, which actually helped UHF.

Enter The Overmyer Network (later known as The United Network.)

Some United Network affiliates were already established VHF stations with full major network affiliations (such as KOB-TV 4 in Albuquerque, NM, an NBC affiliate.) They just wanted in on the special deal United Network offered affiliates mentioned below

The Overmyer Network began as 5 UHF TV stations owned by Toledo based businessman Daniel H. Overmyer. It's flagship station was WDHO-TV 24 in Toledo, OH.

Overmyer was a social conservative who was against "smut". So there. But he also knew there were lots of entertainment starved independent TV stations across America. Ones that would do anything to move into the "affiliated" category.

And Overmyer gave them a sweet deal; an unheard of 50/50 profit share. Affiliates quickly began signing up.

The network launched nationally on May 1, 1967 as The United Network (and not related to the United Paramount Network or UPN of the 1990s/early 2000s.)

And exactly one month later, the entire Overmyer/United Network was history.

In the final autopsy, it was determined the launch of the network came at the worst possible time of the year. When major TV sponsors were at the end of their yearly advertising budgets. Had the network held out their launch until the new television season in September, they would have had a better chance when the sponsors were in a better spending mood. And since the station used costly proprietary Bell System video lines to relay programming to affiliates, that also ate into costs. It was one thing for 5 affiliates, entirely another for 35.

And more embarrassingly, the national United Network only had one show. A critically acclaimed, but publicly ignored daily variety/talk show called The Las Vegas Show.

The Overmyer/United Network was such a complete and thorough disaster that it was pretty much decided a fourth broadcast TV network was too many and was not attempted again until 1986 when Fox TV came on. And coincidentally, the headquarters of Fox are in the same New York City building that once housed the DuMont network 60 years earlier!

So UHF trudged along. Stations were still frequently sold, still went dark (off the air) or were converted to public TV stations. Outside of those "UHF Islands" mentioned earlier, there wasn't much money in UHF.

With not many stations on UHF, the uppermost channels of the traditional UHF band, Chs. 70-83 were reassigned for the fledgling cell phone industry (In the days before spread-spectrum analog cell phones, it wasn't unusual to pick up entire cell phone conversations on these channels!) But there were no actual TV stations that far up the spectrum (remember, the lower channels are the most preferred) and the various translator (relay) stations in that area were eventually moved to lower channel numbers. Few stations were ever licensed above Channel 69 anyway. And none existed at the time of this switch.


One early experiment merged the concept of pay TV with broadcast TV in 1977. A New York TV station WWHT-TV 68, owned by Wometco Enterprises, offered The Wometco Home Theater. It was essentially a video descrambler box and WWHT ran uncut, often first run movies and sports programming. And it was actually successful (WHT lasted until 1986 and even spawned imitators.)

(Click to enlarge)

The Wometco Home Theater box

The 1970s and 1980s also brought evangelical TV networks such as Trinity Broadcasting Network, Spanish language networks such as Univision and Telemundo and home shopping networks to UHF broadcast TV.

But most commercial UHF TV was still viewed by major sponsors and TV viewers as scrappy, unpolished, unprofessional and weird. The college radio of TV. A fact not lost on parody king "Weird" Al Yankovic who released a parody movie of UHF TV called, what else?, UHF.


In the 1980s, some markets such as New York, music video channels began appearing (After Wometco Home Theater folded, WWHT-TV changed to this format.) Boston and Atlanta, GA also had all music video channels on UHF. However, this proved to be problematic. First, cable video music channel giant (then) MTV flexed it's muscles with the music industry and by the late '80s, effectively cut off the flow of new music videos for these stations and these music video channels converted to the regular third or fourth rate programming of the typical UHF TV channel. Secondly, even with music videos, these few over the air free music video TV stations were still struggling.


It took Fox TV, with it's heavy roster of UHF affiliates and trendy hit shows such as The Simpsons and 21 Jump Street before the tide finally began to turn for UHF TV. The once scrappy programming of UHF began being replaced by more polished programming. Syndicated daytime talk programming such as Jerry Springer, Montel Williams and countless others came and replaced the boring afternoon movies.

And infomercials. LOTS of hour long, boring infomercials. often running 12 hours or more consecutively each day. Something had to pay the bills.

With the success of Fox, potential fifth and sixth major networks sprang up. Such as UPN and The WB (now merged as The CW), PAX (now iON) and expansion of the Spanish, home shopping and religious networks put more UHF TV stations on the air.

But a massive change was coming. A new system, known as DTV or "digital TV" began being implemented in the late 1990s. This system actually used UHF TV channels to relay higher definition programming and all but the smallest, low power stations made the upgrade. In 2009, most analog TV broadcasting came to an end in the US, and most TV stations now broadcast in digital on UHF. The low power stations must switch to digital in 2015.

The benefit of digital broadcast TV was it used less bandwith than analog broadcast TV, freeing up precious bandwith for first responders, wireless internet and other services. With the need for less bandwith, the UHF TV band was cut even further from Chs. 14-69 to 14-50.

The drawback is you really have to be in an area close to the TV tower, as over the air digital TV signals show absolutely NO mercy. In the analog TV days, you could watch TV with a slightly "snowy", slightly fluctuating, but fairly acceptable viewing signal if you were in outlying areas away from the TV station's tower. With over the air DTV, you have to be a LOT closer to get a perfect, interference free signal. Otherwise, the video would freeze in a pixelated mess and even the audio would cut out at times, something that never happened with analog broadcast TV.
   
And there's talk of cutting the UHF TV band even further. Or even ending all over the air broadcast TV, thus freeing up the entire UHF TV band for other, more high tech purposes.

(UPDATE: More on the history of UHF here: http://www.uhftelevision.com/ )

Frankenstations

They're technical anomalies, transcending medium, legality and current technical standards to become something they were never meant to be.

 

 

They're called "Frankenstations". Or "Franken-FMs". Because while most FM radios can tune down to 87.5 FM, the FM radio dial in North America legally begins at 88.1 MHz and ends at 107.9 MHz.

However, 87.7 MHz (or 87.75 MHz to be exact), is/was the analog audio carrier frequency for VHF TV channel 6. Since the end of World War II until the DTV switchover in 2009, people who live in areas with a local TV station on Channel 6 could hear that TV station's audio signal on 87.7 on their FM radios, a fact not lost on the Channel 6 TV broadcasters (KHQ-TV in Spokane, WA promoted this for years.) And it was offered as a way to hear the audio portion of the Channel 6 TV station when you were in your car or away from a TV.

Bear in mind this wasn't a deliberate service the station offered. Just an anomaly of how the radio/TV spectrum was carved up. And unique only to analog VHF TV Channel 6 because the Channel 6 audio carrier frequency was coincidently in a tunable portion of the FM radio dial at 87.75 MHz.

However, in the early 2000s, several low power analog VHF TV stations began popping up on Channel 6. They weren't purposed as traditional TV stations, but as FM radio stations. This is why they are called "Frankenstations" An FM radio station using an audio frequency for TV.

The first Frankenstation was KZND-LP in Anchorage, Alaska. "87.7 The End" went on the air in 1999 and immediately outraged competing broadcasters who thought KZND was cheating and complained to the FCC. As it turned out, the station was using an overlooked loophole that allowed the audio portion of a TV channel to not be synchronized with a video image.

However, being an FM station on the TV band isn't as easy as one would think. First, you're technically a TV station. This means you must at least run some image on the video carrier. Which KZND was not transmitting, so the FCC forced them to start doing so. It wasn't enough the station had the ability to transmit a video image, but it had to actually do it to be within the law, as it was technically a TV station first. A simple graphic card to be broadcast over their video carrier was all the station needed to become legitimate.

Today, KZND now broadcasts on a real FM frequency (94.7.) 87.7 in Anchorage is now a jazz station called KNIK

WLFM-LP in Cleveland, Ohio actually used a Western Digital screensaver as their video carrier image!

Second, you have to be a lot more quieter than standard FM stations because you still must broadcast according to television technical standards. This meant a lot of the problems of a quiet uncompressed FM radio signal, such as "picket fencing", that "fwip-fwip-fwip" sound you hear on FM radio as you drive farther out of the station's primary service area is far more apparent well within the primary service area on an 87.7 Frankenstation. You can't broadcast in stereo either. While Zenith invented both FM Stereo and MTS Stereo TV transmission, the two systems are incompatible. All Frankenstations are mono.

And Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron), which measures radio ratings regards the Frankenstations as actual TV stations and doesn't count them amongst actual FM radio stations.   

However all low power analog TV stations, which had been exempt from the 2009 American digital TV switchover must change over to digital themselves by September 1, 2015.

Which will mean the end of the Frankenstations because the digital signals can no longer be received over standard FM radios.

However since the analog to digital TV switchover there's been talk of expanding the FM radio band down to 76 MHz (similar to how the AM radio band was expanded from 540-1600 kHz to 540-1700 kHz in the late 1980s.) Which would incorporate the Japanese allocated FM radio band (which runs from 76-90 MHz) into the American FM radio band and allow American FM stations to broadcast on those frequencies. But that's only going to happen when the current FM spectrum gets so crunched, there is no alternative.

And we're already pretty much there in some parts of the country.

WHER.....1,000 Beautiful Watts

Ladies, if you ever needed something to play on the stock car radio of your brand new 1955 Dodge La Femme, then Memphis was your kind of town.

Because also debuting in 1955 was radio station WHER. At 1430 on the AM dial, WHER was the first radio station completely staffed, programmed and operated entirely by women. The only Y chromosomes at WHER were there to write the checks and fix the transmitter whenever it got wonky. The women controlled everything else.

A terrestrial radio station with a mostly female staff is still a very rare thing. But in the 1950s, it was extremely rare to hear a female DJ with her own program. The 1950s were a pretty sexist time and the ceiling wasn't glass in the radio industry. Most women in air positions at that time were network voice actresses or they were local socialites who read recipes during the midday show. But most women overall however remained behind the scenes, doing office work.

WHER was owned by local record mogul Sam Phillips of Sun Records and Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson. Phillips used the money he got for Elvis Presley's recording contract from RCA Victor records as seed money for WHER.

But surprisingly, WHER played no rock. Probably because of the uncomfortably close link between Sun and WHER (the payola scandals around the country were just beginning to simmer.) The music on WHER was a mix of easy listening, jazz and country swing.

WHER became an instant sensation and inspired many imitators (including KPEG in Spokane, WA.)

An early press release for WHER described the station as this : 

“The studio and offices have been feminized from front door to rear exit. The disc jockeys are called jockettes, the studio is known as the doll’s den, the control rooms are called playrooms, the hallway is mirrored, the equipment room has been decorated with murals depicting the evolution of feminine clothing, the stationary is perfumed, the advertisers are listed in a date book, and the exit to the parking lot is labeled “Bye, Bye ‘Till Next Time”.

You were clearly in their world.

WHER was managed and programmed by Becky Phillips (wife of Sam Phillips) and Dottie Abbott. And from 1955 to 1966, WHER was exclusively operated by women. However after Abbott left, it seemed time to let the guys in. The station changed call letters to WWEE, or "We" radio.

1430 kHz in Memphis today is WOWW, a repeater for country music station "95.3/97.7 The Rebel" WEBL.  

More info on WHER:

WHER Radio Station

The Kitchen Sisters documentary on WHER (Complete with audio!)

The Tiki Cha Cha Club

If you LOVE classic lounge/mood  music of the 1950s and early '60s....

Then join The Tiki Cha Cha Club! Each week, your host, DJ Chintzy Schmaltz brings you the finest in classic exotica, lounge and other orchestral delights. And all from vinyl!

The Tiki Cha Cha Club airs Monday nights/Early Tuesday mornings at Midnight (12:00am) Pacific, 3:00am Eastern on KBOO 90.7 FM Portland, OR. You can listen directly here.

Look for updated episodes to listen or download every Tuesday evening on The Tiki Cha Cha Club's Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/tikichachaclubclub/

And an interview with your host: http://kboo.fm/content/betterknowakbooprogramtikichachaclubandloungeworld

The WPIX-TV Yule Log

Ahhh......Christmas in New York.

Since 1966 (save 1990-2000), the WPIX-TV Yule Log has been gracing NYC TV screens every Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Continuously and commercial free. Turning RCA console TVs to 60 inch flat screen into instant cozy fireplaces for New Yorkers everywhere.

Why? Well, New York City doesn't have many fireplaces. People mostly live in apartments. So the producers at WPIX-TV thought this would be a nice way to give the illusion of being around a big fireplace without all the fire safety issues of living in a typical New York City apartment building.

It was originally filmed in Gracie Mansion, the home of the mayor of New York. It was originally a 17 second video loop that on repeat, you can see the edit point (the flames suddenly flickered awkwardly.) However the producers removed a fire grate so that the fire could be seen better and a stray spark damaged a nearby antique rug valued at $4,000.

When this loop wore out in 1970, the producers went back to the station film archive to find the master reel. And they couldn't find it! They requested a retake at Gracie Mansion. But the producers were denied. After the rug incident, the mayor's office wanted no more filming of the fireplace at Gracie Mansion.

So the producers searched until they found a similar fireplace - in California!

The 1970 shot was over six minutes in length (and no rugs were destroyed during this filming.)

In the 1980s, commercial VHS video tapes were made of fireplaces similar to the WPIX Yule Log - a testament to the program's influence well beyond the New York City area. 

This program also featured a stereo simulcast of the music on WPIX-FM until 1986.

However in 1989, it was announced The Yule Log would no longer be broadcast on WPIX-TV. Being commercial free, it wasn't making money and the new station manager wasn't having any of that. And for 10 heartless years, New York City TV viewers pleaded with WPIX management to no avail. The Yule Log wasn't seen on WPIX.

In 2000, a web site was created to petition WPIX to bring back The Yule Log. But it was December 2001 (after the 9/11 attacks) when WPIX gave in and The Yule Log returned. Where it's still the most watched program in New York City on Christmas.

The JP Patches and Stan Boreson Holiday Special

Growing up in Seattle, we had some of the very best in kids programs on local TV. KIRO-TV Ch. 7's J.P. Patches, KING-TV Ch. 5's Stan Boreson, KOMO-TV Ch. 4's Captain Puget and KTNT-TV (now KSTW) Ch.11's Brakeman Bill. In the '60s, all four programs competed against each other, but it was always a friendly rivalry.

While all groups of kids had their favourites, the perennial and longest running was J.P. Patches. After J.P. Patches' show ended in 1981, JP would host specials and pledge drives for public station KCTS-TV Ch. 9, featuring rare archived clips of his show. But he ALWAYS paid tribute to his competitors in every one - VERY classy.

This is a special which ran on The Seattle Channel (the local Seattle public access cable channel, made sometime in 2009/2010 I guess.) bringing together J.P. Patches and Stan Boreson and playing episodes of their classic Christmas shows.

Watch here:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=4040606&file=1

In "How Santa Got His Elves (More Or Less)" the King of The North was played by legendary KIRO-TV sportscaster Wayne Cody....

Enjoy!

A KJR Rock N' Roll Christmas (1975)

"(A KJR) Rock N' Roll Christmas" Ric Hansen & Julie Miller (1975)

Listen Here

In the '70s, the most listened to Top 40 radio station in Seattle was "Channel 95" KJR (950 AM.)

The station could easily claim to as many as 1/4 to even 1/3rd of all the radios in Puget Sound were tuned in to KJR at any given time and they would be pretty much spot on. You heard KJR everywhere in the '70s.

And back then, this sticker on the window or bumper of any car in the Seattle area meant the driver was pretty cool.

While FM rock was available (KJR's FM sister station in the '70s was KISW.), it was still a niche and would remain so until the 1979 disco implosion that drove everyone to harder rock or Adult Contemporary pop in Seattle. (KJR-AM today is All Sports.) 

But KJR was a Seattle institution in the thick of the '70s. So much so, it was revived on 95.7 FM during the '70s nostalgia wave of the '90s. (Somehow, I never got used to the FM-upgraded tagline in their '90s jingles "KJR Seattle.....Channel 95.7!")

And when you're THIS big, you can put out your own Christmas song and have it easily become a local hit. And that's what KJR did in 1975.

Julie Miller (who?) does an eerily accurate Karen Carpenter imitation while powerhouse jock Ric Hansen runs down the kind of stuff you heard on KJR in 1975 and before joining the chorus (yes, he sings on this one.)

If you're from Seattle and you remember KJR back in the day, it's an awesome holiday flashback. If not, it's probably pretty much 3 minutes of WTF.

Enjoy!

75 Years Ago Tonight

Listen/Download:

The War Of The Worlds (Complete 1938 Radio Broadcast)

My grandma once told me "That whole panic was a cockamamie story. Nobody panicked, at least where we were. Most of us were listening to Edgar Bergen."

KRAB 107.7 FM

Many years ago, there was a radio station in Seattle, Washington called KRAB.

Was KRAB pop? Absolutely not. Was it culture? More than you could shake a tub of yogurt at.

KRAB was founded in 1962 by Lorenzo Milam who is considered a pioneer in the community radio movement. KRAB's format has been described as "Eclectic", "free-form" or as I called it, "Whatever". But little did anyone know that KRAB and it's programming model would serve as the launch pad of hundreds of community public radio stations across America.

It was licensed to The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation. Who was Jack Straw?

Here's the answer:

"The name Jack Straw has several appeals for us. Naturally, we delight in the obscurity of it. It refers to a trouble-making peasant type who, in 1381, led a riot against the Flemish inhabitants of London for nothing less mundane than economic reasons, but better, is associated in Chaucer with the absolute confusion and demi-philosophical statements of Chanticleer and Dame Pertelote under attack of the ‘povre wydwe, somdeel stape in age.’ Figure that one out.

Jack Straw bodes well for KRAB, with outside help we may be able to escape the inordinate confusion of our farmyard studios. We are sometimes revolted by our poverty and dream – as we have said – of glistening studios with miracle equipment and a transmitter lost somewhere in the clouds of faultless transmission and wild improbable plans. We will refuse, of course, adamantly, to give up the confusion of our quasi-philosophical stance– that it the nature of KRAB and Dame Pertelote."

~The Radio Papers: From KRAB to KCHU by Lorenzo Milam

Excerpt of Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

So hydous was the noyse, a benedicitee!
Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee
Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille
Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille,
As thilke day was madde upon the fox.
Of bras they broghten bemes, and of box,
Of horn, of boon, in whiche they blewe and powped,
And therwithal they skriked and they howped,
It semed as they hevene sholde falle.

 Modern English Translation

So terrible was the noise, ah ben'cite!
Certainly old Jack Straw and his army
Never raised shouting half so loud and shrill
When they were chasing Flemings for to kill,
As on that day was raised upon the fox.
They brought forth trumpets made of brass, of box,
Of horn, of bone, wherein they blew and pooped,
And therewithal they screamed and shrieked and whooped;
It seemed as if the heaven itself should fall!

(from http://www.jackstraw.org/main/about/jack.shtml)

No comment.

Milam's plan for KRAB was influenced by the BBC and classic American radio. Which didn't have specific formats, but a wide range of programming each day.

KRAB wasn't your typical radio station, with a directed format and narrowly researched playlist. KRAB was the antithesis of all that. For example, while pop music and jingly commercials were the norm on the most listened to radio stations on a typical day in the '60s and '70s. KRAB would broadcast an intellectual roundtable, indigenous music from Africa, a reading from a 14th century book, gramophone records from the 1920s. And so forth.

KRAB was staffed by volunteers and encouraged an eclectic direction. To find what isn't mainstream. Milam's vision wasn't to compete with existing stations, but to offer something that you couldn't find on them. Their studio and transmitter were originally located in a converted donut shop in the Roosevelt area of Seattle.

Image from krab.fm

And KRAB had a lot to offer. Before world music and LGBT themed radio programs became a staple of community public radio, KRAB innovated them. Public radio back then (as a majority of FM radio stations in general) were mostly classical music. KRAB also had classical music, but from far more obscure composers. No Beethoven here. You were more likely to hear Renaissance Fair music (LONG before Renaissance Fairs became trendy.) KRAB also played blues music (at a time and place where the blues were virtually unheard of.) There was obscure folk, avant garde experimental music as well as BBC News (directly off a shortwave radio!), commentary, speeches and roundtable discussions from a wide range of opinions. Today, you'd have to be out of your mind to put a flaming Communist and a John Birch uber right-winger on the same station, to say nothing of the same room. KRAB did. (And how the whole damn station didn't blow up is one for the history books.)

Before the internet, it was almost impossible to find such a huge variety of alternative programming in most cities. That's what made KRAB such a gem. The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation also founded other stations with similar programming KBOO 90.7 FM Portland, OR, KNON Dallas, TX, KPOO San Fransisco, CA and others.

They had no ratings, no advertisers (being a non-commercially licensed station, they couldn't have any advertising whatsoever on the air.) And outside local media and intellectual circles, almost nobody knew where they were. They were located at 107.7 MHz on the farthest reach of the Seattle FM dial.

It's dial position was a boon and a curse. Back then, the most popular Seattle FM stations were located further down the dial (mostly between 92-103 FM. And farther up were a religious and lower power stations in the Seattle suburbs and stations farther off in the hinterlands, such as Bellingham.) So unless the listener was really looking for something off the beaten path, there was no accidental stumbling upon KRAB. But being out of the way of everyone else was KRAB's stock and trade anyway.

It was a pretty highbrow station.

Perhaps too highbrow?

Whereas most stations look for mass appeal, Or specialized in one particular genre of music. KRAB's listener was the one who didn't fit in anywhere. There was no format you could call it (even "eclectic" and "free-form" seemed inaccurate.) If it sounded even remotely popular or even had a niche commercial appeal, it was not heard on KRAB.

But while KRAB was criticized by the local mainstream media and some Seattle radio listeners as a useless waste of bandwith, KRAB proudly let it's freak flag fly. They weren't there to impress them.

Initially, KRAB avoided rock music, figuring you could hear that already on the underground FM rock stations of the late '60s and early '70s. But it quietly snuck itself in in the wee hours. Again, this wasn't the pop stuff you heard. KRAB also introduced Seattle to reggae, punk and even a new type of music called "rap" - all in the '70s.

Here's a sample of their punk rock show Life Elsewhere with Norman Batley from January 1982

KRAB trudged along, eeking by on government grants and donations from their few listeners. But in the early '80s the Reagan administration made devastating cutbacks in government funding for non-commercial radio. And with the loss of this, KRAB began to seriously struggle for it's life. However it was more than they could handle.

But KRAB had an ace up it's sleeve. They had one thing that was extremely valuable and that was it's frequency. The FM radio dial is divided in two sections. The frequencies from 88.1 to 91.9 are reserved in the US for non-commercial radio and those from 92.1 to 107.9 are available for commercial broadcasters. With 107.7 being in that commercial zone it could be sold to a commercial broadcaster, which would pay enough to give KRAB a new lease on life on a different frequency.

In 1984, KRAB sold the license to it's 107.7 frequency to Sunbelt Broadcasting for a little over $3,000,000.  This money was used as seed money for starting a new radio station and a recording and production studio. They first tried to enter a time share agreement with Seattle's KNHC-FM, which balked at the proposal, considering it akin to a hostile takeover. They later found a frequency in nearby Everett, WA.

But after some years off the air, something else had to be sacrificed. Radio station call letters cannot be held as intellectual property if there's no radio station to use them. There was a time limit and that ended by 1986. The KRAB call letters were taken by a Bakersfield, CA rock station which still uses them today.

So the new station in Everett became KSER 90.7 FM. They are preparing to launch a second radio station, KXIR 89.9 FM.

And things are run slightly less haphazardly than it was at KRAB (Image from krab.fm)

The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation operated KSER for a few years during the '90s before turning the station over to The KSER Foundation. They are Jack Straw Productions today and a major producer of independent media.

And what happened to KRAB's original 107.7 FM frequency?

After nearly a year off the air, 107.7 returned in 1985 as a light pop station called KMGI "Magic 108". After 6 years of floundering ratings in this format, the format was changed to alternative rock KNDD "107.7 The End" and instantly became a smashing success.

Audio of the KMGI to KNDD format change

The timing couldn't have been better. Nirvana was just a few weeks from releasing their Nevermind album, launching the Seattle grunge rock sound that changed rock music in a way not seen since the British Invasion of the '60s and for the next few years, Seattle was the de facto rock n' roll capitol of America. And KNDD was at it's epicenter and influencing countless other radio stations.  They're still on the air and still a major player in the alternative rock format, though not as epic as they were at their beginning. And even Norman Batley (as Norman B.) made a return to his old frequency (as afternoon host on The End) for a few years in the early '90s.

Seattle Radio History - 107.7FM (KNDD -The End) from Twisted Scholar on Vimeo.
However these days, a station like KRAB would be highly welcome today with many radio listeners. Because, let's face it, most people can only stand the same twenty squeaky, AutoTuned pop songs of today ad nauseum for only so long.

If you want a closer look at KRAB and the history and sounds of this strange little radio station, check out http://www.krab.fm/. It's a goldmine and do read the program guides. They tell a LOT.