Two Cities … Two Great Stations!

What I wrote about in my previous Musings was really the prelude to the focus of this Musings … the publishing of this full-page ad by Bonneville corporate.

Frankly, I had no recollection of this ad, which appeared in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times in late 1975 … possibly because I was likely distracted, as that is when Alicia and I were married — I recently found this glossy re-print among her things.

Bonneville Expands Its Programming

As I stated at the end of that last Musings … with our growing list of Bonneville Broadcast Consultants client stations and the ratings success many were gaining, becoming dominant forces on their market’s radio dial … our one small division of Bonneville International Corporation had become the national face of the Corporation. In itself, Bonneville was not a non-descript broadcaster, as it at this time operated 10 radio stations — the smallest markets being Salt Lake City and Kansas City plus two TV stations.

By this point, the time had come when the corporation finally had something genuine to crow about — considering that these two stations were in the nation’s top two markets — plus when you consider both just a few years earlier had little listenership and little advertising revenue … WRFM consistently ranked near the bottom in audience ratings, and KBIG was in much the same situation. Regarding KBIG-FM, here’s a paragraph from my memoir, RADIO … My Love, My Passion:

“In July of 1971, I personally traveled to Los Angeles to spend two weeks getting Bonneville-owned KBIG-FM up and running and its product refined. I’m not quite sure where to begin with the saga of KBIG. Here was the most powerful FM station in Southern California with by far the best coverage of just about any major-market FM in America. However, it lived within an operation that suffered the worst misallocation of assets I’ve ever seen. This mighty FM station was being “staffed” — but totally unattended — by the largest radio station automation system I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, its 10,000-watt AM daytime sister, licensed to and transmitting from Avalon on Catalina Island, received all of the attention provided by a full staff, including a crew of major-market-caliber air personalities. Neither station achieved any significant ratings, and most of the duo’s revenues — which were miniscule — were generated by the AM station airing special events, such as the Baja California road races.”

The Beautiful Music Ad

Bonneville Sells KSL-FM

Shortly after this ad was published, KSL-FM would be sold — its call letters changing to KSFI — yet would continue to air Bonneville’s programming, and would achieve even greater success under its new owner. This came at a time when the U. S. Government was putting pressure on entities which owned multiple media outlets in one market to cut back to a maximum of three outlets. In this case, Bonneville’s owning entity, the Mormon Church, was the owner of a Salt Lake City daily newspaper in addition to the KSL stations.

The Bonneville FM Stations Ad

And, you might wonder, why was KOIT in San Francisco missing from the list? At this time, that facility was still KRON-FM, under the ownership of the Chronicle newspaper. It’d be another year before the acquisition was completed, we chose the new call letters and my programming became available to the Bay Area!

“Kick-Ass” Beautiful Music

In case you are not aware of the genre of music/format involved here — as I don’t believe I stated it directly in either this or the preceding Musings — these stations were of the genre which became known as “beautiful music,” a term I never particularly cared for … as, to me, the station was telling the listener what the musical programming was; whereas, it was always my desire to have the listener tell us that they found it “beautiful!” Then, add in the fact that what I programmed I did not classify as being a pure “beautiful music” sound … whereas, our major competitor, the Schulke Radio Productions musical structure was much more in that realm, being a softer, smoother, slower tempo mix. Mentally, but never before put into print, I described what I programmed as “kick-ass beautiful music,” in that it possessed more variety in tempo, in instrumentation, a more out-front presence! In many cases, when going head-to-head with another similarly-formatted station, if our station did a good job of executing the format, our programming achieved greater listenership … as it was meant to brightens one’s life and bring joy to their heart!

And that’s my story for this time … remembering a full-page ad which appeared in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, placed there 45 years ago by Bonneville International, sharing the great success two of its stations had finally achieved after a too-long wait. And, I was proud to have played a role!

My next Musings will remember the event — the news of which quickly shot around the world — which we’ll celebrate the 75^th anniversary of in just a couple of weeks. Do hope you’ll return to read it.

As always, I’d love to read your thoughts and comments on today’s story!

Please follow and like us: