Richmond Radio 2000 News

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2000 Richmond Radio News

12-26-00 - Carla Cash is scheduled for another appearance on the Fox News channel. This time she'll be on Wednesday 12-27-00 at around 3:25 pm. I'm not sure what she will be talking about, all I know is that it will be "issues of the day." (this has been rescheduled for 3:10 pm, and in addition she will be on the following morning on Fox and Friends at about 7:45 am.)

Also, it looks like LPFM has essentially been "gutted" by Congress. There was a rider to the spending bill that reduced the number of frequencies available for LPFM. Read more about it at http://members.aol.com/wrfr.

12-21-00 - Some morning show updates: Nicki West is leaving Q-94 and heading back to NC to be closer to her daughter. Replacing West will be Gia. Gia has been on the air at the "Q" for the last couple of weeks, Nicki's last day will be Friday, 12-22-00.
Also at Q-94, Betty Bodine came out retirement for a day to be on the Q94 Radiothon last Friday. They raised over $150,000 for the Make-A Wish foundation.

Meanwhile, over at B103, Ozone is filling in the morning slot since Jackie and Bender left last week. No word on a replacement morning show yet. Also at the B, Sherri Blanks has moved in now as midday host.

Sone other news I've been sitting on for a while... Carla Cash made a national TV appearance on the Fox News Channel on the show "Fox and Friends" on December 5, she was discussing the election situation.

Also, I fixed the Graffiti board...don't know how long it has been broken, but it works now.

12-2-00 - Lots to report today: First, from the rumor mill: Bender and Jackie at B103 are moving on to Seattle, Rebecca Wilde is leaving for Cleveland. Also rumored that Sherri Blanks will transfer to B103 from The Planet and do middays.

The PD at K95 (Kevin King) is leaving for Charlotte's WKKT, he is to be replaced by Jim Tice from WZZK in Birmingham.

Skip The Intern from the Q-94 morning show is moving to Va Beach at WNVZ (104.5 FM, Z-104).

Antoinette Essa of WWBT Channel 12 will be doing middays over at the new WJZV Smmoth Jazz station (93.1 FM), doing afternoon drive at Smooth Jazz will be Reid Snider from the old Smooth Jazz station, WSMJ.

Power 92's Aaron Maxwell has moved on to Jacksonville where he is PD for two stations there, taking his place is LaMonda Williams from WPHI in Philly.

11-17-00 - RadioOne getting rid of two stations in the Richmond area. WYFJ (Y-101) has been sold to Cox Radio, and WARV (100.3 FM) is being sold to Honolulu Broadcasting. WARV has been simulcasting WJRV (105.7, The River), no word on what the programming will be at WARV. I am assuming that Y-101 will keep it's new rock format.

Over at The Beat (107.3 FM), they are now slipping in a few top 40 songs now and then. So maybe they will have more of a format "adjustment" rather than a drastic change.

11-9-00 - The new gut at WRVA is already taking back one of the changes he was defending so strongly a month ago. The "Phil Hendrie" show is gone and has been replaced by Ian Punnet, a syndicated call in talk show. Bloomquist said that "Phil was a little too different than what has been heard here before." He described Punnet's show as "issues oriented" from a "morals and faith perspective."

Although this happened a month or so ago, I kept forgetting to mention it here; Lark Logan (evenings at WKLR 96.5) was let go and replaced by pre-recorded voice overs in what was called a "cost cutting move."

10-23-00 - What's up at WBBT (107.3 FM)? Remember "Dancin' Oldies"? Well, now they say "this ain't an oldies station". Seems like they are trying to redefine themselves a bit. Rumor has it that more changes may be on the way in the next couple of weeks, possibly a more drastic format change to something such as "Urban Hot AC". I'm not exactly sure how to define it, but you can dissect the format name and guess as well as I can.

10-7-00 - What has been WTVR-AM 1380 for as long as I can remember is now WVBB. They were sold by Clear Channel earlier this year to Cox Radio. I don't know of any changes at the station other than the call letters.

The latest from WRVA- Lou Dean will host a hour long show at 10 am on Sunday mornings. Carla Cash has left the station, although they say that she may fill in from time to time. Also, Randall Bloomquist was on the Allen Price show the other day answering questions from listeners about all the changes going on. I only heard about 15 minutes of it, so I really didn't get a feel for what the people were saying. I heard some complaints and a few "atta-boys" from the listeners.

Over at the Planet (WKLR 96.5 FM), program director J.T. Stevens has left and been replaced by Bill Weston who comes from Providence, RI.

10-3-00 - Some pictures from the Tom Joyner broadcast a few weeks ago in Richmond are located at
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=30827&a=8361751
Thanks to Kirby Carmichael for the link and the pictures.

Announced today on "The Big Show" (WLEE 990-AM 3-6 PM): they have just signed James St. James to do his Hollywood updates. The reports will air Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5:30 in the afternoon. The format will be just like it was at WRVA; Mondays for Hollywood gossip, Wednesdays will be listener call in questions, and Fridays will be movie reviews.

9-22-00 - WJZV (93.1 FM) debuted its real format yesterday afternoon. They are now "Smmoth Jazz WJZV 93.1". This station is owned by the same people that run WBBT (107.3 The Beat"), Main Quad Communications.

Also, there is a story in today's Times Dispatch about Randall Bloomquist, the new guy at WRVA who's responsible for the big shake-up happening over there now. It's definitely worth reading, the story is located here, but I don't know for how long.

9-19-00 - I just got word that on September 21 local radio veteran Scott Stevens will take over as permanent morning show host at Cool 106.5 (WRCL), and Bill Drake will return to mid-days.

9-16-00 - Wow! Yet another change at WRVA. After almost 43 years at the station, Lou Dean broadcast his last "Newsroom" program last night, just prior to Jerry Lund's last broadcast. Dean will still work part time for the station, occasionally providing commentaries during the week and also doing some sort of weekend morning show. Tom Callan will host a news program that will air in Dean's old time slot of 6 - 7 PM. It would seem that this would be the last of the big personnel changes at WRVA for a while... there's no one left but Tim Timberlake!

9-14-00 - At least two changes at WRVA, no doubt courtesy of the new program director. It appears that Millard the Mallard has been "retired", he has been a part of the WRVA morning show since the mid seventies. Also MIA at WRVA is James St. James, it appears that his contract has been cancelled. He has been providing updates live from Hollywood three times a week for several years. I did hear the end of a conversation on the air at WLEE between Jim Jacobs and James St. James...maybe James will be back on the air in Richmond soon??

Also, Jerry Lund of WRVA has announced his resignation. He wanted to take a sabbatical in January and the new program director told him that he really didn't want him to do it, so Lund resigned. His last day will be Friday. Starting Tuesday (9-19) "The Phil Hendrie Show" based in Los Angeles will air in Lund's old time slot.

Bill Baker of the "Awake with Bake" morning show at Cool 106.5 has a new job back in his home state of New York, in the meantime Bill Drake has taken over the morning slot.

There is a new "Evening Show" at WRXL. I heard an ad for it the other day and it sounded like a big production for a local nighttime show. It turns out that it is a syndicated show, "The Mikey Show" based in San Francisco will air from 6 PM to 10 PM weeknights. The former nighttime host Lucas Foxx moves to morning show producer. From 10 PM - midnight is "Loveline" with Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla.

9-12-00 - Another new station is on the air. It is WJZV 93.1 FM, playing Christmas music. They are calling themselves "Santa 93.1, it's Christmas every day.", and they have jingles and liners to go along with the Santa theme ("The holidays never stop..."). The jingles do sound kind of amateurish, but they will no doubt be replaced whenever the real format makes it debut, I suppose they could keep the Christmas theme, but I doubt it. WJZV is a 6 kw station located in Ettrick, VA. FYI, Ettrick is a few miles west of Colonial Heights.

9-6-00 - A first...at least as far as I know, a local man has won 1 million dollars from a Richmond radio station, in this case it was WKLR 96.5 The Planet. Called the "Planet Million" contest, listeners had to guess the top five finishers in the Winston Cup races. Ted Lovelace of Midlothian got it right last week and correctly guessed the top five winners of the Pepsi Southern 500. He will get $25,000 a year for 40 years. The official rules of the contest state that "There will be a maximum of one (1) payout of the grand prize during this entire promotion." The promotion was scheduled to run until November 19, 2000.

9-2-00 - OK, so this isn't news, but it is fun. Thanks to Rob Barker, he emailed me a honest to goodness WLEE AM-1480 music survey from 1969. When I looked at it, it jarred my memory of a similar WLEE item I had laying around here from 1978, it lists the Top 100 songs from 1978 according to "Musicradio 1480/WLEE", so I scanned mine in also. Click below to see the images.
1969 WLEE Good Guys Survey wlee6920.jpg - 86K
1978 WLEE Top 100 - wlee-1978-1.jpg - 233K
Back side of 1978 Top 100 - wlee-1978-2.jpg - 222K

9-1-00 - Another big update...I've been on vacation and a lot happened.
First - - I got a email from Herny "The Bull" Del Toro concerning the news item concerning his dismissal earlier this year. He told me that my information was not entirely correct and invited me to call him and get the whole story, so I did. He was very nice to talk to and explained that what had happened was that there had been a power failure in The Planet studios that knocked the phone system out and apparently caused the EAS system to spit out the erroneous warnings. Of course, at the time he did not know that the warnings were invalid. Since the phones were out, he tried to call the program director and engineer from another station in the same building and waited for a half hour for a return call, when he didn't get it he then consulted with a co-worker who agreed with him to go with the announcements. This makes more sense than the way I read the story in the newspaper, also, it is a little hard to believe that he would intentionally do something this outrageous that would cause him to get fired from a job he liked. After talking to him, I really believe that he was trying to do the right thing, and management decided he would be the "fall guy" for this incident. He is currently working the 2-7 PM shift at WOBR 95.3 The Rock in the Outer banks of North Carolina. He told me that he really enjoyed working in Richmond and misses it.

Tom Joyner and company had a live broadcast from Richmond last Friday (8-25). 3500 people showed up to take part in the broadcast from the Landmark Theater. The nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show is based in Dallas and is heard locally on WKJS, 104.7 FM.

WDYL, Y-101 now has a morning host. He is Munroe, from Watertown, NY and WOTT where he was program director, promotions director, and music director.

The latest ratings for the period March 30 - June 21, 2000. K95 and XL-102 (which didn't make the top 10 last book) showed big jumps this period.

Station	Overall	Morning	Afternoon
WCDX	9.9	9.5	8.6
WTVR-FM	9.2	9.7	8.9
WKHK	7.2	6.7	8.4
WKJS	6.5	7.6	5.5
WRVQ	6.3		7.1
WRVA	6.3	7.7
WRXL	5.1
WPLZ	4.2
WMXB	4.1
WKLR	4.0

8-16-00 - Lots of news today. Tim Farley ("Monkey Boy") was fired from WRVA where he was Operations Manager for the last 14 years. Clear Channel said that the move was made because the ratings are not "...at a level that we'd like with adults." Replacing Farley will be Randall Bloomquist from WBT in Charlotte. Bloomquist officially takes over on August 28.

Clear Channel is closing it's deal to absorb AMFM Inc. This merger will make Clear Channel the nations largest radio company, operating over 800 radio stations.

Also, Viacom is buying back Infinity Broadcasting for $15.5 billion.

8-12-00 - XL-102 has a new program director, he is John Lassman. He replaces Brian Illes. Lassman last worked at WRIF in Detroit.

7-11-00 - Congratulations to Lou Dean of WRVA, he received the George Bowles Broadcast Journalism Award. The award is presented annually to a news reporter or news executive for distinguished performance in broadcast news. The award is presented by the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.

7-7-00 - Radio & Records Online reports that Brian Illes has resigned from XL102 effective July 14. For now, the Program Director duties will be split between APD Jay Smack and MD Rik Maybee. (Thanks to Rob Hoffman)

6-30-00 - Several items to report today: Pam Overstreet is leaving WRVA to work as Director of Communications at The Medical Society of Virginia. She had been co-host of the morning show for the last three months.
Travis Dylan, the producer of the Q-94 morning show is also leaving sometime in early July to take a job at WXLK (K-92)in Roanoke as Music Director and afternoon drive time host.
Bill Drake will no longer be the voice behind the synducated Johnboy and Billy show at The Planet. He has moved over to WRCL (Cool 106.5). John Anderson will take Drake's place at WKLR.

6-17-00 - Smooth talking Regan Keith of Lite-98 has taken a "behind the scenes" job as program coordinator, and will no longer be heard on "Richmond After Dark". The syndicated Delilah show will be aired now from 7 pm - midnight Sunday through Friday.

6-10-00 - The latest ratings are out. Nothing new in the top spots. WRXL is MIA from the top 10 this time, while WKLR is at #7. The "Rating" coulmn is the overall listenership of people 12 and older 6 am to Midnight. One point is 1% of the number of people listening to the radio at any given time. The total for the Richmond area is around 803,000, so each point represents about 8,000 people.

Station	Rating	Morning	Afternoon
1) WTVR-FM	10.7	11.0	10.2
2) WCDX	10.5	10.0	10.1
3) WRVQ	7.7	7.0	8.4
4) WKJS	6.9	8.1	5.6
5) WRVA	6.8	8.3	-
6) WKHK	5.4	-	5.4
7) WKLR	4.9	-	-
8) WMXB	4.8	-	-
9) WPLZ	4.5	-	-
10) WRCL	3.9	-	-

6-5-00 - The new morning co host at Q-94 has made her debut. She is Nicki West, she was at Metro Traffic in Richmond several years ago. Also, I heard a new woman on the air with Jeff and Jeff (XL-102). It sounded like she was new, possibly Woody's replacement, but I was not able to listen long enough to find out for sure who it was.

5-27-00 - The "Jeff and Jeff" morning show at XL-102 is getting a slight makeover. Their sidekick, Woody, is leaving. He is moving to Maryland to pursue a different career, his last day was yesterday. No word yet on a replacement. Also leaving XL is Robert Frazier, host of "Ancient 80's". He will stay in the Richmond area. "Ancient 80's" will be replaced with the syndicated "House of Hair" hosted by Dee Snyder. One more change at XL is the return of the Grateful Dead show on the first Sunday of each month at 10:00 PM.

5-20-00 - The Richmond Broadcasters Hall of Fame Awards were held this past week. Winners of the Frank Soden Lifetime Achievement Award are:
Ed McLaughlin of WWBT-12
John Harding of WRVA
Kirby Carmichael of WRVQ

Cherly Miller of WTVR-6 was named Broadcaster of The Year.

5-13-00 - A replacement has been named for Rita Bentley aka "Betty Bodine" on the "Wicker In The Morning" show on Q-94 (WRVQ). It is Nicki Morse. She is from Raleigh, NC where she was a traffic network manager, I believe she worked at "Sunny 93.9", she did have some affiliation with them. Nicki is scheduled to start on May 30.

4-29-00 - Yesterday morning, the Bob and Tom Show was conspicuously absent from WWUZ (96.9 FM); in their place was a local DJ playing music and taking requests. They sure didn't last long. I think Bob and Tom are a little too "low key" for a station like that anyway. I'm not going to miss them.

4-19-00 - I noticed that a Richmond Pirate, "Black Liberation Radio", went off the air late last year. Today I found out why:
VIRGINIA MAN INDICTED FOR OPERATING AN UNLICENSED FM BROADCAST STATION. The FCC Enforcement Bureau announced that on November 16, 1999 the Grand Jury serving the United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, indicted Khalid Kubweza, on four counts of operation an unlicensed FM station on 91.7 Mhz for his residence in Richmond, VA. ENF.
This news release was from the FCC web site http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Digest/1999/dd991124.html, it is about two thirds of the way down. (Note: I read this in Hobby Broadcasting magazine.) This guy had been on the air for several years and was shut down once before about three years ago.

4-15-00 - B103 (WMXB) has a new web site www.richmondsb103.com. Also, their morning producer, Chuck the Movie Guy, has decided to leave the show, apparently homesick for Pittsburgh. The replacement is Michelle Prosser from Tampa; she starts Monday.

4-13-00 - After 16 years in the morning drive, Betty Bodine (Rita Bentley) is calling it quits. She is retiring from radio to spend more time with her kids. She has been the one constant in the morning on WRVQ (Q-94) since 1984. Her last day will be Friday, April 14 2000.

4-8-00 - WRVA is changing its lineup again. Now Pam Overstreet is to join Tim Timberlake in the morning (apparently they think their morning ratings are too high...) on April 17th. replacing Pam in the afternoon will be Allen Price. Originally from Va, Price was morning man at KHFI in Austin. Also Art Bell has resigned, his last show will be April 28. The "Best of Art Bell" will be broadcast from midnight - 4:30 until a replacement can be found.

3-30-00 - The latest Arbitron ratings for Richmond for the period 9-23-99 through 12-15-00.

Station	Overall	Morning	Afternoon
WCDX	11.2	9.7	9.4
WTVR-FM	8.9	9.1	9.1
WRVA	7.0	9.0
WRVQ	6.9	6.7	7.1
WKJS	6.9		7.0
WKHK	5.6
WKLR	5.3	7.1
WMXB	5.3		6.6
WRXL	4.4
WRCL	4.4

I don't have the numbers for any of the blank spots in the morning and afternoon columns. No big surprises this time, except that WKLR (The Planet) appears to have had it's best book yet.

Also, I heard on Q94 this morning that they have moved into their new studios. I don't know about the other stations in the building (XL-102 and Lite 98), I presume they will move also if they haven't already. Q94's Optimod compressor was broke this morning! What a difference it makes. It actually sounded pretty good to hear a FM station without a lot of compression, although it definitely is needed when they are talking, it was hard to hear everyone.

3-12-00 - Clear Channel has decided to sell of some it's stations. That affects four locals; WKHK (K-95), WMXB (B-103), WKLR (The Planet), and WTVR-AM (1380). Cox Radio Inc. will buy these for stations. Nationwide, Clear Channel is selling 72 stations in 27 markets.

2-25-00 - WWUZ 96.9 FM has altered their format a little, they are now calling themselves "Classic Hits 96.9, The Rock". They have a new voice on their liners and the music is a little more to the pop side. They will also be carrying the "Bob and Tom" syndicated morning show. I've never heard of the Bob and Tom show before, but it looks they are carried on quite a few stations across the country.

Q-94 and XL-102 have moved their web sites to the .cc domain. www.q94.cc and www.xl102.cc respectively.

2-12-00 - Henry "The Bull" Del Toro was fired from WKLR (The Planet) last week for airing a false evacuation notice the weekend of the big ice storm. He claims that he thought it was a legitimate notice from the EAS receiver and said he checked with the other stations in the same building. They did not get the same warning. He thought it was real and aired it anyway. I don't buy it. I heard some of the alerts on Saturday declaring a state of emergency, he had the opening EAS tones and no closing tones, and the counties and cities he listed were not in alphabetical order. It sounded bogus to me. (Updated: see entry for 9-1-00)

WRVQ (Q-94) nighttimer Nick Nice has gone to work for his predesessor Billy Surf, program director at WQEN in Birmingham.

WMXB (B103) changed their "Blind Date Wedding" promotion to "Blind Date To Vegas". Apparently they (and their laywers...) actually thought about what they were doing and decided (rightly so) to not have the contest winners get married.

1-22-00 - The FCC approved Low Power FM (LPFM) stations this past week. The stations will be non commercial, but not limited to the non commercial portion of the band. There will be two classes of licenses; 1-10 watts (LP10) and 50-100 watts (LP100). This appears to open the door for Radio Free Richmond, and others. It will certainly bring a little diversity to your FM dial.

In other local news John Boy and Billy (not my favorite by a long shot) are scheduled to appear at the Showplace for "John Boy and Billy's Big Boys' Toy Show". They are also the subject of a story in Thursday's (1-20-00) Times Dispatch Weekend section. The JB&B show airs locally on WKLR 96.5 FM.

One more story of interest, at Tweeter Center arena in Mansfield, Mass. they have installed a device that lets them know what radio stations people are listening to as they arrive (and leave) the parking lot. The device works by monitoring the local oscillator in the car radios. Most radio oscillators can be picked up within 50 feet of the car. For the technically curious, the local oscillator operates at 10.7 mhz above the station you are tuned to. If your radio is tuned to 94.5 mhz, then the local oscillator will be at 105.2 mhz. This of course raises a lot of privacy issues and has many people upset.

1-14-00 - WAUQ 89.7 FM is now on the air. It is a 10000 watt station in Charles City that carries American Family Radio network programming. This page has moved to a new server; www.rmonet.com. I have also just added a separate guestbook type script so that you can leave your Richmond radio comments in real time. This is just the first incarnation of it, so any comments you have are appreciated!