It has been a while since I have listened in to PDX radio, but judging by the posts here, there are not alot of live stations anymore (?)

Here in Coos Bay, there are only 3 live shifts I know of. Mine on KDCQ, our morning guy on KDCQ and a live morning show on KYTT. Everything else is VT or SAT.

The Bi-Coastal stations are all VT and SAT with the exception of a buy, sell, trade show called Partyline, that is live for an hour.

I know that for the most part, live radio is a thing of the past in small markets, but Portland? What the hell?

MTB

EXACTLY!

Sadly I have seen it in even bigger markets...

Hey Mikel- I'm one of those VT at The Wave (KYSJ). Welcome to the board.

In all honesty, Portland does not have a lot of voice tracking. The major stations that do voice track is Cheap channel, no big surprise there. k103 and Z100.
But besides those two stations, most other stations voice track very little. k103 and Z100 irritate me because they both voice track their midday jock, and both of them are pretty forgetable. The worst is Z100. I was listening to Z100 the other day and they have the 12 noon workout! AWFUL. Absolutely AWFUL!! The music was over powering the voice tracked woman, so it sounded like the woman had her mic on way too low, and the Trainer guy who she was talking to sounded fine. It amazes me how little attention is given to the product. Just another example of how Z100 has gone down the drain over the last few years. Not hating, just being honest! I just don't get how a station like Z100 which makes tons of money, skimps on the most important part of a radio station, THE TALENT! Its obvious to me that they are not paying very much for air talent!!! You get what you pay for!

Z100 is a mess! That station sounds so bad its almost funny. I have nothing personal against the new afternoon guy, he tries his best, but he is WEAK! He is very WEAK! He sounds like a jock I would hear in a market like Butte Montana. He needs to polish his skills a bit more before he comes to a medium sized market like Portland. This Can't be the same station that once had Mike Chase, Dk Erickson,Rich E. Cunningham, Ck, Stacey Lynne, Bill Kesley, Nelson, Dr. Doug. Why is it that the talent they hire today sounds sooooo small market?? Does Clear Channel not want to pay the salaries for better talent???? Im just so confused of how a station can sound so great, then within a few months turn to crap???? It sounds to me that Z100 no longer cares about air talent, AT ALL!! THEY WILL PUT ANYBODY ON THE AIR TODAY!! why is that??? And this is not a subjective opinion, this is a FACT! The talent is nowhere even close to as good as it used to be. They went from the Morning Z00 to the Buckhead show. Seriously WHAT THE FUCK HAPPEND TO Z100???????

There is a "funny" irony here in that the big conglomerate stations like Z100, K103, etc. rely heavily on voice tracking and automation, while KKPZ ("K-Praise"), KMHD, KPSU, and KBOO have live airstaff.

Maybe it's because the live airstaffs of KMND, KPSU, and KBOO have little expectation of being paid. (Or if they are, somewhere between school credit and minimum wage.)

LIVE SEEMS TO NOW EQUAL UNPAID AND OR MIN WAGE...

Roger, making a pretty good wage here in Coos Bay. However, I have to do other things as well. Ops, Programming, Maintenance etc. to get the wage. If I was just live on the air, it would be no more than 11.00 an hour or so.

Mikel,
How long have you been in the Coos Bay market?

Outsider: I have been here for nearly 20 years. I have worked at KHSN (123 Kissin), KOOS, KSHR, did talk radio on KWRO AM for 5 years. Currently afternoon (live) on KDCQ. My whole family has been here for decades, since it was Marshfield.

MTB

> Maybe it's because the live airstaffs of KMND,
> KPSU, and KBOO have little expectation of being
> paid.

This is true. The staff at these types of stations is free labor. But, what about KKPZ?

was a sarcasm tinged comment on the post above mine...... So, having worked in Coos Bay for so long, you must know the illustrious Chris Bebee!

BTW say an on the air hello to family in North Bend. IMO CB deserves more than 3 live airshifts for the number of stations there. Nobody for the locals to call at night? Sad...

Oh my gawd! Chris Beebe? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Mikel,
When were you at KHSN?

Roger: Who is your Family? Yes I know Chris, he was GM when I first started at KYNG 106.5. At the time, I was working with Craig Carroway (Combelick), David DeAndrea, Wally (Don't remember his last name (we called him the big round mound of sound) and Bob Lambert was PD and Patty Q was evening.

Outsider: I was at KHSN just shortly after Van Sias (sp?) left and Craig Finley took over as GM. I worked with The Jammin Salmon Johnny Cooper, John Shnase was PD. And a couple more I do not remember, had a fairly bad head injury a few years ago and that time is blotchy. I remember the friggin great times we had at 123 Kissn! IT was short lived though. Finley (deceased) made me install a F-ing SMARTCASTER.

Forgot I worked at KBBR weekends live when it was the Meade Street Mansion, played twangy ass country stuff under David Walker. David is a newscaster in Eugene at KVAL now.

Roger: BTW, I work with Dickie B at KDCQ. HE is the NEWS guy now. Friggin ol' codger too!

Mikel,
Would Dickie B. be Dick Besser? He was PD of 123Kissin when I applied for the job Dave Shakes was leaving in 1982! Ended up at KYNG instead. Hired Lambert in '83. He's a real estate investor in Florida now.

Roger:
I didn't know you had family in North Bend. I've lived in North Bend six years and am in the process of hopefully bigger and better things since being laid off from doing mornings at KDCQ in late February. E-mail me sometime and I'll tell you of my six-year experience there.

Ron: Yes, Dick Besser. Nice guy.

Lambert a real estate investor, Holy Shnikes!

Damn, those were the days. Radio has changed sooo much since then.

Any relation to Joe Besser?

I really enjoyed listening to the Bay Area's KYNG 106.5 back in '89. It sounded much like Newport's 102.5 KYQT "QT102"...which became 102.7 KYTE in '91.

106.5 is now an "open" frequency for Powers, OR, which would cover Coos Bay/North Bend.

Family.... Alice and the late Forrest Brown, former camera shop owners in CB.... say hi for me

Chris Beebe, or as aunt Alice refers to him Little Chris from Church...Bob Reverman brought him up to KENU in '85. he was actually supposed to concentrate on the sales side, but wanted to control the programming as well. Might have been a nice guy, but as GM wanted to change the We Play everything format that Reverman wanted to We Play Gordon Lightfoot and nothing more uptempo than that. L'il Chris was probably out of his comfort zone. I've gone over his programming ideas in past threads, so I'll skip it here. I was ND at the time with different ideas from his. Let's say I outlasted him, but wasn't ND by the time he left..........

He didn't seem to think much of LIVE Radio even then.... Am sure he loves what has happened now...

see, I do have a NW connection!

the hiphop station 949 sounds better than jammin now thats shame jamminf have better music they station what yall think about that

check that thread i ment to say the hiphop station in eugene is better than jammin they got big boy from power106 on saturdays mornings what yall think about that

chavez: was jj jensen still at kissin 123 when you were there?
I was there for about 3 months in 1986.
Van was the owner then.
We all smoked back then and that freakin studio was so thick with smoke you couldn't see who was on the air!
I did middays and there was a guy with thick glasses who did pm. Can't remember his name.
Did have fun though.

DODGER: Did not meet up with JJ until KSHR many years later. I ended up firing him from KSHR. Too bad, he was a great talent. He Managed to get on the bad side of upper management though.

I was 6.5 and 300 lbs back then, I thought he was going to kick the crap out of me he was so pissed about the whole thing.

I really felt bad about the whole firing, one of the few in my career that made me uneasy to do.

Last I heard from JJ he was working for a market research company out of Boise.

Yea, that studio stunk to high hell when I was doing afternoons there. Friggin nasty ass carpet all over the walls. Finley came on after Van, he let us smoke too as long as we kept that window open next to big bertha x-mitter.

123 Kissin sure was da bomb in the early 80s! Lots of good talent went through there. I know Pat O'Leary was one of the original crew. And didn't Don Wade (now mornings WLS) work there briefly after he left KTAC?

And Roger, Chris Beebe replaced me as manager of KYNG in early 1986. I had forgotton he worked at KENU. Did you work with John Hendrickson? I knew he was manager there for a while. And did KENU have that old Cadillac station vehicle while you were there?

Ron Gallagher.......If you were the lousiest manager of all time, Chris was a step down from that........I heard that he wasn't a bad salesman though... just not a good manager.....

Bob Reverman was a car collector of sorts and he thought that caddy was the hottest thing on wheels. I didn't even meet the guy for the first nine months I was there. Then one Saturday an old Jag pulls up out front and this dapper older guy walks in and says who are you and what are you doing here? My first and last meeting with him until I was trying to buy the place from him sometime later.

John Hendrickson..... I had put him out of mind. I actually initially liked him. But I learned a valuable lesson from him....

Never switch shifts with someone to help them out. Do their shift, but do your own as well.

***WARNING***
(Boring memory coming up)..........

...so this part time guy has this big important can't miss appointment coming up and begs me to switch shifts. I say fine and cover his.....
he neglects to cover mine. PD covered it. he knew about and approved the switch.

So, Hendrickson says Whose shift is it? PD says Roger, but I approved the switch so Bill could make an appointment. Hendrickson says call him and tell him he's fired. Bill? no, Roger. His shift, he isn't here. Pd calls me and tells me. I am laughing. Big Joke. Ha. Ha. Seriously! Not laughing anymore. Went in a few days later to talk to John and he stuck to his guns.

Two weeks later, John has the PD call me to see if I will fill in for the ND who was getting married. Once she returned, I would be cut loose again....

Great offer huh? The sick part was I did it. Yep, she came back and my services were no longer required.

Memories.... Gotta love em!

I used to listen to Don Wade on KTAC(10kw on 850 ot of Tacome)in the summertime, just after the station raised power. I was a security guard for awhile and sat out all night in my car. I didn't have FM yet but still had a long antenna so I could receive just about anything on AM. KTAC came in just like a local signal! That's when there was very little noise and clear channels were really protected.