Maybe I was hallucinating but I do believe I heard a live DJ on KQOL this afternoon!?!

Glad to see you read the other threads before you started this one!

DOH! So what is the DJ schedule?

Good question. As soon as live jocks appeared everyone clammed up. I did find out that 105.9 comes in even worse than 94.7 south of Salem so I can't give you the schedule myself.

I spent this evening with KQOL. Overall, it was pretty good.

Hearing Scott Tom spinning tunes again was fantastic. He really loves playing on the radio and the vibe was tangible and warm. As always, he was upbeat, fun and professional. Welcome back Scott -- we missed you!

Another friendly and familiar voice, Lynn Masterson, made perfect sense of a really bad evening of traffic. Unfortunately, the busy bed music sometimes made her difficult to understand.

There are definitely shades of KLTH in positioners like "Made in Oregon" and the current "Half Price Thursdays" gift certificate promotion. Beyond the great live talent, the local flavor is still missing. It seems like a station I would find on vacation and stick with because it was sorta like home.

The playlist obviously draws heavily from K-Hits, and a bit from KGON. They occasionally slip an 80s gem like Blondie or Katrina & the Waves into the mix, and they play a higher ratio of classic R&B. Matt Jones has done a great job getting this library together and it sounds exponentially better than it did mere weeks ago. However -- beyond great live talent and most of the playlist -- the similarities with 106.7 are few.

The liner package is awful, full of sequenced high end racket and hyper schmaltz. Why do so many stations have to run packages that sound like a synthesized corrugated barn full of lawn sprinklers, two-cycle engines and wind chimes? It makes me half think I am gonna hear Kenny G or Backstreet Boys coming out of every break.

The overall sound is fatiguing and obviously processed, though certainly not any more than most commercial stations. It is unnaturally bright, but probably just fine for the car or other location with a constant ambient noise floor. Reception in North Portland is good, but not great.

Having not heard the midday shift since the keys were handed out, what exactly is the scoop? I am still getting mixed signals with this and that.

The great live shift from Scott was all too brief and when the VT kicked in, I did not last very long. A bit like the old days of bouncing between KSKD and KMJK, I quickly spun back up to K-Hits. Still, I am gonna check in regularly with two of my very favorite personalities, and hope that the long term goal is to go live in more slots.

I guess at this point, one would call this a radio skirmish with the potential for escalation. :0)

"the busy bed music sometimes made her difficult to understand."

There are times when one REALLY needs to know the information so CAN the style and give us the substance distraction-free, eh?

I listened again Thurs afternoon and heard some lite dj presence. Wish I were there to help.

Must be exciting!

I finally heard Scott Tom on Kool, and he said John Williams starts monday morning.

I've heard the morning show a couple of mornings, seemed ok. KQOL's female talent seems cool.

It bummed me out that the KQOL Mid-days are still automated, I still say that's where the opportunity is.

Afternoons on KQOL are certainly better with an actual human there, at least occasionally, but I think K-HITS has topped KQOL with their live broadcasts from K-HITS corner. I think it's really cool that K-HITS sounds like an actual party at times in PM drive, very good!

I noticed both KQOL and K-HITS had a problem with music beds or song intros drowning out the dj/announcer/traffic person on Tuesday PM drive. Strange it would happen on both stations at the same time.

KQOL PM drive talent strikes me as sounding a bit announcerish.

Anyway that is my humble opinion, you?

Both Scott Tom and John Williams sound a little different from what I remembered, but then I'm older. I have enjoyed their shows, I havent decided if I like them better than their counterparts on KHITS, time will tell I guess.

...older than in January?

At my age, you age fast.

John williams sounds Voice tracked! The guy is a great talent but thanks to Cheap Channel and the liner card talk breaks, Kool will not stand a chance with K-hits.
Sorry Kool, but the Voicetracked jocks does not sound very KOOL!

Beano is 105.9% correct!

Yes he is. There is no passion for this cookie cutter format. The well-known local jocks will help, but there's more to the formula than that.

Hate to say it but the morning show sounds very Adult Contemporary generic, not a place where you'd expect the unexpected. They sound like mild mannered bank employees! Very corporately correct. Many of you were right about not expecting too much.

That, added to the voice tracked, heavy on the bogus liners, PM drive is pretty disappointing. It sounds like a station that belongs in a much smaller market.

Of course KHITS is no personality powerhouse, except every once in a while.

In a market as unique as Portland, just think what both of these stations could be!

Except CC is in their annual 4th quarter cost shaving mode and remember, it's all window dressing for the PE takeover. You won't see a full blown head to head. They WON'T SPEND THE MONEY! The actual presentation is just a shell of the original plan.

Kool has solved its midday problem: They're running John Williams and Scott Tom straight through! It all sounds live; they must both be thrilled. I presume this is temporary.

It is my understanding that it is not. (temporary). They also have John Williams sidekick Janine Wolf doing hours of news for KEX, while Scott Tom is doing traffic for multiple stations in addition to his KOOl airshift.

This is a major shift in how radio stations are structured, IMHO. A six hour plus airshift for the morning man, a co-host doing her show plus newscasts for KEX, an assistant PD/afternoon drive host doing traffic for multiple stations and airshifts--- including being his own traffic dude.

do you want fries with that?

Reminds me of my small market days. You wore every hat from GM to janitor.

Very sad.....Now I could see Janine doing some voicers for KEX...thats not a huge deal....but a morning drive guy on till noon?? Give me a break....Certainly someone else could VT mid-days...frankly that would sound better than drive time people ON for six hours...

I think they're both on for 7 hours: 5-noon/noon-7. Yesterday, there was a problem and John Williams was working even longer, I think until 2!

On Radio & Records' site today, it reports that LA's KOST midday host met the "Clear Channel Restructuring Cruiser of Doom;" with reports stating the morning DJ will air until Noon, with the afternoon drive DJ from Noon to 6 PM.
We're talking about 6 or 7 hour shifts in Portland - they're reporting the same in market #2.

You've got to be a long time Portlander to remember, but the KOST midday host who was cut today is Mike Sakellarides, who was part of the Super 62 staff in the early and mid 1970's. He'd been with KOST since 1982. And they also cut the Kim half of the Mark and Kim morning show, a staple since the mid '80's. Major losses, and opportunities for competitors to pick up some outstanding, well-known talent.

Janine sounds great on KOOL as well as KEX. She's always been a smooth jock, and she has the smarts and skill to do news, too. She's not doing newscasts on KEX, and it's more than voicers...it's wraps and actuality versions based on interviews she's done. A pretty full day. You have to be able to wear multiple hats these days.

KQOL will be lucky to see a 2 share! KLTH has nothing to worry about.

Mike Sakellarides was an institution at KOST. I have been keeping in touch with him over the years and catching his show on line as well. Quality guy too. I used to answer the request line for Mike at KGW back in the day.

Mike's got talent and hope he finds his way back on the air soon.

I can't even believe we're having this discussion.

If a top station in LA is moving to 6 hour airshifts....we are all in trouble....

Earlier this year KJR FM replaced station veteran Ric Hanson in PM drive with Nick Reynolds who in addition to doing PM drive on that station also does midday and afternoon traffic on the other stations in the cluster.

CC Seattle also recently eliminated Stephen Kilbreath who has done AM drive news and traffic on KUBE for years.

Sounds like a trend

I have worked 8-12 hour days most of my life. I understand DJ has prep work to do, but with the new formats, the DJ no longer has to pick the music. Its no different than a teacher that teaches 6 hours and has to spend 2-3 hours on classroom prep.

Nwokie-

Radio is a very different animal than most jobs. First off you have literally hundreds if not thousands of people who in a moments notice will critique everything you say. Whether live or voice tracked, you crack a mic someone will have an opinion.

I have only worked at a few stations where I actually selected the music. By the time I got into the business nearly 30 years ago the music was pre-programmed either on carts or CDs. You just followed the music log and played the songs in that order.

Where you would have some control is if near the end of the hour you were either short a song or needed to edit one out you were given limited options.

When I worked at KCYX I did middays from 11a-3pm. Got to work around 8:30am. Did show prep and some production. Got off the air, took a 30 min. lunch (if I had the time), got back to the station and did production until about 5:30-6pm. That was Mon-Friday. Then I did a Saturday morning show from 6-10am, and many times did a remote after that. So by noon-1pm on Saturday I’d have my weekend.

I also used to do a 10pm-6am show on K-lite 97.1. Due to budget cuts we lost our 10pm-2am guy. I did that 5 days a week and on my last show of each week I actually worked until 7am. A 9-hour air shift. I remember hearing one of our weekend guys complain he had to do a 6-hour shift.

Or the many times I did overnights at Z100. Getting in around 10:30pm to do show prep. Do the Mid-5:30am overnighter and then find out the Morning Zoo's producer was sick and I was asked to stay on to help.

Today radio is very different and in many ways the technology has both been beneficial and burdensome. However with what I do now in radio, I still love the medium and I still work hard to create a fun show, but I just don't have to put in the long hours, deal with the commute and station politics.

My last gig was weekends doing 6am till noon or noon til six,

I would get in at 3:30 for 2 1/2 hours of unpaid show prep, then stay till 3 or 4, unpaid, editing drops, or putting together bits for my next show. at least the production room was always available on weekends! especially at 4 am!

I never minded a 5 or 6 hour shift, but tough to keep the tempo that long on an am drive show. Howie Chizek on WNIR has done 5 hours 6 days a week for years now.....

It ain't as easy as it looks....eh Roger?

Is the guy still doing mornings in Dallas, then hopping a plane for afternoons in Chicago? I would think that would get old awfully fast!

actually it's was wonderfully easy and I loved every minute of it. never did radio for the money. Only for the enjoyment of CREATING and offering my creation up for audience approval.

Unfortunate that so much creativity has been sucked out. Still think there is money to be made if the creative people were allowed to be creative. makes no difference if you are in your basement, in your bathrobe, doing VTs or showing up at cluster central everyday, it takes time and some effort to CREATE a show.

I wanted a listener who listened, not just tuned in. Management should strive for listeners rather than just tune-inners

Now, I create things that only I hear... still fun, but not nearly as satisfying!