Monday, April 28, 2008

KUDO Moved From Progressive to Mainstream Category

Progressive Alaska has moved KUDO FM from the Progressive Alaska Media category here to the Mainstream Alaska Media category until things clarify there.

Cary Carrigan will be doing a 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. slot. They've offered C.C. and Shannyn Moore new time slots. A new business model will be announced by Cary on Thursday.

Carrigan has already called a couple of people I've spoken to with time offers for interviews in his new slot.

The KLEF studios, long located on the 2nd floor of the Frontier Building, have been moved to the TATI enclave in a mid-town business park. According to a longtime KLEF fan, KLEF and its parent entity are being subjected to a somewhat hostile buyout offer from TATI's Mike Robbins. There is no guarantee in my friend's account, that KLEF would remain a classical music station.

I have yet to see any evidence that anything that happened at KUDO this weekend is tied to Aaron Selbig's co-operation with Robert Dillon, David Shurtleff and Brendan Joel Kelley on the stories about the fake Ethan Berkowitz sites. Also, doing some similar research today to what those four reporters have done, I've yet to find a direct connection to the creation of those sites to the Jake Metcalfe campaign. I'm getting some expert help on this.

At the time the domain names were purchased - early last fall - anyone could have discovered where the then-existing Jake Metcalfe site was registered, and bought new domain names with purchases made in Anchorage. If it weren't for the statement to one of the reporters by a person who prefers to remain anonymous within Democratic Party HQ, we could just as easily assume that Don Young or Sean Parnell or one of their minions has created those sites to create chaos within the Democratic Party ranks.

I heard calls on Anchorage AM radio today for whoever created the sites to come forward. I agree. I also call for whoever claims to have witnessed the key conversation last fall cited in Dillon's article to also come forward with an affidavit.

What is going down at KUDO, after the key role the station has played in a progressive turnaround in local politics, is one of the saddest days I've witnessed in Alaska media.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It doesn't make sense.

They just started a new ratings period and the station is just starting to make a push in the ratings.

It takes time to build something to where KUDO is today, and then just like that, Robbins comes in and whacks it.

It doesn't make sense, it's a business decision to be sure, the timing is interesting too, my guess is that they would have done it at the beginning of April, at the beginning of the book, if it weren't for J-Week.

Bottom line is that it's a commercial property, the owners are free to program it however they wish, within FCC rules.

If the people want to have and control their own voice on the airwaves, they have to own the frequency and operate the station themselves.

It's called community radio, KUDO was nothing close to this.

The good news is that Out North Theatre filed for a Low Power FM license in 2000, and they were granted permission to build it in February of this year.

There is hope.

Anonymous said...

You may remember a talk show host from many years ago named Chuck Harder. He partnered up with the unions to push a USA made line of products. Then: Poof, he was gone. Locked out of his own broadcast studio and cast off like some human debris. That's what you get when you partner with unions..

Anonymous said...

Phillip,

Thank you so much for trying to keep KUDO listeners updated.

You are doing an incredible job!!

Tessie