SpringsTV Talk

Look out KILO? KDZA wants to rock

2009-07-14T14:18:00.001-07:00

Oldies station KDZA (107.9 FM) dropped the "Jet" moniker and the dusty discs on Monday in favor of an active rock format.

The station is also syndicating morning duo Lewis and Floorwax from Denver classic rock station KRFX (103.5 FM).

The morning show is not the only thing the local Clear Channel station is borrowing from its big brothers up in Denver: It's also appropriated KBPI (106.7 FM)'s slogan "KBPI Rocks the Rockies." Only, you know, with KDZA in there.

Nobody's really taken a run at KILO (94.3 FM) since the KMOM days. KILO has been pretty steady at No. 1 in the local ratings, so we'll see what KDZA can do. (Speaking of which, I hadn't even realized KILO broke up Ross and Mo in the mornings. Did that just happen?).

A straightened paper clip will lead you to digital nirvana

2009-07-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

KOAA chief engineer Quentin Henry posted this in comments, but it's much too interesting not to pull out to the main page:

Too large of an antenna is a common problem...

Gone are the days (and practices) of analog Television. "Back in the day" (of analog) More antenna was better, no longer is that the case.

TOO LARGE of an antenna can cause the stronger signals to cancel out themselves due to "reflections" of it's own signal coming in 180 degrees out of phase from the side gain of the antenna.

Digital is NOT as forgiving on "Ghosts" (reflections) as analog was. Analog "Ghosts" used to look like echos, or shadows in the video. In Digital the signal just kills it's self.

Flat antenna wire will cause problems too. It is NOT shielded and it DOES act as an additional ANTENNA picking up signals (reflections) out of phase killing the digital signal. Too high of a signal into the receiver can cause the digital receiver to NOT demodulate (receive) the Digital signal, a $2 20db attenuator can help in some cases.

SOME RABBIT EAR antennas have a built in amplifier and that amplifier can cause MORE problems that it solves. MANY cases we have the viewer "un-plug, or by-pass" the amplifier to get perfect signal on ALL digital channels.

Rabbit ear antennas have performed very well in Black Forest, Monument and other areas we have had difficulty with analog in the past.

SUMMARY: Old analog antennas WILL work IF they are not TOO LARGE, and do not have flat antenna wire more than 3 inches on the system.

StationsIn order of strength:

KOAA-42-880,000 watts
KRDO-24-200,000 watts
KXRM-22-51,000 watts
KTSC-26-39,000 watts
KKTV-10-20,000 watts.

Here are some actual case studies:
1.) Black Forest can get KOAA and many others using a straightened paper clip instead of an antenna.
2.) Trinidad (120 miles away) gets us with a small 19"X22" panel antenna that is mounted in the rafters with no amplifier.
3.) Limon gets us with a small 3' antenna no amplifier, and can not see Cheyenne Mt., just the top of Pikes Peak.
4.) La Junta gets us with a small 12"X12" panel antenna no amplifier.

TIPS:

1.) Do NOT use any flat wire longer that 3 inches.
2.) Do NOT use any amplifiers with in 60 miles.
3.) You can Reduce Rabbit ear gain by making the rods as small as possible.
4.) If you can receive channel 30 ANALOG, even a weak signal with sound, you should be able to receive all the digital channels.
5.) An out side antenna MIGHT be needed IF you can not see Cheyenne Mt. due to local terrain, hills, mountains, but not due to vegitation, trees etc...

Do touch that dial!

2009-07-06T07:30:00.001-07:00

In other channel-swapping news, someone sent me this interesting item about KKTV eyeing a signal switch.

I don't get this: Who has trouble getting KKTV digital? When I lived up in Larkspur a few years ago, KKTV was the only one that came in clearly (admittedly, it seemed to get broken up by the omnipresent Palmer Divide snow more than the other ones).

It would be kind of handy for everyone pulling in TV off their rabbit ears if everyone would go UHF, but even if KKTV switched, we'd still have KTSC on Channel 8.

Hopping frequencies now would confuse the hell out of a lot of old people with converter boxes.

Also, if KKTV goes to Channel 47 [correction: 49], would that mean that they'd take KOAA's spot as "Southern Colorado's Most Powerful Digital Signal"?

30 gets 86'd

2009-07-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

This happened yesterday, but I didn't really notice until I was up in Cripple Creek at 1 in the morning and saw KOAA's sat truck with the new "5" wrap.

It's a little funny, because channel 30 is still alive and well (and, well, analog).

Times they are a changin'.

KOAA's Jarman wins national Murrow award

2009-06-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to KOAA reporter James Jarman, whose undercover investigation into former District Attorney John Newsome drinking on the job won the national Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting from the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

Here's a link to the winning story.

Kinda neat

2009-06-26T08:36:00.001-07:00

KRCC has an online tour of the transmission towers up on Cheyenne Mountain.

Also, Colorado College's public station is doing a special one-day fund drive this Sunday to fill the gap in the station's budget created by the recession.

The Fox is in the hen house

2009-06-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Folks at KXRM are mad at me because they say the real story from the May book is who had the top-rated late-night newscast in demos. Which would be them: Their 9 p.m. scored a 4.9 to KRDO's 4.6 (at 10 p.m.) in adults 25-54.

OK, that's a good number (especially because their overall number for 9-9:30 was 6.6, dropping to 4.9 in the second half-hour, which means an astoundingly high percentage of their viewers are in that demo).

In my defense, I believe KRDO's breakout at 10 is still the more interesting storyline, both because it hasn't happened in living memory (well, recent memory) and because the 10 p.m. horse race is head-to-head, while KXRM is competing on a different playing field at 9.

Whoa. KRDO No. 1 25-54 at 5, 6 and... wait for it... 10 p.m.

2009-06-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

The latest Nielsen numbers are out and they are... unexpected. Unprecedented might be the better word.

Perennial third-place finisher KRDO/Channel 13 jumped the field to take the lead with 25-54-year-old viewers at 10 p.m., and also beat head-to-head rival KOAA/Channels 5&30 at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Now, these are the 25-54's demos, not the overall 12+ numbers. TV stations and advertisers seem to only pay attention to the demos, but, as a newspaper reporter, I think the broadest measure is still, well, the broadest measure.

So please note that, in 12+, KOAA still had wide leads at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. But not, interestingly, at 5 p.m., where it was just a hair ahead of KRDO.

Now, KKTV has beaten KOAA at 10 p.m. within the last few years in both 12+ and demos (I want to say the last time was maybe three or four years ago), but I don't think KRDO has had a No. 1 10 p.m. newscast, by any measure, since the '80s. Maybe farther back than that.

What's going on here? It's hard to say. There were some weird, DTV transition-related shenanigans going on that pushed the winter book into March, but, to the best of my knowledge, those were sorted out by the May ratings period.

Certainly, new KRDO owner the News-Press & Gazette Company has been pumping money into its flagship station. That hadn't paid off before this point, but perhaps it laid the groundwork for a surge.

Perhaps the DTV transition combined with KRDO's first-in-market HD newscast to swing viewers its way (which would help explain why the demos look so much different than the 12-plus numbers: Far fewer older folks have HDTV's).

Just strictly looking at the 25-54 numbers, KOAA's ratings seem to have dropped by nearly half at 10 p.m. KKTV was down as well, although not as much. And KRDO was up solidly, which was enough to take the lead. It was a similar story in other dayparts: Fewer viewers watching local news, but KRDO getting more of them.

Is this an epochal change? A passing of the torch? A fluke? It's going to be a long, long time before we can really be sure. Nobody pays much attention to the summer book, which means that the November book will be the next real data point.

UPDATE: One other interesting ratings data point is that KOAA's mini-me, News First Now, showed up in the ratings for the first time, posting 1's in the morning. The channel started out just on Comcast, but is now on cable and over-the-air on KOAA's digital subchannel, 5.2.

KOAA's John Gilbert passes away

2009-06-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Legendary KOAA general manager John Gilbert died on Sunday in Arizona. You can read KOAA's story here.

Gilbert was 81. Gilbert was as well-known locally for his fiery on-air editorials as for his successful leadership of the NBC affiliate. He managed television stations in New York city and was ABC’s vice president of affiliate relations before coming to Colorado Springs. He served as KOAA's general manager from 1977 to 1998, and was named the Colorado Broadcasters Association’s Broadcaster of the Year in 1996.

DTV - no big deal?

2009-06-12T14:10:00.001-07:00

In the end, Friday’s digital television transition went a lot like Y2K: Months of dire warnings and panicky preparations meant that nearly everyone seems to have made the switch without a hitch.

Between 7 and 9 a.m. on Friday, all the major local TV stations shut down their analog transmitters for good and viewers could only receive the signals with a digital TV, a converter box, cable or satellite. The transition was supposed to take place in February, but was pushed back to June to give viewers more time to prepare. It seems to have worked. At KXRM/Channel 21, the station had one call Friday morning, general manager Steve Dant said. The only glitch at the Fox affiliate was that it took five extra minutes to actually shut off the old transmitter.

“The gremlins were loose,” Dant said.

At KOAA/Channels 5&30, about 100 people had called by Friday afternoon. At the DTV walk-in assistance center at 129 N. Wahsatch Ave., Gary Marshall said Thursday was busy, with about 34 people looking for assistance, but only eight had come in on Friday.

If you do have an old TV, it’s not quite a museum piece just yet. You can, of course, hook it up to cable or satellite service, or to a digital converter box. And, for a little while at least, there are a few things to watch in good old analog television: KOAA/Channels 5&30’s transmitter on channel 30 is still up and running, along with local CW affiliate KXTU/Channel 57 (which can also be seen on KXRM’s digital subchannel, 21.2), along with a few other low-power stations.

Those stations will gradually switch over, too, and then analog television will truly go the way of 8-track tapes and Betamax VCR’s.

My TV reception sucks this morning

2009-06-12T07:29:00.001-07:00

No, really, it does. I hooked up the antenna to the analog tuner of my HDTV for the first time this morning so that I could properly commemorate the waning moments of analog television. Reception was terrible.

But not so terrible that I missed poor Tim Elbertson at KXRM/Channel 21 announcing that the station had switched off its analog transmitter and, if viewers were still watching him, they had successfully navigated the digital divide.

Psych! I was watching him in analog. It took them another five minutes to turn the darn thing off. Which is funny, because on Wednesday I was talking to KXRM general manager Steve Dant about the DTV thing and I asked him, "So, how do you actually turn off your analog transmitter?" And he said he'd talked to engineering about it and all that was required was the click of a mouse. Doh!

Anyway, funny, but not the end of the world. KXRM did eventually get up a rotating informational segment that explains how to hook up a converter box, KKTV/Channel 11 put up a static display telling people to get with the program, KOAA/Channels 5&30 went with static on 5, but is leaving 30 up as a simulcast (it's a low-power transmitter, so they're not legally required to switch it off), and KRDO/Channel 13 was waiting until 9 to switch...

So, once that happens, I guess we will be in a brave new digital world.

More digital TV silliness

2009-06-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

So the FCC sends out a news release earlier today about this cool new program: Local firefighters will actually go out and do house calls to help TV viewers hook up digital converter boxes ahead of the June 12 digital deadline.

Quirky! Fun! Potentially useful!

So I cal the Springs fire department and they get back to me: Hey nobody told us about this.

They may still do it, they just need to figure out what it entails.

Just thought that was a fitting anecdote for how seamless the whole transition has gone.

(I may just be bitter because the NTIA sent out a list of walk-in assistance centers right before I went on vacation two weeks ago. We ran the list and then they called and were like, 'Sorry, we changed all those locations.' Admittedly it's the FCC messing around this time, but shouldn't there be a little more coordination going on?)

Washington Post: Is TV facing extinction?

2009-05-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

I keep harping on this, not because I hate local television, but because I love local television. Well, love might be a little strong. Definitely like.

Anyway, the Washington Post totally agrees with me.

Plus, I think it's unfair and shortsighted for newspapers to spend gallons of ink writing about how bad the newspaper business is without looking at how the same shifting sands of reader preferences and advertising models affect other mediums. To wit: Local television. And radio. And anything else that relies on intellectual property.

I've always said, in a world where all information is free, the only information will be that which isn't worth paying for.

As the Post's Paul Farhi says, "Free is a crummy business model."

"Amazing Race" recap interview

2009-05-11T14:15:00.001-07:00

I spoke with local "Amazing Racers" Margie and Luke Adams this afternoon:

Although a $1 million prize slipped out of their grasp at the very end, Colorado Springs’ Luke and Margie Adams say competing on “The Amazing Race” was reward enough.

The mother-and-son team, who recently moved from Monument to Colorado Springs, finished third on the CBS reality show, which aired its season finale Sunday night.

“To actually make it to the final three far exceeds what I hoped to accomplish on the show,” Luke Adams —the show’s first deaf contestant — said through an interpreter.

Eleven teams began the race, which traveled through nine countries. Teams were eliminated at each stop, until the final three rushed to the finish line in Maui, Hawaii.

The final challenge required one member of each team to sort through a giant pile of surfboards to find 11 bearing pictures representing previous legs of the race. Although the Adamses began the task with a sizeable lead, Luke couldn’t find the final picture and siblings Tammy and Victor Jih passed them to win the race.

“I thought I had it in the bag,” Luke Adams, 23, said. “I thought it would be really easy.”

If someone else had to win, though, Margie Adams said she was glad it was the Jihs. The final three teams (former cheerleaders Cara Rosenthal and Jaime Edmondson took second) had become friends on the very first leg of the race in Switzerland, where they split a pizza after the filming finished.

“I think along the way, we all really helped each other,” she said. “We really have a sincere friendship with those two teams.”

Things weren’t so friendly with another team, sisters LaKisha and Jennifer Hoffman. The Adamses had several shouting matches and one shoving incident with the sisters. They’ve since patched things up, Margie Adams said, but, Luke said, at least it made for good TV.

The breathtaking pace of the race, covering 40,000 miles in 22 days, didn’t leave much time for sightseeing. The one chance they had to catch their breath and take in the views was on a boat trip through Thailand.“

That was really the only opportunity we had in the whole race to sit back,” Margie Adams, 51, said.

Luke Adams’ deafness was never a major obstacle during the race, they said. Even the show’s host, Phil Keoghan, learned some sign language, as did Rosenthal and Edmondson, while other contestants wrote messages to communicate.

“I thought it was so cool that people were willing to learn to communicate,” Luke Adams said.

Now that the final episode has aired, it’s a bit of a letdown, Luke Adams said.

“For me, it’s a little bit sad,” he said. “I was teasing my friends: ‘Maybe I’m going to be eliminated this week.’ I really enjoyed messing with my friends.”

“We had a large group of deaf people who came every week and watched the show with us,” Margie Adams said. “It was the highlight of our week.”

For taking third, the Adamses won $10,000, plus they won three trips along the way for winning stages. They’re planning to split those up.

“We’re definitely not going together,” Margie Adams said. “I think our traveling days together... it’s going to be awhile."

Monument "Race team takes third

2009-05-11T09:23:00.001-07:00

Monument "Amazing Racers" Luke and Margie Adams finished third in the reality show, around-the-world race, which wrapped up on Sunday.

The final challenge, a memory puzzle requiring contestants to line up surfboards with pictures representing the previous stages of the race, stymied Luke.

I've got an interview with Margie and Luke scheduled for this afternoon, so I'll have more to say later.

HD Radio - what time is it?

2009-05-08T14:21:00.001-07:00

Funny comment over on the real blog about the perils of HD Radio technology:

"One thing I noticed, these radios have the auto clock set. KKLI and KRCC display and set the correct time, but while flipping around I noticed 96.1 The Beat, KCCY, KVUU KCME all reset my clock 6 hours for some odd reason. Andy, can you check with these radio stations and ask them to set their system clocks to the right time so my clock will display correctly? I have tried to manually set the time, but these stations reset my clock to the worng time and I cannot control it. I have emailed them to no avail."

KILO tops Arbitrons once more

2009-05-08T13:03:00.001-07:00

Rock station KILO (94.3 FM) maintained its run atop the local radio ratings, according to the latest numbers from Arbitron.

Talk station KVOR (740 AM) came in second and KBIQ (102.7 FM), KKLI (106.3) and KKMG (98.9 FM) shared a three-way tie for third.

KILO was also the top station with listeners in the 18-34-year-old age group, but Christian contemporary station KBIQ (102.7 FM) edged it out with listeners in the 25-54-year-old category.

1. KILO (94.3 FM)
2. KVOR (740 AM)
3. (tie) KKLI (106.3 FM)
KBIQ (102.7 FM)
KKMG (98.9 FM)
6. KVUU (99.9 FM)
7. (tie) KIBT (96.1 FM)
KKFM (98.1 FM)
9. (tie) KCCY (96.9 FM)
KKPK (92.9 FM)
11. KATC (95.1 FM)
12. KOA (850 AM)
13. KRDO (1240 AM and 105.5 FM)
14. (tie) KDZA (107.9 FM)
KRXP (103.9 FM)
16. KCMN (1530 AM)
17. KGFT (100.7 FM)
18. KZNT (1460 AM)
19. KHOW (630 AM)
20. KCSF (1300 AM)
21. KPHT (95.5 FM)
22. KYRE (104.9 FM)
SOURCE: Arbitron

Ken Salazar on the Daily Show!

2009-05-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Ken Salazar

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

Phil: Margie and Luke rock!

2009-05-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

"Amazing Race" host Phil Keoghan says nice things about Monument Racers Margie and Luke Adams:

"I think this is one of the most dynamic teams we've had in years -- and quite a different casting selection," Keoghan said. "I was really excited when they first walked in the room during the early casting period and I thought the potential for having a team like that on the show would be tremendous. And what's so nice is to see that they've come this far."

Also, CBS won't let Margie and Luke do interviews until after Sunday's finale, but I'm trying to line something up for Monday.

HD Radio, still waiting for the world to notice

2009-05-05T08:04:00.001-07:00

David Pogue of the New York Times has some fun at the expense of HD Radio.

My wife really wanted to listen to KRCC's HD Radio substations, so for her birthday I got (and with a great deal of trouble, installed), a Dual HD radio in her car.

So far, the major benefit of the radio is that I can listen to whatever is on KRCC - HD2 when the main channel is busy with the pledge drive. When you're listening to the main channel, however, the HD Radio does have the highly annoying habit of switching between the analog and the digital signal, which are slightly off synchronization. So it sounds like the radio is stuttering. And there's no way to simply turn the HD off, that I'm aware of.

Anyhoo, I'm not a huge fan of the technology, and I fully agree with Pogue that the way the radio industry rolled it out was pretty poor (and, as it turns out, a panicked response to a threat from satellite radio that proved to be largely imaginary).

Chicago TV stations to pool resources, video

2009-05-04T13:37:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting item from the Chicago Tribune about a plan for that city's major TV stations to begin sending a single crew to major events and then share the coverage.

I'm sort of interested in how this will work (will the stations provide their own voice-overs or intros, what will happen to live reports?), but the bigger question is, what does it mean?

I've long said that the crisis facing newspapers was a harbinger for TV and radio stations, who will ultimately face the same profit-sapping flight of viewers and listeners to the Internet.

Maintaining four seperate newsgathering operations in a city the size of Colorado Springs is going to be a tough road to hoe in the near future. It's noteworthy, however, that this experiment is being tried not here in market 93, but it Chicago (what's that, like market 4 or something?).

What does it mean? Well, I expect we'll see.

Congrats to local Amazing Racers

2009-05-04T07:18:00.001-07:00

Margie and Luke Adams of Monument made the final leg of CBS' "The Amazing Race," airing at 7 p.m. Sunday. The Adamses will be racing against two other teams to the reality show's finish line.

Luke is the show's first deaf contestant and a former student at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind.

I interviewed the mother-son team here.

Discovery filming in the Springs

2009-04-29T07:22:00.001-07:00

From the release:

Investigation Discovery film crews will be in Colorado Springs, CO today, Wednesday, April 29 through Friday, May 1 to film segments for the upcoming season of CALL 911. The crew will cover three real-life emergency situations that previously took place in the county. One story being filmed is when a daughter calls 911 because her family is trapped in a house fire. Before the firefighters arrive, the family is forced to jump from the second floor to save themselves. Additional stories being covered are a five-year old girl who finds her diabetic father losing consciousness and an eight-year-old daughter who calls 911 when her mother is having a stroke.

More Clear Channel layoffs

2009-04-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

All Access is reporting that Clear Channel is laying off hundreds more company-wide. 590, to be exact. The radio giant owns KKLI, KIBT, KVUU, KDZA and KCCY in the Springs.

This is the second round of layoffs this year for CC. Local on-air staff were spared in the first round, although other departments took a hit. No word yet on what's happening this time.

The good news, such as it is, is that Clear Channel is being remarkably generous with severance - 3 to 9 months for most employees.

KKLI wins Crystal radio award

2009-04-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

KKLI (106.3 FM) was one of 10 winners nationally of the National Association of Broadcasters' Crystal Radio Award, which is given for outstanding public service. Sort of a big deal.