Guest Column: Liberate KJAM from Corporate Format Radio
By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2019-04-14
What do I get when I blog about hazardous radio towers and a mostly ignored mayoral contest? A guest column from eager reader Wade Brandis, recent Madisonite via Winner, who cogitates on what Madison radio station KJAM could do to bring light and love—or at least something worth listening to—to the barren corporate airscape:
The recent discussions regarding the ice falling off broadcast towers and the Madison mayoral race got me thinking: Do people still listen to old fashioned AM/FM radio in today’s Internet-connected world, especially commercial radio?
The answer seems simple. There are people, like me, who still choose to listen to radio despite the growing popularity of commercial-free streaming services like Spotify or Pandora.
The local Madison stations are in a tough situation geographically. Madison sits in the shadows of Sioux Falls and Brookings, two cities with bigger radio signals. The funny part? The Brookings stations are owned by the same corporate owner of the Madison pair, Alpha Media.
I can see the staff of KJAM are dedicated to their jobs, and two of them even help out with the yearly Relay for Life. Their Facebook page and websites are constantly updated with news and other community information. But are they still relevant to the community as a whole? You have to wonder when you notice that your East Dakota Transit driver has it on KELO’s conservative news talk or another Sioux Falls station, or when Grapevines prefers Life 96.5. The irony? The only store in Madison where KJAM-FM is always on is Dollar General. Besides these few stores, I never hear KJAM, or radio in general, playing inside. If it’s not the radio, it’s streaming music or canned satellite muzak. Or no music at all.
My solution for KJAM is to update their imaging and broaden their formats. Why stick with two cookie cutter formats and go full service? Play all different kinds of music, not just the popular top-40 country or familiar classic rock, but B-sides and more obscure tracks that hardly receive airplay anymore. What about indie bands or local musicians? As for news and information, why not put together local investigative journalists that cover real community issues like poverty, drug addiction, and housing issues rather than simply parrot what’s on the AP Wire or in the Daily Leader? Perhaps if KJAM could do something like this, they could become relevant in the eyes of today’s generation and become a viable companion or alternative to paid streaming music apps.
But with Alpha Media owning KJAM, I doubt that will happen. AFAIK, the original owners of KJAM sold the station to Three Eagles in 2001. Three Eagles was then swept up by Digity Media, and in turn, they were eaten by Alpha Media. They are one of those big corporate owners, and it appears they favor their Brookings cluster over the Madison pair. The Brookings stations operate out of a nice office on 22nd Ave. KJAM still operates out of their Egan Avenue studio, and it’s in a dire need of a facelift.
CAH: What better place for a local radio station than right downtown? [screen cap from Google Maps, downloaded 2019.04.14.]If Alpha Media were to ever put KJAM up for sale, there should be a push for a dedicated local group to purchase the station before another out-of-state company gets it. I’d hate to see KJAM be sold off to another corporate owner or worse still, a religious broadcaster, as the potential is there to make the station competitive and game changing in the commercial radio landscape.
Mr. H, if you were to buy this K.J.A.M outfit and re-purpose it as blogger-radio, you could be on the airs all the time!
happy camper
2019-04-14 20:40
Their web site is not very helpful KSFY had better coverage of Madison’s storm outages what’s it take to update the site and be the go-to place for local info? Madison Daily Leader fails in this also. Get Amazon Prime, listen to uninterrupted music, movies, and cheap stuff comes right to your door. Lewis had something half off Amazon was still half that price. Shopko was completely noncompetitive. There’s nothing here to keep people in town someone just told me she drives to Sioux Falls constantly. Originally from down south she liked the house she bought but moved to Brookings. A new motel is coming – subsidized by Madison taxpayers – out goes Lindsey in the meantime downtown needs a wrecking ball. You saw low turnout because disenfranchised voters don’t think things will ever change. Dennert’s win was a pleasant surprise. We should give him kudos for not giving up.
Wade Brandis
2019-04-14 23:25
happy camper: I recieve the Daily Leader at my doorstep weekdays, and I think it does a decent job at local news. Can’t say the same with their website, which is needlessly complex in design and looks very dated. The text is also very small on a modern 1080p PC monitor. KJAM’s website is somewhat better in comparison, but it tends to just repeat the same news that appears in the Daily Leader. The updates are also very infrequent.
Back in my hometown of Winner, KWYR AM and FM remain under local ownership, and unlike KJAM, you can hear them in many businesses and offices. The radio spectrum in Tripp County isn’t as crowded as in East Central SD. In Winner, the only other stations you can pick up with a basic boombox are SD Public Radio, KPLO 94 Country from Reliance and a satellite-fed Christian station from Gregory. A car radio can get more signals depending on where you drive. With very little choice beyond KWYR, it’s no wonder it finds it’s way into more businesses and remains relevant with listeners. Their Friday rock-n-roll request show is very popular.
KWYR is experimenting with online-only radio. About two years ago they launched Rooster Country, a streaming station playing top-40 country music. Walk in downtown Winner and you can hear speakers near the KWYR studio playing Rooster Country. But, they need to improve their website as well. It’s worse than AmazingMadison, with even worse formatting and menu setup. It’s like taking a time machine back to 2005.
Grudz, if I bought KJAM, then I’d have to spend all my time in Madison again.
For my blogging purposes, acquiring a radio station would be fun but ultimately unnecessary. I could reach my statewide market more broadly, cheaply, and technologically easily with a purely online operation. Expanding to a video stream is a trivial matter compared to acquiring a broadcast television station. The same economics explain why I have yet to buy a printing press or a single roll of newsprint to publish my writing.
I like having local radio on. But even now, we listen at home to SDPB on our Amazon Echo (or Dot, or Alexa, or whatever it’s called). The only downside is a one-minute lag from the on-air signal, which only means that if I’m using the radio program to tell what time it is, I’ll be a minute late!
Wade Brandis
2019-04-15 23:52
Cory: Many radio stations have been streaming on the internet through various apps like iHeartRadio, TuneIn, or their website itself. KJAM even tells you how to add an Alexa skill for their station. Even so, I’ll always stick with the old fashioned method. If my internet connection goes out on a clear day, I can still listen to KJAM or the multitude of other options I can easily pick up via an antenna.
happy camper: I’m a bit confused when you said that downtown Madison needs a wrecking ball. I like walking around downtown when the weather is nice. The trees along the sidewalks and the flower baskets add a nice touch that Winner’s main street completely lacks. I can say that downtown has definitely seen better days. There are more offices than stores, and there aren’t that many options to eat out once Gary’s Bakery and Country Cafe close in the afternoon. In the past year, three local stores closed their doors after their respective owners retired. The NorthWestern Energy office closed because people were paying their bills online, and more recently, the AT&T store closed as well. There are many vacant buildings now, but I think there is a bit of hope. Recently, a long vacant building next door to the Encore Family Store became another ladies boutique. There was a successful series of summer block parties last year featuring local and regional bands. And from my own observations, Sundog Coffee, Los Tapatios and Staduim Sports get a good amount of business.
Perhaps the LAIC and the Chamber should focus on downtown development first rather than trying to help bring in more strip malls on the edges of town.
Notice that Wade highlights the success of those community events, the block parties, downtown, as well as the pleasure of walking in that space and seeing flowers. Downtown development, like good local radio, is about building community, not just profit. No one builds a strip mall on the edge of town to create a pleasant space; strip malls are built to maximize profit. So, alas, are corporate format radio stations.
![CAH: What better place for a local radio station than right downtown? [screen cap from Google Maps, downloaded 2019.04.14.]](https://dakotafreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-14-at-19.25.08.jpg)
Mr. H, if you were to buy this K.J.A.M outfit and re-purpose it as blogger-radio, you could be on the airs all the time!
Their web site is not very helpful KSFY had better coverage of Madison’s storm outages what’s it take to update the site and be the go-to place for local info? Madison Daily Leader fails in this also. Get Amazon Prime, listen to uninterrupted music, movies, and cheap stuff comes right to your door. Lewis had something half off Amazon was still half that price. Shopko was completely noncompetitive. There’s nothing here to keep people in town someone just told me she drives to Sioux Falls constantly. Originally from down south she liked the house she bought but moved to Brookings. A new motel is coming – subsidized by Madison taxpayers – out goes Lindsey in the meantime downtown needs a wrecking ball. You saw low turnout because disenfranchised voters don’t think things will ever change. Dennert’s win was a pleasant surprise. We should give him kudos for not giving up.
happy camper: I recieve the Daily Leader at my doorstep weekdays, and I think it does a decent job at local news. Can’t say the same with their website, which is needlessly complex in design and looks very dated. The text is also very small on a modern 1080p PC monitor. KJAM’s website is somewhat better in comparison, but it tends to just repeat the same news that appears in the Daily Leader. The updates are also very infrequent.
Back in my hometown of Winner, KWYR AM and FM remain under local ownership, and unlike KJAM, you can hear them in many businesses and offices. The radio spectrum in Tripp County isn’t as crowded as in East Central SD. In Winner, the only other stations you can pick up with a basic boombox are SD Public Radio, KPLO 94 Country from Reliance and a satellite-fed Christian station from Gregory. A car radio can get more signals depending on where you drive. With very little choice beyond KWYR, it’s no wonder it finds it’s way into more businesses and remains relevant with listeners. Their Friday rock-n-roll request show is very popular.
KWYR is experimenting with online-only radio. About two years ago they launched Rooster Country, a streaming station playing top-40 country music. Walk in downtown Winner and you can hear speakers near the KWYR studio playing Rooster Country. But, they need to improve their website as well. It’s worse than AmazingMadison, with even worse formatting and menu setup. It’s like taking a time machine back to 2005.
The new motel: is that the Schultz conference center out in the industrial park? Will they play KJAM in the lobby?
Grudz, if I bought KJAM, then I’d have to spend all my time in Madison again.
For my blogging purposes, acquiring a radio station would be fun but ultimately unnecessary. I could reach my statewide market more broadly, cheaply, and technologically easily with a purely online operation. Expanding to a video stream is a trivial matter compared to acquiring a broadcast television station. The same economics explain why I have yet to buy a printing press or a single roll of newsprint to publish my writing.
I like having local radio on. But even now, we listen at home to SDPB on our Amazon Echo (or Dot, or Alexa, or whatever it’s called). The only downside is a one-minute lag from the on-air signal, which only means that if I’m using the radio program to tell what time it is, I’ll be a minute late!
Cory: Many radio stations have been streaming on the internet through various apps like iHeartRadio, TuneIn, or their website itself. KJAM even tells you how to add an Alexa skill for their station. Even so, I’ll always stick with the old fashioned method. If my internet connection goes out on a clear day, I can still listen to KJAM or the multitude of other options I can easily pick up via an antenna.
happy camper: I’m a bit confused when you said that downtown Madison needs a wrecking ball. I like walking around downtown when the weather is nice. The trees along the sidewalks and the flower baskets add a nice touch that Winner’s main street completely lacks. I can say that downtown has definitely seen better days. There are more offices than stores, and there aren’t that many options to eat out once Gary’s Bakery and Country Cafe close in the afternoon. In the past year, three local stores closed their doors after their respective owners retired. The NorthWestern Energy office closed because people were paying their bills online, and more recently, the AT&T store closed as well. There are many vacant buildings now, but I think there is a bit of hope. Recently, a long vacant building next door to the Encore Family Store became another ladies boutique. There was a successful series of summer block parties last year featuring local and regional bands. And from my own observations, Sundog Coffee, Los Tapatios and Staduim Sports get a good amount of business.
Perhaps the LAIC and the Chamber should focus on downtown development first rather than trying to help bring in more strip malls on the edges of town.
Notice that Wade highlights the success of those community events, the block parties, downtown, as well as the pleasure of walking in that space and seeing flowers. Downtown development, like good local radio, is about building community, not just profit. No one builds a strip mall on the edge of town to create a pleasant space; strip malls are built to maximize profit. So, alas, are corporate format radio stations.