It was about 20 years ago… The Mountain – KMTT FM 103.7 switched from Beautiful Music to AAA. It’s a fact, you don’t hear beautiful music on the radio anymore these days.
Along with Me-TV comes Cool TV to KVOS Bellingham. The station will operate a second digital channel later this summer called, The Cool TV, which will feature music videos 24 hours daily.
CBS has hired longtime [10 years] KIRO reporter, Heather Bosch as a correspondent. She will be based in New York.
Clay Hungtington has operated stations KFHA-Lakewood, KLAY FM Tacoma, KQLA-Lakewood and now KLAY 1180-Lakewood, serving the Tacoma and South Sound area for well over 50 years. [pictured: Clay Huntington, voice of Tacoma Tigers baseball 1946-1951;] Huntington’s early sports broadcast career includes stints at KTBI, KTNT and KMO radio stations and both KTVW and KTNT television. All of this, as well as sports broadcasts on a 14-station network that covered Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. His vast record of community involvement includes helping to fund the construction of Cheney Stadium in 1960 and bring Triple A baseball back to Tacoma.
KLAY 106.1 FM was the first STEREO FM station in the Puget Sound region. At that time, KLAY FM was a Beautiful Music station. Ahhh…the sounds of Mantovani, Enoch Light and Richard Claydermann. Beautiful music orchestrations, programmed as background music, pleasant, relaxing and suitable for the office, home or in the car. Listeners stayed with KLAY FM for hours each day at work and at home. This format was relaxing and almost hypnotic when programmed right.
Competition for this format grew during the 60s and early 70s, with several stations adopting the format for some period. Over time there was KEZX, KBRD, KSEA, KIXI and KBIQ. Oceans of Beautiful Music emanated from some great Puget Sound area radio channels.
KLAY FM switched to a very different sound in the latter part of the 60s, Progressive Rock. Again, the station performed well and many people still recall that era and the DJs of KLAY. For example, Steve Slaton, who went on to a career at Album Rock stations in Seattle.
The FM was sold in the early 80s and became KRPM FM [now KBKS]. Clay Huntington continues to operate the AM, located in Lakewood at 1180 AM. He is still at the helm each day as 1180 KLAY broadcasts a talk radio format. Featured are many local hosts, such as well known civic leader Mike Lonergan and longtime horse racing expert and broadcaster, Vic Cozzetti, known as Victor the Predictor.
June 1979 – KBRD FM Tacoma adopts Churchill Productions’ Beautiful Music format.
Working the all-nighter at KBRD FM was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in the broadcast business. This was one of the last of the “Beautiful Music” stations in the USA. Down the hall and around the corner, was 85 KTAC. These were the only Entercom stations in the Puget Sound region, in the days before the consolidation of radio and the growth of Entercom.
Bobby Simon worked the morning shift at the Big 850. Bobby disliked his gig at KTAC, so much that he counted off each day, on the air, at the beginning of each day’s show. Each day, just one more that he was “held hostage” to this career nightmare. Whether he saw Tacoma as a huge step down from Seattle radio or that there were conflicts between him and management, it was evident to anyone listening, that Simon didn’t want to be there.
Over the years, KTAC personalities included Don Wade, Robert O. Smith, Lee Perkins…[the list goes on & on]. KTAC went head to head with KJR, KING and KOL, pumping out rock ‘n roll to the Tacoma and South Sound area. Bobby Simon was a huge talent, legendary, to use that overworked title. With history at powerhouse Top 40 stations like KJR and KOL, Bobby Simon was certainly one of the major players in Pacific Northwest radio.
Then came the day when the shit hit the fan and Bobby Simon had words with KTAC management. Simon blew out of the Tacoma Mall Office Building, riding off on his motorcycle, probably relieved that he had finally gotten his freedom.
The next morning, I moved into the morning drive shift at KTAC. Ace news reporter at the Big 85 was Bill Ogden. We had a great time waking up the South Sound with the adult contemporary music mix and crazy banter, between Freeway Hero traffic updates and Bob Robertson’s sports reports. From Hollywood gossip to the one-liners from the Electric Weenie [great show prep, I know], we delivered our brand of good humor to the South Sound each morning for the better part of two years.
“Sugar” Bruce Cannon rode home with listeners each afternoon. Cannon had been afternoon drive host and PD at 85 KTAC for several years. Bruce Cannon will probably be remembered by most listeners as the heart and soul of 850 KTAC.
When Entercom brought the “Mountain” format [KMTT] to the AM/FM combo , I was offered a couple choices in shifts at the “new” station. I chose the all-night shift, which worked best in conjunction with my real job at the telephone company and some college courses at Pierce College.
Now, broadcasting from the Metropolitan Park West tower between downtown Seattle and South Lake Union, I was once again enjoying the all-night shift, with the glow of the console before me — and a great view of the city lights and the lake in the distance.
That was all toward the end of my radio career in Seattle, just before moving to Phoenix. KOOL FM/Phoenix, the Oldies station, was mostly liners and the same 100 records, played ad nauseum. That was the nature of radio in the early 90s and it is NOT EVEN that much fun these days. So, I have the good memories of radio — when it was FUN, and this weathered and discolored photograph of a much younger me. And neither this old DJ nor radio will ever be the same again.
The VOICE of KIXI Radio has died. Bob Liddle passed away at the age of 88, on May 19, 2010. Bob Liddle, formerly of Portland, Oregon stations KXL and KEX, joined the airstaff and stayed with KIXI for 45 years.
Here is the tribute to Bob Liddle that aired on KIXI –
KIXI featured Beautiful Music in it’s heyday, and a staff of great announcers. With the purchase of an FM channel, KIXI took the beautiful music format to FM radio in a simulcast of the AM back in the 60s. KIXI dropped the Beautiful Music format in 1980.
KIXI, originally at the 910 position on the AM dial [Roman numerals IXI], moved to 880 AM in 1983 and boosted power to 50,000 watts daytime/10,000 nights.
Saturday, May 19, 9:29 am
 Click the individual station links to find historical data regarding stations, personalities and formats at SeaTacRadio.com
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