KIXI
Encyclopedia
KIXI is an AM radio station
licensed to Mercer Island
-Seattle
, Washington on the frequency of 880 kHz. It operates 24 hours a day
with a daytime power of 50,000 watts and a nighttime power of 10,000 watts.
and musical standards. It is the only station in the Seattle area to feature the Imagination Theatre and Twilight Zone
radio dramas.
KIXI remains one of the few AM radio stations that continues to successfully program music on the AM band. It also enjoys some of the highest ratings of any "Nostalgia" formatted station in the US.
On June 1, 2006 KIXI started to carry the nationally syndicated format "Music Of Your Life" from Jones Radio Networks. Jones stopped carrying the Music of Your Life format via satellite in January 2008 in favor of its own standards format, called "Jones Standards
" (which has since been discontinued and absorbed into Dial Global
's America's Best Music
network). However, KIXI remained until April 2009 an affiliate of Music of Your Life
, now distributed by Planet Halo, Incorporated.
The station was the first AM station in Seattle to transmit its signal in IBOC
digital radio
during a joint demonstration with Harris Corporation and iBiquity, the licensee of the new digital AM transmission method. KIXI can also be heard in HD Radio
on KRWM 106.9 FM HD2.
station broadcasting with at 1220 kHz during daytime hours only. KXRN was owned by the Interlake Broadcasting Company. It was built by Frank C. Cook, who was also the radio announcer. In 1951, the station moved to 1230 kHz and changed its call letters to KLAN a year later.
KLAN became a full-time station broadcasting with 1,000 Watts at 910 kHz in 1957. Purchased the following year by former KRSC and KJR personality Wally Nelskog, the station became top-40 KQDE, or "Cutie Radio." A sister station on 1230 kHz in Everett
, KQTY, also used the same branding. One of Seattle's first black deejays, Bob Summarise, brought an R&B influence to his airshift on KQDE. (Summarise would later own soul
-formatted KYAC, which took the air in 1964.) In 1960, KQDE would change its call letters to the more phonetic KUDY and changed its city of license
to Seattle.
Failing to make an impact in the top-40 battle dominated by KJR and KOL, the station became beautiful music
KIXI in late 1961. (The call letters were a Roman numeral representation of the station's "9-1" dial position.) Bob Liddle, formerly of Portland, Oregon
stations KXL and KEX, joined the airstaff and would stay with KIXI for 45 years. During the 1970s, Liddle teamed with Dean Smith on News 90, one of Seattle's first all-news morning drive programs.
A partnership led by J. Elroy McCaw, owner of Tacoma television station KTVW
and father of future cellular telephone tycoon Craig McCaw
, purchased a 50-percent interest in KIXI in 1963. The group also acquired FM beautiful music station KGMJ
from Rogan Jones, founder of the pioneering radio automation firm IGM. KGMJ became KIXI-FM and simulcasted the AM station's programming. McCaw died suddenly of a stroke in 1969, exposing a considerable amount of debt accumulated from his speculation
on radio and television stations, including WINS
in New York and KYA in San Francisco. With the exception of a small cable television
system in Centralia
, McCaw's entire broadcasting portfolio was sold off to pay down the debt service. Wally Nelskog and two Richland
physicians purchased KIXI and KIXI-FM in 1971.
The beautiful music simulcast ended in 1980, with the AM side adopting an Oldies
format and the FM station programming adult contemporary as "KIXI Lite." In 1982, KIXI (AM) began running a satellite-fed adult standards
format. A move to the 880 kHz frequency a year later allowed for a daytime power boost to 50,000 watts, and in 1986, a nighttime increase to 10,000 watts. That same year, Nelskog sold the station to Thunder Bay Communications, who in turn sold the AM station to Sunbelt Communications. The FM station, which had become KLTX, was sold to Ackerley Communications.
KIXI was purchased by Sandusky Radio, owners of KLSY
, in 1992. Hiring personalities such as Jim Dai and Dan Murphy in 1993, the station dropped the AM Only satellite service for a locally voicetracked lineup. Bob Dearborn, best known for his work at WCFL
in Chicago, was the KIXI program director
from 1994 to 1999. He was replaced by Bob Brooks, formerly of KLSY.
While the aging demographics of the adult standards audience forced many stations in larger markets to drop the format in the late 1990s, KIXI continued to enjoy modest success, often selling advertising time as an "add-on" to spots on KLSY or the other stations in the Sandusky Seattle group. Finally, in a move that led to an outcry from a loyal listener base, KIXI abruptly began airing Music of Your Life
satellite programming on June 1, 2006. With the exception of Dan Murphy, who continued to voice station promotions and weekday weather forecasts, the entire KIXI airstaff was terminated. In April 2009, KIXI dropped the Music of Your Life programming after three years and returned to local programming.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
licensed to Mercer Island
Mercer Island, Washington
Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States and the name of the island in Lake Washington on which the city sits. The population was 22,699 at the 2010 census....
-Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, Washington on the frequency of 880 kHz. It operates 24 hours a day
24 Hours A Day
"24 Hours a Day" is a 1976 song by heavy metal band Triumph from their debut album Triumph. The song was written by Rik Emmett and had existed as part of Triumph's stage act as far back as 1975. It has appeared on three studio albums, although it has never been re-recorded...
with a daytime power of 50,000 watts and a nighttime power of 10,000 watts.
Format
KIXI features nostalgic music, such as big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
and musical standards. It is the only station in the Seattle area to feature the Imagination Theatre and Twilight Zone
Twilight zone
-Television series and spinoffs:*The Twilight Zone, the anthology television series and its franchise:**The Twilight Zone , the 1959–1964 original television series***Twilight Zone: The Movie, a 1983 film based on the original series...
radio dramas.
KIXI remains one of the few AM radio stations that continues to successfully program music on the AM band. It also enjoys some of the highest ratings of any "Nostalgia" formatted station in the US.
On June 1, 2006 KIXI started to carry the nationally syndicated format "Music Of Your Life" from Jones Radio Networks. Jones stopped carrying the Music of Your Life format via satellite in January 2008 in favor of its own standards format, called "Jones Standards
Jones Standards
Jones Standards was a short-lived 24-hour music format that was produced by Jones Radio Networks. Its playlist is composed of mostly adult standards from artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow, Johnny Mathis, Rod Stewart and a dozen more artists....
" (which has since been discontinued and absorbed into Dial Global
Dial Global
Dial Global is a radio syndication company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Triton Media Group and is a sister company to Townsquare Media, both of which are owned by Oaktree Capital Management....
's America's Best Music
America's Best Music
America's Best Music is the on-air branding of an adult standards 24-hour radio network, known internally as Adult Standards and formerly known as AM Only, currently owned by Dial Global. It was one of the original Westwood One's Transtar networks...
network). However, KIXI remained until April 2009 an affiliate of Music of Your Life
Music of Your Life
Music of Your Life is a satellite-delivered radio network featuring the Adult Standards music format. Created by record executive and jingle writer Al Ham, and now under the direction of Marc Angell, Music of Your Life has more than 50 AM, FM and HD-2 radio station affiliates, and has been in...
, now distributed by Planet Halo, Incorporated.
The station was the first AM station in Seattle to transmit its signal in IBOC
In-band on-channel
In-band on-channel is a hybrid method of transmitting digital radio and analog radio broadcast signals simultaneously on the same frequency....
digital radio
Digital radio
Digital radio has several meanings:1. Today the most common meaning is digital radio broadcasting technologies, such as the digital audio broadcasting system, also known as Eureka 147. In these systems, the analog audio signal is digitized into zeros and ones, compressed using formats such as...
during a joint demonstration with Harris Corporation and iBiquity, the licensee of the new digital AM transmission method. KIXI can also be heard in HD Radio
HD Radio
HD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...
on KRWM 106.9 FM HD2.
History
KIXI took the air in 1947 as KXRN, a 250-Watt RentonRenton, Washington
Renton is an Eastside edge city in King County, Washington, United States. Situated 11 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington. Founded in the 1860s, Renton became a supply town for the Newcastle coal fields...
station broadcasting with at 1220 kHz during daytime hours only. KXRN was owned by the Interlake Broadcasting Company. It was built by Frank C. Cook, who was also the radio announcer. In 1951, the station moved to 1230 kHz and changed its call letters to KLAN a year later.
KLAN became a full-time station broadcasting with 1,000 Watts at 910 kHz in 1957. Purchased the following year by former KRSC and KJR personality Wally Nelskog, the station became top-40 KQDE, or "Cutie Radio." A sister station on 1230 kHz in Everett
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...
, KQTY, also used the same branding. One of Seattle's first black deejays, Bob Summarise, brought an R&B influence to his airshift on KQDE. (Summarise would later own soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
-formatted KYAC, which took the air in 1964.) In 1960, KQDE would change its call letters to the more phonetic KUDY and changed its city of license
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
to Seattle.
Failing to make an impact in the top-40 battle dominated by KJR and KOL, the station became beautiful music
Beautiful music
Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in American radio from the 1960s through the 1980s...
KIXI in late 1961. (The call letters were a Roman numeral representation of the station's "9-1" dial position.) Bob Liddle, formerly of Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
stations KXL and KEX, joined the airstaff and would stay with KIXI for 45 years. During the 1970s, Liddle teamed with Dean Smith on News 90, one of Seattle's first all-news morning drive programs.
A partnership led by J. Elroy McCaw, owner of Tacoma television station KTVW
KCPQ
KCPQ, channel 13, is the Fox television affiliate licensed to Tacoma, Washington serving the Seattle/Tacoma television market, owned by the Tribune Company...
and father of future cellular telephone tycoon Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw is a Seattle-area businessman and entrepreneur who achieved success as a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular and Clearwire Corporation.-Early life and cable TV beginnings:Craig is the second of four sons of Marion and John Elroy McCaw...
, purchased a 50-percent interest in KIXI in 1963. The group also acquired FM beautiful music station KGMJ
KJR-FM
KJR-FM is a Seattle, Washington,radio station that is broadcasting a classic hits format. It operates at 95.7 MHz at 98 kW, and also on the Internet via streaming audio. KJR-FM is owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc.- KJR :...
from Rogan Jones, founder of the pioneering radio automation firm IGM. KGMJ became KIXI-FM and simulcasted the AM station's programming. McCaw died suddenly of a stroke in 1969, exposing a considerable amount of debt accumulated from his speculation
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
on radio and television stations, including WINS
WINS (AM)
WINS , known on-air as "Ten-Ten Wins", is a radio station in New York City, owned by CBS Radio. WINS's studios are in the combined CBS Radio facility at 345 Hudson Street in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan, and transmitting towers in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.WINS is one of the nation's oldest...
in New York and KYA in San Francisco. With the exception of a small cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
system in Centralia
Centralia, Washington
Centralia is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 16,336 at the 2010 census.-History:In pioneer days, Centralia was the halfway stopover point for stagecoaches operating between the Columbia River and Seattle. In 1850, J. G. Cochran came from Missouri with his...
, McCaw's entire broadcasting portfolio was sold off to pay down the debt service. Wally Nelskog and two Richland
Richland, Washington
Richland is a city in Benton County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington, at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 48,058. April 1, 2011 estimates from the Washington State Office of Financial Management put the...
physicians purchased KIXI and KIXI-FM in 1971.
The beautiful music simulcast ended in 1980, with the AM side adopting an Oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
format and the FM station programming adult contemporary as "KIXI Lite." In 1982, KIXI (AM) began running a satellite-fed adult standards
Adult standards
Adult standards is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.Adult standards is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly those persons over 50 years of age, but it is mostly targeted for senior citizens...
format. A move to the 880 kHz frequency a year later allowed for a daytime power boost to 50,000 watts, and in 1986, a nighttime increase to 10,000 watts. That same year, Nelskog sold the station to Thunder Bay Communications, who in turn sold the AM station to Sunbelt Communications. The FM station, which had become KLTX, was sold to Ackerley Communications.
KIXI was purchased by Sandusky Radio, owners of KLSY
KQMV
KQMV , known as "Movin' 92.5," is a Rhythmic-leaning CHR radio station serving the Puget Sound area. The Sandusky Radio outlet operates at 92.5 MHz with an ERP of 56.8 kW and its community of license is Bellevue, Washington...
, in 1992. Hiring personalities such as Jim Dai and Dan Murphy in 1993, the station dropped the AM Only satellite service for a locally voicetracked lineup. Bob Dearborn, best known for his work at WCFL
WMVP
WMVP is the callsign of a commercial radio station in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is owned by ABC. Its transmitter is located in Downers Grove. The station broadcasts live sports talk, both locally and nationally. Daily programming consists of talk shows that are both national and local...
in Chicago, was the KIXI program director
Program director
In service industries, such as education, a program director or programme director researches, plans, develops and implements one or more of the firm's professional services...
from 1994 to 1999. He was replaced by Bob Brooks, formerly of KLSY.
While the aging demographics of the adult standards audience forced many stations in larger markets to drop the format in the late 1990s, KIXI continued to enjoy modest success, often selling advertising time as an "add-on" to spots on KLSY or the other stations in the Sandusky Seattle group. Finally, in a move that led to an outcry from a loyal listener base, KIXI abruptly began airing Music of Your Life
Music of Your Life
Music of Your Life is a satellite-delivered radio network featuring the Adult Standards music format. Created by record executive and jingle writer Al Ham, and now under the direction of Marc Angell, Music of Your Life has more than 50 AM, FM and HD-2 radio station affiliates, and has been in...
satellite programming on June 1, 2006. With the exception of Dan Murphy, who continued to voice station promotions and weekday weather forecasts, the entire KIXI airstaff was terminated. In April 2009, KIXI dropped the Music of Your Life programming after three years and returned to local programming.