Third radio station
Everything old becomes
new again
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Glory be, the Wood River Valley is looking
at having an local alternative to rock ‘n’ roll on the radio. Last
week after five years of waiting, Alpine Broadcasting was granted a
license to air from a new slot on the dial.
KYZK, to be known colloquially as Y107,
began broadcasting today. It’s on the dial at 107.5 FM. The first song
is slated to be Elvis Presley crooning Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
"Our core audience is 50-plus, but it’ll
definitely spill over. I’m 37 and I like to listen to the older stuff
too," said Alpine Broadcasting’s owner, Scott Parker.
The music of Barbra Streisand, Ella
Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Count Basie and other musicians
in the Big Band, Swing and Classic Standard market will be played.
Following the holiday season in which
mostly Christmas music will air, the plans are to mix up the formats by
introducing some national syndicated talk shows.
"Right now we’re looking at what’s
available." Said Parker, who will also be the general station
manager.
Some ideas the station is considering are
running a morning talk show, playing standards in the afternoon and in the
evenings highlighting smooth jazz programming.
Meanwhile, Alpine Broadcasting has been
building a new studio to house Y107, next to its current space in
Northwood Way, Ketchum. They’ve added on 500 square feet of new space by
knocking through the walls of the former Ketchum Sewing facility next
door.
The studio will be a partial throwback to
the old studio, which had turntables as well as CD players. There are
literally hundreds of classic jazz and standard recordings that have never
been released on CD.
Alpine plans to hire local talent to do
both live and taped shows.
"We’ve had many discussions with a
number of people and we’re encouraging people to give us a call,"
Parker said.
Whether the shows are tape or live will
vary "depending on who we find," he said.
"We hope to be live."
The station has a capacity of 100 watts,
since it will broadcast from the KECH site, but by next year, Parker said,
it should increase the power by moving Y107 to KSKI’s Bald Mountain
broadcast dish.
There will initially be set play lists for
these programs-- jazz and adult-standard. The formats, Parker said,
"have already been developed---we don’t have to reinvent the
wheel."
Parker said that three other people applied
for the channel. "It kind of sat there for a couple of years, while
the government figured out what to do with competing markets."
Finally, the application was granted last
week by the Federal Communications Commission to Alpine Broadcasting after
a public auction.
"No one showed up [at the auction] so
we got it by default."
Boomers and their predecessors all over the
valley are starting to sit up and tap their feet. Just listen.
