PG Letter laments KQV
December 20, 2018On December 19, Elaine Lawrence of White Oak had a letter to the editor in the Post-Gazette lamenting the lack of KQV. Read it here, I’ll wait.
If you read the comments that follow, it’s the usual drivel about “radio is dying”… blah blah blah. The correct response to anyone who uses that tired expression should be, “What you remember about radio is no more. It’s still a viable medium, although perhaps not everyone’s first choice in a day when there are many media from which to choose.”
Nothing new, right?
As you know, KQV was sold earlier this year to my main employer who is working on getting something on the air at 1410 sooner rather than later. I’m not going to say what it will be, but I can promise you it won’t be all-news. It’s a very expensive format to maintain and is, in effect, the reason why the station went off the air at the end of last year.
Since many are asking, what I can tell you is that Broadcast Communications relicensed KQV as a non-commercial entity that, in effect, shifted the ownership to BCI’s non-comm entity, Broadcast Educational Communications making it a sister to Murrysville-licensed WKGO (88.1).
All I can say is stay tuned!
I don’t think most people realize how expensive that all-news format is to pull off. The labor costs alone are through the stratosphere compared to any other format I can think of. Indeed it is quite amazing that the former owners of KQV were able to stick with it for as long as they did.
I\’m glad people are still thinking about KQV, it comes to my mind once in a while and I go to my radio to hear if anything is on 1410, but just get static or the rumble of distant stations that sounds like a symphony tuning up.
One night I got a strong signal at 1410 with an interview show and thought it was the new KQV, but it turned out to be a station from Canada that was coming in exceptionally well that night, I think it was from Hamilton.
I\’ve read articles and comments for years announcing the death of radio, and I\’d agree, they\’re comparing it to the days when radio was a top-5 hit in everyone\’s life.
I had my garage sale AM transistor radios that I carried around and strapped on my bike with gum bands and listened to 13Q. My high school home room teacher had memories of a delivery job, driving a truck that had AM radio only, listening to WZUM around 1970, which turned him on to lots of heavy rock from that time.
There are millions of stories like that, but times have naturally changed and we have new technology to use, and radio is just a smaller of the info-entertainment picture. I guess the people who were into radio big time, or had parents who were, are shocked to find someone being given the floor to talk about KQV!
Radio has a place though, I see it as media for the local community, as opposed to online, worldwide.
I wasn\’t around to comment on the article about WDIG being bought and turned into WIXZ, but way to go Bob! I can pick it up with a radio in the yard in Greentree, and was hearing it in a car on Route 60.
Boomer