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Here's the story on 1380; this is from the same person who will know about
1520 (Jim Hilliker). He worked for Clear Channel in Salinas until last fall.
These will be bits and pieces of several e-mails I got from him regarding
1380:
In case you didn't know, KZFX-1380 in Salinas is now dark, and has been
off
the air as of Thursday afternoon, November 4th. The reason, from what I heard earlier, was that the land on the transmitter site is being developed by the landowner, and it would cost Clear Channel too much money to find a new transmitter site at this time to keep it going. I believe however they're keeping the KZFX calls in case they decide to put 1380 back on the air in the future. The station had been a Fox Sports affiliate as KZFX since last fall, until a few months ago, when sports was dropped and it was simulcasting the now-defunct news talk format of KION-1460. Before that, 1380 was The Dude with the KTOM-AM calls with sports talk from the Sporting News network....And for many years as KTOM, it was simulcasting KTOM-FM's country format and even earlier, had been a country station on its own in the '70s and '80s... 1380-AM went on the air with 1,000 watts in 1948 as the first radio station on the air in Salinas as KSBW, for the Salad Bowl of the World. The station then was a Don Lee-Mutual network affiliate with local news, music and sports. The next two are from 1380's CE:
Jim,
That's true. The xmtr site will be sold by Mty Cty to a private developer with housing, shopping and parkland going int. The cost to develop a new 1380 site was estimated at $1.4m dollars - way too much for a station that hasn't billed that much business in well over a decade. A bit more on why KZFX-1380 in Salinas, CA (ex-KTOM, ex-KSBW) went dark
last week. This is from the chief engineer for Clear Channel Monterey,
"Radio Mike" Blankenbecler. I believe Mike had been CE for KTOM AM and FM
since the early 1980s, about 24 years total. I worked with Mike on and off
since 1986, a great guy. He also does some work for a couple of other
stations in this area.
Anyway, besides the obvious that the 1380 station had not been a ratings
and /or revenue winner for many years and the cost of getting a new xmtr site,
Mike explains a bit more about the situation, and what's happening next with the
defunct 1380-AM tower site.
73
Jim Hilliker
Monterey, CA
----- Original
Message -----
From: M
Blankenbecler
To: Jim
Hilliker
Sent: Tuesday, November
09, 2004 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: 1380's
demise Hi Jim,
Well the reason we had to take 1380 off the air was because we lost the
lease from the county. They would not give us a lease about 2 yrs. ago when
it ran out. We tried to explain that it would take use three yrs. to make
the move. They said they could not give us that much lead time, because they may
need to use that land!!!! so we had little choice.
We are in the process of removing the equipment, then we will have all the
towers and building removed.
----- Original Message -----
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