Today the listeners to KXXT 1010 Talk Air America station hung on tender hooks to hear if Our radio station was going dark. Previous stories of the selling of the 1010 frequency was posted here:
Air America Phoenix Sold!
Phoenix KXXT AirAmerica (Act II): Help Needed -Action Alert
Phoenix AZ responds to the needs of Katrina evacuees within hours
Bob Christy the General Manager releases a press release today to let the listeners know:
The rest of the story
February 28th, 2006
Dear Friends of Air America Phoenix,
Thank you to the staff, the listeners and the clients for all you've done in the past 17 months.
You helped take an unrated, unprofitable AM radio station and pushed it to a tie for 3rd place out of 25 AM stations in Phoenix. You took that same AM station and made it profitable in less than a year and even after the sale was announced you stood by Air America Phoenix and we kept on making money even when our future was in doubt and we didn't know when our "plug" was going to be pulled. In fact, the last month we were on the air was the 3rd best month we've had financially!
Air America Phoenix has now disappeared into the ether and Phoenix is left with multiple Christian formats, some in English and others in Spanish, several "brokered' time stations (you know the radio stations selling you vitamins, good bowel movements and financial advice) a bagful of right wing "Conservative Talk stations" featuring Rush, Sean, Laura, Bill Bennett, Savage, Medved and all of their local imitators, three "Sports Talk" stations that live off the largess of their sister stations in the big corporate clusters that dominate the dial in Phoenix. Is anyone enjoying Tony Snow on KTAR...did anyone ask for him? And there are 3 "nostalgia" stations on AM and another on the FM dial. (The inside radio joke on nostalgia is that listeners are "dying" for it!) CBS' new "Free" FM is another station loaded with sophomoric chatter, but without the interruption of overplayed songs! Free FM is a continuous loop of bad FM morning show humor 24 hours a day! CBS should have stood by Howard Stern and they will regret the day they didn't!
Phoenix has 60 odd radio signals on the AM and FM dial and the best of those signals are owned by four companies; CBS, Clear Channel, Bonneville and Sandusky, they play it safe and considering the level of investment, it is certainly understandable. Innovation and change has to come from the smaller clusters and the one and two station owners. Will they innovate? Take a chance like we did with KXXT? Probably not, they never have and they never will, like the classic definition of insanity they "continue to do the same thing over and over expecting different results"! Only a special company like James Crystal would let me take the chance, Thanks, Jim!
Over the past 4 months I have tried to raise the money to buy a new station for Air America Phoenix. We made offers on 2 stations; one didn't have an adequate signal to insure success and the other was laughably over priced. I have talked to more BS artists and rich guys who pretend they want to get "involved" and "progressive" venture firms that live in the world of "new media" and think that good old terrestrial radio, the kind that everyone has access to and is free 24/7, is so "over"! When I finally put together the right banker and the right investors, we were out of time! I'm mad at myself for wasting time with the charlatans, the BS artists and the dreamers. I'm also worn out and I have to publicly apologize to the love of my life, Jan, for being so damn grumpy and short since last fall. Baby, you have been just great, thank you!
I need to thank all the great network people; Al, Mike, Stephanie, Sam and Jeanine. And of course my friend Ed Schultz who was the first on and signed! And Randi...I always love you more!
This has been the single best experience I've had in broadcasting, better than being number one in Boston! KXXT has simply been the best. The people I've worked with at AA Phoenix have been the most dedicated, hard working and they wouldn't leave when I tried (twice) to throw them out of the building. I love you all and as Jan says we are a family!
Thank you for all you've done!
Robert J Christy
General Manager,
Air America Phoenix, 1010 Talk KXXT
The KXXT 1010 Talk time line:
9/23/2004 - On the air with the standard Air America lineup direct from NY
October 2004 - Ed Schultz joined the lineup
January 2005 - Charles Goyette joined the station for the early morning drive
Dr Mike Newcomb jumped stations as another weekly host with an evening or early morning talk show.
September 2005 - One Year Birthday (Profitable in 10 months)
October 2005 - Notified that KXXT was included in a sale of group of stations owned by parent company James Crystal Radio.
January 2006 - Audience notified that the radio frequency sale confirmed
March 1, 2006 - KXXT 1010 Air America goes dark?
Amazingly very few weekends had the "Best of" the weekday Air America shows as Bob Christy and the community developed a spectacular lineup of shows from Progressive Religious discussion, Unabashed liberals, local politics and issues.
Phoenix has been blessed with live shows by Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, and Ed Schultz. And celebrated KXXT's first Birthday with a sold out event with over 1100 attendees.
The best part of KXXT is the amazing way the station, the talk show hosts and the listeners became a community. We valued their opinions, the guests that they brought to discuss issues and inform the public. It became apparent that the audience was wider than the Phoenix metro area when callers came from all over America and on one occasion from Paris.
I want to thank all the employees of KXXT 1010 for the Best 17 months. Bob Christy, Jan Hall and the rest of the staff did something very miraculous.
Hopefully one of the local stations will wake up and see that the progressive radio model is a winner even in a so called "red" state.