[Houston Press] KGOW's KAPOW KAPOW

My cover story on 1560 the Game in the HP this week.

Full story here:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2011-03-31/news/kgow-s-kapow-kapow/

Here's the Hair Balls intro:

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/03/cover_story_for_love_of_the_ga.php

​When working on this week's feature story, I was surprised at just how much help my background as a musician would help me, especially since I was writing about a sports radio station.

Over the last 25 years, I've spent a lot of time in bars, recording studios and rehearsal spaces with other musicians. While these are certainly places to hone your craft and hopefully make something not entirely devoid of artistic merit, they are also clubhouses for like-minded weirdos. As often as we work on and talk about music, we discuss sports, movies and girls (though not nearly as much as we did when we were in our 20s). We try to remember the name of the guy that played Rerun on What's Happening!!, crack jokes about Charlie Sheen and mercilessly give each other **** from the moment we walk through the door. It's as if we leave our maturity outside and embrace our adolescence for a few hours.

Hanging around at KGOW 1560 the Game for a week, both in the studio and in the "bullpen," where most of the guys prep for their shows, I may as well have been in a recording studio. The topics leaned towards sports, but only slightly. When Lance Zierlein, co-host of the morning show, criticized Bel Biv DeVoe on air by saying he was "painting it with an awfully broad brush" when DeVoe warned fans to "never trust a big butt and a smile" in his song "Poison," I realized this was exactly like rehearsal.

It's no surprise then to find out that 1560's personalities and creative staff include a former musician/wine dealer, a one-time high school football coach turned CPA, a former oil field tools salesman who writes musicals and the five-time winner of the Jim Rome "Smack Off" who was the vice president of sales for a telecommunications company. Of course, they also have the the former producer of the Jim Rome show and one of the most well-respected talk show duos in Houston radio.

KGOW is a locally owned independent and, like many small businesses without the benefit of corporate backing, it has not been easy. They have consistently ranked last in the ratings behind the three other sports radio stations in the Houston-Galveston market and they have had to fight through a transmission signal that could best be described as kinda adequate.

But, they have carved out their place in Houston sports radio as irreverent, funny and, above all, entertaining. Whether it's going on the air in the wee hours after a few cocktails and turning the studio into a laser light show while interviewing the man who played Boba Fett in Star Wars or having a "draft anything" show that includes afternoon host Travis Rodgers saying he "considered drafting Aaron Brooks, not because I needed a point guard, but because I run a celebrity look-alike agency and my Billy Ocean just quit," the guys at the Game are going to keep things interesting.

 

Thanks so much.

 

I had to include that in the blog intro because it made me LOL.

Their signal is the biggest issue they face locally and it isn't something that is easily fixed, unfortunately. I learned a lot about how AM radio transmitters work and it's complicated. The license for the transmitter includes a license for the direction and shape of the transmission. This is to keep them from interfering with any other station in the vicinity with the same or similar frequency (1540, 1550, 1560, 1570, 1580, for example).

As a result, the shape of KGOW's transmission is this weird sort of kidney shape pointing across the southwestern part of the city. If you are east or north, you probably will struggle.

There are some additional issues that are above my head and their nighttime transmitter is a much lower wattage deal, which makes it tougher when the sun goes down (the FCC sets transmission rules for transmitters from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn).

They are working on it and I think it will improve as the station grows, but it is the one issue that limits their ability locally, though web streams, interaction through social media and their national Sporting News Radio component are not impacted by those local issues.

 

Really good question. I'll ask.

 

Technically, I called it barely adequate and only in the blog. The full story went in depth into what has got to be their most pressing challenge.

 

The Texans deal was a very bad one financially, but CBS has tons of money, and it has been good as a promotional vehicle. Truth is, most sports stations do rather poorly in terms of pure numbers of listeners, but their demographic is so specific, and often REALLY loyal, that advertisers willingly sponsor shows. The difference between 100 really rabid fans and 1000 casual listeners is substantial.