Springfield Leader and Press from Springfield, Missouri • 113

Not just any name will jo ri -Ml On the air By Mark Marymont imaginary ranches, "power" stations, big giants in the radio and perpetual motion news teams are just a few of the images that local radio and TV promotion people use to get listeners and viewers to remember their stations. Promotion personnel use the slogans and catch phrases to make it easier for listeners to remember the particular station they turn to for entertainment or information, as well as to aid in identification during ratings periods. While ratings services prefer the actual call letters of a station, they do accept slogans, nicknames or even announcer's names. When you say "Rock 99" most people know you mean KWTO-FM, which plays rock music. Nobody really lives at the "Radio Ranch" but it's a good bet that a lot of Ozarkers know that's the home of country-oriented KTTS-AM and FM.

Probably more people know KYTV by its "KY-3" nickname than by the designated call letters. And how about Gentle Giant," the nickname easy-listening, or gentle-formatted KTXR-FM has used since 1970? It's not just nicknames, either. Slogans are very im-portant to a station, and a lot of thought goes into dropping or adding one. "We do market research to study viewers' perception of the station and the market as a whole," said Libby Salisbury, KYTV promotion director. "We look at what we can do to get what we want across to the viewer.

'Always a step gives the image of a timely product, professionally gathered. We like to give the image of always scooping the competition. Same thing for 'Action The "Action News" slogan is part of a syndicated package available all over the country, just like the "Eyewitness News" package. "We bought the 'Action News' package some years ago, before I was news director," said KYTV news director Joyce Reed. "For some years we were 'First Team then we got a new news set in 78, and that's about the time we went to 'Action "You have to have an identity and the slogans help," Reed said.

"But you still have to have good news. When we feel competition we fine tune things, but we challenge ourselves, that's our real competitor" Country-formatted KWTO-AM is "56 Country," a blend of the 560 frequency and cowperson format. Same for KORX-FM, the album-oriented station that uses "Rocks the Ozarks." KICK-AM has had almost as many slogans as formats over the years. Longtime radio listeners may recall things like the "Sporty 1340," used when the station was Top 40 and carried some sports too. "The best AM sound in town" is the slogan now.

Why? "Because we think we" are," retorts KICK manger Jeanne Kramer. One of the best nicknames is KITS' "Radio Ranch," which has been used by the station since it went country in 1972. Manager Curt Brown said, "Sounds like the Ozarks," is the current slogan. "A lot of stations somehow use country in their slogans, but 'Radio Ranch' says it better," he said. Alan Thompson, KGBX-AM mananger, said his station doesn't use slogans, although steady listeners will notice the station regularly referred to as "the new AM sound" in tribute to the station's recent conversion to-stereo.

Thompson said his announcers occasionally will use catchwords, but not slogans. "We haven't come up with one that captures what we want to say," he said. All the other stations have slogans of some sort. KSPR uses "Starpower 33." "Eyewitness News," used by KMTC's news operation, is part of a package which has been used for over 15 years. KLSM-AM uses "playing your favorites," which they say they do.

KTOZ-FM, operated by the KLSM folks, uses "Z-105," a play on call letters and frequency. "New Life Radio," taken from a passage in the Bible, is the slogan of religious-formatted KLFJ. At KOZK, the Ozarks' public television network, the slogan is "Quality public telvision for the Ozarks." Public radio station KSMU-FM regularly reminds its listen ers that it is a service of Southwest Missouri State Uni- The "competiton, is something of which all station personnel are aware. A catchy slogan that appears to versity. give some sort of identity to a station can help in the never-ending ratings battle.

The slogans are a form of It SUre dldn feel that warm tO me! self-advertising that compete with all the other other rf Weather Channe, ajring slogans in all the other commences on as a ion hmrs each fi TeleCable, must havi "There is so much saturation of advert, ing that you something was amiss when they noticed have to give People the same basic slogan over and weeks inield. current. over," said KOLR promotion director Dean Wasson turhas bee as 64 eees centi de "Peter Neumann (then KOLR news director). Ellis andi46 decrees Fahrenheit Shook (still station manager) and myself sat down about aso has jous 214 years ago and came up with Newsbeat We wen aj Fahrenheit It wasn't that the through a lot of names before we came up with one that folks at TeleCable were yukking it up; a piece we thought represented the stations news. of equipment malfunctioned over the Memorial Day Some names and slogans wen quite a The Ozarks' new power station is the ogan for KXUS-FM, Sun assistant tQ cable which recently signed on the old KWFC frequency.

companVi said the thing that registers the temperature "We wanted something that wouldn't lock us in to a readings on the "crawl" that meanders across the bot-single format." said Bo Jagger. the station's program di- tom of thi. screen broke and a replacement had to be rector. "We're new, we have 100,000 watts of power and shipped in from the weather equipment store. With any the slogan says that, but it doesn't say anthing about our the new temperature-reading gadget was put in format.

We're what people perceive us to be." piace prjor to this columnist's deadline. KWTO-AM and FM have simple, it odvious sioganb. Mark Marymont, a former radio disc jockey and producer, Is a columnist and feature writer for Springfield Newspapers. 'Rock 99' is very well-used by the puDitc, sam KWTO-FM manager Curt Boney. "I'm not sure we could get rid of that slogan if we wanted to.

We do add to it though, like using 'All-hit Rock Tha Nwa-Ladw Pag 3 Sunday, Jut 9, 198S.