Radio Is The Ultimate Connector

Those are the words of CBS Radio Houston Market Manager Sarah Frazier (pictured here) who has her team working frantically to keep the community informed. As of 4 p.m. Sunday, CBS’s stations went to an all-news simulcast on KHMX, KILT-FM, KILT-AM, and KKHH (LISTEN HERE). Frazier tells Radio Ink that Monday morning it was clear there was a need to offer local residents a constant stream of evacuation and shelter information. “We’ve turned KIKK-AM into a running loop of information. It’s a daytime signal, but we applied and were granted permission for an emergency STA request to go 24-hours during this emergency time. That loop is running and is being constantly updated as new areas are evacuated.” And the CBS Radio cluster is doing much more…

Frazier tells Radio Ink her team will be in full storm mode until they are through the storm, which she doesn’t believe will be for another two days. “Once we went live to the simulcast the phones started pouring in with questions and needs and that helped us to define what was important for our community. Radio is the ultimate connector. We’re connecting people to information and we’re connecting people to the relief efforts and, most importantly, to each other. For instance, everyone right now needs food. Knowing which Kroger is open or what HEB still has water is very important information and is being re-tweeted tens of thousands of times. In the past 24 hours alone, Nick Russo has reached over 251,000 people on his Twitter feed. 100.3 The Bull is over 2 million reached. Combine all our stations and all our people and the reach is massive.”

CBS Radio’s Chief Engineer Robbie Green has been living at the station since Friday. Several producers have been there since Saturday and Sunday when things started to get serious. Every on-air person who could get to the stations were putting together the all-news simulcast and coverage. Sunday night there were eight people staying at the radio facility with seven in a hotel nearby. Frazier stocked up enough food for three days but they are now starting to run low. She says a lady in the neighborhood brought a lasagna to the station and HEB brought food. “So we’re good now for a couple more days.”

Frazier says everything her team normally does has been put on hold. “We need people to stay off the roads unless they are evacuating. So commercials are useless. We are not running imaging, liners, or promos. We are only running PSAs and disaster recovery messaging. Even our brands are out the window; we are 100% committed to sharing information under the umbrella of CBS Radio Houston as we are all one family; one family with the city of Houston. We are #HOUSTONSTRONG.”