That’s the name of the article in D Magazine highlighting the long and successful career of the Cumulus Dallas Market Manager. Writer Tom Stephenson calls Bennett “an innovative programmer with a keen eye for talent who’s turned Dallas into Cumulus Media’s strongest market.” Read the article HERE.
The sad and untold part of this story is that KLIF is yet another legacy AM signal that is being shrunk by its owners in order to sell the land under its towers. It happened to WMAL in Washington, WDNC in Raleigh-Durham (which I once engineered), and countless other also-rans where the value of land under towers exceeds the value of the stations themselves.
And now it’s happening to the successful stations too. Prime examples: KLIF in Dallas and WBBM in Chicago.
Specifically, KLIF is leaving its long-standing site to diplex onto a sister station’s shorter towers, and at night dropping to less than half its current power. (WBBM is also dropping its day and night powers, but is diplexing onto the taller WSCR tower.)
It is by small cuts like this that AM is shrinking constantly. None of these moves will “save” AM. What they’ll save is money. Or make money for the owner—one time. And the legacy will be lost.
Of course most reporters don’t know or care much about radio engineering; but they should at least do a little bit of homework before they write a story like this one. Take a look at FCCinfo.com for a current view of facilities and station plans, at FCCdata.org for station engineering history, at Radio-Locator.com for a view up and down the dial with links to facilities, construction permits and coverage maps, at Radio Online for ratings. And, of course, to search here at Radio Ink.:-)