KTIP
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KTIP is an American radio station broadcasting from Porterville, California at 1450 on the AM band.
[edit] History
KTIP became one of the first radio stations in the West to sign on after World War II.
Its construction permit was granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in August, 1946 to Porterville businessman Jack Tighe (pronounced "tie"). He owned Tighe Chevrolet Company and an appliance store.
Construction of the station was completed by Christmas, 1946. Its exact sign-on date is not known, but the station was notified by the FCC's San Francisco office in January of 1947 for failure to issue a proper station identification during one hour of programming that month, so it has been concluded that KTIP was "on the air" in January, 1947. KTIP signed on with a fulltime power of 250 watts.
FCC rules and regulations were much stricter back then, even down to requiring an annual report of revenues and salaries of employees. According to the reports on file, Tighe spent just over $15,000 to build the station, including purchase of land along Newcomb Street (or Drive - the records mention both) at Grand Avenue north of the Porterville city limits.
KTIP's call letters were assigned by the FCC. Tighe's request for KSJB was denied because those call letters were used by a ship's transmitter on Lake Erie. KTIP is generally thought to mean "This Is Porterville" although at the time some local wags said the call letters stood for "Keep Tighe In Porterville."
KTIP was featured in a Life Magazine article in its March 24, 1947 issue. The subhead declared, "Local news and interviews help KTIP compete with big networks in a small California town." The ten photos a ccompanying the article helped profile a town of 6,827 people with a smog-free view of the Sierra Nevada.
Tighe's ownership of the station ended in 1954 when he sold the station to a Miller from the midwest. According to subsequent owner Larry Cotta, Miller owned the station for a very short time. Cotta recalls Miller turned the station into the black and used the profits to pay off debts he had incurred from station ownership in the midwest. That done, Miller quickly sold KTIP to Gary Garland and Larry Cotta.
In 1978 Garland and Cotta sold the station to Monte Moore and his friend Frank Haas. It was during the Moore ownership that KTIP took on the persona of its owner like few other Radio stations in history. Moore was a play-by-play broadcaster for the Oakland A's baseball team, beginning when the A's were a Kansas City team in 1962. He also did the NBC television game of the week in the 70's.
[edit] External links
| AM Radio Stations in the Visalia-Tulare Market (Arbitron #100) |
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Kings and Tulare Counties: By Callsign: KEZL | KGEN | KIGS | KJOP | KJUG | KRDU | KTIP Bakersfield AM/FM · Chico AM/FM · Eureka · Fresno AM/FM · Imperial Valley AM/FM · Los Angeles AM/FM Merced · Modesto Orange County AM/FM · Oxnard-Ventura AM/FM · Palm Springs AM/FM · Redding AM/FM · Riverside-San Bernardino AM/FM · Sacramento AM/FM · San Diego AM/FM · San Francisco AM/FM · San Jose AM/FM · San Luis Obispo AM/FM · Santa Barbara AM/FM · Santa Cruz AM/FM · Santa Maria-Lompoc · Santa Rosa AM/FM · Stockton AM/FM Victor Valley · Visalia-Tulare AM/FM |
