Talk:KNX (AM)

[edit] New Millenium, New Location, New Talent

The long and colorful history of KNX continues to evolve in the wake of events triggered in 2003 when KNX made sweeping changes order to contemporize the 60's-vintage news format. Longtime Vice President and General Manager George Nicolaw, a community fixture who gave weekly editorials on the station, left KNX under less than cordial circumstances. Programming duties for KNX and KFWB (which now share office space and are commonly owned by CBS Radio) were assumed by David G. Hall, credited with the ratings success of KFI. KRTH's Pat Duffy became Vice President and General Manager for KNX and KFWB.

Station jingles were dropped along with the decades-old slogan, "All you need to know." A new morning team was assembled: anchors Vicky Moore from KFI and Dave Williams from KFWB, sportscaster Randy Kerdoon from KTTV and former afternoon anchor Dick Helton in a new role as Senior Political Reporter. An earlier sportscaster, Chuck Madden left the station soon after Williams and Moore made their debuts. Prior to this, the award-winning morning news team of Linda Nunez and Tom Haule anchored the 5am to 10am news for nearly a decade.

With the breakup of afternoon anchor team Dick Helton and Dave Zorn (who has since retired to Arizona due to health issues) a new afternoon lineup has emerged: former traffic reporter Jim Thornton now co-anchors with Vicki Cox (formerly KFWB) with long-time sportscaster Steve Grad. Frank Mottek provides financial updates.

KNX dropped its long-running Drama Hour in 2003, but on January 1, 2004 added two weekend talk shows which Hall brought with him from KFI: Computer News with Jeff Levy and the return of Food News with Melinda Lee.

CBS network daytime newscasts were truncated to three-minute versions while three-minute in-depth segments were added every half-hour. The Sunday evening simulcast of CBS' 60 Minutes continues, but the Sunday news program Meet The Press and NFL football was discontinued.

Longtime news reporters Gail Eichenthal and Alex Sullivan departed while former morning co-anchor Tom Haule became the station's operations manager. Reporter-commentator Michael Ambrosini departed in July, 2006 after decades on-air. Overnight anchor Carlos Gaivar, who replaced Beach Rogers as the primary overnight voice in 1998, is also no longer with KNX, having departed in 2005.

New voices were added including Ron Kilgore (NBC News Radio, KFWB), Charles Feldman (CNN), Aiden Pickering, (BBC, KTTV), Brooke Binkowski (CNN Radio) and Michael Linder (KTLA, America's Most Wanted). New anchors included Kim Marriner (KCBS), Bob Sirkin (CBS Radio Network) and Colin Fluxman (KKGO, KCSN).

On August 12, 2005, at 11:06pm, following an hour-long special celebrating the station's history, KNX ceased broadcasting from its studios at CBS Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after 67 years in favor of new facilities a few miles away on the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. Dave Zorn was the last person to broadcast on KNX from Columbia Square studios. For the first time in over 80 years, the station was no longer "The Voice of Hollywood."

In 2006, the station dedicated its mid-day programming to business and financial news.Money 101, a three-hour block of personal finance and consumer news debuted in the 9am-noon slot, anchored by KNX financial editor Bob McCormick. Jim Cramer fills the noon hour with syndicated talk show Real Money (executive-produced by Hall) focusing on personal investments. Frank Mottek, renown for his reporting of the tragic 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, became anchor of the KNX Business Hour from 1-2pm with news cut-ins by former morning co-anchor Linda Nuñez. Mottek also anchors, with Vicki Cox, 2-3pm news coverage.

Many mainstay voices remain: Reporter/anchors Diane Thompson and Chris Stanley, reporters Luis Torres, Vytas Safronikas and Todd Leitz. Tom Hatten, Jim Svejda, Lisa Karlin and Leonard Maltin on the entertainment beat; commentaries by Charles Osgood, Kent Shocknek and Dave Ross; environmental features Pulse of the Planet, Stardate and Earth News; Michael Josephson on ethics and career advice by Dr. Lois Frankel.

Steve Grad is the Sports Director of KNX, joining the station in 1993. Randy Kerdoon, Paul Olden, Pat Haslam and Chris Madsen also provides sports updates. One-time KLOS sports reporter Charleye Wright joined KNX in 1995 (replacing Pete Arbogast), and remained with KNX until his death in 1998.

[edit] Programming Strategy

The station's focus since 2003 has been on perspective and in-depth journalism. Programmer David G. Hall's two-station strategy packs KFWB with as many news items as possible, using KNX to probe news and issues in greater analytical detail.

[edit] Major Changes: New Location, Lower Ratings

In 2003, KNX made sweeping changes by forcing out longtime Vice President and General Manager George Nicolaw, a community fixture who gave weekly editorials on the station. Programming duties for KNX and KFWB (which now share office space and are commonly owned by CBS Radio) were assumed by David G. Hall, who was previously in charge of KFI during some of its most successful years. KRTH's Pat Duffy became Vice President and General Manager for KNX and KFWB. Results have been mixed at best with KNX currently suffering from its lowest ratings in years.

Hall shook things up almost from the time of his arrival. Station jingles were dropped along with the decades-old popular slogan, "All you need to know." A new morning team was assembled: anchors Vicky Moore from KFI and Dave Williams from KFWB, sportscaster Randy Kerdoon from KTTV and former afternoon anchor Dick Helton in a new role as Senior Political Reporter. An earlier sportscaster, Chuck Madden was fired soon after Williams and Moore made their debuts. Prior to this, the award-winning morning news team of Linda Nunez and Tom Haule anchored the 5am to 10am news for nearly a decade. Hall's changes to the morning lineup received mixed reviews. Some did not like the "happy talk" style employed by his new anchors and felt the new anchors did not have enough of a serious news approach. The all-important ratings for the morning news dropped significantly.

Hall got rid of the afternoon anchor team of Dick Helton and Dave Zorn (who has since retired to Arizona due to health issues). In their place he named a new afternoon lineup — former traffic reporter Jim Thornton and Gail Eichenthal. Thornton's appointment was very controversial since he had never anchored news on a major station. Many felt he was not qualfied to be suddenly placed in the high profile afternoon achor slot in the second largest market in the United States. Eichenthal quit the station in protest. Hall replaced Eichenthal by bringing over Vicki Cox from his other station, KFWB. Afternoon news ratings have also significantly declined.

Hall also dropped the long tradition of sports at 15 and 45 past the hour, which had attracted a strong following. He never explained the reason for this change.

Another controversial Hall change was his dropping of the long-running KNX Drama Hour in 2003. Hall said the change was made because he realized during the 2003 Southern California fires how important it was for KNX to provide "news around the clock." Later programming decisions would cast doubts on Hall's explanation. On January 1, 2004 Hall added two weekend talk shows from his former station, KFI: Computer News with Jeff Levy and the return of Food News with Melinda Lee. Food News had run for years on weekdays at 10am on KNX, but was dropped in 1997.

In 2006, Hall made the most radical changes to KNX since it switched to all-news. He dropped the news format from 9am until noon and substituted a money and consumer-news talk show with Bob McCormick, Money 101. From noon to 1pm, Hall inserted a taped syndicated talk show Real Money (which coincidently is produced by Hall) from Westwood One featuring Jim Cramer from CNBC. During the McCormick program are news inserts at the top and bottom of the hour. But since the Kramer show is syndicated, KNX listeners hear only a very brief headline summmary during that program.

Some critics have complained that KNX is no longer a station you can depend on when you want to hear breaking news.

During the outbreak of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, KNX chose not to air CBS News updates which the station had prominently featured in the past during breaking news events. (During the early weeks of the U.S.-Iraq war, KNX aired CBS News updates several times each hour.)

Another example of how KNX had drastically changed occurred on August 10, 2006 after the British government uncovered a terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic aircraft. Previously, KNX would have provided "wall-to-wall" news coverage. Instead, KNX continued with its money and consumer programming with Bob McCormick, which focused mostly on how airline stocks would be affected. No CBS updates, a KNX staple in previous year, were offered, as in the past.

Longtime City Hall Bureau reporter Alex Sullivan departed while former morning co-anchor Tom Haule, after being ousted from his moring co-anchor slot, became the station's operations manager. Reporter Michael Ambrosini, whom Hall unexpectedly had taken off the street to record several taped commentaries each day, departed in July, 2006, when Hall decided to return Ambrosini to street reporting. Overnight anchor Carlos Gaivar, who replaced Beach Rogers as the station's primary overnight voice in 1998, was let go in 2005.

As part of Hall's remaking of KNX, new voices were added including Ron Kilgore (NBC News Radio, KFWB), Charles Feldman (CNN), Aiden Pickering, (BBC, KTTV), Brooke Binkowski (CNN Radio) and Michael Linder (KTLA, America's Most Wanted). New anchors included Kim Marriner (KCBS), Bob Sirkin (CBS Radio Network) and Colin Fluxman (KKGO, KCSN).

Many mainstay voices from the pre-David G. Hall days remain: Reporter/anchors Linda Nunez, Diane Thompson and Chris Stanley, reporters Luis Torres, Vytas Safronikas and Todd Leitz. Tom Hatten, Jim Svejda, Lisa Karlin and Leonard Maltin on the entertainment beat; commentaries by Charles Osgood, Kent Shocknek and Dave Ross; environmental features Pulse of the Planet, Stardate and Earth News; and Michael Josephson on ethics.

Steve Grad is the Sports Director of KNX, joining the station in 1993. Randy Kerdoon, Paul Olden, Pat Haslam and Chris Madsen also provides sports updates. One-time KLOS sports reporter Charleye Wright joined KNX in 1995 (replacing Peter Arbogast), and remained with KNX until his death in 1998.

On August 12, 2005 moved its studios. KNX ceased broadcasting from its historic at CBS Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after 67 years, moving to its new facilities a few miles away on the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. Dave Zorn was the last person to broadcast on KNX from Columbia Square studios. For the first time in over 80 years, the station was no longer "The Voice of Hollywood."

[edit] Programming Strategy

Hall claims the station's focus since 2003 has been on perspective and in-depth journalism. Hall's two-station strategy is designed he says to pack KFWB with as many news items as possible, while he says he wants to use KNX to probe news and issues in greater analytical detail.

But the ratings for both stations since Hall took over have not improved.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move to KNX (AM). —Nightstallion (?) 08:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move from KNX (radio station) to KNX (AM) or KNX

Per WP:NC, North American broadcast stations should be disambiguated with (AM), (FM), or (TV). DHowell 01:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, the article shoule be moved to just KNX. There doesn't even exist an article KNX (standard), the link on the disambiguation page points to Konnex, which redirects to European Installation Bus. I've put a disambiguation link on the top of this article. Please comment on whether this article should be moved to KNX (AM) or KNX below. My preference is for KNX. There are over 100 articles pointing to KNX as a radio station, and none pointing to KNX as a home automation standard. DHowell 01:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

• The move really needs to go to KNX (AM) since there is an article for KNX-FM. Also KNX is the NYSE symbol for Knight Transportation Inc. which I'm suprised does not have an article. Vegaswikian 08:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support move to KNX (AM); oppose choice of KNX. Radiojon says stations with no suffix licensed by FCC should use parentheses; whereas a hyphen indicates a station licensed by FCC with a suffix. Having no suffix in its article title of Wikipedia implies primary meaning; for example, the reason the article of London, England is at London is that it is the primary meaning of London; namely, the meaning that the unqualified word London commonly puts into people's minds. City names can deserve primary topic dis-ambiguation for reasons like this, but what reason is there for radio stations to use primary topic dis-ambiguation?? (Please put the answer on User talk:Radiojon.) (In addition, please make KNX (radio station) a dis-ambiguation page for KNX (AM) and KNX-FM. Georgia guy 17:32, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
  • How many people would enter KNX (radio station) when looking for KNX? I suspect not many so that article should be deleted. Vegaswikian 06:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Please note that radio station KNX-FM no longer exists. The info on the page was somewhat incorrect (it claimed that the call letters were "since reassigned" to the AM station, when the AM station existed decades before FM broadcasting even began). There is also more info about KNX-FM under it's current name, KCBS-FM, so I proposed a merge of KNX-FM. DHowell 22:42, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.