A New Foramt For KNRJ

Here is a copy of a letter sent to listeners about the upcoming changes for KNRJ. Click Here:

I hope everyone will be listening on November 3rd to hear what we do next!

I Don't Get It!

I went to Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall with the girls this evening and something happened that I just don't understand. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

We went into two makeup stores (teens need makeup), Sephora and Bare Minerals and then walked by Armani and Metropark on our way to have dinner at the Grand Luxe. There was one common thread among these five business establishments, they all were playing dance music from "Deep House" to current remixes. As a matter of fact, Armani had a live DJ mixing.

This is what I don't understand. If five establishments are playing dance music why doesn't dance music have a bigger commercial footprint on terrestrial radio here in the United States and specifically in Phoenix? I don't get it. Walking through the mall, I heard a disproportionate amount of dance music compared to other current types of music. Why do retailers feel that dance music works for them in their stores but we can't seem to have any great success with it on the air?

Before everyone comes out of the woodwork and tells me that in Phoenix on Energy we have a bad signal,crummy programing and don't know what we are doing, Stop! That's not what I'm talking about. Say what you want about our station, you are entitled. I'm talking big picture, about dance music as a viable sustaining format on radio stations across the country. After all, dance seems to do well in Europe, why doesn't it do better domestically?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that dance music hasn't had it's success's on the radio. I am suggesting that it hasn't been a hugely successful, sustaining format. Pure dance stations are simply niche formats that rarely break a one share. Yet, you go to the mall and aggregate all the music genres played in the stores and I can assure you that dance represents much more than a one share of all the music types being played in there.

I'm a big fan of the genre and the format. We brought the format to Arizona and have been committed to it for five years. I'm anxious to get your take on the disparity.

Get Excited!

We've had a lot of exciting changes at the radio station the past few months.

We increased the power of MEGA (KAJM) to a full class "C" FM station. We have a new transmitter site with a state of the art technical facility. And we now reach more than one-million more listeners than we did previous to our signal upgrade.

On the programming side, Beau Duran takes over as Program Director for both MEGA and ENERGY. Beau is a dedicated radio pro. His passion for radio is endless. He eats, drinks, sleeps and breaths the radio station. Beau Gets It!

Alex Santa Maria moved from afternoons to mornings and he is super-charged, playing more hits and interacting with the listeners!

Angie Gomez has moved from co-hosting duties in morning drive to holding down the fort on her own every mid-day from ten until two.

The newest addition to the on-air line-up is Raul Torres. I don't know where Raul gets his energy from, but he rocks in the afternoon. We keep it cold in the studio and Raul is sweating every time I stop in to say hello. Raul is on fire! Listen to his mix show at five, it's GREAT!

The "Night Princess" Nina Cruz continues to keep nights alive from six to eight with great music and a lot of listener interaction on the phones.

Wrapping it all up every night live from Hollywood is legendary DJ Art Laboe with his Killer Oldies, request and dedication show from eight to midnight. This is "Old School" radio at its best.

On the business side, Jeanette Scott joins us as our new Business Manager and Tarina Lovegrove joined us in sales. Ian Makar who started out as a rookie seller for us five years ago is our new sales manager. Ian has worked hard and deserves the promotion. He has a lot of great ideas and is a man on a mission.

As my friend Michael Crawford says..... "Get Excited!"

I am.