The RC Blvd Adventures of Rite Aid....

We have talked about it on the air a little. Have you ever been through our intersection here? It is crazy. And to be totally honest, I have truly been shocked at how few accidents there have been here. Already there is a left turn lane from EB RC Blvd to Balsam and to China Lake, now they are going to add a left turn to Rite Aid. Then they are putting in a median to block WB RC Blvd access to B of A. So now folks will be trying to either A: turn left into our place or B: Make a U-turn to go back to B of A.

The great thing about this? The city signed off on it without a traffic study. Hmmmm. They now say if it proves to be too dangerous, they will take it out.

Wonder how that's going to play to the family that gets t-boned pulling into Rite Aid.

So for cheap entertainment in 2008 get some popcorn and a drink and sit on the bench out front and watch for the accidents.

IWV Radio Survey Results...well sort of

The reason why I say sort of is this survey was done in all of the high Desert and of course we only reach the IWV, with both of our stations. Amazingly with about 1700 calls made we came ion #1 with KZIQ and #2 with FoxTalk 1360. I am trying to get a breakout of the phone calls but with one of our competitors on the survey not even listenable in the IWV, it looks like we kicked some major butt here. Our country competitor was seriously in the cellar.

Ratings are a weird duck. You make a big deal out of them and the next time the survey may not go your way. In the major markets there is a little more science to them because the survey more people more often. Here it's occasionally. Arbitron, the Big Kahuna of radio surveys does an annual East Kern County book. What makes it unusable, to me anyway, is the fact that they send a majority of the diaries to everywhere BUT Ridgecrest. With Ridgecrest being the most populated city in East Kern County that doesn't make it valid in my mind. Even when I was down the street and we dominated that book, it never felt right. But this survey was done by a couple back east, with a lot of passion for it and knowing that small market ratings are so valuable if done correctly.

So we celebrate (cautiously) our victory and while I knew the Coyote listening family was a big one the biggest (pleasant) surprise was finding our sister station at #2.

As always thank you SO much and please continue to give us the feedback we need to give you more of what you want!

Eric

Happy Holidays Ya'll! Now Let's Get Caught Up!

Obviously, if you regularly check in to the web site you know we have had some problems. Turns out that our syndicated feed (the news headlines) provider went bye bye so the page basically refused to load. I have it working although I am not very happy with the speed. We're still working on it. For the AM fans out there, I should get that bad boy fixed tomorrow.

Things have been great here albeit very busy. The Coyote Cruise was a huge success and we all had a ball. We'll be announcing a new cruise that will probably happen in May. We have our last Coyote party of the year Friday night at Tommy's. All country form 6-10 and we'll have some cool stuff to give away.

We have added a ton of new programming. Thursday nights it's The Road, some great live concert moments form your favorite country stars. It runs form 7p-9p. Friday evenings at 5pm we have the CMT Insider. Kind of an Entertainment Tonight for country fans. Saturday nights Catfish Hunter's 25 Years Of Country Hits moves to 5pm followed by our NASCAR Show Thunder Road at 7p At 9 it's New Music Nashville sponsored by Wal Mart (have you seen our cool sign in the store?).

Sunday's are busy busy. After Bob Kingsley at 2 we have The CMT Country Countdown. At 5 it's Country's Cutting Edge, 6pm the Stars of Country and then Jim Ed Brown's classic country show hanging in at 7pm.

We're not done by a long shot. We have our new meteorologist John Wetherbee who is totally tuned in to the IWV weather scene. We have daily updates from CMT and the CMT movie minute as well as Jay Leno's nightly monologue. (of course just in time for the writer's strike.

Check the web site for some new contests, with new ones on the way and we will be back here with more info. (I know I know)

Love ya'll!

Eric

Okay Kids...Enough is Enough!

This secession thing has to go away. But let me embellish that. It is up to the council to get this done. We're not going to let it go silently in the night because we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Ever. Nothing even remotely like this. We don't need half baked schemes coming from the Council. No ulterior motives. This is small town America and you get more done by BUILDING relationships than by tearing them down. And let me tell you we did some real damage here. I say we, because we elected all of these guys. After hearing them talk last night it's almost like they are really disconnected from the community. What happened to talking to us FIRST?

And while I am all for everyone chiming in, pro or con, please, please, read up on this. There has been no yellow journalism. Not here, or either newspaper. I mean, come on Council! You hear it, you read it, and yet you still act like WE'RE the idiots?

We need forward thinking council members. No more complaining. The economic situation is what it is. Let's figure out how to make it work. Okay? We're here to help to. Quit being the victim. Work WITH the county! To see some of the diatribes from the dais made me more embarrassed of our city than at any time in my 15 years here. Get it together, re-connect with the community and represent us. It's why we voted for you.

Oh Yeah, This Cruise Thing is For Real...

We are stoked. There has been a lot of talk since way back in '94 when the old KLOA crowd took off on a similar cruise. We played something country music and had a blast on the ship. We met new people, that whole dining thing was cool. Now the ships are cooler, with more toys, gizmos and gadgets. Let's go huh? I'd like to thank High Sierra Travel for teaming up with us to make this possible. Now let's fill this thing and take a huge IWV crowd out on the high seas. Send me an e-mail or check out the web site for more info.

The 4th of July Celebration at the DEF...A Ridgecrest Tradition

It's always good news and bad news at the fairgrounds for the big 4th bash. We have great food, cold beer and live music from the IWV's best band, The Burners. But does it have to be so freakin' hot? It's 110 at 7:30. We have the music in place both here and on the radio. Your feedback, as always, is appreciated!

3 Months? Busy is not the Word

So I am trying to post with my Crackberry. If it works, maybe I can post more. I have so many stories to tell. Our press club award, our American Idol trip and our take on secesiongate!

So keep checking back, I promise it won't be three months!

-Eric

New Studio Furniture!

Good news and bad news today. We're installing our new studio furniture. That means some occasional on-air problems while we untangle the maze of wires. Madman is here and the crew from Horton Construction (they made the new modular cabinets). It's going to make this little space work a little better for us AND give us more counter top space. We will have everything done by this afternoon, but in the meantime be patient.

Oh yeah, the streaming will be down most of the afternoon too.

We'll have an open house soon, so everyone will get to see the new digs.

Thanks!

-Eric

Both Web Sites...NEW and IMPROVED!

After too many bids for TOO much money....I decided to just re-do the web sites again...myself. I'm pretty proud of these too. I still await the ever important feedback from folks who use them everyday, but I accomplished my goals of:

1. Loading faster.
2. All of our programming represented.
3. Access to all of our folks.
   
4. Mp3 downloads and live streams.

Now the AM stream situation is still tenuous at best. Almost all of the hosts charge extra for that through a subscription but I found John Gibson and Alan Colmes available for free. There won't be anything local on the streams but they are there. Also technical info to help folks with downloads and such. So there it is... let me know at eric@kziq.com .

-Eric

Multi-Tasking in the Studio

Wild day today (Saturday). We had Al and Gary's show this morning with live reports from the Home and Leisure Show and the April Fool's Classic Car Show in Old Towne. Then after that Fritz went live from Old Towne on the FM and then over to the Home Show. We got dug in for all of that and the Madman showed up to put on Cerro Coso Basball right next to me on the AM board. We have been doing a live broadcast on both stations at the same time. I won't bore you with all of the technical details, but with two small boards, purchased at Guitar Center and two phones bought at Wal Mart we had two quality broadcasts going on four feet apart!

If we had used "real" radio equipment, it owuld have set us back thousands of dollars.

It's small market and we have to do what we have to do.

-Eric

One Web Site Down...

And one to go. We're real happy with the results so far on the KZIQ.COM web site. It has all kinds of new goodies and the only delay in loading it up would be the rss headline feeds from the DI and Fox News. There is more content on the Big Show page and the mp3 podcasting files are easier to find as is the live stream. We also have some FAQ's for the technical stuff. There are more goodies on the way like Vegas and So-Cal concert schedules and some discounts. We also have better sponsor presence and the first Ridgecrest Online Auto Mall. Check it out here.

On the way, we'll go to work on the FoxTalk 1360 web site. We have loads of new content for that one. Sports schedules, new lineup info, links to hosts webcasts and podcasts and much more.

You know as always we love input. We want to have the very best for you online. Feel free to send an e-mail from the web sites and we will get back to you.

-Eric

FoxTalk Sports Update....

While we spend a lot of the 168 hours of the week on talk radio, we're very proud of our sports lineup. We've added Cerro Coso Baseball this season (thanks Coach Adams!) and we may throw in a few BHS baseball games. Next season we'll have BHS basketball (boys and girls) and we are working on first ever broadcasts of Cerro Coso women's basketball. BHS football? Well that will be on 92-7 The Coyote. More on that later.

Baseball season is cranking up and again we'll have Angels baseball. We'll stay on the Ducks as well and early on in the season the Ducks will take priority over the Angels because of their playoff drive. I would also like to announce that we signed a new deal with the Chargers and will have their games for the next couple of seasons. The one thing we have been waiting on has been some basketball coverage. I have several ways to go, but the magic scenario is that my satellite provider I use picks up the L.A. Clippers. They ave been working on that for a while now. The Clippers popularity has never been high and it would be awesome for them to put together a radio network.

As always, we start each morning at 5am with Fox Sports talk and have several hours of Fox Sports talk on weekend, evenings.

We are always open to suggestions. Just ask the Leo Leporte fans!

-Eric

What, 4th Of July Already??

I sit here two day, of course being Monday and all, with sauce from the new Buffalo chicken sandwich from Carl's Jr. on my San Diego Chargers shirt. Yup...Monday.

But...I have made my own day by starting to wade through the 3,000 or so 4th of July music cuts I have collected over the last 6 years. I am stoked already and putting together the first batch of tunes. That's what I do. I make a playlist folder and put in about 100 tunes that I want to work with this year. In a couple of weeks, I will then beging to piece those together in three basic movements. No trade secret here, because I would love the help! I usually start with a movie open, into some music to reflect awe. Then I move into what I call the Pop section, which includes a little of every popular style, and then finally the big Patriotic finish.

One thing is for sure. With my continued use of cinematic music I have expanded my already huge regard for the composers who score movies. I wouldn't even be able to pick my favorite, but I love the work of Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, Michael Kamen and Thomas Newman.

There is a channel on our DirecTv that has nothing but movie music. I make notes from that. You can ask Kim, this is a year round obsession for me. We'll be driving around in L.A. and something will play on the radio and I have her write it down.

I'll keep you posted on the progress here. But I am excited!

GPAC Rocks!

But I am very proud of this one. It is the GPAC Committee who will be helping develop a new general plan for the future of Ridgecrest and the IWV. Thanks to Nellavan for asking me!

We had the Kern COG blueprint meeting last night and I have to tell you, if you missed it, you missed out. This one was for anyone to attend. There will be others. This really is an opportunity to be in on the ground floor to help plan this community's future. I will keep you posted on the air and will try to here on the blog.

It's everything from preventing urban sprawl, to meeting our water needs. From diversifying the economy to the simple "we need a Long John Silvers!". Kern COG will be back in about 6 weeks, but I also believe that the City may be doing some workshops like this as well. Here is the Kern COG web site where they can keep you posted and as they told us last night you can always leave feedback re: the planning anytime you want.

We learned a lot about how the population is going to grow between L.A. and San Francisco. I'm still not real sure how much of that is going to make it into our little corner of Kern County, but we will be getting more folks here and we need to be ready.

I found a web site about futuristic travel today too. You should really watch this video. If not for anything else, at least for the computer animation. I feel like we would be affected by this, not directly, but with hopefully a train to the A.V. and then onto this bad boy.

The Follies are over!

So now I have some time to blog. There is probably a similar post from this time last year...but I just wanted everyone to understand how many hours the cast and crew put in for this fund raising efforts. Each song that a person is in practices 10-15 hours between February and March. Most people are in at least two numbers and there are many with three. Now add in the 3 plus hours on the first full cast rehearsals and then an additional 15 or so the two days prior to the Saturday night show and finally it's about a 10 hour commitment on show night.

On the crew, they do all of that AND put in 30-50 hours each the week and a half prior to the show. The committee, also in the show (about 10 strong) work almost year around with regular meetings to plan and cast the show.

That's why it is so rewarding to see Mesquite Hall filled to capacity on show night.

The Chamber is working harder and harder every year to make attending the show an even better experience.

Thanks to all who came this year and if you didn't you missed a great time! Just ask someone who went!!

Okay....so spank me...

It has been on my calendar. It has been on numerous to-do lists. So today I FINALLY am going to post something. It's been part because of being hectic and part laziness and part trying to figure out the direction I want to take this blog. I now see why so many blogs I visit have gaps in dates of entries. So here I am with plenty to talk about.

The AM has some changes, including the addition of Cerro Coso baseball. We'll have around 20 games on the air. Some home, some away. I would like to thank Dick Adams for the vote of confidence. I would also like to thank, in advance, The Madman, Bud, Shyla, and Nic for volunteering to help make sure the games get on the air. (for the EDD- they WILL be paid).

I also made a decision about the AM to not replace Alan Colmes. We were looking at doing something different but with baseball season approaching, if I make a big deal out of evening programming and then yank the rug out from under it for a ball game, it only makes people mad. Ultimately, that's what Alan is for anyway. We have an almost exclusive conservative lineup and Alan is the little bit of balance that we have. For those that don't know that's 7-10pm weeknights.

Also, time flew by without me getting sufficient notice out for a little weekend change. We have Bob Coasts on Saturdays from 4 to 6, American View now airs at 6pm and Al and Gary's Community Spin has been expanded to 3 hours from 8 to 11 am.

More on sports...we are looking to add USC football and or an NCAA game of the week package and also we're working on Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night NFL football. That package also guarantees the playoffs. We're keeping the Chargers.

Over on the FM side...small changes here and there. We added New Music Weekly on Friday nights after Thunder Road at 9pm. It's a co-promotion we do with Wal mart and features all of the new songs. Don't worry, the wheels move a little slower on the FM, but we're eying some cool additions for the weekends. Also, this fall we WILL be carrying BHS football. It will be on the FM and we are going to be offering some pretty unique and comprehensive coverage.

As far as community stuff, we continue to support the USO project and many others too. Kim and I are buried in Follies rehearsals. The show is coming up March 10th at Mesquite Hall and I would like to salute all of our fellow cast members for taking part in this.

Maybe this will get me writing again!