D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March
2009
Waking Up With Strangers
Meet the people behind the bright good morning voices on the radio, who are heard but never seen.
By Jeff Berg
Steve from Harrisburg, Pa., has called in. He is grumbling about the weather. Lots of snow, ice and cold in Pennsylvania, he complains half-heartedly.
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101 Gold's Mike McKay at the studio
for his morning broadcast. |
Ah, too bad for you is the unspoken part of the reply from morning radio personalities Mike McKay and KC Counts of Las Cruces' favorite oldies radio station and highest-rated commercial station, KVLC 101 Gold.
They jab Steve smoothly in return, noting that it is still another bright, albeit crisp, January morning in New Mexico's second-largest city.
Steve, like many others, including a regular listener and caller from Sussex, England, is listening to 101 on the station's webcast (www.101gold.com). This allows fans anywhere to listen to any number of radio stations for the cost of a monthly Internet hook-up.
I love radio. A maxim I once heard about it tells all: "I like radio because the pictures are better."
I always have the radio on in the background at home. Admittedly, I also have satellite radio (lots more "pictures" that way), since there are any number of music genres available on Sirius/XM radio.
But satellite radio, like the Internet, has changed the radio business tremendously in recent years. Add to that the impact of the consolidation of radio-station ownership nationally under a handful of huge conglomerates. The combination has left many smaller towns like Silver City — where local station KSIL recently went silent — without a truly local radio presence.
For now, however, at least in Las Cruces, most radio stations continue to use real live people instead of computerized or syndicated shows. And you won't find any "shock jocks" hereabouts. If you're looking to hear a DJ interview someone who is hanging naked from the ceiling while being pelted with fresh chiles, keep moving, pal.
What we do have at the three stations that this article will cover — the others being public-radio station KRWG (90.7 in Las Cruces) and country broadcaster KRGT (103.9) — are people you may wake up with every morning. You may not be related to or involved with these morning radio hosts, but they're as much a part of your waking-up routine as the coffee pot or your spouse. Maybe more so, depending on how well you get along with that spouse.
Mike McKay and KC Counts have been doing their PG-rated morning show in Las Cruces for about four years now. It was then that they made the leap and got into the actual station-owning business; they now operate Bravo Mic, which includes 101 (KVLC), two other FM stations ("The Rocket," KXPZ 99.5, and "Magic 105," KMVR) and an AM station (KOBE 1450).
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Fun and games with 101 Gold's KC
Counts. |
McKay has invited me to sit in on the last hour of their morning show on 101, which runs from 6-10 a.m. every weekday morning.
The station is quite modern, and housed in a new building that opened about two years ago. McKay and Counts continue their bantering and occasional on-air just-for-fun bickering through the hour, which is punctuated by their rotation of songs that most baby boomers grew up on, such as the requests for soul singer Al Green and a Beatles tune. On my way to the station, they happened to play my theme song, the 1966 release, "Psychotic Reaction" by the one-hit wonder, Count Five.
McKay has been in radio for 30 years, after leaving a Wall Street career. Stocks and bonds was not the life for him, so he switched to radio, starting at a 1,000-watt station in Lehighton, Pa. His vocation has taken him to Detroit, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and to the Southwest, where he has been for about the last 12 years. His partnership with Counts began about 11 years ago, and they came to 101 Gold and station ownership in 2005.
During commercial breaks, the duo listens to calls that are recorded from listeners. They end up playing most of the calls, but do have to cut off some of the gabbier folks.
"This guy," Counts says with a slight roll of her eyes, "will talk for 45 minutes if we let him." The guy rambles on about Obama and the pending choice of "first dog," issuing far too many platitudes and lame attempts at humor.
During a weather break, KC Counts shares that she began her DJ-ing while attending Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. She liked it so much that she stayed with it, eventually ending up working with McKay in El Paso at a series of stations, which played everything from rock to country.
Counts gives the traffic report for Las Cruces, and I can't help but think of the scene in the American Indian-made movie Smoke Signals, where the local "rez" DJ calls on his traffic observer, who is sitting on top of an old van by a completely empty road.
Counts and McKay are married, but not to each other. McKay has been with his wife for 36 years, and they have a daughter who works as a zookeeper in Wisconsin. Counts calls her pets her family — after her husband, of course: Three cats, some tropical fish and a potbellied pig named Bacon make up her household. Both DJs commute daily from El Paso. McKay is accustomed to the early rise and drive, but Counts counts on her alarm clock, and by her own admission, "battles with the snooze button."
McKay engages in some chatter with a caller, while Counts shares that even though they select most of the music that's played on their show, it is all computerized, as are most stations now. "We set parameters and use music-selection software to get what we want," she explains. It leaves small gaps for requests, such as the one that she is about to play for a gravelly-voiced woman caller who wants to hear Tom Jones. McKay says that he is a big fan of the Beatles, and points out that even 40-plus years later they are still very influential in the music business.
The show continues with reading of the news headlines, mostly culled from the local daily paper, some more smile-inducing humor, the "water cooler news" (kind of a gossip minute) and an update on a contest to win a Ruidoso ski package.
It is 9:51 a.m. Counts announces cheerfully, as the duet signs off, that it is National Chocolate Cake Day. She introduces the last two songs of the show and hustles out of the studio to her office to start setting up the next day's program.
Songwriter Harry Chapin might have had KRWG's Carrie Hamblen in mind when he wrote about "the bright good morning voice, who is heard but never seen," in "WOLD," his ode to life on the air.
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KRWG's Carrie Hamblen
is the local
voice of "Morning Edition." |
KRWG is the grandchild of KOB radio, which is now located in Albuquerque. In the 1920s, KOB's signal had a 700-mile radius, and was the "most powerful college station in the world," as it was the campus station of NMSU's grandparent, the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts.
KRWG-FM (KOB was, of course, AM) began in 1964, with a "whopping" 774 watts of power. The station took its moniker from the initials of a former dean of engineering, Ralph W. Goddard, who was the founder of KOB.
Now broadcasting 24 hours a day, at 100,000 watts, KRWG is a charter member of National Public Radio (NPR) and has transmitters spotted all over southern new Mexico.
Carrie Hamblen is the owner of the calm and clear voice that reaches an average of 33,000 KRWG listeners each weekday morning, as the local host of NPR's "Morning Edition."
"I started at KRWG in 1992 when I was in the masters program," she recalls. "I walked into the station after I finished my bachelor's and talked to Tom Huizenga, the music director, and Colin Gromatzky, who was then general manager. I said, 'I want a job.' I had been a volunteer at KTEP (El Paso's public-radio station), which was my only experience in radio."
She was told that there was "nothing yet, but there may be soon," which turned out to be true, as she was soon hosting a classical music show while working on her degree.
Hamblen recalls that during that time, she worked almost every shift at the station, doing the news, jazz shows and even signing on to work weekends.
Then in 1995, the "Morning Edition" slot became available, and Hamblen was hired as the local news anchor. That didn't last long, however: Due to some changes decreed later that year by the then-NMSU president, Hamblen soon found herself, albeit briefly, out of a job. Fortunately, for the station and for the community, Hamblen was rehired quickly, but with a different job title.
"My job has evolved in terms of responsibilities, and now includes hosting 'Morning Edition,' doing a public-affairs show ('Images'), overseeing the music announcers and the basic operations of the station as well as supervising three student workers," she explains. In her spare time she also makes sure that the automation that runs the station when it is not live is operational.
"My only complaint is getting up early in the morning," Hamblen adds. "I hate mornings and both of my previous jobs required me to get up at the crack of dawn — kicking and screaming."
Hamblen has three alarms, including a clock radio that goes off at 5, and if the station is not on (turned on by computer) she gets up then. If all is well, then she allows herself one snooze — until 5:10 a.m. She also has a cell phone with an alarm that goes off every five minutes. She starts work at 6.