weekly January 22, 2024, Issue 893
Market Deep Dive: Spokane
Nielsen market No. 88 is served by two full-power, current-based Country FMs – Stephens KDRK and QueenB KXLY – and one goldbased – Blue Sky KICR. Each is separately and independently owned. Throw in a fourth signal carrying iHeart national programming via an HD2-fed translator – KISC-HD2 – and Spokane is one of the format’s most interesting battlegrounds. All four stations notched five-year record-high shares in the past year, and April’s 18 shares were the largest sum in the market since 2013. Country Aircheck takes a look under the hood below and in the boxes on pages 9-11. Follow The Bouncing Ball: First, a bit Jay Daniels of Spokane Country’s complex backstory. KXLY “Coyote Country” has topped the market four of the last five months. PD Jay Daniels is half of KXLY’s Jay & Kevin Morning Show, which has been on the air since 1994, first on KDRK, then on then-Country KNFR, then back to KDRK and – since 2009 – on “Coyote.” KDRK has been Country since 1979 and was the format leader into the early 2000s. Two years after Jay & Kevin joined KXLY, KDRK re-branded from Tim Cotter “Cat Country” to “The Mountain.” KDRK PD Tim Cotter joined in Sept. 2022 after 14 years with KXLY. Prior to that, Cotter was at, you guessed it, KDRK. Got it? With its veteran duo, it’s no surprise that mornings are the focus for KXLY. “Kevin [James] and I will have been together 30 years next month,” says Daniels. “That’s unheard of in any format. We’ve had people who’ve listened to us since day one. We’ve all grown up together.” That heritage gives them a latitude Dylan Benefield many don’t have – the show averages just four songs an hour. “We want to be different, have fun, and create a bond with the listeners,” he continues. “I don’t want to be a (continued on page 7)
Small Town Big (D) Time: BMLGR’s Chris Janson visits Big D & Bubba. Pictured (l-r) are the show’s Jonathan Shaffer, Janson and the show’s Garrett Freche, Jessica “Carsen” Humphreville, Derek “Big D” Haskins and Sean “Bubba” Powell.
Harder To Get Played Or Paid?
Music consumers navigate limitless libraries. Artists and labels work tirelessly to cut through the noise. And programmers/curators face a deluge of tracks every week. As challenging as the forward facing aspects of digital music are, the back-end reality for the creators fueling the machine may be even more complex. Nashville-based digital rights management company Muserk is bringing attention to the issue with its recent “Get F’n Paid” campaign. “I was a TV composer for 20 years,” says Muserk Founder/CEO Paul Goldman. “We always got paid upfront, but a friend who worked on the label/ Paul Goldman publishing side asked me about my royalties, which
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