Robert Broadwater, managing director of Broadwater & Associates LLC, has been aggressively trying to reach people in the last few days to gauge interest. He didn’t want to talk about it for a news article, except to say some of the online postings by the Citizen’s own website are “not the entire story.” On Feb. 20 the newspaper ran a front-page article headlined “Looks like curtains for the Citizen” saying that a Feb. 19 deadline for bids had passed with no takers.
He says he is still very much interested in trying to find a last-minute buyer for the Citizen.
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KSAZ flips again
Radio station KSAZ 580-AM flipped formats again March 3 as part of what will be a sale of the station to Kasa Radio Hogar Inc., a Phoenix-based broadcaster that changed it to a Spanish-language Christian station.
The company has been operating its station in Phoenix, KASA, since 1997.
“Our goal is to communicate the good news of the gospel and the message of hope to the Spanish community,” said Freddie Aragon, who is the station manager and is pastor at Centro Evangelistico Cristiano, 215 E. Fifth St.
Aragon was also taking a turn on the air last week during the morning drive-time hours.
While the music being played on the station represents different styles of Latin music, Aragon says it’s all Christian music. He said the goal is to add the messages from more Spanish preachers.
The format change and the impending sale, which had not been applied for as of late last week, comes six months after KSAZ had switched to playing classic country music. Former general manager Mike Barna had made that change saying at the time he needed to separate KSAZ from the three others in the market playing what’s called pop standards music.
Barna left KSAZ in early February. He lives in Ahwatukee and also runs at station in Wickenburg and the Tucson commute had become too much for him.
Barna had come to KSAZ in early 2007 as part of a planned acquisition by another broadcast group. But when that deal fell through owner Bill Ehlinger asked him to stay on. Ehlinger is the widowed husband of Phyllis Ehlinger who put KSAZ radio on the air in 1990. She died in 2006. Although there were signs the country format was beginning to gain some traction, owner Ehlinger determined the time had come to sell the station.
Time changes
Daylight Saving Time was due to start before sunrise March 8 but since we don’t observe it here in most of Arizona, it means national live TV and radio comes to us an hour earlier than it did a week ago.
Among the changes this time around, Clear Channel’s news-talk KNST 790-AM has decided to keep Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity both live, which means Limbaugh’s show will now start at 9 a.m. and Hannity at noon. Also, the Dave Ramsey show mentioned in last week’s column, will start today (March 9), a week early, and will air from 3 p.m. - 6 p.m., according to Josh Leng, program director at KNST.
Two other talk stations, the Voice KVOI 690-AM and the Jolt KJLL 1330-AM, also shift their programs an hour earlier this week.
Douglas paper cuts back
The Douglas Dispatch will be reduced to publishing just once per week effective April 1. It has been publishing three days per week. The Dispatch is owned by Wick Communications, which also owns Inside Tucson Business and several other publications in Southern Arizona.
Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.
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