Kstw-TV Shows Off New Digs, Names Co-Anchor,

May 6, 1994

Chuck Taylor

This week's report is going to feel a little like channel-surfing when the remote is in the hands of someone else, or radio button-punching on the freeway. But we have a lot of electromagnetic spectrum to cover.

Channel 11: Soon-to-be Warner Bros. affiliate KSTW-TV yesterday named a co-anchor to join Don Porter on "The 10 O'Clock News" weeknights. Inga Hammond signs on Monday.

Hammond comes from ABC affiliate KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, the Seattle of the Midwest, where she was weekend anchor and reporter. Before that, she was a reporter at WDTN-TV in Dayton, Ohio. She has degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Indiana.

Porter has been anchoring solo since the departure late last year of Robin Sewell, who went to KXTV-TV in Sacramento.

Hammond is the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and an accountant mother who emigrated from Sweden at age 18.

Now 28, Hammond is effusive about coming to Seattle. For one thing, there are the mountains, but she also says Seattle has some of the best female local-news anchors in the country. "There are wonderful, strong women here," she said.

Hammond had job leads in bigger places but was drawn to the opportunity to anchor weeknights at Channel 11.

With the anchor situation settled, KSTW news director Charles Johnson said there are other changes afoot that could affect programming and staffing, but he wouldn't be specific.

Also yesterday, KSTW unveiled its new Seattle digs on the seventh floor of the United Airlines Building on Sixth Avenue downtown. The station still has its studios and main offices in Tacoma, the city listed on its broadcast license, but Seattle is where the money is, and Channel 11 has long had a sales staff here, plus most of its news crews.

`Channel' 95.7: What might be the most memorable jingle in the history of Top 40 radio has been resurrected.

"KJR Seattle, Channel 95!" is back, on KLTX-FM (95.7), which soon will become KJR-FM and has evolved in the last few months from an adult-contemporary station into an '80s station and, finally, has settled into playing 1970s hits.

The new KJR jingle sounds more modern and has that "point 7" tacked on the end, but otherwise you boomers will find it's pretty much the same ID song the old KJR-AM played way back when.

"We'll be emphasizing powerful hits of '70s people love and can sing along with," said KJR-FM program director Scott Ingram. "We don't want to go head-to-head with KZOK. We like to think we're taking a different direction, though there will be some similarities from time to time."

Ingram was alluding to what has become a crowded but well-defined field of nostalgia stations: KIXI-AM (880) plays middle-of-the-road hits from the '40s, '50s and '60s; KBSG-FM-AM (97.3, 1210) plays mostly '60s hits; KZOK-FM-AM (102.5, 1590) plays classic rock, mostly from the '70s; and now KJR-FM has claimed the '70s-hits format, which is sweeping the nation.

93.3 FM: Also shaking things up in the music-radio market, especially among younger listeners, is the evolution - hyperbolically promoted as a revolution - of KUBE-FM (93.3) from an urban- or rhythm-based Top 40 station into one that plays a lot of crossover rock hits.

KUBE program director Bob Case and other industry observers say tastes are changing and rock is hot again. Among the hot rock songs stations like KUBE could not ignore: "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies. KUBE's playlist now includes a lot of songs you hear on modern-rock KNDD-FM (107.7) and album-rockers KISW-FM (99.9) and KXRX-FM (96.5).

Also smoothing the way for KUBE to diversify its music, KPLZ-FM (101.5) over the winter dropped its mainstream Top 40 format and went for older adult-contemporary listeners, becoming "Star 101.5." There are a lot of disenfranchised hit-music fans looking for a new station to be loyal to.

570 AM, 1000 AM, 101.5 FM: Three stations came under one ownership yesterday as Seattle-based Fisher Broadcasting formally acquired from Golden West Broadcasters of Los Angeles news-talk KVI-AM (570) and "hot" adult-contemporary KPLZ-FM (101.5), which join adult-contemporary and news-giant KOMO-AM (1000).

KOMO eventually will join the other two in the Tower Building on Seventh Avenue, and the news departments will merge. Fisher also owns KOMO-TV (Channel 4), which will stay where it is at Fourth Avenue and Denny Way, and KATU-TV, which will stay in Portland.

Up until yesterday's signing, the deal between Fisher and Golden West relied for the most part on a handshake as the Federal Communications Commission considered the consolidation of ownership, said Fisher Broadcasting president and CEO Patrick Scott.

1090 AM: Today is the last day for Jim Althoff and Andee Beck on news-talk KING-AM (1090). They're headed for a radio gig in Milwaukee.

Starting Monday, from 3 to 7 p.m., syndicated talk-show host Tom Leykis will be heard on KING-AM. Leykis, who has worked for KFI-AM in Los Angeles and WRKO-AM in Boston, is active online (Prodigy, CompuServe and America Online) and just launched his national talk show.

Jerry Brown moves to 7 p.m.