There are a few heritage small-market radio stations signing off this week. I’ve been trying to listen to one of them for the last few days, but I keep hitting them during syndication. I know that keeping a station on the air at all has been a challenge for much of small-market standalone ownership, even with shared resources, and I share that story not critically but regretfully.
Hearing Country AM KOGT Orange, Texas’ final morning show on December 31 was a very different experience. As I tuned in, the station’s twenty-year owner Gary Stelly had a youngster on the air. They sounded pretty poised. Gary made the traditional “don’t steal my job” joke.
I write a lot about stations with no content, even when they’re hosted, and no sense of place. There was no shortage of that on KOGT’s last morning. The last day sign-off with the whole staff and non-stop reminiscing isn’t always so riveting, but this was everything you would have wanted—and everything you want but don’t get from a station that’s still on the air. (There was also a happy ending of sorts; several hours later, a reader tweeted that the station had announced its website and stream would remain active/)
Stelly did the final sports trivia contest. He got a call immediately. The winner knew that the Cowboys’ Butch Johnson’s touchdown dance used to be called the California Quake. The winner was a regular. I’m pretty sure that he’s the guy Stelly thanked because “your daughter brought some of the best food in over the years.” Stelly and newswoman Margaret Toll talked about the contest player who only listened every 30 days when he was eligible to win again. They looked forward to him turning the station on next year and freaking out when it was gone.
There were other reminiscences of former staffers. There was somebody who had accidentally shot themselves (non-fatally) while climbing the station tower. There was Keith the newsman—the only northerner on staff—who insisted on mispronouncing the word “fracas.” There was another who once took a new car back to the dealer because she needed a better AM radio. Stelly told newsman Dan Perrine—it’s a three-person department—that KOGT hadn’t planned news for its final morning, but he knew that Dan would be there and determined to do it one more time.
Stelly got a call from James Lout, the owner of KJAS Jasper, Texas, the man who he said had been his sounding board for the challenges of small-market ownership. Lout pointed out that Stelly had stayed at his post during Hurricane Rita when other broadcasters had not. That led to how KOGT had tried to be the voice of Orange—the smallest of three cities in the Gulf Coast’s “Golden Triangle”—and “let Beaumont and Port Arthur stations take care of Beaumont and Port Arthur.”
Stelly said that he’d been spending the last few weeks explaining to people who asked that he was not selling the station because of a catastrophic illness. He choked up for only a half-second before saying that he hoped the station had served the community “to the best of our ability.” When he thanked the on-air staff, there were at least a half-dozen. It goes without saying that 6-7 staffers is far more than many larger stations have these days.
Stelly’s final speech was just the end of morning drive, not the broadcast day. The music continued, hosted by the station’s Janet Johnson, who promised that she would throw in some Cajun music and some bluegrass. As is always the case with “Final Listen” monitors, almost every song felt significant in some way. Later that morning, Johnson offered her advice for celebrating the New Year: be sure to open the windows and let the old year out.
Here’s KOGT at 9 a.m., after Stelly’s sign-off:
- Chris Stapleton, “Starting Over”
- Mo Pitney, “Local Honey”
- Kelsea Ballerini & Kenny Chesney, “Half of My Hometown”
- Brothers Osborne, “I’m Not for Everyone”
- Brett Eldredge, “Good Day”
- Ryan Foret, “Shake” (Cajun-tinged version of the Sam Cooke/Otis Redding R&B classic; later, there was a Country cover of William Bell’s “Everyday Is a Holiday” by Don Rich)
- Jason Aldean, “A Little More Summer”
- Trace Adkins, “I Left Something Turned on At Home”
- Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, “It’s Your Love”
Back to that full staff thing. I’ve written a lot in the past two years about the stations in various sized markets that have weathered COVID-19 and radio’s other travails by being effective local voices. I am always surprised by the small-market stations that continue with a full staff. Often those local hosts have second jobs that allow them to do radio, but then again, many larger market broadcasters list six stations on their Twitter bios these days. Even in a large market, you need a side hustle.
Lest I rhapsodize too much, KOGT is a definite reminder that sometimes that devotion to local isn’t enough, especially on a music AM, but it’s gratifying that any other stations have held on. KOGT is a reminder of what live and local (words I did not hear used) means now—it’s “never enough” in-and-of itself particularly for a music AM in 2022, but it’s also “not nothing.” I hope KOGT finds a way forward online. And now I’m going to check out KJAS.