As Jagger and Kristi Were Saying... (Aug 19, 2005)

So what was the big announcement that Jagger and Kristi were going to make on their former home just before My 94.1 yanked them off the air. It would have been something tied to Valentine's Day way back in February, but it's all moot now.

Lenny B is in the house producing "Magic Mornings with Jagger and Kristi."

Derek was the first caller to greet the team on their new station.

Naturally, when a radio deejay gets a new job to work at a competeting radio station in the same city as their former employer, there is a tendancy to inadvertently announce the name of their former radio station home. For example, in 1990, the first day Berger and Prescott moved over to 91X, as they began to introduce the news segment, Berger said "Time now for KGB news...uh oh!" and Prescott said "He did it!"

During a 6am traffic segment with Rick Lawrence, Mark Jagger asked him, "OK, how's My Traffic look li...whats..I mean..uh..ooh..ok..hold it!" That's five bucks that Mike had to donate to Children's Hospital, so anytime they screwed up by saying the wrong radio station name, it's $5.

Cash 1700 Debuts (Aug 19, 2005)

Ray Lucia is on live daily from 9am-NOON. He was formerly on KLSD 1360 nights.

It's top of the news affilliation is provided by the Information Radio Network (http://www.irnnews.com/.)

Both XEPE and XPRS are programmed by Broadcast Corporation of the Americas. The Pacific Spanish Network owns XEPE 1700.

TJ's FM 99.3 To Flip Aug 24? (Aug 24, 2005)

Alex Lucas, the program director of the La Preciosa Netowrk http://www.lapreciosa.com/ says that this will be the eighth radio station the Mexican Oldies format will appear on. The format appears on on six radio stations in California and one in Las Vegas, all owned and operated by Clear Channel.

Clear Channel has yet to divest the programmng and marketing rights of XHOCL to another broadcaster. The company will program the La Preciosa format from its San Diego studios until they transfer the LMA rights to the new company. XHOCL is owned by XETRA Communicationes in Mexico.

XHOCL has had a sad six year history of broadcasting in English. Once programmed by the Califormula Radio Group, the station flipped to a low-rated country music format in June of 1999 called "Hot Country Radio" and made no encroachment in the ratings of longtime country music leader KSON-FM.

In 2002, Clear Channel purchased the programming rights for XHOCL and XHITZ (90.3) from Califormula and renamed 99.3's moniker as "Bob 99.3", which also went nowhere.

In 2004, when Tony and Kris walked away from KSON-FM, Clear Channel grabbed the longtime morning show duo and flipped flopped the KOOL oldies format from 95.7 to 99.3 and moved the country music format for Tony and Kris to appear on as "U.S. 95.7 Real American Country." Meanwhile, KOOL oldies coming from a Tijuana stick on 99.3, like the predecessor country music format, never gained traction as its limited signal was having problems dealing with reaching listeners in North County (who could get KRTH and KOLA more easily than XOCL in many places.)

In 2000, when 94.9 dropped oldies for an 80's music format, Clear Channel picked up the format a few weeks later, replacing a soft music format with oldies on 94.1. Clear Channel also launched a competeting 80s music format on 95.7 with Steve West doing afternoons and Billy Bones on weekends. In November 2001, oldies moved to 95.7, replacing the 80s format, while 94.1 went to a stunt called Christmas 94.1 until Dec 25 when My 94.1 premiered.

Oldies had better ratings when it was 94.1 in 2001, but when Clear Channel kept shifting the format to another station every other year, the listeners got lost and in 99.3's case couldn't muster the ratings the format once had locally.

However in my humble opinion, both Califormula and Clear Channel misunderstood the audience when 99.3 was granted permission to program English-language programming in June of 1999 and Califormula chose the wrong format. Hot Country bombed because it was on a Mexican stick and half of the audience (on the Mexican side of the border) were not familiar with the U.S.-culture music that supplanted their former Mexican music format. While Z90 supplanted electronica and dance with a mostly monotonous urban and hip hop format, 99.3 should have become something like "Groove 99.3" playing the dance hits of the day, and that format would have succeeded. That kind of music has strong Anglo and Mexican appeal as the longtime popularity of Rewire's dance mixes on 98.9 (until a format change in 2004 dropped the feature) has demonstrated.

Jack-FM(tm) Sues Clear Channel Squatter (Aug 19, 2005)

Back in 2000, the then-operator of Hot Country 99.3, Califormula, registered the domains http://www.ksonradio.com/ and http://www.kson973.com/ and pointed them to direct web surfers to their radio station website Hot Country 99.3

Back in July 2000, Clear Channel registered the domain star1007.com for the purpose of making web surfers stop dead in its tracks when the website name they typed in went nowhere. KFMB-FM 100.7 was the home of "Star 100.7" from June 1994 until April 2005.

When KFMB-FM flipped the station to Jack-FM(tm), a format that is trademarked by Sparknet Communication LP, Clear Channel registered a domain jackfmsandiego.com on April 8 soon after the format change, and used the domain to point web surfers to their competeting website My 94.1 instead of Jack-FM, whose domain is sandiegojack.com. Another domain, jacksandiego.com, also points to 100.7 Jack-FM(tm).

Well, it's time for Jack to attack back as Sparknet filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court Southern California against Clear Channel Communications for trademark infringement for violating the federal anti-cybersquatting law and unfair competetion.

Midwest Television, onwer of KFMB-FM, is authorized to be the licensee for the domain containing "jackfm" that points to the radio station website that plays the Jack format in the San Diego market. Clear Channel is not authorized to use any domain with "jackfm" in its name and point it to one of its own stations that is not licensed by Sparknet as Jack-FM(tm).

What's ironic is that after Jeff and Jer move from Jack on August 31 to My in September, to point to the new home of Jeff and Jer, just go from typing jacksandiego.com to jackfmsandiego.com by adding an "fm" and you'll get My 94.1, their new home.