Radio Air Quality As radio formats continually evolve finding a programming formula that fits this highly competitive field is a challenge for broadcasters. However, it is not just format content that dictates a share of the market, because market, in radio, is defined not only in qualitative terms, but also in the context of technology. Since, the size of a market is tied to the output power of a station and the sound quality of the signal is somewhat linked to both the capabilities of the transmitter and the receiver, it is clear that technology plays a role in dictating the delivery of a signal to a market. To add to this, the demands of outside technological market forces and technological standards, that is; what's available to both the listener and the broadcaster, also sets parameters on the market (Miller L. 1988).

           A good example of how format has become dependent on a mix between technology and programming content is the emergence of satellite delivered programming. Conversely, network-driven stations that have little or no locally produced air time are those that Patoski argues are bringing on a box store type airscape (Patoski J. 2001). In contrast, however, Lowry Mays, president and chief operating officer of Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio conglomerate to date, stated in 2001 that the consolidation of radio properties "has increased the diversity of programming." Clear Channel Communications focuses its defense around the notion that the market must want its kind of programming diversity based on its companies' successes (Staff 2002). Although a position exists that suggests diversity in programming is deteriorating as a result of deregulation, it must also be argued that technology has played a role in supporting the inherent advances in deregulation. Duopolies and corporate station groups cut costs with satellite-delivered programming (Petrozzello D. 1994). Gabbert suggests:

"It can be argued that with satellite they can get better talent in a small market...conversely the argument for lack of localism can be made. If you go back to the proposed communications act of 1975, I fought, as then president of the National Radio Broadcasters Association, the concept of having public forums, etc., in radio prime time. Argument being that if most people tuned out you were wasting spectrum. Our argument was that we were to serve the people; thus they should be the ones to decide what was in their interest, not the FCC" (Gabbert J. 2004).
       

         A New Listening Audience A new generation has entered the listening market since the deregulation of radio in the 1980s. This demographic listens to radio much differently. In an anecdotal survey this researcher conducted with a class of graduate education students at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, (average age 25) none of the students could discriminate between a network-fed AM radio program and a locally-produced program. Derek Underhill, manager and owner of KMIN radio in Grants, New Mexico, recently conducted a programming survey of students at the local high school. His idea was to incorporate a contemporary format on the AM side of his AM/FM station. He was surprised to find that a majority of the students had never listened to AM radio, let alone knew that there was such a band (Underhill D. 2004).

Emergency-based programming along with innovation still play a vital role in station marketing
Even in the highly competitive market of combination radio station ownership, changing demographic listenership, and newly emerging technology, Jay Davis, owner of KBTO FM in Bottineau, North Dakota, an area where severe storms are common, suggests that meeting local needs of a station's market is critical to the successful marketing of that station:

"We are not an LP1 or an LP2 we're just the last guy on the line, we pretty much have to fend for ourselves in that we have installed an auto interrupt feature, and we have weather spotters who can go on our air immediately, actually interrupt our programming, and via the telephone, using a certain code that you punch in. I have told our local sheriffs department that if something occurs and if you need to alert the public immediately, here is the fastest way and the most dependable way to get on our air. Here is where you can reach me or my partner at anytime and if you can't reach us, here are the numbers that you can dial on the telephone to actually take control of our airwaves. And that's huge, that's the way EAS should be and that's the way it should work and it should work on the local level. We as broadcasters, we make more money when, we're a great radio station, when people can count on us to tell them that the train derailed, tell them that the tornado is barreling in on the town. Everybody knows that, there is not a single broadcaster out there who wants to be lackadaisical when it comes to handling things like that, we thrive on that; that's great stuff" (Davis J. 2004).

Chris O'Hearn engineer Family Radio Incorporated, La Crosse, Wisconsin and Chair of Local Emergency Communications Committee in La Crosse County, suggests that the role that broadcasters play at the local level is an important component to making emergency programming work. Although some suggest that the EAS is broken:

"I to a degree take offense to that. The part that is broken is the individual broadcasters taking a stand to serving their community.  EAS as it stands, yes it is not necessarily secure, some of the stuff that PPW is proposing that counts on the internet as a means of relay. I think that is dangerous. The internet is wireless, and yet the EAS is a web that is dependent on broadcasters. You can lose various parts of the system and still have, as long as people are following the various recommendations and are committed to serving their community, you can have some larger links fail and still have a pretty robust system" (O'Hearn C. 2004).

In small, remote market stations emergency programming can be a challenge. Broadcaster Derek Underhill, president and owner of KMIN in Grants, New Mexico, as a local operator and owner, has slowly built a relationship with local authorities. He suggests that:

"It was a tough fight. We still can't get the state police to tell us when they are closing the highway. It's almost like they don't want people to know. The local community planning committee was so happy that we were interested at all that we do anything with them, they embraced it. They have all my phone numbers local numbers for snow days etc. Sometime they fax things and I read it when the station goes on the air. If we have a really bad snow storm, I've actually come back at night to get on the air and to let people know what highways are closed. For local emergencies, Cibola county has no way to trigger the EAS, we are not a primary EAS point so we monitor Benalillo County, we're about 70 miles away from Albuquerque. We are required to monitor at least two sevices, the other one that I would monitor if I could was the weather service. I have programmed the EAS to do it and the local EMC is trying to get a NOAA Weather radio source for this area. If phones go out there is no way to contact me. We've tried to get the local police department to leave a two way here at the station and we've promised to only use it in emergencies but they won't do it. We've put in a generator and we can stay on the air if the power goes out" (Underhill D. 2004).

         Underhill states some more examples of how KMIN, in the small market of Grants, New Mexico (5900 population), has attempted to develop an emergency programming presence:

"One of my staff was coming to work one day and noticed the traffic on the bridge was backed up on I 40 . We called the state police and they gave us the information. They give us information but they will not call us. One day the wind blew over a power pole on Santa Fe Avenue and I happened to go by and went to the studio and saw that the power to the transmitter was off and so I fired up the EG and ran the auxiliary transmitter, covered the town, and got an accolade from the newspaper for telling people to stay clear of the wires. The main objective here is tell people to drive down the street. A member of the emergency planning committee saw the (forest) fire while driving down 83; no one knew where the fire was coming from, all the while the town was covered in smoke, she called me and we were the exclusive source for that story" [2004 #266].

Programming for Emergency Public Service Broadcasting

Integrating Emergency Public Service Broadcasting With the Role of the EAS
The following is an example of how the delivery of emergency messages, as well as the EAS, can be fit successfully into a station's programming philosophy and thus provide service for its local community. The station surveyed is a locally-owned duopoly in a medium-sized market of about 58,000 people.

KPQ 560 AM, Wenatchee Washington
A Brief History In October of 2004 KPQ radio will be celebrating its 75th anniversary(Altaras 2004). The station has been located in Wenatchee since 29 October 1929, originating in Seattle nine years before (Wescoast Broadcasting 2000). KPQ is presently owned by Westcoast Broadcasting which owns three radio stations in the North Central Washington area; KPQ AM at 560 kHz, KPQ FM and KWNC AM 1370 kHz (Theodric Technologies LLC 2004) in Quincy, Washington, about 30 miles from the main studios in Wenatchee. KPQ AM is a directional station at 5000 watts (Theodric Technologies LLC 2004) and covers the region from 'Pendleton to Penticton.' KPQ is a 24-hour station and during after hours the station maintains at least one board operator in the studios at all times. It maintains an inward watts 800 line as well as free calling for local cellular callers.

Size of Market The Wenatchee radio market is considered to include both Chelan and Douglas Counties and contains a potential listening audience of about 50,000 people. There are a total of seven radio stations directly in the Wenatchee market with approximately nine additional stations either being fed to the market via reflectors or located in towns near Wenatchee (Theodric Technologies LLC 2004).

         Station Setting KPQ AM is considered to a be a news/talk format. About 40 percent of its programming is composed of locally produced news and talk shows which includes issues on local politics, public affairs, and other call-in programs as well as coverage of local high school sports. KPQ maintains a local news department of four people, although all of its board announcer staff is involved with live news announcing and programming. The North Central Washington area is the largest apple growing region in the United States. Likewise across the border into British Columbia soft fruits such as peaches are grown, and across the border into Oregon, cherries. During the spring of the year KPQ includes in its morning programming a series of weather features called the Fruit Frost Forecast which provides growers with information on critical blossom temperatures for various growing regions within the area. The remainder of programming on the AM side is supplied by various satellite networks. KPQ is an ABC network affiliate. In addition to a fruit growing region, this area is also bounded to the west by the Cascades and extensive national forest lands. The threat of forest fires is a common concern during the summer. Tourism is also a major component of the economy (skiing, cross country skiing, snowmobiling in the winter, and river rafting, water skiing, rock climbing and hiking, and fishing in the summer). In addition, Wenatchee is located at the crossroads of US Highway 2 and US Highway 97; both routes located on major east-west mountain passes (Blewett and Stevens).

Localism and Emergency Broadcasting On 6 August 1974 at 12:32 pm, a rail tank car containing 10,000 gallons of Monomethylamine Nitrite located just south of Wenatchee at Burlington Northern's Apple Yard, exploded. The result of the explosion was two fatalities, 113 injuries and $7.5 million dollars in property damage (National Transportation Safety Board 1976). This researcher recalls how KPQ provided continual coverage of the event with news breaks and updates and with interviews from local authorities. This long-held tradition of emergency service broadcasting is derived from a management perspective on how radio can provide local service to the community. Speaking to the position of KPQ's owner Jim Wallace Jr., chief engineer, Pete Peterson, suggests that:

"Jim's view of the world in terms of the AM station, and if we are talking EAS we need to confine it to the AM station because that is what the intent was, if there is a storm coming in and the AM transmitter goes down, people panic because people listen to us for the weather report; especially for the pass reports. We are the beacon for the pass reports here in eastern Washington. Given that scenario right there, and Jim's high priority on keeping things during storms to where, during storms, we can actually do the things we need to do, and given that we are for the public radio in terms of information news, and some sports, weather reports, pass conditions; out there for the community, as well as making a buck and doing it properly. If a service is needed in the region, and we basically claim Pendleton to Penticton, KPQ will be one of the leaders in organizing the information and run it over time. That's the attitude of the radio station. We are going to participate with the EAS board to do training, test the system, and trouble shoot the system. The attitude of this radio station is that we're here for the public, and by serving the public we will benefit" (Peterson P. 2003).

        The station requires its management staff to be involved in local emergency
and public safety organizations and has developed strong ties with local emergency management authorities. KPQ AM maintains a policy that whenever an emergency arises the AM stations will be available 24 hours a day for dissemination of emergency messages. KPQ news, working with local authorities, developed a message priority system to facilitate the dissemination of emergency messages in a timely manner:

        "KPQ news talk radio is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to provide news and information to a four-county area. A level one notice is of an informational nature that would affect the travel and services in the community, or the notice of something upcoming. Number two notices are communications and warnings of an urgent nature that would affect travel service or personal safety in the community. Authorities can use KPQ news to disseminate this type of information; it can be provided by press release, phone, or personal contact with the KPQ news department. Level three notices are communications, warnings and directives of a critical nature that would severely impact travel, public safety in the city community and multi-county area. Timeliness of information to reach the largest audience would be a consideration. In 1994 when 85% of the county was on fire, the radio station was so good at providing information, that the EAS notices were not timely enough to be useful; because we had already reported on the story, had gotten it out, and everybody was listening to locally produced talk radio. We would just hear from the Sheriff's department that this area is approaching a level three evacuation warning, and that information would get out long before they could format an EAS message and transmit it. They were requesting some calls from us to do our own generation of the emergency alert system, but it had been on the air for thirty minutes before they were ready to produce the actual EAS" [2003 #62].

          KPQ AM is the LP 1 for the north central Washington area. It monitors five sources for its EAS receiver which include: EAS Badger Mountain, Chelan County Dispatch, NOAA Weather Radio, National Public Radio, and KHQ Television from Spokane, Washington. EAS in the county can be activated via ENDEC from the Chelan County Sheriff's office.

Observed Examples of Emergency Programming On 13 August, this researcher monitored KPQ AM 560 during the mid day report. A severe thunderstorm was transiting the Wenatchee valley. Heavy rain and winds impacted driving with poor visibility and produced a widespread power outage throughout the Chelan County and Wenatchee areas. During the storm, which lasted about an hour, KPQ news director, Steve Herr, provided live coverage of the severe weather event on the air. The station aired cellular calls from its listeners that provided spot report on traffic light outages and local flooding. An on-air telephone interview with an official from the Chelan County Public Utilities District confirmed conditions and provided estimates on the time power would be returned.
At approximately 22 minutes after 7 p.m. on the evening of 18 August 2004, this researcher monitored KPQ AM overnight board operator, Bo Roberts, as he began receiving telephone calls from listeners about a wild fire just beginning in the Castlerock Heights and Highline Drive area on the western fringe of the Wenatchee urban boundary. Roberts fielded telephone calls from listeners and reported his findings on the air. As the evening progressed telephone interviews with county fire and sheriff officials were conducted and air. These interviews were taped and re-broadcast throughout the evening. The coverage interrupted a network feed multiple times and provided updates on the extent of the fire, it's control, and information about the new Rivercom telephone warning system which was utilized for the first time that evening.
Peterson suggests that the means to develop this kind of programming comes from good links with local officials and an understanding of that the broadcaster needs to produce programming with substantial information for the public:

"....we are going to expect two things; one, we will expect to know how that EAS message is going to go out..number two, we will expect a news story..whether we get it at that moment or within the next five minutes doesn't matter...but we need to put the EAS out promptly and then we follow up with a news story as to what is going on. They can call by phone, Chelan County can activate their own EAS, the sheriff can come over and personally do it, or one of the designees can personally do it. We can get a fax phone, and we will immediately be asking for a news story to follow." [2003 #62].

In the wake of FCC deregulatory policy, many have reported on the decline of local news departments Allen (Allen L. 1991), Bressers (Bressers B. 2004), and Grossman, (Grossman L. 1998). As Trigoboff points out, historically local news is a mainstay of "small-town and rural U.S., where television coverage was not universal and people depended on the ubiquitous radio for everything from tornado warnings to agricultural alerts (Trigoboff D. 2002). The strength and longevity of KPQ's local news programming is a direct contrast to these trends. Mike Ripley, owner and manager of KOZE, in Lewiston, Idaho considers KPQ and KOZE as "Pacific Northwest old line heritage stations." In his opinion these are examples of stations that still do things the "old fashioned way." However, he points out fewer of these stations exist in today's radio market (Ripley M. 2004)._ The broadcasting of emergency messages and the EAS through the local news and regular programming available to its listeners on KPQ is a result of management ideals that place local service of this kind in high priority. This programming ideal also benefits the station market position. In Chelan and Douglas counties KPQ AM Arbitron ratings give KPQ AM a 21.8 and 25.7 share of these markets. "KPQ AM is really strong and always has been strong; it's the only news talk format in the market; its reach is stronger than any local station outside of our FM, the programming is real solid. We focus on local news and information. One of our key selling points is that we are still locally owned, we are not owned by a conglomerate. They are taking over markets and we are competing against them, but it's easy to compete" (McCune G. 2004).