Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008

Boise St., Moore land on KALE-AM

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

It’s a timing pattern that could not have played out any better for Mark Allen and Kennewick-based KALE 960 AM.

Boise State announced Wednesday that Prosser grad Kellen Moore, a freshman, will start at quarterback this season. That should guarantee better ratings for one of Allen’s station, a k a ESPN 960, which is part of BSU’s new broadcasting network.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Allen, New Northwest Broadcasters' programming director for KALE and KEGX-FM The Eagle. “We are trying to build our audience, and we know there are a lot of Bronco fans around here. It’s a regional thing for us, and this is an opportunity for us to be there first. It’s a market-exclusive deal that they offered us.”

The season begins for Moore, Boise State and KALE on Aug. 30 when the Broncos entertain Idaho State.

“We’re trying to do as many live sporting events as we can,” Allen said. “We’ve got Hanford football and basketball. We’ve got the Dust Devils every year, and we’re trying to get the Fever contract for next year, as well.”

And now that the Seattle SuperSonics exist in name only, look for the Portland Trail Blazers to start jamming on KALE 960.

“We couldn’t carry the Blazers before because this was in the Sonics territory, but now the Blazers are looking into expanding into Washington,” Allen said. “We’re just waiting for a call from our contact with the Blazers. So it’s very likely we will be playing Blazers games.

“And we are planning to have some Blazers fan buses going to Portland in late winter and early spring. We’re looking at a Jazz-Blazers game and a Lakers-Blazers game. It would cost about $100 and include a mid-level ticket, transportation and a couple of beers, something like that.”

Allen turns 43 on Sunday, and he observed his one-year anniversary with NNB on Wednesday. The Eagle commands more of his attention, but the self-described “huge ESPN watcher” seems to enjoy the prospects of growing his sports station audience.

“We’re building it grassroots, winging it with paper clips and duct tape,” Allen said. “We’ve added some numbers in the past year. We were a 0.4 share, now we’re 0.9.”

The numbers refer to Arbitron ratings. The increase means KALE’s audience is just less than 1 percent of the listening audience in the Tri-City radio market. The success Allen has enjoyed with The Eagle, pushing it from a 3.9 to 5.3 share in the past year, will allow him to spend a bit more time on the station formerly known as K-JOX, he said.

“Any station with a share of 5 to 8 is doing great,” Allen said. “AM stations don’t go that high, and (KALE) isn’t a money-maker for us. Now if we can get AM 960 up to a 2 percent share, then we can definitely do more in terms of better equipment and staffing because the increasing numbers would help me make a better case for it.”

His gameplan keys on local and regional team and sports talk. The local talk show is The Bull Pen, featuring KALE's two play-by-play guys -- Jason “JT The Truth” Thiel and Chad “East Coast Bias” Vaughn.

“When I replaced Curt Cartier, he had The Caddy Shack, and I didn’t feel comfortable enough with my sports knowledge or my time to do a sports talk show,” Allen said. “We had these guys doing play-by-play for us, so I said, ‘Let’s give them a shot.’ ”

The Bull Pen expands to two hours, 1-3 p.m., with the arrival of football. To help Thiel and Vaughn gain knowledge, Allen said he sent them to Pullman for WSU football workouts and arranged for each to have media credentials to Cougars games.

“I want them to get out in the community, talk to coaches, talk to players,” Allen said. “We’re into building relationships in this community.”

That means sticking with Hanford High School sports, regardless of their wins and losses. The Sunday NFL doubleheaders are returning (“There should be a couple of Seahawks games in there.”) And he doesn’t plan to change Jim Rome –- he was tempted to pick up Dan Patrick’s syndicated show -- or KALE’s affiliation with ESPN Radio.

“ESPN doesn’t really cost us anything,” Allen said. “They play their own commercials, and the more affiliates they have, the more they charge for their ads. It’s the same situation with Jim Rome, but the deal is that you HAVE to run him live.”

Allen said he’d like to move some of the ESPN programming around -- airing some of it delayed -- but that’s a staffing issue. The one tweak he's made was to drop the last hour of Mike & Mike in order to air Colin Cowherd’s first hour, which is not carried on ESPN.

“I know that he’s from Washington, and the first hour (6 a.m.) he talks more about West Coast sports,” Allen said.

Allen is a Left Coast guy. He grew up in Provo, Utah, and attended Brigham Young University.

“I left after three years because I got sucked into radio,” he said. “I got my first full-time job in radio and that’s what I wanted to do. I still regret not finishing.”

His “transient” career has taken him from Utah to Georgia to Missouri to Kansas to Colorado to Texas and Washington. He was living in Southern California when he called NNB President Pete Benedetti looking for a return to the Northwest. They worked together years back in Spokane.

“Pete said, ‘You are not going to believe your timing,’ ” Allen said. "They let (Cartier) go on Friday the 17th, and I walked in on Monday morning."

Despite all of his travels, Allen sounds loyal to childhood teams.

“I’m not a Mormon anymore,” Allen said with a chuckle, “but I’m still a Cougar, and I’m still a Jazz fan.”

Thanks to Prosser’s historic passer, Allen is a big Broncos supporter, too.