TEACHER OF THE YEAR – 2008-09

Elementary Teacher of the Year: Jenny Montalvo, St. Louis School

Secondary Teacher of the Year: Cara Smith, Hubbard Middle School

Troup ISD….Adam Thomas, Troup High School

Winona ISD….Kay Curry, Winona Elementary School

What happened to David Smoak?

ANSWER
David Smoak left KTBB for reasons that we cannot disclose at this time.

Bill Coates is now hosting SportsTalk every weekday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. on KTBB FM 92.1. Bill is an experienced, talented, network-quality sports broadcasting professional with over 30 years in the business and over 19 years at KTBB. Bill brings and encyclopedic knowledge of professional, collegiate and high school sports together with an easy, inviting conversational style. We are excited to have Bill on the air in a long-form format and we expect him to take SportsTalk to a new level in the coming months.

What measures have you taken to stay FCC “clean?”

I was wondering to what measures KTBB has taken in light of the FCC’s recent power trip.

In recent months, the FCC has been cracking down on certain shows and programs in various areas in the country. I realize that the programming on KTBB and the other stations that your company owns shouldn’t have problems with program content and shows such as “Bubba the Love Sponge” and “Howard Stern” will never make it to the Tyler market. With that said, I am sure that pressure from the FCC has affected your stations in some form or fashion.
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I applaud you on your advertising being local and tasteful!

You all have a very classy site. The images are always crisp and there is a minimum of nonsense throughout. You have a good sense of what is news and what is hype – unlike your source (ABC) some of the other media outlets, local and national.

I especially applaud you on your advertising being local and tasteful – and free of the ultra annoying doubleclick, Bonzi Buddy, weatherbug

and google addcents offerings. It’s a reflection of the radio station/broadcast in that there is a level of professionalism immediately apparent.

Question: Is it hard to maintain this higher standard in this day of flashing, obnoxious ads and content? Do you feel that there is a higher reward and/or return in such a high standard? Or does your web market simply make it impossible to do otherwise?

ANSWER

Thank you for your kind words and for taking the time to share them.

We have done our best to make http://www.ktbb.com the best possible reflection of our commitment to high standards on the air at Newstalk 600 KTBB.We want there to be a seamless relationship between what we do on the radio and what we do on the web.

We decline opportunities to sell advertising on KTBB AM 600 nearly every week. Most of the ads we decline are selling things we can’t in good conscience inflict on our listeners. Examples include products that purport to enhance sexual performance, get-rich-quick-in-the-comfort-of-your-home schemes, miracle weight loss products, multi-level marketing programs and other products and services that are fraudulent, close to fraudulent or in bad taste.

Less frequently, we decline advertising on KTBB AM 600 because the commercial is overly loud or is in some other way obnoxious or offensive.

We attempt to apply the same standards to our websites, including http://www.ktbb.com. We pursue good content, we try to present it in a useful way that is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate and we do not pursue advertising revenue opportunities that we don’t control.

Therefore, you will not see “hit the monkey” ads or pop-ups or Google ads on ktbb.com.

It is more gratifying than I can tell you that you noticed.

Thanks for coming to the site and thanks for sharing your input with us.

Paul L. Gleiser
President

I understand that there was a major “changing of the guard” in the area?

I understand that there was a major “changing of the guard” involving several key radio stations in the area. I don’t remember all of the call letters for these stations but one station was KOOI, which we listen to here in Tyler.

How does a deal like this change and affect our market? Do you think that there will be format changes for these stations?

Also – I understand that your company had been interested in a share of that deal… is that true?

Thanks for your time

ANSWER
Yes, some changes in ownership have recently taken place in the Tyler-Longview market.

Waller Broadcasting sold several of its radio stations to a company called Access.1 Communications. Access.1 is headquarted in New York and they own stations in several other markets in addition to Tyler-Longview.

The stations that Mr. Waller sold include: KOOI 106.5 FM, KKUS 104.1 FM, KYKX 105.7 FM, KOYE 96.7 FM and KFRO 1370 AM.

It is impossible to know what, if anything, Access.1 will do with respect to changing the formats of any of these stations. That will depend on their best judgment as to the value of the respective assets in their current setup vs. what they believe they might do to enhance the value of the assets by doing something else.

And yes, Gleiser Communications, LLC very vigorously pursued purchasing many of these stations when Mr. Waller offered them for sale. Ultimately, we were not able to come to terms that made sense for us and Access.1 was able to make a deal that made sense to them.

For our part, we continue to believe in radio as a great medium for both listeners and advertisers. And believing that, we also believe that strong operators in our market serve to drive all of us to do a better job.

Toward that end, we wish Access.1 well and we welcome them to East Texas.

Thank you for your input.

Paul L. Gleiser
President

TEACHER OF THE YEAR – 2006-07

Tyler ISD – Lana Hood, Robert E. Lee High School
Brenda Orbaugh, Jones Elementary

Winona ISD-Steven Moss, High School/Middle School Band

Lindale ISD-Beth Thomson, Lindale High School

Troup ISD-Kimberly Knighton, Troup Elementary School

Bullard Ryan Tomlin, Bullard Middle School

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