Koa Radio Denver

TV-Radio notebook: Berman celebrates 25th anniversary

Houston has always embraced its long-tenured sportscasters, and the latest milestone belongs to KRIV (Channel 26) sports director Mark Berman. Berman celebrates his 25th anniversary with the Fox-owned station this month.

In a business where longevity sometimes is based on past athletic accomplishments or on-camera eye appeal, Berman has been able to thrive through hard work and sheer tenaciousness.

“I wake up in the morning, and my first thought is ‘What can I do to separate myself from the pack?’” Berman said. “And when I go to bed at night, my last thought is ‘What can I do tomorrow to separate myself from the pack?’”

Berman’s official start date was June 12, 1986. He has spent the last 23 years as Channel 26’s sports director after earlier stints at KIKK radio and KOSA-TV in Midland-Odessa. He was born in Houston, grew up in Hempstead and graduated from the University of Houston.

“While I’m proud of everything we’ve done at FOX, I’m even more proud of the fact my daughter, Jessica Berman-Gault, has been working in this market since April 2008,” he said. “She is a news prodcuer at Channel 11.”

Big numbers for Reliant soccer

Univision’s KXLN (Channel 45) drew a combined audience of more than 900,000 viewers for the two Gold Cup soccer games Wednesday night at Reliant Stadium – 299,000 for United States-Panama and 604,000 for Mexico-Honduras, enough to rank it as one of the 10 most-watched prime time shows on Houston TV thus far this year. The English-language broadcast of U.S.-Panama on Fox Soccer, by comparison, drew about 6,000 viewers in Houston.

The national broadcast on Univision of Mexico-Honduras had 10.9 million total viewers and is the third most-watched sports telecast in the network’s history behind the 2010 World Cup final and the 2010 World Cup game between Mexico and Argentina.

Marcelo Balboa, the former U.S. national team player who helped host the Univision pregame show, said it’s a coin flip when it comes to guessing the winner of Saturday’s Gold Cup final between the U.S. and Mexico, which will air on Fox Soccer and Univision.

“The U.S. played earlier in the day and didn’t go into overtime,” Balboa said. “Mexico had some injuries, and if they’re serious, that could be a blow.

Denver Radio - Denver Colorado Secrets

Denver Radio – How it started

We have covered the story about Tesla having a laboratory in Colorado Springs. Most of the people are not even aware that Tesla is in fact the inventor of modern era radio. And he has lived few hundred miles from Denver. So Denver is near the radio source so to speak. Let us explore what we actually have nowadays in terms of radio in Denver area.

The first Denver radio started somewhere in early 1920 by Dr. William Reynolds, actually a dentist, and was called 92AF. After that time radio stations sprang all over Colorado like mushrooms after rainy season. 92AF has been renamed as KLZ in 1922 and it exists throughout all this time. A year after Denver’s second radio station was formed the KFEL which also exists in a form today. And finally KOA being most influential during 1920′s  mostly due to increasing its broadcasting power and thus being heard almost at a Colorado state level by end of 1920′s early 1930′s. Also with KOA a first Department of Commerce bills regarding radio transmissions were put in place making stone roots for today’s FCC.

Being oldest radio in Denver has its perks. However being AM radio station has its downsides. Dubbed “The Source” in the late years probably due to the term being highly popular in modern culture which is where movie Matrix probably has halped the KLZ still broadcasts in AM technique. To be in the layman terms, AM has no stereo channel, has no RDS information and can not use auto-finder in your car. AM broadcasting one can achieve in a hobby garage using few radio shack parts. It is that old and arcane. On the bright side, AM broadcast can achieve much larger distance before losing signal integrity. Whether this can cover for its arcane technology and lack of firstly stereo signal is questionable.

Same as KLZ, KFEL is another AM radio so everything you have read about KLZ AM deficiency holds true for KFEL as well. However KFEL is nowadays actually a catholic radio and is serving sermons. It is located in Colorado Springs and serves area around it. This is a shame, not because it is a religion radio or that it serves sermons, not at all. It is a shame that such potential is used so one side tracked. I would love to hear more religions on this wave length, more is better. It was long ago when KFEL was acting in the best interest of technical innovation and trying to reach receivers far far away. A pity really.

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